DigiBeta Deck for FCP

[Michael Gissing]

Cheapest deck is the Sony J3 which is play only and both 525 and 625. it has SDI out into the Decklink with embedded audio. They don’t spool and cue as nicely as the bigger decks but that isn’t a biggie when capturing.

You didn’t say which Decklink card but as most have SDI, avoid analog I/O. I also presume it has RS422 deck control.

[Ben Holmes]

You don’t specify which Decklink card you have – is it the SP or one with an SDI input?

If you are only digitising from the deck, you can rent a J-series player only. These are a lot cheaper to buy or rent than the player/recorders like the 2000 series. For full speed playback, you will seen no quality difference between the J-series and a much more expensive deck, as long as the heads are well maintained – otherwise you COULD see more dropout. In my experience, that’s rarely a problem.

Ideally, you want to use a digital capture card (the cheapest SDI decklink card is only $295 dollars) as this will allow you to take SDI video at 10-bit quality WITH embedded audio (usually 4-tracks off tape). If you use an analogue card, and take the video via component, you will lose quality that will be clearly visible. To be honest, given the cheapness of the cards, it’s going to cost you a lot more in deck hire than buying the card, so it’s a no brainer. Of course, if you want to capture as uncompressed, you’ll need fast drives – if you capture as ProRes, not so fast. Uncompressed SD will take about 100Gb/hour to store, ProRes HQ around 25Gb/hour.

Hope that clears things up for you. Please note there are two types of J-series deck, ones that take only small tapes, and ones that play the longer 60-124 minute tapes. These USED to be called the J-3 and J-30 respectively – and are available with or without SDI.

Ben

Edit Out Ltd
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FCP Editor/Trainer/System Consultant
EVS/VT Supervisor for live broadcast
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[Walter Biscardi]

[Chadwick Shoults] ” Would I be ok going with a 10-$15,000 dbeta player and digitize from that over component and xlr audio? “

I have owned a Sony J3/902 Player only deck for about 5 years now. Solid workhorse machine that plays back Beta, BetaSP, BetaSX, DigiBeta and IMX. I highly recommend this machine with the SDI output option.

Believe it or not, the SX playback started us on the road with our largest client three years ago. We’re one of the only shops in town that has native SX playback in house.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.

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[Jaap Verdenius]

Same story over here – we have been using the J-3 with SDI output since 2003, capturing to FCP via Blackmagic cards, using SDI for audio. Works excellent – also, maintenance costs have been very low.

Jaap

[Chadwick Shoults]

Thanks for all the advice. I have a decklink extreme with sdi – if i go forward with this project I think I’ll invest in this one:

Sony J-30SDI Compact Betacam Series Player

I’ve only ever used the 2000 series ones before, but figure this is probably just simplified.

[Ben Holmes]

To be clear Chadwick, there are many differences between this and the 2000 series, like DT heads, video/audio insert editing, etc. etc. but the J-series is a player only.

If you just want to capture video at full speed in full quality, Sony made the J-30 just for you…

Bden

Edit Out Ltd
—————————-
FCP Editor/Trainer/System Consultant
EVS/VT Supervisor for live broadcast
RED camera transfer/post
Independent Director/Producer

[Chadwick Shoults]

yeah thats all i need it for on this big project just capture – glad there is an option that doesn’t cost 40k

[Jake Musser]

Question regarding Digibeta Audio playback on J3..

Does Digibeta Audio only output on the embedded SDI channel? I see audio meters but do not hear over headphone jack or XLR monitors. BetaSP works fine..

Our J-30 deck plays digibeta audio on headphones and XLR out… Was that an improvement on the J-30? Or is our J3 have an issue??

Thanks!