[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?

[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?