Using an Intel Mac with Betacam

[Thaxter Clavemarlton]

Look here:

https://www.macworld.com/2004/03/reviews/ajaio/index.php

https://www.canopus.com/products/videoconversion.php

And there are many more.

Many editors here say to stay away from the “Dazzle Hollywood DV Bridge”.

[Steve Eisen]

Get yourself the Keyspan USB-Serial adapter and a MiniDin 8 pin to USB cable for deck control. You may also use any firewire Camcorder as a pass thru.

https://www.keyspan.com/products/usb/usa28x/homepage.spml

All products you need are shown here:
https://www.imagineproducts.com/hardware_mac.html

Steve Eisen
Eisen Video Productions
Director-At-Large
Chicago Final Cut Pro Users Group

[Ed Dooley]

We use the AJA IOLA for Beta. It works great for us, and it’s portable. Blackmagic Design has inexpensive
component analog cards too. If you’re not thinking of the possible future need for a card, the Decklink from
Blackmagic might be the cheapest high-quality way.
Ed

[Kevin Monahan]

We use the AJA IOLA for Beta. It works great for us, and it’s portable. Blackmagic Design has inexpensive
component analog cards too. If you’re not thinking of the possible future need for a card, the Decklink from
Blackmagic might be the cheapest high-quality way.

Decklink and AJA products running on MacIntel yet? I don’t think so. Component analog cards? There ain’t no MacIntel towers yet, so there ain’t no cards working with that which does not yet exist. 😉

For now, just get a camcorder or DV deck and patch it through to the beta deck via S-Video. You’ll need a RS-422 cable in addition to the USB to serial adapter as well.

Once the products are compliant, I would prefer a capture card vs a the IO. I just can’t stand FireWire latency you find in Io products. There’s never been a good workaround for that one issue. Can’t hide from FireWire latency regardless of the device.

Kevin Monahan
Take My FCP Master’s Workshop!
fcpworld.com
Pres. SF Cutters

[John Calhoun]

You can use the AJA IO series on a MacIntel with updated drivers.

https://www.aja.com/html/support_Io_swd.html

The IO has been a solid product for us; FW latency hasn’t been really a problem.

pxlmvr

[Kevin Monahan]

[John Calhoun] You can use the AJA IO series on a MacIntel with updated drivers.

https://www.aja.com/html/support_Io_swd.html

The IO has been a solid product for us; FW latency hasn’t been really a problem.”

Good to know.
Glad you can work with FireWire latency, I would rather not.

Kevin Monahan
Take My FCP Master’s Workshop!
fcpworld.com
Pres. SF Cutters

[Ed Dooley]

Kevin,
I misread his post, thinking he was going to buy a new MacIntel desktop when they come out, not the IMac, but you *are* wrong about AJA
running on MacIntels. While I’m disagreeing with you I might as well disagree about the FW latency too. 🙂
I thought it might be an issue for me, but it hasn’t been. And AJA has brought down the latency, which was 7 frames when I bought mine, to 5 frames,
and I hear the new driver will reduce it more. I can understand how it might be an issue for some, but not here.
Ed

Their new driver *is* Universal Binary (this from AJA):
Io Driver V3 for Io/IoLA/IoLD (13MB ZIP archive)
(Release Date 4/4/2006)
This release updates Io software to a “Universal Binary”