IEBA Review: Datavideo DN-60 Solid State CF Card Recorder

When it comes to camcorders, most everything is moving to flash media.

There are, however, an incredible amount of HDV and other tape-based HD camcorders out there, still working hard and producing great images. How do you get these camcorders up to speed with the new flash-media workflow? With an external recorder.

Thus far, the need for external devices to record HD footage has primarily been served by Focus Enhancements’ FireStore line. However, there has been growth in the segment recently and Datavideo has entered the fray with a unique design and price point under $500. Does the Datavideo DN-60 Solid State CF Card Recorder give the more expensive recorders a run for their money? Let’s find out.

Ya get what you pay for.

A good friend of mine, and fellow video pro, asked me:

By the way, EventDV is going all paid and digital?
I’m dropping my sub, don’t know about you.  

Well, The other mags are considerably thinner. I literally blew through the “NAB” issue of DV in 10 minutes- including reading the editor’s letter and several of the ad pages with products I hadn’t seen before. As ad revenues are down, it’s hard to pay for a gaggle of talented pros to spend hours, or even days testing, reviewing and writing. So articles get shorter, or thinner, or disappear altogether.  

So is $2 an issue is really worth it?

Secret MacBook Upgrade = FW400 & nVidia!

Apple sure pissed off a lot of Macintosh users when the addressed the key limitation of their MacBook computers- namely the shared graphics processor- when Apple introduced the unibody MacBook… and completely removed the FireWire port. This made the new MacBooks completely unable to import DV or HDV footage from almost every such camcorder and deck on the market because they all do so over one interface: FireWire.

Well, perhaps Apple has actually listened to their customers this time and provided this same powerful graphics capability in their polycarbonate $999 MacBook, which still has FireWire 400.

Where to get 8mm & Super8 film transferred?

I have a client who needs thousands of feet of 8mm and Super8 film transferred to DV tape so they can edit their family memories. This is not a service I perform so I thought I’d ask the hundreds of TechThoughts visitors every day where is a good place to do this…

Apple says: Firewire be gone!

As I watched Apple revise the MacBook line with graphics performance that trounces the integrated Intel graphics, I began to think that the MacBook could well be the mythical mid-range desktop machine we’ve been waiting for- dual core, powerful graphics chipset capable of Dual-link DVI output, all the ports on the “back” & optical drive on the front… Plus the nifty ability to pick it up and take it with you!

No longer hamstrung by the Intel integrated graphics chipsets, this powerful new Mac could be had for just $1299… but there’s one BIG problem…

The Sounds of Inevatibility.

Agent Smith said:

“You hear that Mr. Anderson?
That— is the sound of inevitability…
It is the sound of your death…”

As I was unable to attend NAB in person, I read the same news as everyone else and there are clearly a few trends that it pays to notice because they will have a dramatic affect on production in the future. Whether or not you want to go this route, the sounds of inevitability are becoming louder.

Incredible Sony Z7 information!

You may just want to learn French to really understand (correctly) all the information on this site. I’ve included a little bit of it here, and did my best to straighten out the rough automated translation– but all of this is just one section, of FOUR.

So without further hesitation, here’s the Sony HVR-Z7 as you’ve not yet seen it (in English):

Sony HVR-Z7U / S270 lens issue?

Marshall Levy, who wrote our compact flash test results, is finding issues with the lenses that adorn the latest HDV camcorders from Sony- the HVR-Z7U and the HVR-S270. He’s found focusing issues, lens wobble and says the issue was confirmed by Sony.

Do you have one of the new camcorders?
Try out the tests he suggests to help determine if this is an isolated incident or a more widespread issue.

CompactFlash Media Test Results.

We’ve worked with an early adopter of the Sony HVR-Z7U to test 10 different compact flash cards currently available. The test results of Marshall Levy, of Maverick Productions, will answer the following questions: Do you need to spend the extra money to get the absolutely fastest media available? What does the extra money actually buy? What kind of errors will we have by starting and stopping recording to compact flash over 100 times?
These are the questions we answer right now.

Blu-ray victory spells the end of tape.

Data DVD’s have already been used to distribute all sorts of media, as the replacement for the formerly ubiquitous floppy. From short raw DV files, to completed commercial spots, 4.7 GB of space is pretty good. But for completed TV shows in a HD codec, a DVD is very small.

Blu-ray’s recent vistory bodes well for the independent producer because economies of scale will bring down the cost of both the 27 GB and the new 50 GB Blu-ray disks. The optical media that is at the heart of Sony’s Professional Disk system.