AJ-HD1200A & RED ONE - A Sad Fate...

[lumiere]

Here's a sad but true use of our DVCPRO HD AJ-HD1200A deck (approx original cost $35,000) in our RED workflow:

We transfer film (16mm, 35mm) using a RED ONE in a telecine configuration.

Often we have to make DVDs on the fly and the best way we found to do that is via the SDI out of the RED ONE into our AJ-HD1200A deck which downconverts & crops on the fly an outputs the SD signal to a DVD recorder.

Yep - our $35K deck is reduced to being a link between the RED ONE and a $500 DVD recorder!!!

That's exactly this type of fate for overpriced pro video equipment that led to creating RED.

To be fair, we could still use our deck to ingest Varicam footage but who wants to shoot 720p! (I mean 960 X 720 ouch....

 

[Jarred Land]

heh heh heh.. well at least you found a use for it my poor little tape deck has been sitting on the shelf collecting dust for a very, very, very long time...

I wouldnt be surprised if late at night when im asleep, the DAT deck and the HDCam deck are conspiring together to burn the place down.

 

[Jeff Coatney]

The "Market Correction" for tape equipment is a Bitch!

 

[GlennChan]

Certain tape formats will go away while certain other tape formats will stick around. Heck, people still use Umatic (for very specific things). Lots of broadcast delivery will still be on betaSP, dbeta, HDCAM, SR (and maybe D5).

 

[Kenn Michael]

I wouldnt be surprised if late at night when im asleep, the DAT deck and the HDCam deck are conspiring together to burn the place down.

Hush Jarred, you're giving my Minidisc recorders ideas.

The DAT decks were killed off and recycled long ago!

 

[Matthew Verkler]

My previously very expensive DAT deck is a pretty good DA and AD converter. Has been for ten years now, and hasn't burned the place down yet . . . . I'll play a tape in it maybe once a year just to humor it.

 

[Jay Farrington]

A strange but true stat:

There are more 3/4" VTRs in use around the world, even today, than any other format produced since then . . .

Odd perspective, but gives you an idea of how teeny tiny our "filmmakers" market really is in the electronic media world. We're a drop in the bucket at best.

 

[Stefan Christou]

I still have an Etch-a-Sketch. (not)

 

[Gunleik Groven]

Hi Jarred. MY DAT still works pefectly!

 

[lumiere]

Our 50 year old film projectors are getting more action than Jim's cigar cutter on a busy work day.

 

[Graeme Nattress]

I think the last time I used my DVCAM deck was to check it was still working.... (it is....)

Graeme

 

[Chosei Funahara]

my U-matic deck is still perfect condition.

 

[Aron Cohen]

At this very second I am sitting next to a rack of analog devices.

Amongst them are a BetaSP recorder, a Umatic recorder, two (!) VHS tape decks, two studio DVD recorders (ok, they're digital...) and the sad thing is that over here, in Hungary we're using them on an hourly basis. And in our spare time we dream about making FILMS instead of tv... making them on the RED...

And really...the sad thing is, that TV production isn't even as digitized as it could be (P2) because some old folks are still stuck with 30 years old technology over here. Grr.

 

[Ramesh Jai]

Most productions in Ghana are shot on DVCAM. Few on XDCAM. Most broadcast houses ask for final copies on BetacamSP tapes. Can't remember the last time I used VHS. U-matic doesn't exist anymore for us.

Amazing isn't it that FILM started way before all these formats and it still exists stronger than ever. Perhaps RED is a serious challenger. (No debate intended here. Just an observation).

 

[Dave Neathery]

Along this vein, I have a camera that cost about as much as my 2 Red Ones combined. Recently, I found a use for it: I started using it as a timecode generator because the Red One timecode inputs have an impedence that is too low to be driven by my timecode slate. (In parallel that is.) But then, the timecode output was activated and the camera went back to being useless, since I can now loop from camera A to B to the timeslate.

 

[Chosei Funahara]

Old Moviola and NEW RED ONE (old is good!)

Old Moviola and NEW RED ONE (old is good!)

Old machine is reliable.

my original Moviola (serial#1103: 1940) museum piece from RCA Studio is working condition.
Just put a new regular light bulb, I can see old 35mm work print.
All my old 16 mm film cameras are working condition.

hehe!