DigiBeta vs. DV: Which Should You Shoot for a Corporate Video?

[rdegracia]

I am about to face a new project corporate video

we are going to edit on a macbook pro Final Cut 5.1

does make any sense shooting DigiBeta and convert the footage to DV for editing? or would you reccomend shooting DV directly instead?

my point of view is: the better the original the best...

am I wrong? why???

THANKS A LOT IN ADVANCE

 

[element80]

Shoot DigiBeta and leave it as DigiBeta for editing? And don't post the same thing in multiple forums. It gets annoying going through forums looking for new posts, only to find that each one has the exact same topic in it.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Sort of depends on the quality of the two cameras, but odds are that you are talking about a pro 2/3" 3-CCD Sony camera for Digi-Beta... but you didn't say what the DV camera option was, is it a pro camera like a DSR570 or some 1/3" 3-CCD prosumer camera. But if the Digi-Beta camera is better, then shoot with that and make DV copies if you need to.

 

[turkeyjerky]

when you say DV, do you mean MiniDV? if so, go with DigiBeta. typically the cameras are better than anything you're going to use that shoots miniDV. plus the footage is of higher quality

 

[MarkG]

Digibeta cameras are generally better than DV cameras, but a while ago I edited a movie which was shot on a mix of Digibeta downconverted to DV and high-end DVCAM, and there really wasn't any difference.

The only real benefit of shooting Digibeta would be that you could potentially go back and cut a Digibeta version of the movie based on the DV edit for a better quality master.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

In this case, I think the camera design, features, and lens options matter more than the recording format, if everything is going to end up in DV anyway, if you are comparing a pro ENG 2/3" 3-CCD camera with a good manual zoom to a prosumer 1/3" 3-CCD camera with a fixed servo zoom.

 

[MarkG]

Sure, I was assuming they'd shoot with a comparable DVCAM camera; I'm not sure which one was used for that shoot, but from the pictures I saw it wasn't much smaller than the Digibeta and appeared to have fully manual lenses.

 

[editblog]

If you convert to DV for editing are you then going to go back and online with your DigiBeta originals? If so then digibeta is a great idea as it's much higher quality than DV. If not then stick with DV all the way. The extra cost of Digibeta might not be worth it. You'll be downconverting to a 5:1 compression DV codec anyway. If you get a good DV cam and light it well it will look fine for corporate work. But if you can do digibeta right, as in a proper online, the quality will be worth it.