U-Matic tape capture. Very pleasant experience.

[Mejnour]

Just wanna share my experience,

I had 30 U-matic tapes to convert. I had the chance to put my hand on a good U-Matic Sony VO-9800.
To use the VHS s-video equivalent I had to use DSP transcoder (DSP-295) that have the infamous special 7-pin connector.

My experience was flawless. So far the best IQ that I have seen on a tape.

I use the 7-pin connector but it seem that you can use some homemade engineering to separate the luma and chroma signal. (link below)

homemade engineering

Set-up for capture

[kpmedia]

Do you still have the deck?
How much was it?

The main reason we never touched U-matic was because (1) almost zero demand per year, (2) afraid of having to repair yet more decks.

[Mejnour]

Hi
Yes still have it.

If I remember it was around 50$. Imagine the $$$ for postal transport, this beast weight 77 lbs, fortunatly I got it from a local classified ads.

True U-matic is more pro broadcast oriented and have been remplaced by betacam in the 80'.