Monday, April 26, 2004

New Digital Betacam decks! - the DVW-A500P has been the workhorse VTR for television for more than a decade - I saw my first one when I was at Carlton in 1993. Innovations like pilot tone tracking and the Viterbei decoder made this a breakthrough VTR and made D1, D2, D3, DCT and D5 look a bit stupid (cumbersome to operate with bad tape interoperability). Here is the page from Sony's Australian site which will dissappear soon, I'm sure - a trip down memory lane!.
The BetaSP format that was typified by the BVW-75P was THE format when I was at the Beeb and consequently I did in excess of 100 head drum changes - kinda akin to replacing the engine in a car! But when the 500 came along the drum change routine was a joy by comparison. Although Sony are moving on to better things with IMX and eVTR support I'll miss the DVW-A500!

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