Perhaps the last media based professional format: XDCAM.

[@gordonm2821]

A few years ago I was dismantling our VTR facility which in its prime had lots of Betacam SP, Digital Betacam, XDCAM and HDCAM decks. Finance wanted to know what the build cost was and what we could get for the kit now. I said it cost £20m to build and would probably get £20k if we were lucky for the kit. They did not believe me! Pretty sure the last Digibeta decks I bought new from Sony were £35-40k and just checked eBay and can get one for £90. The first step to the death of VT was the Tektronix Profile which had roughly the same footprint as a VTR but multiple IO. Storage was limited with first ones being fitted with multiple 9GB drives from memory. Formats like Betacam SX introduced hybrid decks that had both a VTR and a hard disk but writing was already on the wall.

[@RustyTheGeek]

Such an awesome delivery! (Both the package arrivals and your presentation. LOL) This is so much fun to watch. Exceptional gear!

[@Petertronic]

Not seen the Professional Disc or XDCAM machines before, good stuff. I wish I had special deliveries like these!

[@stephan.scharf]

It's better to plugin/out fw connection if device is powered off. There are Nikon Coolscan scanners out there which are very sensitive and you can fry the fw communication chips on scanners motherboard in power on state.

[@UHF43]

I remember when Sony first introduced this format, they had to overcome the reluctancy to use an optical disk based format, specially for shoulder mounted camcorders, as some feared the laser pickup would skip. One of the key selling points was the idea that the XD-CAM disks could be used the exact same way professionals were used to with tapes. The very same disk recorded in camera could be used for editing and then archived to a library. Something not so feasible with the competing format from Panasonic, the memory card based P2. It had other advantages though, like not using moving mechanical parts and having a standard PCMCIA interface for fast data tranfer to a computer.

[@video99couk]

Eventually Matsushita did join in with XDCAM in that JVC worked with Sony on a variant.

[@Matt_Quinn-Personal_Account]

@@video99couk - The variant _is_ card based though. SDHC in fact; which gave it even greater accessibility (for the corporate, educational and newsgathering markets) than SxS or P2 based systems.

[@Matt_Quinn-Personal_Account]

" _One of the key selling points was the idea that the XD-CAM disks could be used the exact same way professionals were used to with tapes._ " - HIndsight being 20:20, that was probably their big mistake. By the mid-2000s we were a close to a decade out from the point where the colleges were ceasing to teach linear editing. Among the 'last men standing' in this respect was Glasgow's Springburn/North Glasgow College, which was still using U-Matic circa 2002. I taught for a year there - and didn't go back because it had become an embarrassing disservice to the students that I didn't want to be a part of. - My point here being that at the time it was introduced - workflows were already in flux and the industry was actively adapting, had been for a long time in fact. Really; the need to transfer from linear tape to the non-linear edit system was a moot point in most situations except possibly news; and even there, workarounds existed. ...XDCam wasn't _really_ progress (in operational terms) from DigiBeta; especially not for the growing numbers of freelancers - for whom it was a substantial (personal) investment. Personally, I know no-one who bought into it. The last media based professional format certainly... in the sense of being something where you started the day with a box of blanks and ended it with a set of camera originals to be physically archived. I must admit to being somewhat conflicted in being critical of it - as I was at the time. To me it was very obvious that archiving camera originals would become a thing of the past; and yes, there were concerns over the robustness and longevity of those discs. - However this strategy of developing minimally-disruptive upgrade paths was something that had worked well for Sony for a very long time.

[@UHF43]

@@Matt_Quinn-Personal_Account Take into account that the first generation P2 cards were limited in storage capacity, and that's why P2 camcorders had 4 or 5 card slots.

[@UHF43]

@@Matt_Quinn-Personal_Account XD -CAM HD used the same MPEG2 codec developed for HDV by Sony and JVC (whereas Panasonic favoured AVC H264 for their prosumer models and DVC PRO for High end models) with 2 bitrate options: 25 mbps CBR and 35 VBR that could record a full HD raster.

[@someonespecial1525]

I've recorded 1080i onto D-VHS using FireWire. I never considered if there was a limitation of DV or 480i resolutions. There was a version of Vegas Video that recognized the unit, rendered the video and recorded it while I napped.

[@BushidoBrownSama]

I used D-VHS drivers & a shareware program to record HD mpeg 2 streams from a set-top box over Firewire onto my computer.

[@northernplacecorporation]

By "Vegas Video", I think you mean "VEGAS Pro/VEGAS Movie Studio."

