Talk:Betacam

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"All Betacam SX equipment is compatible with Betacam SP tapes." This is inaccurate; but I'm not sure enough about what IS accurate to make the correction. At the network-owned TV station where I work, some Betacam SX decks are marked analog/digital, and can play back both formats. Some are marked "digital," and can only play SX tapes. None of them can record on SP tapes. I don't know what the siutation is with cameras at all. Can someone update this? David Fell 12:52, August 11, 2005 (UTC)

I could be mistaken on this, as no facility I've ever worked in has realy acquired on SX, but I believe the tape formulations of SP and SX are the same, and that all SX gear can record an SX signal on SP tape. The ability to playback SP may not be present and the ability to record SP is very unlikely to be, but I believe SP and SX tapestock are interchangable. That is certainly what I recall from the Sony marketing stuff at the time Sycophant 22:21, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Sycophant is correct. To reinterate, SX machines can only make SX recordings, while some, but not all, can replay analogue SP recordings. The tape formulation used in an SX cassette is the same as that used in an SP cassette and SP cassettes can be used in SX machines to make SX format recordings. 83.104.249.240 15:35, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

"300 lines of horizontal resolution" i didn't change this because i'm not an expert, but shouldn't the number of lines determine the *vertical* resolution?

No. The vertical resolution of analog formats is predetermined by the TV system in use, so discussing it is pointless - it's always 480 or 576 scanlines/frame. Where formats differ is the amount of detail they store horizontally, which is a direct result of the amount of bandwidth available. (300*2)/0.7(Kell) = equivalent of 857 scanlines --Dtcdthingy 19:35, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The Kell factor doesn't come into it. If an analog device recording in 4:3 has a horizontal resolution of 300 lines like early Betacam, that is most certainly not equivalent to 857 scanlines. 300 lines (note: video resolution is measured in lines, not line pairs, a distinction that becomes important later) means that the format has a resolution of 300 "pixels" in the horizontal area that is equally wide as the screen is tall. But, the screen is not square, so over the whole screen width, the equivalent "pixel resolution" would be 300*4/3, or 400 "pixels". This is a pretty good fit for NTSC, as NTSC's broadcast composite video bandwidth is only 4.2 MHz, resulting in a (very) theoretical maximum of 4.2 MHz * 2 * 53 microseconds/visible line = 445 "pixels" (the factor 2 comes for each cycle you can present a line pair, or 2 "pixels"). And yes, I know that analog video does not record pixels, but you can replace the word "pixel" with "vertical lines per picture width". You can read more about this at the Display_resolution page. 91.158.232.189 (talk) 02:16, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

"Some Digital Betacam equipment can gold standard of formats for standard-definition digital video"

Does this line make grammatical sense? What's it conveying? --Miyabisan 13:13, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

"Typically Digital Betacam found in a blue cassette container."

More grammatical oddities. --Miyabisan 13:15, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

"HDCAM, introduced in 1997, is a HD version of Digital Betacam."

I dispute this assertion. Given that Digital Betacam is the "gold standard of formats for standard definition" it would be much more appropriate to compare it with HDCAM SR, not with the markedly inferior HDCAM with its high compression ratio and 3:1:1 sub-sampling. HDCAM is the bronze standard in my book, with Panasonic's HD-D5 taking silver. 83.104.249.240 02:57, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Wholeheartedly agree with 83.104.249.240 - this is absolute pigswill, since the only technical similarity between the two is the cassette shell - they don't even use the word "Betacam" to describe HDCAM. I would tend to agree with 240's technical interpretation, but what's an HD version of what and how good they are is to an extent a matter of opinion and not encyclopedic. I'll edit the offending sentence. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.85.175.101 (talk) 23:18, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Betacam not s video

I removed the line equating Betacam as an example of S-video. It is more properly component video recording, which is three channels, not two, recorded on tape as Compressed Time Division Multiplex, very very different from an s video recording or signal. --StevenBradford (talk) 02:55, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Deck models

The whole section on different deck models is off-topic and barely encyclopaedic. Does someone want to split it off into a separate article (eg History of Sony Betacam decks) or should it just be deleted outright? --Dtcdthingy 18:27, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Digital Betacam employs temporal compression

It most certainly does not! It uses intra-field compression only. The IBIB structure referred to actually applies to the Betacam SX format. I've removed the offending sentence. MegaPedant (talk) 02:46, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Linear audio head placement

common point between Betamax and Betacam is the placement of the stereo linear audio tracks.[citation needed]

Easy thing to prove: Play a Betacam tape on a Betamax tape and you get slow sound. Play a Betamax tape on a Betacam player and you get fast sound. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.174.171.163 (talk) 11:01, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

CP?

"There was also the limitation, that high quality recording was only possible if the original component signals were available, as they would be in a cp." What does this mean? What is "cp" in this context? This sentence makes no sense to me. 91.158.232.189 (talk) 02:03, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

Yes, this is confusing, it looks like a part of the sentence was lost at some point. I think I have clarified it.StevenBradford (talk) 09:06, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

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SDTI

"With its IMX VTRs, Sony introduced some new technologies including SDTI and e-VTR."

Wrong, SDTI was introduced in 1996 with dvcam & betaSX. Toke0 (talk) 12:17, 7 August 2022 (UTC)