DVCPRO, Beta?
 

Okay, I work for a church that is broadcasting on our local Fox station and on the WB in Sacramento California. Upon the advice of the Fox producers, we bought a DVCPRO deck to submit our broadcasts. Well, it would seem now that the additional networks we want to broadcast on are only accepting Beta. So we have to have our DVCPRO tapes dubbed to Beta for the Sacramento broadcast and I think we will have to do the same for a national Christian network we are going on next month.

What gives? Is DVCPRO not the professional format the Fox guys led me to believe? When the "digital transition" finishes, what format will be preferred by the networks? Digibeta, DVCPRo or something else?

I guess my ultimate question is would it be wise for me to invest in a Beta deck and an SDI card for my NLE? Thanks as always for the help!

-Nathan

DVCpro is a professional format.. but it is not as popular as Beta SP and DVcam ... DVCpro50 is professional but not as popular as digibeta ..

Most broadcasters will want masters on betaSP or digibeta (more so betaSP).

- It should be cheaper if you use component instead of SDI for capturing/outputting betaSP.

Most broadcasters already digitize their video onto video servers with MPEG2 compression. They are already "digital".

Most broadcasters probably don't accept DVCPRO because not that many people work with it and have the deck. Whereas betaSP is much more common. Technically, I believe they are close in quality but not significantly different (a lot of this does depend on implementation). Adam Wilt's DV FAQ has a little extra information on that.

If the other broadcasters only accept betaSP or digibeta (which it looks like in your post), then you just have to buy/rent the deck.

Thanks for the help guys. So, do you have a digibeta deck you recommend?

You may wish to get a betacam SP deck before purchasing a digital betacam deck... betaSP is much cheaper and more ubiquitous.

I haven't had to buy one of those decks myself so I don't have any recommendations. Your editing system may or may not have the right input/outputs for the deck you want to go with (firewire, component, SDI), so be sure to examine that.

I'd not purchase ANY deck. Both BetSP and Digibeta are dead formats. Neither are cost effective.

DVCPro is a great format. Just get it dubbed to SP if need be, or DB if need be.

Graeme

Try telling that to any network down here!
BetaSP is sure dead and there's a few still struggling with DVCPro 50 but DB is king, not because it's better visually than DVCPro 50 but because it's more robust. The DVW 500 is the industry standard work horse.
The issue with DVCPro 50 seems to have been integrating it into routers and switchers. Every deck seems to be missing something like embedded audio etc. I haven't followed where Panny have gone deck wise since we ditched all our DVCPro gear, probably they've got something to comparable to the 500 now but I think it's too little too late.

DB is certainly the last great SD tape format, and is indeed, robust, with superb picture etc. However, it is, effectively, with the move to HD, dead, and it terribly expensive, hence my comment just to get dubs done and let some poor facilities house pay the mortgage on the deck.

Graeme

I have had to have some DVCPRO tapes dubbed to Beta SP for broadcast. The only production house in our area that can do it is in Cincinatti and they hit me for 100 bucks a pop. It's so expensive because I have to pay shipping to and from Cincy and they convienently only carry 90 minute beta tapes even though the broadcast is 28:30. I'm thinking that considering those rates and the fact that I'm going to be doing this weekly for atleast a year, I should go ahead and make the investment in the Beta SP deck or find another place to do the dub.