[@zx8401ztv]

What a complicated system, i would be cross eyed trying to understand it:-D You always make me chuckle when you wish for a device, and your lad appear from nowhere with the desired item :-D.

[@mollyfilms]

I remember at the time we were going from beta sp over to a new digital format (BBC) but they couldn’t make up their minds to which format. XDCAM was the preferred format, but the issue was two fold. One was cost to fit every studio with the kit and the camera crews and the other issue they just sacked all the news crews (then re employed us as freelance) who decided that Digi Beta was the way forward or DVCAM. I shot high end documentary on DVCAM and DIGI Beta and tbh unless you really looked it edited together really well.

[@video99couk]

The DV codec (DVCAM, miniDV, DVCPRO, Digital 8) seems to get a lot of hate, but especially for PAL, it generally worked very well.

[@tekvax01]

The timecode won't be the same from the player, and to the recorder, as it does not get sent over the aux sdi data by default, you must connect up the timecode cables between both decks and record with jam sync/regen TC enabled. I later saw the VITC timecode was present, in that case, set the record to jam/resync TC from the incoming VITC timecode.

[@Televid4]

Excellent Video. I wonder which laser pickups the Sony PDW-1500 is using. I have a Sony PDW-HD1500 which has 2 Laser pickups inside the deck (Part Number, KES-330A) and one of the laser pickup has high hours. Not sure if the laser pickups are the same for the PDW-HD1500. Thanks Colin...

[@video99couk]

Hope you're not thinking of raiding one from a PDW-1500! I suspect they are different, but the service manuals should clarify that, though I didn't initially find the PDW-1500 service manual.

[@Televid4]

Yes you are right, I was thinking to do that. The KES-330A is still very expensive too purchase for the PDW-HD1500 around £2000 for one laser pickup. The PDW-HD1500 is a lovely machine but still very expensive. Thanks for the info Colin... All the best. @@video99couk

[@Tarnseele]

I have a PDW-HD1500 and I remember reading the lasers were supposed to be ok for 6K hours. Mine won't change out of 1080i even after cycling the power like it says to do. Any ideas?

[@Televid4]

@@Tarnseele The Sony Pdw-HD1500 laser pickup may give up when it goes over 6K hours. Mine is giving me a error code 02-F37 which according to the service manual indicates a problem with the ND filter (No movement is detected in the ND filter initial operation check of OP (OP0). This means the laser pickup is not detecting and has gone faulty. I had swapped the lasers around and the hours appeared high (Over 6K) on the 0P1 operation where the hours were also the same in 0P0 operation. The second laser has 2K hours on it. There also can be a possibility that the photo sensors go faulty CPI-210 in some PDW-HD1500 devices. You may have to check in the service manual (online) to see what the 1080i issue may be.

[@Tarnseele]

Thanks for mentioning the service manual is online. I hadn't downloaded it, even though I'm on manualslib all the time! I'll go through it. I wish there was some forum for older, more complicated gear like this. I've been pretty lucky with not buying lemons on ebay, so far.@@Televid4

[@TTVEaGMXde]

SDI can only transmit uncompressed video, which means that MPEG2IMX compression is lost. DVCAM can only be saved via firewire without recompression. With XDCAM there seems to be no control when recording whether the recording is actually playable. The disc content (restaurant rescue Brodcast) had to be freely retold.

[@belzebub16]

I thought the same about the loss of quality due to not extracting the original DV stream from the disc, but instead recording it via SDI, but I thought I was missing something. So what is the case here?

[@TTVEaGMXde]

@@belzebub16I don't know if Google translate translated the content correctly. If you record uncompressed DVCAM over SDI, the fragmentation of the image into clusters remains identical, which should be lossless with an identical codec (SONY). But I don't know of any software that uses the SONY codec. The Canopus codec looked best for me, but I wasn't able to test the blackmagic davinci resolve codec because the software didn't run on my PC and there is only "support" for paying customers. I've already had the "pleasure" of the Europe (UK) support.🙄

[@Nordbiene]

Such an interesting channel. Of course, I am a new subscriber. Best regards, Kai the bee filmer.

[@tekvax01]

North American NTSC uses a 7.5 IRE black level, and Japan NTSC uses a 0 IRE setup black level.

[@jameslaidler2152]

Interesting. While I lived in California I knew someone who visited Japan and brought back a couple of their VHS tapes. They played just fine in an American VCR. She did need a region 2 player for their DVDs though.

