I'm looking at a really nice Betacam SP deck, it's a BVW-75. However, I'm concerned about the machine performing inconspicuous analog to digital conversion. I've had terrible experiences with devices that do this kind of thing (analog to digital, I've never used a deck with a built-in TBC before).
Would the BVW-75 likely have a digital TBC, or some other kinds of digital processing?
Maybe, since the BVW-75 doesn't (I assume) apply any digital compression to the video, would I even notice the digital conversion to begin with?
Thanks!
Last edited by Dead Christmas; 09-13-2015 at 07:39 AM.
All modern TBCs are "digital" because an analog signal is input, processed in a buffer (computer RAM), and an analog signal is output. It does not output digital data, because that's not it's function. It cannot output digital data, as it's not that simple. That's what capture is for (A>D).
Not all A>D is the same kind of A>D. I have a feeling your experience was with a crappy capture device, and not the A>D>A of a TBC.
My Betacam SP has only SDI for picture.
Audio is by XLR.
My Betacam.... Digital -S with 4:2:2 is also separated audio in XLR
However, has not used these recorders for a long time any more.
In practice, you won't notice any difference in video processed by a TBC outside of correcting the actual time-base errors. The unit's built into VTRs tend to be pretty transparent in operation. They do not "compress" video, it is stored in a buffer of roughly 4-6MB of RAM (for a full frame TBC). One nice feature the TBC in this VTR has is dropout compensation, so small tape defects will be automatically masked.
Most of the video artifacts you see here with high end TBC decks tend to come from the dynamic noise reduction systems the decks also have. If a deck like the BVW-70 has DNR, there will be a switch to disable it as well.
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Not the same. Dolby C requires the source material to be encoded in order for it to work. The DNR circuits in VTRs analyze video and remove what it believes to be artifacts/noise on the fly.
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