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Digitizing BetaCam SP
I have a client who has hundreds of BetaCam SP tape and a Sony PVW-2800 videocassette Recorder/Player. I need to digitize the footage for editing. What I/O device should I purchase to ensure the best quality coming from this tape deck and it’s video output? Would Grass Valley’s ADVC110 do the job or would something in the Matrox MXO family be a better choice?
Here is a screen shot of the video outputs from the Sony PVW-2800:
Cody Walters
JW Studio LLC
Houston Video Production
Houston Wedding VideosFinal Cut Studio 3
Adobe CS5 Master Suite
Panasonic HVX-200
Canon 7D -
22 Replies
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A Matrox MXO2 LE is just the ticket for you Cody. At $900 to $950 it’s the most bang for the buck you can get. For an extra $500 you can get it with MAX built-in, which will make your h.264 encodes run about 6X faster than usual.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.comPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums. Formerly host of the Apple Final Cut Basics, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.
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Use the component out for highest quality. The MXO 2 will also allow you to use RS422 for deck control.
Steve Eisen
Eisen Video Productions
Vice President
Chicago Final Cut Pro Users Group -
Thanks for your reply David. Here’s my dilemma…I need to upgrade my current computer since my iMac does not have the connectivity for the MX02 LE. The new thunderbolt ports on the recently released iMacs look awesome, and saw that these product will allow many options for connectivity (https://www.sonnettech.com/news/nab2011/index.html). But I really am curious what the new Mac Pro will offer. Maybe the better question is WHEN will the new Mac Pro be released. It seems like a bad time for choosing a new editing system. What’s your advice?
Thanks for your input Steve!
Cody Walters
JW Studio LLC
Houston Video Production
Houston Wedding VideosFinal Cut Studio 3
Adobe CS5 Master Suite
Panasonic HVX-200
Canon 7D -
Well, if you need to capture this footage NOW, you only have two options… Mac Pro or Mac Book Pro (17″ MBP). Those are the only machines that will accomodate capture cards. Your iMac, and the new one…will not. There are no current Thunderbolt connectivity capture cards or adapters on the market.
Shane
GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
Shane said exactly what I was going to say.
Things are a bit unsettled at the moment with both the new hardware and the new software, but it’s gonna be a while be all the new stuff is sorted out, so I say, do what you have to do now, and figure out the new stuff later when it’s sorted out by others.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.comPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums. Formerly host of the Apple Final Cut Basics, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.
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Consider an Aja KiPro. Connect one video cable and push record. How are you going to archive all the files?
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Archive? They’re already on beta tape. That’s your archive!
Mark
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[Mark Raudonis] “Archive? They’re already on beta tape. That’s your archive!”
Yes… but hundreds of hours of digitizing is quite an effort. 200 hrs of SD ProRes is only 5TB… a relatively easy amount of data to archive in order to preserve that effort.
We digitized 1600 hrs from HDCam last year and archived it all to LTO. We now have 1600 hrs of easily restorable ProRes that will link flawlessly to projects.
John Heagy
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[John Heagy] “We now have 1600 hrs of easily restorable ProRes that will link flawlessly to projects.”
Until June, then “X” will change all that. 🙂
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.comPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums. Formerly host of the Apple Final Cut Basics, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.
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[David Roth Weiss] “Until June, then “X” will change all that. :)”
No. FCP X will not cause FCP 7 …or FCP 6…or previous versions…to no longer work. I know I’ll be using FCP 7 for a few more years,…if not more.
Shane
GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def
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