[@CantankerousDave]

@@jameslaidler2152Japan and the US both use NTSC, so there aren’t any playback issues beyond region locking. The black levels mentioned above result in “crushed blacks” - loss of detail in dark areas - if it’s not set correctly.

[@jameslaidler2152]

@@CantankerousDave Is that with playing Japanese VHS tapes in the US, or vice versa. Hers were concert tapes, so a LOT of over the top lighting.

[@juniorbento7539]

Very good friend, where can I get the service manual and schematic diagram for this device?

[@mspysu79]

My buddy once had a Philips rep try to sell the company he worked for on a backup system based on PD and a 25 or 50-disc jukebox. I believe they also used the same system in their medical imaging setups.

[@video99couk]

That would have been the short lived PD data disk format.

[@reinkt]

Shot for about a year on a PDW-F800, an HD XDCAM-based camera. The image was fantastic, and the 50mbps HD422 codec was very efficient. Other than that, the discs were slow to capture and for quick turnaround news stuff, we upgraded pretty quickly to a PMW-500, an SxS-based camera. The only advantage of the disc-based capture (in my eyes) is the ability to toss the disc on a shelf for archiving. That being said, a lot of reality television was created with the discs for that exact reason. It's another reason DVCProHD stuck around as long as it did in the broadcast world. We were shooting some very high-profile content for HGTV here in the States on tape until the mid-2010s purely because the client demanded it.

[@video99couk]

I've not seen a single DVCPRO-HD tape here, despite have a nice machine for it.

[@mspysu79]

XD Cam was popular with some corporate video outfits and documentary makers in the US, I have seen DVCAM, IMX 30, and IMX 50 as well as XDCAM HD.

[@XDCAMHD422]

For those who are interested. Here is the video that Sony used to promote their XDCAM Professional Disc system early 2004. XDCAM is not a video format like many think or asume. It's the collective name for their tapeless broadcast products. The video was shot in harsh conditions all over Australia to proove that the system would stand in every situation. Many thought that the disc would skip and you would loose footage when rumbling around with it like a mad man. They thought it was like putting a consumer CD or DVD player on your shoulder. 😆 The wild river boat race convinced me to invest in the new Betacam as they said back then. I'm still using the HD-version today. kzbin.info/www/bejne/eXe1gqtjpaaCa9k

[@gjones8454]

We had a few of these, they were not the best and unreliable. Psu problems constantly. sliding the psu out from the back tricky looms lots of screws, stuck discs. front panels like the one you have became detached. we got shut in the end. nice to see though you got a working pair.

[@more.power.]

Thank you Colin

[@MrMidiman33]

In News Gathering Germany we use xdcam until now!

[@ingenfestbrems]

Is it the format that the bbc have some 60.000 disc to?

[@cromulence]

Re: Sony software, are you sure it doesn't need to use the LAN connection? As I assume the Firewire port is limited to DV as you previously alluded to.

[@video99couk]

I think it should have worked over the DVI link. But LAN is also worth trying later.

[@andrew1479]

This could prove to be a very useful in-house "mezzanine" or "bounce" format for your transfer business. Especially with all those discs you have and the format being lossless.

[@cleberfranco8660]

Good evening my friend, I have an old cutting table, the old one from Datavideo a se 800, which I use to interface between the VCR capture and the Matrox capture card which has a composite video input, Super Video and Fireware 1394, but I only use the input. super video on the capture card this table has an SDI Super Video output and fire ware 1394 so for comparison the fire ware 1394 output is superior to the super video output in question in terms of obtaining better image quality. What is the advantage of entering the capture card via fire ware 1394.

[@Matt_Quinn-Personal_Account]

The short answer is that a transfer between _two_ 1394 devices - such as a camera and a computer - is simply a direct digital data transfer with no additional processing. The input to the computer can be as simple as a generic IEEE1394 card (or onboard port) with no specific 'capture card' being involved at all. - This is how many educational and professional suites (where DV play-in was required) were set up back in the day; often with a device called a 'DV Bridge' or just a DV VCR of some description driving the analogue programme monitor. - In some situations even that was dispensed with! To connect via an analogue port means that the camera has to convert from analogue-to-digital then (once that analogue signal is taken in to the analogue ports of either your SE800 or a Matrox capture card) converted back to the same digital format it was originally in. This means you are introducing two unnecessary processing steps both of which introduce additional noise and artefacts and degrade the signal. The SE800 is basically a four-channel _video mixer_ (or 'switcher' as the Americans call them) which was aimed at the educational, industrial and to some extent the streaming market. It allows (among other things) a crude multi-camera 'studio' setup with non-genlocked sources. I believe it would also function usefully in an analogue edit or transfer suite as a way of stabilising, mixing and switching between sources.

