[Del Holford]

We have four BetaSP vcrs in service to handle our legacy footage. We also get requests for delivery on BetaSP from non-profits we edit projects for. I believe we even had a spot delivery for another local station on BetaSP. No, the format is not dead, but as a previous poster said, they don’t make ’em anymore. We have a few spare machines in storage but at some point our traffic department will dub all the BetaSP programs to DigiBeta. We air DVC Pro 25 & 50 so we might make copies in that format as well, although they probably would be ingested to our GVG K2 server for air. BetaSP tape won’t last forever (although it doesn’t begin to flake nearly as badly as quad & 1″ open reel tape). One day it just won’t be viable and all those who take delivery of our projects will have to buy some new machines. They will be the least expensive machines they can get by with. Digital delivery is also becoming a reality and we have both ingested and delivered projects to clients on Quicktime movies burned to DVD ROM. They are SD CCIR-601 format in 720×486 pixel resolution and whatever server inputs them can convert them to their native playout format. Acquisition will eventually be anything from DV to HD and delivery of spots can be digital, even at 1920×1080 resolution, so while tape will be around for a very long time, its use will diminish over time.

Del
fire*, smoke*, photoshopCS3
Charlotte Public Television
del underscore edits at wtvi dot org

[Del Holford]

Early on in our HD transition we used a Sencore video server. It was small but capable.
https://www.sencore.com/products/tss3530.htm

Del
fire*, smoke*, photoshopCS3
Charlotte Public Television
del underscore edits at wtvi dot org

[Del Holford]

We have a tri-level sync generator and an NTSC sync generator (creating composite black) that go through their own distribution amplifiers to where they are needed. Our cabling is spec’d for either HD or SD. The tri-level goes to D5 and HD Cam VCRs, the studio cameras and studio control and NTSC goes everywhere else. We edit on Discreet and they reference house sync, which is composite black. The HD or PAL projects can still use the house sync reference. Because sync runs from machine to machine on a daisy chain from the DA cables, we can also input tri-level to smoke and fire if needed. We’ve never had a project that needed it. HTH

Del
fire*, smoke*, photoshopCS3
Charlotte Public Television
del underscore edits at wtvi dot org

[Del Holford]

Thanks Adi. I’m going to save that method to my helpful tips folder for those times when you absolutely have to have it and it looks nasty. Scanners are wonderful things and we don’t get to spend enough time experimenting and learning all they can do.

Del
fire*, smoke*, photoshopCS3
Charlotte Public Television
del underscore edits at wtvi dot org

[Del Holford]

It looks like the resolution of the scanner itself needs to be much higher. You have a very large crappy scan. The rough edges and lack of saturation are more the problem of the scan than the resulting png image. Photoshop can’t put things in that weren’t there in the first place without hours of hand retouching. Reset you scanner to the highest levels and try again.

Del
fire*, smoke*, photoshopCS3
Charlotte Public Television
del underscore edits at wtvi dot org

[Del Holford]

It took me 12 – 16 hours to read Grisham’s The Appeal. Easy read and relaxing altho the subject matter is depressing. He needs to write another Painted House type book.

Del
fire*, smoke*, photoshopCS3
Charlotte Public Television
del underscore edits at wtvi dot org

[Del Holford]

Ditto SonicFire from SmartSound. We upgraded to 4.5 and like the stacked tracks, although we haven’t used a lot of it. Maestro is still our best friend picking exact timed cuts. We have a buyout from Studio Cutz and use their music occasionally and also have used Garage Band. Mostly SmartSound.

Del
fire*, smoke*, photoshopCS3
Charlotte Public Television
del underscore edits at wtvi dot org

[Del Holford]

Thanks all

Thanks for the sage advice. I’ll lay out the options for the producer. Hopefully he can get it together before he leaves for Darfur on Monday.

Del
fire*, smoke*, photoshopCS3
Charlotte Public Television
del underscore edits at wtvi dot org

[Del Holford]

Thanks Jim

The camera my friend is using belongs to a local CBS affiliate and while shooting on the Firestore is probably the most excellent way, he doesn’t really have any funding to rent or buy one. I saw a 1Tb Western Digital external drive at Sam’s Club for less than $500, hence the original post.
He will have two 16Gb cards to use. I just hope he can get a P2 reader to take along and transfer through his laptap to a storage device. He’s paying for this production out of his own pocket and runs on a very thin margin. Thanks again.

Del
fire*, smoke*, photoshopCS3
Charlotte Public Television
del underscore edits at wtvi dot org

[Del Holford]

Since I’m Avid ignorant I normally wouldn’t post here. I followed Randy’s post from HD High End over here. If you can’t get the system to do it internally, you may have to use an outside resource who owns a Terenex or Snell & Wilcox or even an AJA transcoder to transfer the betaSP footage to an HD Cam or DVC Pro HD tape and ingest that into the Avid. Seems there ought to be a way from Avid. I use products from the company formerly known as Discreet and I can bring any tape format known to man into a project. We have D5, HDCam, DigiBeta, BetaSP, DVC Pro 50, DVD, Quicktime and avi movies coming into projects.

That reminds me…could you make a Quicktime series of movies from SD BetaSP and then uprez those movies using QT and import that into the Avid?

Del
fire*, smoke*, photoshopCS3
Charlotte Public Television
del underscore edits at wtvi dot org