Posted by Pat Horridge on 09/14/05 08:58

One advantage Beta SP has over digital formats is that it's fairly robust.
It's possible to treat the kit fairly badly and still get useable results.
Even if the tape transport get knocked out of line it's often possible to
recover useable material.
With the digital transports there's not much forgiveness if they get abused.
That said you could aford to have a number of DV camcorders for the cost of
one BetaSP.
And the weight saving....


"Toby" <zdftokyo@gool.com> wrote in message
news:4327dc3d$0$249$bb4e3ad8@newscene.com...
> Having had years of experience with both SP and now DVCPro I have to add
> that dropouts were always a major problem with the analog format, and I
> have yet to see one after shooting and editing close to 500 DVCPro tapes.
> Digital gets my vote there.
>
> Another thing to consider in the long run is the high cost of head
> replacement in the analog machines compared to much lower costs for
> digital heads.
>
> Toby
>
> "Richard Crowley" <rcrowley@xpr7t.net> wrote in message
> news:11i7cfvfd8p0o93@corp.supernews.com...
>> "Mike Kujbida" wrote ...
>>> Lansworth wrote:
>>>> Hey, just wondering... Betacam SP cameras are used in news stations
>>>> still all over the world, and they use three 2/3 inch CCDs. Are they
>>>> better than most prosumer MiniDV cameras? Just a thought...
>>>
>>>
>>> No question at all that they're far superior in numerous ways.
>>
>> No argument. OTOH, DVcam, DVCpro, et.al. have some
>> advantages over Betacam*. One of the more notable ones
>> being where they are in their respective live-cycles.
>
>

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