[@cleberfranco8660]

@@Matt_Quinn-Personal_Account Good evening friend, I convert VHS tapes to digital files, I do it simply, I have a computer with the Matrox RTX100 capture card, a JVC VCR and this Datavideo SE800 table that I use as an interface for the Matrox via super video or via fireware 1394. what equipment would I have to acquire to carry out this service in a more professional way, correcting defects and malfunctions of the tapes and improving the issue of noise, sharp colors, stabilized image. If you could, list this equipment for me, starting with the video cassette recorder and ending with the computer, capture card and even capture software so that I can modernize my conversions. what equipment is needed to set up a capture and editing island in a more professional way? list the model brands of equipment if you can.

[@cleberfranco8660]

@@Matt_Quinn-Personal_Account reference to datavideo's month if se 800 I use it to convert input analog signal to output via fire ware 1394 and because this mixer has an internal TBC but I don't see this TBC function. the way I use this mixer between the video cassette and the capture card makes the image quality worse compared to if it were direct, that is, if I just use the video cassette and the capture card it will improve the image quality

[@Matt_Quinn-Personal_Account]

@@cleberfranco8660 I'm afraid it's not really possible to list specific equipment - there are no 'best answers', all of the necessary equipment is now very old and obsolete and limited in availability; and the bottom line is that VHS was always a relatively poor quality format anyway. - It has its limitations. ...You can't really 'modernise' your conversions simply because the technology really reached the end of its road 20 or 30 years ago! So... it seems you're converting analogue VHS tapes to digital. Had you been 'capturing' footage from a _digital camcorder or VCR_ then the correct way to go about things would have been to use the firewire connection. As it is, you need to convert analogue to digital... As I recall the Matrox card was specifically designed to cope with the 'ragged' signal from a domestic VHS player; so it will have _a form_ of TBC at its inputs anyway. It was also considered to be a very good capture card in its day and will convert directly to the DV codec used by digital tape formats of the time. - For _most_ practical purposes, this is more than adequate. - Do use the Y/C (SVHS) connections rather than composite if your VCR supports this. Consider acquiring an SVHS machine (perhaps one with a built-in TBC) if your current VCR only has composite out... Unless there is some additional functionality you need from the mixer; then it is probably best to leave it out of the equation. Yes; it does Analogue to Digital conversion; but do remember that was never its primary function; it's a Vision _mixer_ (or if you prefer; 'switcher'). It's _not_ any kind of 'cutting table'. Vision mixers were only used in an editing context back in the days of linear (tape-to-tape) editing where they might be used to key-in captions from a small rostrum camera, or in three-machine edit suites where they could be triggered to create fades and dissolves between two video tape machines under the control of a separate edit controller. Such techniques pretty-much disappeared 30 years ago! Theoretically connecting the mixer's 1394 output to the firewire input of the Matrox _should_ be a 'transparent' connection; but you seem to feel the results are subjectively worse, and you're probably right. At a guess I'd suggest that your Matrox card simply does a better job; and that placing the mixer in the chain might well be adding undesirable (and unnecessary) processing and artefacts. Personally I'd suggest that once captured and digitised, any correction or processing is better done in software.

[@XDCAMHD422]

Making recordings like we know from the tape based area with a Sony PDW-V1 is not possible. It's just a portable field player from their first line of standard defintion Professional Disc products. That first line out of 2003 consisted out of two camcorders: PDW-510P/U (DVCAM) and PDW-530P/U (DVCAM/MPEG-IMX), the PDW-V1 field player and the PDW-1500 half rack studio recorder. There was also a PDW-3000 studio deck scheduled, but it never came further than a prototype. Later on in the HD area the prototype of the PDW-3000 became the XDCAM Station XDS-1000 (SxS only), XDS-PD1000 (SxS + Disc + HDD) and XDS-PD2000 (SxS + Disc + SSD). Later they also released a PDW-R1 that could record DVCAM and all three flavors of MPEG-IMX to a single (dark blue color) layered disc via SD-SDI or composite video. However, you can put files (recordings) via drag and drop from your computer to a disc in the PDW-V1 via i-Link or the FTP (network) connection like a regular hard drive. The i-Link FAM Driver (FAM = File Access Mode) has to be installed together with XDCAM Drive software on your computer. FAM has to enabled on the PDW-V1. The PDZ-1 software is old. I guess you have better luck with installing Sony's Catalyst Browse. It's a free application. You also find other XDCAM related software on: www.sonycreativesoftware.com/software Error 95-101 means: Communication error between system control CPU and PCI bridge (IC801/HPR-23 board) is detected.

