Outsmarting Sony (or, Stupid U-Matic Tricks!)

[captain18]

So, part of the reconfiguration of my edit suite/man cave has been to recable everything to use S-Video instead of composite video for the highest quality video I can get from my collection of professional and prosumer gear. This was pretty easy on the S-VHS front since that's where S-Video was developed to begin with, and my Betacam deck does S-

Comments

[tiggerpaws]

I have a sony VO-5850, is that board up
there the same as yours?

[tiggerpaws]

Sorry I meant the video circuit board where you extract the
signals, is it the same as the one you have?

[captain18]

The Sony VO series is vastly different from the BVU series. The BVUs were meant as studio-grade beasts whereas the VOs were for industrial and/or commercial use. I learned how to edit video using VO-5800s and VO-5850s though so I have a fondness for them.

I have a VO-5800 in storage but I won't have access to it for months so I can't test any theories. I do, however, have the service manual with me and have stared at it today to see what I could find.

It looks like you'll want to examine the DM-22 (demodulator) board. Look for TP15 located near grid reference I-4 for the signal. There's an E3 located at I-3 which you may be able to use for ground.

TP15 is the test point after the 688 kHz carrier is boosted to 3.58 mHz but before it's merged into the composite out signal so it's a likely place. You might also try TP12 at H-3, it's immediately after the 3.58 conversion but before some additional chroma level adjustments.

As before, experiment at your own risk. Good luck and let me know how it turns out!

[johnr2]

BTW Thanks for the advice on the DPS-295....I've got the deck and a dub cable on the way.

Sounds like you too have a collection of decks. Onto my next deck. I hope you can advise so I can get this up and running ASAP. I have a Betacam SP UVW1800 and I would like to set it up so that I get the best possible transfer from the deck to my PC. My collection of gear includes the deck, a VO-9850, Canopus ADVC 300 and 100, a DPS-295 (coming soon), a number of PC's mostly running Win7, and one PC has a Intensity Pro card with breakout cable. From my reading it seems that the best transfers would be if I had a board/box that could take in BNC component and 2 channels of XLR and an RC422 connection. Now I'm not entirely sure if I need the RC422 for transfers to the PC....possibly only if transferring to the deck? Seems that a Blackmagic Studio 2 is an option...but it is also about $700 that I'd prefer not to spend.

Could anyone advise?

[captain18]

You could say I have a collection of decks, yeah. AV-3650 for B&W EIAJ, BVU-870 for U-Matic SP, PVW-2800 for Beta SP, AG-7750 for SVHS, AJ-D455 for DV/DVCPro -- which all feed into an Extron router and in turn, a Sony DVMC-DA2 which converts S-Video and unbalanced audio into DV

[jvraines]

The Captain steers us right, as usual. We are on a good ship!

Dealing with antique machines as we are, another consideration is the condition of the deck. Having the model with the best resolution doesn't help if the heads are worn out and the electronics are on their last legs. At this point it's difficult to find broadcast players in great condition for a low price. So I'm happy with a UVW that had only 8 hours on the drum and just needed a good lube to come back to life. That little bit of bandwidth won't be missed by most people in a DV conversion.

On the subject of audio . . . it is important to get the balanced/unbalanced thing right. I recommend www-dot-rane-dot-com/ note110 for a thorough discussion of the cable interface. Beyond that, make sure that your destination audio device can handle the SIGNAL LEVEL which traditionally accompanies balanced or unbalanced audio. It is, respectively, either +4 dBu or -10 dBV. A bad mismatch will result in distortion no matter how you set the gain.

[captain18]

Good points all and steady as she goes!

Agreed, a UVW with 8 hours on the heads will usually outperform a BVW with 8,000 hours. In general though, good luck finding someone on eBay selling a Beta SP deck for under $600 who knows what an hour meter is, let alone how to find/read it. Plus there's that little problem where the PVW series hour meter is driven by a lithium coin battery which is almost certainly dead now.

The only caveat to this is, because the UVW series is a "cost-reduced" line, they will not play back Betacam oxide tapes (non-SP aka "standard" or "regular" Betacam). Not that there's a ton of that around, but it's a nasty surprise when someone shows up with a Beta tape from 1983 and you discover it won't play in your 1800.

And for those of you drooling over cheap BVW-75s being dumped occasionally, they don't do S-Video so if you're not tooled up for component video you're stuck. But the BVWs do 4-channel audio and the others don't, which may be a consideration if you're handling a lot of studio masters.

[johnr2]

Thanks Captain.

I'll take your advice of a man that has gone before me...for now I'll finish collecting all the gear I have coming. I'll connect the 1800 to the Intensity Pro card using BNC and XLR adaptors (I'll run the BNC and XLR cables to the cable and then adapt or should I adapt at the 1800 and run quality RCA cables...any thoughts?). I'll see how that works.

BTW Do you have a pdf of the DPS-295 manual? If so, could you email it to me?

Cheers,
John

[markmark12]

Hi Captain,

I have some umatic tapes to transcode. After reading your awesome journal entry I hope i have a grip on what I might need. Please let me know if this looks right:

Something like..

SONY U-MATIC VO-5850 VIDEOCASSETTE RECORDER into
Digital Processing Systems DPS-210 into
Intensity Shuttle for USB 3.0 into
PC or Mac, Premiere/Final cut etc..

How does this look?

Thanks!

Mark.

[captain18]

Hi Mark,

The VO-5850 (I have fond memories of the 5850) into the DPS-210 is a good start to get your dub video into a modern format. I'm guessing you already have the 5850?

The only thing I see missing is a Time Base Corrector between the 210 and your BlackMagic device to stabilize the video.

[markmark12]

Hey Captain,

Thanks for the reply!

I don't already have the 5850, but I'm looking on ebay and there are some.

So the 5850 doesn't have a TBC built in? And the 210 doesn't do it either I guess... Do you have a link or a suggestion for a TBC?

Mark.

[markmark12]

I just found this on ebay: PANASONIC TIME BASE CORRECTOR TBC-200

Is this a transcoder and TBC? Looks like it has dub in and s-video out...

Maybe a standalone TBC like this? AVT-8710

[markmark12]

I guess the ebay link makes the last post spam....

Not sure if you will see it, but I might give the Panasonic TBC a try, but I'll keep looking at decks for capture...

[markmark12]

How about the BVU line? There is a 820 for sale too.

[captain18]

Here's what you need to know about the 3/4" BVU line:

These studio decks group fairly neatly. You have the 800, 820, and 900 which all do "regular" U-Matic, and you have the 850, 870, and 950 which also handle U-Matic SP.

The 800s were entry level and most of them had every last hour wrung out of them in small-to-mid market TV stations. Like the VO-58xx series, they're serviceable if you get a good example.

The 820 and 870 models are special, in that they support dynamic tracking -- onboard slo-mo playback. It's actually pretty fun to mess around with (I have a BVU-870) but the reality is if you'll get better results capturing at regular speed and playing with it later in AfterEffects. The good news is, these machines were usually pampered to protect the special heads required. The bad news is, said heads are both outrageously expensive to replace and and more prone to have tracking issues due to their increased complexity

[markmark12]

Thanks for all the info..... really helpful!

I was looking at some pics, wow electronics sure had a lot of parts inside them back in the day!

I'll keep looking around and see what I can find.

What kind of money do you think I should need to spend for a deck?

Thanks again for all the help, I'll keep asking questions as I come across them (if you don't mind!)