Capturing from BetaCam

SonlightGuy wrote on 9/14/2006, 4:29 PM
Can anyone tell me the best way to capture video from a BetaCam SP deck into Vegas? I know I'll probably need an analog to DV converter of some sort, but can anyone suggest a good one? Every one that I find does not have the RGB component in and out. They are all simply RCA and S-Vid. It's for T.V. broadcast, so it is important that there is component output back to tape. If anyone can help, that would be great!

Comments

GlennChan wrote on 9/14/2006, 4:49 PM
Hardware capture cards like the Aja and Blackmagic cards may be your best bet. Aja will hopefully have better drivers than Blackmagic (which don't always work with Vegas).

You can also get component--firewire convertor boxes (I think Miranda and Convergent Designs make these), but they limit you to DV quality and may even cost more.

To capture uncompressed 4:2:2 quality, you will likely need a RAID though. See the recommended specs for the hardware.
ForumAdmin wrote on 9/14/2006, 5:34 PM
Check out SD Connect from Convergent Designs. Good component>DV conversion, dv device control> rs422...very nice for betaSP ingest.
FrigidNDEditing wrote on 9/14/2006, 7:18 PM
You're not going to be able to go beyond DV I don't suppose with this, but an ADS Pyro A/V Link will get you composite, S-Video, and Component In AND Out. and for $150.

Make sure you get API 555 or the right firmware revision of API 5xx. If you do a search you should find out which revisions (Spot posted something about it within the last 2 weeks so just search his posts for the last 2 weeks and you'll be sure to find it.

Anyway. They are supposed to be an even more acurate color rendition than ADVC 100/110's, but they do artifically lighten footage a little. Anyway - if you're not looking to drop the kind of money for a Connect SD box (VERY high quality box) and you don't want to do a blackmagic, it's a viable solution.

Dave
SonlightGuy wrote on 9/18/2006, 3:18 PM
I got the ADS Pyro A/V Link and it is reading the Beta deck and capturing, but I'm getting a lot of dropped frames. Any suggestions?
richard-courtney wrote on 9/19/2006, 5:45 AM
RAID drives helped me greatly.

I am not sure of the Pyro device if it is internal move it to a different
slot in your computer as it may be sharing resources with something that needs
speed too. You may need to un-install and re-install the drivers.
Jay Gladwell wrote on 9/19/2006, 5:48 AM

Whenever we have clients with video in Beta SP we simply take it to a larger post house and have them transfer it to DVCAM. Usually done the same day and the cost is billed to the client.


farss wrote on 9/19/2006, 6:06 AM
I'm trying really, really had to not be sarcastic here.

Early revs of those units had major issues with video that had any instability in syncs. Check with either ADS or their forum over at COW to make certain your unit has the latest firmware. From memory ADS were offering to upgrade the units for free.

At least one of the issues seemed to be that the units would send bad data blocks down the digital port (firewire) when the encoder lost the sync signal, that would in turn totally spin out the device at the other end. Keep in mind that any device receiving DV is also trying to track audio samples. On another el cheapo A to D converter I'd found that it'd never recover and nor would VidCap, I think in the end VidCap thought it was getting audio at something like 12K, not 48K. The result was certainly 'interesting' to say the least.


As an aside, dropped frames are not caused just by the disk I/O system not keeping up. I can capture DV tapes with 0 dropped frames and then get a tape from a dodgy camera or worn tapes and drop 100s of frames. Mostly when the camera goes in/out of record. So don't immediately blame your PC, you could loose a lot of hair and money for nought.

One other question. Which SP deck do you have? Do you have it wired up correctly? On most of them you require a reference in signal. Without that at the very least the sync is probably wandering and that might be confusing the Pyro.

Bob.