[Richard Wood]

Doesn’t look like many people are reading these threads these days judging by the dates, but I’ll spout off anyway… haha

I own BOTH DVCAM and BETA SX formats… DSR-400 camera, DNW-90WS and DNW-9WS cameras, DNW-A100 vcr and definitely the SX format looks sharper on a CRT monitor. The color is nice and the whole image is better and crisper than the DVCAM image. And this in spite of the DSR-400 shooting 920 lines (more lines than SX cameras do) so yeah the algorithm DOES make a big difference and not JUST the bit-rate or lines of res.

The cost of the DVCAM format is way less than the SX gear (vcr’s and 2/3″ cameras) so from a cost perspective, DVCAM is very attractive and no doubt has nudged some TV stations and production houses to adopt this format for just that reason. It does a heck of a job for a modest cost. And capturing everything via firewire makes life easy for sure.

Regarding compression ratios; I believe SX format is compressed 10:1 as it goes from 180 Mbps to 18 Mbps. And yes DVCAM is compressed 5:1 for 25 Mbps. Digi-Beta is actually 1.8:1 some round up and call it 2:1 for 90 Mbps.