early 2000s educational video look — what betacam format was typically used? (re

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Joseph,

That is near impossible to answer, as on any video production, the raw footage go through a number of stages before ending up on the distribution format.
You give two different examples from two different time-periods, with different owners of the business.

First video (4:3 – assuming NTSC):
“Classical Music For Babies | Toddler Music | Baby Beethoven: Symphony of Fun”

Original Release Date: November 1, 1998

I would guess most likely Digital Betacam or Betacam SP.
IMX (Betacam “format”), DV-CAM or DVC-Pro is also a remote possibility.

Most likely to have been through something of a digital process, including NLE.
Ending up on an analogue master of some kind.

Second video (4:3 – assuming NTSC)

“Old MacDonald had a Farm | Learning about The Farm | Full Episode | Baby Einstein | Toddler Show”

Original Release Date: September 9, 2003

At this point Disney had taken ownership of the brand, and revenue had in 2001 passed $25 Million in revenue. However, they still choose to shoot it 4:3.

Looking at the video elements of the kids, I would suggest either Digital Betacam camcorder, or recorded in a studio to Digital Betacam (or media drive, or both).

Sadly, Mark Burr, who filmed and edited this episode passed away in July 2024.

However, the pricipal creator of the brand, back then, Julie Aigner-Clark is still very active. And, you could reach out and ask her. It would be wrong of me to publish her details here, but she is not difficult to find.

There will be funtioning Betacam cameras out there, but not sure that they would be for hire with one careful owner coming along.

I’ve got a Betacam SP VTR sitting next to me in my studio.

If can find one of those, and a camera that can give you analogue locked signal out, then you just need a VTR to record to.

There are a number of plug-ins that offers you Bad-TV or VHS effect.

You could also just record your finished edit, or raw footage to VHS and play that back into your edit.

The sky is the limit for how you can solve this creatively.

Hope this helps you?

Atb
Mads

[Joseph Jackson]

Thank you for the input on this—I really appreciate it. I’ve been trying to figure this out for months, so this helps a lot.

From what I understand, some of the original crew are still around (Mark Burr is actually still alive), but they keep their work on Baby Einstein pretty private—probably because of past fan attention and also NDAs (non-disclosure agreements). That basically means they’re legally not allowed to share certain details about how things were made or handled behind the scenes.

Because of that, I’d rather approach this from a technical/industry angle instead of reaching out to them directly.

That said, I’m not fully convinced the Disney acquisition would’ve changed the format choices that much. From what I’ve seen, sticking with Betacam in 4:3 during the early 2000s would’ve just been standard practice at the time, since widescreen production in the U.S. wasn’t really widespread yet as for Great Britain (I think the first kid tv show that was shot in widescreen was Brum or Boohbah iirc)

The main changes seem more creative than technical—like puppets being shot on illustrated backgrounds from the books instead of the earlier black-and-white setups, and more visual graphic effects being introduced (like in Baby MacDonald).

For my own project, I’m trying to stay as authentic as possible by actually shooting on older technology instead of using digital effects to replicate the look. I already know where to source tapes, but I’m still trying to figure out the best camera to use for this, as well as the workflow for getting footage from a tape machine into my MacBook and into Avid Media Composer for editing.

Your breakdown of the formats and workflow is exactly what I was looking for, especially the part about Betacam and the digital-to-analog process.

Thanks again for taking the time to explain all of this.