Perhaps the last media based professional format: XDCAM.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFRQx-pAO5w

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.

In News Gathering Germany we use xdcam until now!

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.

Thank you Colin

I have a question regarding your control monitor in the background: If I was looking for a similar device to monitor the capturing process, I understand that oldfashioned CRT monitors are a lot better for analogue video than modern flatscreens? Would any regular hotel CRT TV do the trick here or would I have to be looking for a broadcast CRT monitor such as Sony often produced? Unfortunately, these are still quite expensive to get. What kind of monitor are you using?

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.

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...

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