Anyone still using any tape decks? Beta? Or anything standard-def?

[Andrew Kimery]

Still lots of tape action in my neck of the woods. Certainly for delivery and a surprising amount of DVCPro HD used for acquisition. I guess if you already bought the gear you might as well use it until it’s no longer useful.

[Alex Elkins]

We sold our DigiBeta deck about 3 years ago and now just rent when needed. That said, we still do a fair amount of capturing and layback on tape, both SD and HD – I’d estimate around 50 hours of machine time a year in total. Certainly not enough to ever even contemplate owning a professional deck again though.

We actually just bought a used DSR-11 DVCAM deck for a project we’re working on that involves capturing a load of archive material, but will sell it again when we’re finished. It was so cheap I wouldn’t be surprised if we made a small amount of profit on the sale of the deck.

If you feel like your decks are a waste of space I’d sell them sooner rather than later as they still fetch a reasonable amount. Renting is quite cheap, especially for SD. HD still has a slight premium because most of the bigger broadcasters here in the UK now only accept HDCAM.

Alex Elkins
Twitter: @postbluetv
http://www.postblue.tv
Post Blue showreel
Latest work: Greyhounds in Motion at 500fps
My Vimeo Pro page

[Stephen Smith]

I had to capture a Beta tape a few months ago and forgot how to do it. We set up a computer in our server room to capture from our decks. I think that seems to work much better. All of our edit bays our connect so you can access the footage from any other room.

Stephen Smith
Utah Video Productions

Check out my Motion Training DVD

Check out my Vimeo page

[Walter Biscardi]

[Todd Terry] “So just curious… are any of you guys still maintaining tape decks?”

Yep. Two Panasonic AJ-1400’s, dual Sony HDV decks, Sony J3-902 Beta player and yes, we still use the trusty UVW-1800 from time to time. With documentary editing, we’re constantly using them.

Also, we provide digital transfer and archive services for clients now too so the decks are pretty priceless for that. I send in all my decks every year around NAB time. It’s a good yearly reminder to send the decks in. Fortunately we have a great service facility not far from the shop.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media

“This American Land” – our new PBS Series.

Blog Twitter Facebook

[Mike Cohen]

Reading this thread is amusing. Based upon industry advertising and articles in the few trades remaining you would think the world had gone 100% tapeless. But reality is sooo much different. Just watch local used car commercials to see how SD is alive and well.
We finished our last DVCPRO25 project this year. Nearly everything else is HDV, xdcam or p2.
We have about 1000a dvcpro25 tapes on a shelf and a few decks in a closet. About 75%a of these tapes were dumps from BetaSP, Umatic or 1″ and captured to AVI at the same time.
The history of surgery going back to the early 80’s. Not ancient but not recent either.
We have some films from 50’s – 70’s also on dvcpro and AVI.
Mike Cohen

Ps. In Southington and Bristol, CT, about 15 min away we have several post houses who primarily service ESPN, and these folks have nearly every type of deck.