system for working with 3/4″ tapes

[Michael Gossen]

Wow, you cover a lot here. If I may, I think cloning your tapes to DigiBeta makes the most sense for the future, and honestly if they are that important, have it done right. That does a couple things for you. You can then digitize off the DigiBeta to edit, and preserve the tapes in a good future resistant format.

As far as the computer, when you say new G5, do you mean a new Mac Pro? I would also suggest a Kona3 Video Card. I think it is the most versatile. Many Blackmagic cards are very good too, I think this comes down to what one wants to spend on it.

You can still find new BVM CRT’s. But I have a PVM-14L5 as one of my CRT’s and I really like it. There are several on ebay right now. Again, I think it depends on the investment. Good Luck.

Michael Gossen
Helium Digital Media

[Michael Gossen]

Wow, you cover a lot here. If I may, I think cloning your tapes to DigiBeta makes the most sense for the future, and honestly if they are that important, have it done right. That does a couple things for you. You can then digitize off the DigiBeta to edit, and preserve the tapes in a good future resistant format.

As far as the computer, when you say new G5, do you mean a new Mac Pro? I would also suggest a Kona3 Video Card. I think it is the most versatile. Many Blackmagic cards are very good too, I think this comes down to what one wants to spend on it.

You can still find new BVM CRT’s. But I have a PVM-14L5 as one of my CRT’s and I really like it. There are several on ebay right now. Again, I think it depends on the investment. Good Luck.

Michael Gossen
Helium Digital Media

[Chris Poisson]

Aric,

Even if you can find a decent 3/4 player, your tapes are so old they may suck, but then, 3/4 sucked to begin with. Digibeta would be the best backup, but what a cost to backup something that is so awful to begin with. If any of your footage is decent, I would just keep digital copies, uncompressed or ProRes, NOT DV.

To capture 3/4 to uncompressed, you’ll need some kind of SD card, BM makes a pretty good cheap one. You may need one that’s PCIE if you get a new machine.

To copy the tapes to Digibeta, you don’t need a card.

CRTs are available on eBay, but there are some decent LCDs and plasma monitors, but they can be pricey. There are a boatload of threads on monitors in the archives here.

Have a wonderful day.

[Bjørn Holmgren]

I would try to get my hands on a TBC (Time Base Corrector) for the 3/4″ player. Both Digibeta and capture cards can be unforgiving about horizotal timing in the video signal, resulting in wavy vertical lines in captures from analog tape.

[Rafael Amador]

In the year 2009 I wouldn’t go from a tape solution to another tape solution.
But if I would need to go to tape probably I would go to DV50.
Good enough to transfer U-Matic material, that in the end is like an improved VHS.
BetacamDigital would be very expensive and you won’t see much difference.
As Biorn suggest, get your self a U-Matic player with TBC.
Then any video card with Composite Video IN will do de job.
Cheers,
rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com

[David Bogie]

Dubbing 3/4″ to a superior codec without enhancement and time base stabilization is pointless. Go directly to DV or even to VHS.

There is a very good possibility you will not be able to dub these tapes because the oxide is going to peel off. try to locate a non-SP 3/4″ machine. The SP models used much more head-to-tape penetration and tension.

bogiesan

[Bob Flood]

Hey

Little late to the game, buuuut

EBAY!!!

find yourself a BVU 800. the most reliable and stable 3/4 VTR made. If your tapes are Regular U MAtic, (as opposed to SP) it will handle the tapes nicely

AND

You should’nt just look for any tbc, but a Fortel TBC. They had special circuitry designed to do Time base correction on the 3/4 video signal after converting from “color under”, which was a limitaion of the format and caused rapid generation loss, even over one or 2 gen’s.

Using the BVU800 to play back the tapes, and feeding the TBC via the Dub Out, will give you the best possible reproduction of the video signal. THe Fortel should have an S video out as well as Composite Video. By feeding the S video into a Digitbeta, BetaSP, or Capture Card, you avoid the signal becoming encoded, and preserve the quality even further.

and i would go to a Digital tape format, either DVCPro50 or Digibeta,
DVcam would be a bit of a loss.

BTW, there a quite a few “Video Cleanup” plugins for FCP. If the video is really bad, those can help.

hope this helps

ironically, this gear would have set you back 20 to 40 grand back-in-the-day, but you can probably assemble the whole kit for 2 to 3 grand.

They usually go under the name Fortel Turbo.

“I like video because its so fast!”

Bob Flood
Greer & Associates, Inc.

[Sameer Thaver]

Hi!

Actually, I’m working on starting a TV program soon & will be receiving something along the lines of 12 years worth of items all shot on 3/4″ tape. I’m REALLY nervous about these digital broadcast rules which are to supposedly shut out formats like Beta SP.