[@video99couk]

Excellent information, thanks.

[@douro20]

That Digibeta camera looks like it's been through a war.

[@video99couk]

It was used for recording Sky Sports events, perhaps it got scuffed quite a lot. But underneath it all, it's a fine camera still.

[@ArekArciszewski]

Do you also have an IMX machine?

[@SuperAgentman007]

I got cameras that use XD cam discs I have a PDW 75, which is capable of playing the 50 GB discs well, as a camera that uses 50 GB discs if you’re trying to connect your system to your computer, you can use the ethernet cord on the 1500 and connect it to your router then access it through FTP which she will be able to drag and drop A Sony has free software that you could view the videos with easy as well as drivers for the equipment. The first machine you were showing that’s just a player I have the machine that actually records and place and it’s portable. Usually if you back up movies you can do SDI to SDI that’s what I usually do when I wanna transfer footage from a 23 gig disk to a 50 gig disk

[@DAVIDGREGORYKERR]

I suspect that a Apple Mac would have a Firewire port.

[@rsuryase]

Can you get a XDCAM computer drive and just copy the files instead of a real-time transfer? It would be much faster and much smaller file size than SDI.

[@mspysu79]

Yes, you can get an XDCAM drive to read the discs and if they have issues it may be the only way to read the discs. However, the files on the discs need to be converted before any current editing software can use them. Older versions of Vegas can handle them natively as could some AVID software. There are 2 models a USB 2 and a USB 3 version, the USB 3 version is 6x faster than the USB 2 and goes for a pretty penny.

[@XDCAMHD422]

@@mspysu79 Where did you get the information that the MXF-files that have been recorded to a Professional Disc have to be converted before you can use them in an NLE? That information is not correct. All modern and decent NLE’s can edit right away with the low end proxy files and higher resolution clips. Either when transferred to a HDD storage or straight from the disc itself in some cases. There is absolutely no converting needed in Avid Media Composer, Grass Valley EDIUS, Premiere, etc… I can even throw those clips right into a Final Cut Pro 7 timeline on my Mac Pro 4.1 (early 2009) and start editing them right away. My Avid’s have never converted a single file to be edited. I can’t speak about any free, freeware or toy NLE’s. There have been four drives around since the early 2000’s. The PDW-D1 was the first drive and could only be used for SD (DVCAM/MPEG-IMX) recordings. This drive was a field unit and therefore could also be operated from a V-mount battery. The PDW-U1 (USB 2.0) and PDW-U2 (USB 3.0 or Super Speed USB) who are both discontinued now, took SD and HD single and dual layer discs. And the PDW-U4 (USB 3.2, USB PD 3.0 compatible, USB Type-C), who is the latest addition to the Sony XDCAM Drive line. Transferring a single layer disc with a PDW-U1 takes about 1/3 of the recording time that’s on the disc. For example: a disc with 75 minutes of DVCAM, MPEG-IMX, MPEG-HD or MPEG-HD422 recordings takes about 25 minutes to put on a HDD storage. The PDW-U2 is significant faster and does it more than two times quicker than it’s predecessor. The PDW-U4 with it’s USB 3.2, that is 10 Gbps compatible, is the fastest Professional Disc drive at this moment. All those speeds have to be taken with a grain of salt of course. The units have been costing, and are still costing, around the same amount of money through the years: around €5000, £5000, $5000. That’s without VAT of course! 😉

[@XDCAMHD422]

