OzCam,
Sorry to hear that the "HIGH-END" work has dried up and forced you to sell your Digi-Beta.
(what about your domain name?)
Will this continue to be a respected business were experienced adults using high end gear do the gigs or will this biz' be taken over by the average joe with his dog (as assistant) utilizing home video cameras?
From looking at the SONY link from Australia you provided -- seems that SX is quite popular down under...
As to buying the IMX PD530 (as you mention on your digi-beta site)
If you are losing clients to every man and his dog (and producers) utilizing DV then I suggest you buy the PDW510 (DVcam only) disk rig instead of the IMX. (it brought tears to my eyes to write the above)
The PDW510 is $14,000 USD dollars less then the 530 only because it won't record the higher quality IMX. Sony claims the front end is the same minus the dual filter wheel.. Of course you MAY loose more of the HIGH END cliental by doing that...
READ THIS PART OzCam
EDITING
I hate to scare you but I think there always will be a distinction between ""acceptable by some quality"" and ""STUDIO QUALITY"" when dealing with editing, graphics and over all post work. Why in the world would you spend $34,000 USD on the IMX format if your intention is to dump it to some cheap uncertified $2,000 laptop edit?
Look at it this way. For acquisition you are paying 14,000 UDS more to have IMX. What makes you think that for post production the gear will cost the same as a plain DV consumer edit system? Look at the difference in price with cheap DV avid compared to a full blown IMX-MXF avid hardware certified system.
END
Just one man's opinion. That's all.
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As for digi-beta work at home? Sorry but I'm not quite that high up. Mostly due to the fact that I never owned my own high-end rig. Although from what I'm hearing on the streets things aren't bad for some people and not so rosy for others. Some of the digi-beta shoots are moving up to HD. Got to remember though, this is a "film town" and many of the film cinematographers are crying about "their" industry taking a dive.
The good news is that due to the fact that this is a film town, we have many production and post production houses around and a lot of the better corporate shoots still go through the p- houses. Although many shooters and even houses still use the BETA SP workhorse, most of that footage is getting posted on SX, BROADCAST AVID or Digi. (not dv)
Almost forgot,
Majority of the mid end work for "Television" over here (nationwide) have no problem accepting SP. Many will prefer SX as tons (if not most) of the specialty channels run off SX along with the CBC (nationwide O&Os ) and most CTV O&Os using SX. Although you may get away with a lower DV format, many will have similar guidelines to the below ACTUAL CBC requirement.
"""If you intend to deliver your program in a format other than SP or SX, please confirm approval in advance of your delivery date."""
It's not up to me to decide, it's up to the producer(s) to decide and seems that only the lower end stuff is gettin' put on DV. (We do a lot of the low corporate stuff as well) All the higher stuff is shot on SX and SP, edited on broadcast quality avids, sx or digi. Of course as I mentioned, the really high stuff (I don't do) is shot on Digi, HD or film...
Knock on wood --- things are gettin' tough all over...Just read the CNN thread - and others like it...