D5 still used for in post production and delivering?

[choza]

I was offered with an AJ-HD2700p D5 vtr with low hours and was wondering if this is still a common used format to deliver HD material... been in the betacam until now and want to expand to HD capability...
I know it is an "old" vtr compared to the new D5 line from panasonic, but would like to hear from someone using it and how does it perform... also read about the 720p in mode bug that looses some frames time to time... did this happened to anyone of you?
any help much appreciated
thx in advance

[mdoane]

D5 is still the standard in HD delivery. HDCAM-SR will probably change that, but D5 will be around for a long time. Especially since Panasonic introduced the 2K module at NAB|06. I've never used that particular model so I can't comment on the lost frames.

D5 decks have always performed well for me. The tapes can be a little fragile at times. One big issue I ran into was the way D5 decks read timecode. They can never display matching VITC and LTC when the deck is stopped. They will always be a couple frames off. This does not mean the timecode is wrong, but means the deck can't read the LTC properly at slow speeds or stopped. For some reason Sony decks have no problem with this, but the D5 does. It's really not a big deal once you know.

Good Luck.

md