@@mspysu79 Where did you get the information that the MXF-files that have been recorded to a Professional Disc have to be converted before you can use them in an NLE? That information is not correct. All modern and decent NLE’s can edit right away with the low end proxy files and higher resolution clips. Either when transferred to a HDD storage or straight from the disc itself in some cases. There is absolutely no converting needed in Avid Media Composer, Grass Valley EDIUS, Premiere, etc… I can even throw those clips right into a Final Cut Pro 7 timeline on my Mac Pro 4.1 (early 2009) and start editing them right away. My Avid’s have never converted a single file to be edited. I can’t speak about any free, freeware or toy NLE’s. There have been four drives around since the early 2000’s. The PDW-D1 was the first drive and could only be used for SD (DVCAM/MPEG-IMX) recordings. This drive was a field unit and therefore could also be operated from a V-mount battery. The PDW-U1 (USB 2.0) and PDW-U2 (USB 3.0 or Super Speed USB) who are both discontinued now, took SD and HD single and dual layer discs. And the PDW-U4 (USB 3.2, USB PD 3.0 compatible, USB Type-C), who is the latest addition to the Sony XDCAM Drive line. Transferring a single layer disc with a PDW-U1 takes about 1/3 of the recording time that’s on the disc. For example: a disc with 75 minutes of DVCAM, MPEG-IMX, MPEG-HD or MPEG-HD422 recordings takes about 25 minutes to put on a HDD storage. The PDW-U2 is significant faster and does it more than two times quicker than it’s predecessor. The PDW-U4 with it’s USB 3.2, that is 10 Gbps compatible, is the fastest Professional Disc drive at this moment. All those speeds have to be taken with a grain of salt of course. The units have been costing, and are still costing, around the same amount of money through the years: around €5000, £5000, $5000. That’s without VAT of course! 😉

[@XDCAMHD422]

@@mspysu79 Where did you get the information that the MXF-files that have been recorded to a Professional Disc have to be converted before you can use them in an NLE? That information is not correct. All modern and decent NLE’s can edit right away with the low end proxy files and higher resolution clips. Either when transferred to a HDD storage or straight from the disc itself in some cases. There is absolutely no converting needed in Avid Media Composer, Grass Valley EDIUS, Premiere, etc… I can even throw those clips right into a Final Cut Pro 7 timeline on my Mac Pro 4.1 (early 2009) and start editing them right away. My Avid’s have never converted a single file to be edited. I can’t speak about any free, freeware or toy NLE’s. There have been four drives around since the early 2000’s. The PDW-D1 was the first drive and could only be used for SD (DVCAM/MPEG-IMX) recordings. This drive was a field unit and therefore could also be operated from a V-mount battery. The PDW-U1 (USB 2.0) and PDW-U2 (USB 3.0 or Super Speed USB) who are both discontinued now, took SD and HD single and dual layer discs. And the PDW-U4 (USB 3.2, USB PD 3.0 compatible, USB Type-C), who is the latest addition to the Sony XDCAM Drive line. Transferring a single layer disc with a PDW-U1 takes about 1/3 of the recording time that’s on the disc. For example: a disc with 75 minutes of DVCAM, MPEG-IMX, MPEG-HD or MPEG-HD422 recordings takes about 25 minutes to put on a HDD storage. The PDW-U2 is significant faster and does it more than two times quicker than it’s predecessor. The PDW-U4 with it’s USB 3.2, that is 10 Gbps compatible, is the fastest Professional Disc drive at this moment. All those speeds have to be taken with a grain of salt of course. The units have been costing, and are still costing, around the same amount of money through the years: around €5000, £5000, $5000. That’s without VAT of course! 😉

[@XDCAMHD422]

​@@mspysu79 Where did you get the information that the MXF-files that have been recorded to a Professional Disc have to be converted before you can use them in an NLE? That information is not correct. All modern and decent NLE’s can edit right away with the low end proxy files and higher resolution clips. Either when transferred to a HDD storage or straight from the disc itself in some cases. There is absolutely no converting needed in Avid Media Composer, Grass Valley EDIUS, Premiere, etc… I can even throw those clips right into a Final Cut Pro 7 timeline on my Mac Pro 4.1 (early 2009) and start editing them right away. My Avid’s have never converted a single file to be edited. I can’t speak about any free, freeware or toy NLE’s. There have been four drives around since the early 2000’s. The PDW-D1 was the first drive and could only be used for SD (DVCAM/MPEG-IMX) recordings. This drive was a field unit and therefore could also be operated from a V-mount battery. The PDW-U1 (USB 2.0) and PDW-U2 (USB 3.0 or Super Speed USB) who are both discontinued now, took SD and HD single and dual layer discs. And the PDW-U4 (USB 3.2, USB PD 3.0 compatible, USB Type-C), who is the latest addition to the Sony XDCAM Drive line. Transferring a single layer disc with a PDW-U1 takes about 1/3 of the recording time that’s on the disc. For example: a disc with 75 minutes of DVCAM, MPEG-IMX, MPEG-HD or MPEG-HD422 recordings takes about 25 minutes to put on a HDD storage. The PDW-U2 is significant faster and does it more than two times quicker than it’s predecessor. The PDW-U4 with it’s USB 3.2, that is 10 Gbps compatible, is the fastest Professional Disc drive at this moment. All those speeds have to be taken with a grain of salt of course. The units have been costing, and are still costing, around the same amount of money through the years: around €5000, £5000, $5000. That’s without VAT of course! 😉

