gear needed for film to betasp process??

[Grainy]

HELP! I tried this in the post forum, maybe someone can help me here?
I'm shooting on 16mm, editing on FCP, then going to finish on betaSP for festival projection. Here is what I think needs to happen, but I have a few questions as well:
1 - shoot film, get developed,
2 - negative transferred to betaSP
3 - beta SP data transferred via ? to my Mac for editing
4 - Edit on computer
5 - get that info back to the tape?
Am I missing anything? My questions are:
a - I assume I need a beta SP deck to get the data to my computer. I was thinking I'd just bring my machine into the post house. Do SP decks have mac-compatible outs like firewire/USB, or is there something else I need to know?
b - how much storage will I need to hold onto all that beta SP tape data on my computer? I seem to recall there's a system where you give your FCP EDL to the post house and they can apply those changes to the betasp master. Is this the way to go?

thanks much!!

 

[Grainy]

anyone? Help! Is this really a hard question?

 

[nickharley]

I've never edited on film. You're probably going to have to hand your negatives over to a dubbing company because beta recorders aren't cheap. You can rent beta decks for a couple of hundred dollars to get it on your editor but I'm not sure how you'd get it off.

 

[MarkG]

If you're still around, personally I'd telecine to DV, edit on DV, then output to DV and get it transferred to Beta SP for the festivals. There's a significant quality difference between Digibeta and DV, but not much between Beta SP and DV.

Or you could get the negative cut and then a telecine to Beta SP at the end. Last time I did that, I edited from a VHS telecine of the 16mm negative with burnt-in timecode.