Testing a Capturing Plan for VHS Tapes
 

Okay I have been in an experimenting mode lately and recently have relocated my studio from an upstairs room (too small to fit all my gear) to a downstairs room with more space to work.

Recently I have gotten some new gear over the last few months. My first purchase was the Sony DVW-M2000 DigiBeta deck, which can also play BetacamSP and IMX which makes it a useful player/recorder. I also read that it could upconvert to HD format from 720p up to 1080i via an optional upconverter board with HD-SDI connectors. Well I managed to find that board for about $200 on ebay.....a steal learning that the MSRP for this board was $8,000. And yes this board is NOS.

I also have another capture card, the AJA Kona LHi, which can ingest both SD and HD formats. I have also discovered, through some testing and experiments that with the Leitch DPS-575 TBC/Synchronizer and running it to the AJA card I can transfer video from my Panasonic 1980 to the PC via the DVCPRO 50 codec.

With the DPS-575 I could input Y/C and component and could output it via SDI to the Kona, or via component. Have to decide what would work best.

I still have my XP box of course with the ATI setup, but having doing some reading on older threads here and other sites like Creative Cow, capturing material in DV50 can be quite good since its done in 4:2:2 compared to DV25 which some of the color information is lost. Don't see how so many folks used DV25 during its heyday.

So I think I will try doing some captures with this setup using the 575 for the TBC/Sync to the Kona card in DV50. There's still tons of tapes for me to work on and to archive but I have two 1980's and 5710's (all serviced) so I should be set.

I know alot of the gear I have is more broadcast/high end level but I am always looking for ways to improve my workflow and to be efficient in my transfers. Of course I will still keep the XP ATI system going as well.

This is more of an informational post, just throwing out more ideas on VHS captures for my setup.

Does the DigiBeta work as a TBC externally? Via YC in, SDI out.

SDI, always.

The Kona also supports uncompressed instead of DV50, of course.

Yes, your right it does, but from what I have been reading that for VHS being a low rez format it probably wasn't worth it to capture it uncompressed, not to mention the storage requirements.

I am not certain if the DigiBeta can work as an external TBC, as I haven't had the chance yet to read on all of its features (the operator manual is quite thick, especially the service one) but if it does I could use it in place of the 575. I'm almost done cabling all of the decks and I have to install the upconverter board in the DB deck so once that done I will do more experimenting.

Even though analog tape formats are diminishing more and more with HD and now 4K analog still has its place. And since I picked up some DB tapes to use I will work with those too. Outside of HD Digibeta looks to be the highest quality available for a component based format.

Highest-quality SD component would be SMPTE D-5, by Panasonic.
Table in Charles Poynton's book.

D-1: uncompressed 8-bit 4:2:2
D-5: uncompressed 10-bit 4:2:2
Digital Betacam: 2.34:1 compressed 10-bit 4:2:2

BTW, while looking for the Digibeta compression number, I found this, which has a little diagram indicating that I-only compression like your DV50 would be equivalent to about 20Mbps MPEG IBBP.