[@bobsbits5357]

hi some thing new to show ebay on some things is still very high i was offered this format the pay out and the return of income from the decks would not work out for me

[@rodrigobelinchon2982]

Nice viewfinder !

[@imark7777777]

Yeah Firewire was supposed to be hot-swappable but there is a fair amount of people who believe that plugging in DV cameras could cause things to get fried even though DV cameras use the 4 pin i.Link connector that didn't have power and just had 2 data pairs. I have seen more issues with cables that have a USB connector at one end and a Firewire connector at the other end. (a combination that will never work except maybe some specialty laptops they have no documentation on this) actually had a piece of radio equipment get fried because of that had to send it out to the manufacturer to get repaired that is until it went out due to the lightning strike.

[@video99couk]

I think the biggest danger is plugging in a larger 6 pin plug the wrong way round, which is very possible if a socket gets a bit worn. Then you will fry the electronics at the remote end, even if that's 4 pin and even if the remote device is powered down at the time.

[@imark7777777]

@@video99coukyep I could totally see that. Although one would think with up to 50V available on the power bus next to the Data bus one might want to have some sort of protection circuits? But if a multi thousand dollar Radio can be defeated by a miss wired improper nonstandard completely incompatible USB to FireWire cable with only 5v I guess there's no hope. Otherwise I would say it's fair that the user is improperly using the product even though they are probably the problem continuing to use a damaged product without repairing it (oh great I just made another right to repair statement). I love how people think if it doesn't fit we can just shove it! And yet we have to develop cables that plug-in both ways now when our electrical outlets in pretty much every country except for the EU (round pins no ground) has only ever gone in one way and somehow people learned how to use them. Yeah I don't know how to solve the unknowledgeable users Plus shared resources problem. I don't think there's any hope even industrial products don't survive museum level user access where they have to build things extra sturdy. Although the bell system certainly give it a run for their money with payphones. Yeah for 6-4 pin that would be bad. I was reading once that this one place had to install signage and protection hubs so it was only ever disconnected at the camera. But I also suspect that they had a cable at every workstation and it wasn't getting reconnected to the workstation every time and just stayed plugged in on that end, before the multi thousand dollar investment in Firewire power blockers that supposedly solved the problems. And they didn't have equipment dying after forcing the users to turn everything off, Again not clear whether that was the computer and camera or just the cameras.

[@Matt_Quinn-Personal_Account]

@777777 "I don't think there's any hope even industrial products don't survive museum level user access" - In 1980, I was a first-year trainee with the University of Strathclyde's AV Unit; one of the most advanced units in the UK at the time. About 9 months into the job I was sent over to a lecture room in the Royal College building to investigate a call from an irate Lecturer who could not get his 'precious' tape out of an EIAJ Cartridge machine. These _were_ very robust industrial machines which the university had deployed _instead_ of VHS or U-Matic. The machines cost (I believe) in the £2000 region; this is 44 years ago remember - and that was a lot of money! Unusual format in that they were essentially 'open reel tapes' in a box which was led onto a permanent take-up reel inside the machine. I arrived at the lecture room to find this arrogant, overbearing 'individual' holding a butter knife... with which he'd tried to prise the cartridge out of the machine; clearly in the mood to have someone's head on a stick! I was aghast! Being only 17 and from one of the very roughest parts of Glasgow (no filter; still haven't acquired one!) I was suitably unimpressed with his 'Newton Mearns patter' and his level of intelligence. Being 6' and of quite robust build - I wasn't phased by a 'jorrie moothed' pipsqueak waving cutlery in my face either. Peering down at him; I advised the cost of the machine he had taken a butter knife to... took the lid off to demonstrate that his precious tape was actually wound on a reel inside the machine; and that it would be necessary to take it back to the AV workshop to have one of our senior technicians extract it. - Something I _could_ have done myself (was trained to do so) had he not taken a knife to the thing etc. - I disconnected it and walked back to the AV building with him still bleating. I also made it clear that I would have to speak to my head of department about the incident... which I did. Some days later he lodged a formal complaint about me; which I was only too delighted to discuss with Personnel - as they were called back then. I even suggested that as he had waved a knife in my face - perhaps we ought to consult the police? He was, quite frankly a manchild; and (as I was to discover as my own career progressed) not at all unique - particularly in Academia. Museums? I've met museum 'technicians' who 'specialise' in AV matters that you really could not trust to put a plug on a toaster! Unfortunately this is what you get when cronyism trumps experience and knowledge. - No, you cannot legislate for stupidity; you can only limit the availability of cutlery.