I wanted to ask you a few questions relating to this broadcast issue and about dealing with these 3/4″ tapes…

1) Will feeding my tapes into the computer and turning them into Quicktime files be enough to deal with this digital broadcast “monster” on the way? Or will I have to set up a different conversion setting such as DVC-PRO to make it good for broadcast in the future?

2) I’m currently in the process of working with a friend to turn some of his 3/4″ tapes into DVDs for the market… because the TV producer he was working with at the time had a love for recycling tapes, one of them has some dropouts (not major) but they cause the video to briefly go out of sync by the odd frame or two. Normally, when I face issues such as clogged tapes, I take them to a special place where they clean off any loose oxides which makes the tapes play like new. Should taking that tape to this place fix the problem?

3) To do these transfers, I’m currently using a Sony VO-9800 (3/4 SP), one of the tapes I using plays like a dream except in one spot (40 mins in) where the tape makes a couple of minor shifts (which affects the digitizing slightly). I also have a VO-2610 sitting in my garage (perfect condition, except for the stop button needing replacement), would bringing in that machine, scrubbing up the heads & digitizing the tape in that machine fix the problem?

4) I read your mentioning about tape clean-up plugins for FCP, I’m currently using FCP 5.1, would those plugins be available for my version? How can I find them & what in fact do these plugins do?

5) Earlier, I mentioned these old tapes coming to me pretty soon, the majority of them date between 1978-1991 and are in very good condition. Is there a way these tapes can be made to look as if they had just been shot yesterday?

[Bob Flood]

Actually, I’m working on starting a TV program soon & will be receiving something along the lines of 12 years worth of items all shot on 3/4″ tape. I’m REALLY nervous about these digital broadcast rules which are to supposedly shut out formats like Beta SP.

I am not sure waht you mean? We find the problem isnt so much resolution, but the aspect ratio, taking a 4×3 image, and putting it in a 16×9 format.

I wanted to ask you a few questions relating to this broadcast issue and about dealing with these 3/4″ tapes…

1) Will feeding my tapes into the computer and turning them into Quicktime files be enough to deal with this digital broadcast “monster” on the way? Or will I have to set up a different conversion setting such as DVC-PRO to make it good for broadcast in the future?

If you mean digital video, then yes, but you need to choose a format thats better than DV, such as dvcpro50,

2) I’m currently in the process of working with a friend to turn some of his 3/4″ tapes into DVDs for the market… because the TV producer he was working with at the time had a love for recycling tapes, one of them has some dropouts (not major) but they cause the video to briefly go out of sync by the odd frame or two. Normally, when I face issues such as clogged tapes, I take them to a special place where they clean off any loose oxides which makes the tapes play like new. Should taking that tape to this place fix the problem?

Have you gotten a TBC for the VO-9800? the capture cards are not powerful enough to clean up the sync signals off tape. A time base corrector aka TBC does just that.

without a tbc, a hefty drop out can cause you to lose picture sound sync.
With a TBC, all you get is a line across the picture, and if the TBC has a good dropout compensator, it will just look like a line of video. (which may not be ideal, but will look better than the actual dropout.) I cant say whether burnishing the tape (the “place” you speak of) will help. Personally i would not.

3) To do these transfers, I’m currently using a Sony VO-9800 (3/4 SP), one of the tapes I using plays like a dream except in one spot (40 mins in) where the tape makes a couple of minor shifts (which affects the digitizing slightly). I also have a VO-2610 sitting in my garage (perfect condition, except for the stop button needing replacement), would bringing in that machine, scrubbing up the heads & digitizing the tape in that machine fix the problem?

Do you mean a VO-2600? a top loading machine? the machine you are using now is better.

the minor shifts will not affect your digitizing once you have a TBC

4) I read your mentioning about tape clean-up plugins for FCP, I’m currently using FCP 5.1, would those plugins be available for my version? How can I find them & what in fact do these plugins do?

I am using the CHV repair collection. google “video noise removal”

5) Earlier, I mentioned these old tapes coming to me pretty soon, the majority of them date between 1978-1991 and are in very good condition. Is there a way these tapes can be made to look as if they had just been shot yesterday?

if you can cut out the paisly shirts, bell bottom pants, and shoulder pads, sure! 🙂

Creatively, There are 2 things you can do with old footage, clean it up, or make it dirtier.

You can try and remove as much of the undesireable artifacts as possible, using methods you and i have talked about. they will never look like they were shot yesterday, but they will look as good as they can

OR

you can do trickery to make it look even more grungier than it already is. Run it through a monitor and re shoot it. Put some color and noise filters on it, stuff like that.

hope this helps

“I like video because its so fast!”

Bob Flood
Greer & Associates, Inc.

[Sameer Thaver]

Another question just came into my head Bob…

The tapes I’m converting now were shot on ch.2 mono & in my FCP the first thing I do is join the two channels. The tapes are of South Asian music (for the DVD), how can I turn the audio into something good for disc such as 5.1 surround for example?