transfer tapes

All Betacam and Umatic Tapes via AJA Kona LHe

Overview
Transfer Betacam or Betacam SP or U-matic or U-matic SP both large and small cassette to digital.
Equipment:
For Betacam:  Sony PVW2800 VCR deck
For U-matic:  Sony VO-9850 VCR deck, DPS-295
For all: AJA Kona LHe capture card installed in SPACE, AJA breakout box
Steps:
  • Make sure that the component cables (3) and XLR cables (2) are connected to the breakout box.  The cables should all be labelled PVW2800 for Betacam processing or U-Matic for U-Matic tape processing.
  • Open Machina:
    • Under the "Setup" tab, select the audio and video folders to capture into.  These folders can be the same especially if the A/V file captures into one file.
    • Set the following under the "Capture" tab and the "File Options" section (to the right of the preview pane)
      • File Type: MOV Movie
      • Video/Audio: Video - Audio
      • Video Subtype: 8-bit YUV 4:2:2 '2vuy'
      • Audio Subtype: 48Hz 32-bit PCM Stereo
    • The file resulting from the above configuration will work for both PC and MAC environments.  There are many other options that work in some cases, but this is the only one that works for both PC and MAC.
  • Below the Machina preview pane on the left, make sure the tab is "capture now".  Click the red record button.
  • Start the VCR ... push "Play"
  • when the capture is done, click the red record button to stop the capture.

Issues with Capture Using Vegas

Unfortunately, Sony Vegas cannot be used to capture the footage from the AJA Kona LHe card as there is a bug in the Vegas software.  One can select the capture /sdi options and the AJA card, but the resulting file will be missing the audio.  I contact Sony support and they acknowledged the bug and said it would be fixed in a future release/build.  Last build I checked the problem was ver 12.0 build  394 (Nov 6, 2012).

Table of Codecs And Results

The following table tests Machina's various codecs on a PC and their compatibility with a MAC.   Note that VLC was not tested on the PC as I figured the results would be similar to the MAC.  "WinMP" is Windows 7 Media player.

Legend: A - audio only, V - video only, Y - both audio and video.

Testing Machina codecs for MAC
MAC PC
Codec Wrapper Type bits color space Realplayer Quicktime VLC Quicktime WinMP
2Vuy mov YUV 8 422 A A Y Y A
2Vuy avi YUV 8 422 N N V V V
2vuy mov YUV 8 422 Y Y Y Y A
2vuy avi YUV 8 422 V V V V V
8bit RGB apple mov 8 A A A Y A
8bit RGBA 444 mov 8 444 A A A Y A
10bit RGB full A mov Log RGB 10 444 A A A Y A
10bit RGB full A avi Log RGB 10 444 N N N V V
10bit RGB full B mov Log RGB 10 444 A A A Y A
10bit RGB full B avi Log RGB 10 444 N N N V V
10bit RGB log mov Log RGB 10 444 A A A Y A
10bit RGB log avi Log RGB 10 444 N N N V V
10bit RGB smpte A mov 10 A A A Y A
10bit RGB smpte B mov 10 A A A Y A
bgr avi RGB 8 444 V V V V V
bgra avi RGBA 8 4444 V V V V V
uyvy avi YUV 8 422 N N V V V
V210 mov YUV 10 422 A A A Y A
v210 mov YUV 10 422 A A A Y A
v210 avi YUV 10 422 N N N V V