[@mrjazzycharon2]

Please get a Sony PVM or BVM monitor 😩

[@video99couk]

Got two of them.

[@mrjazzycharon2]

@@video99couk Why don’t you replace the Toshiba one on your desk with a PVM? Would look way cooler and professional.

[@Matt_Quinn-Personal_Account]

- When you _actually are_ a professional it's not about how 'cool' you look. There are good technical reasons - when you're working with/repairing old analogue equipment - to have a very basic analogue display to hand. - They are free from much of the processing of more advanced sets; and so show up certain faults and characteristics more readily. It wasn't entirely uncommon back in the day for workshops to have both a 'high end' monitor for critical alignment to hand _and_ a cheap portable telly from the Supermarket! - The latter (which is more typical of what people would actually be watching on) would 'throw a wobbler' before the former - alerting one to the fact that all might not be well!

[@DAVIDGREGORYKERR]

What about connecting the unit to your computer via an Ethernet cable from the writer to the router then then browse into it if you know the Address Quad.

[@video99couk]

I could certainly do that and will try it later, but didn't want to get too computer focussed. Finding the address should be simple with Angry IP Scanner.

[@chrisw443]

Ironic how you ended up with all widescreen SD professional disc setups. Those are more rare than the xdcamHD Professional discs.

[@video99couk]

Oh good, perhaps I can get an HD machine soon too then.

[@chrisw443]

@@video99couk I know of several stations in the US still using them. HD is still king here. The pandemic kinda forced them away, but since 2017 or so they have only used the decks for show archives. They mostly stopped using the XDCAM Professional Disc cameras around 2017.

[@XDCAMHD422]

That these Professional Discs are very strong and robust you can see in the following two videos. Alister Chapman freezes one in on the Artic, and washes another one in his dishwasher. 😁 I also remember that the German broadcaster WDR, who helped Sony develop the XDCAM system, had put a PDW-530P recording in a freezer during IBC 2004 to proove that filming in extremely low temperatures would not be an issue. Throwing them into a wall as hard as you can, driving over them with a car, sand, mud, water, heat, X-rays, etc... . Never lost a single frame of footage with these extremely durable discs! Sony claims 50 years of shelf life. I guess you can double that. 👌🏻 kzbin.info/www/bejne/eZnVmmqKipmSfas kzbin.info/www/bejne/j6iZYoemmax-qrM

[@jameslaidler2152]

Why the heck couldn't I jave lived there in the UK? Probide me tea and biscuits and just leave me in a room to keep messing with the equipment to figure out how to operate everything properly.

[@stephan.scharf]

Yes it was the last ... long live U-matic

[@ConsumerDV]

This is a rather strange title. Unless you stream directly to your viewers, you record onto some sort of media. You could clarify that this is the last physical media format, although the notion of tape and optical disc being "physical media", while HDDs and memory cards being something else, like "digital media" is weird, because HDDs and memory cards are also quite physical.

[@video99couk]

I meant a physical, removable, deliverable type of media. You don't get many characters for a title.

[@DAVIDGREGORYKERR]

To be used with a QUANTEL Paintbox

[@gordonm2821]

Not usually. You rarely took video into a Paintbox, unless for the occasional stills capture. Non linear editors offshoots of the Paintbox like Henry and Editbox would control an external VTR to import content. The last generation of Quantel called sQ could mount an XDCAM file system as one of the clip ‘bins’ so you could drag it direct on timeline.

[@Matt_Quinn-Personal_Account]

By the time XDCam came along Paintbox's Swansong had already been played... as Gordon suggests. Paintbox was really an 80s thing with roots going further back than that. However, I have it nagging at the back of my mind that _there was_ some sort of removable disc system that went with Paintbox/Harry etc. in the late 80s/early 90s - I seem to recall seeing a demo video; but I don't think it was 'video disc' per se, more like a specialised form of data/project storage.