The marvelous, magical, multi-format video tape decks of today!

Wow! Life is good when you’re in love. And I’m really in love… with my machines, that is. Two of my Sony videotape machines are so sexy! Not only are they ultra-easy use, but they leave me awe-struck by the huge number of formats they play!! For example, our Sony J30 SDI decks are wildly diverse. The one J30 can play all these formats:

DigiBeta – Large Cassettes
DigiBeta – Small CassettesBetaCam SP – Large Cassettes

BetaCam SP – Small Cassettes

BetaCam SX – Large Cassettes
BetaCam SX – Small Cassettes

And that’s just the formats. Then it has connectors for firewire, SDI, composite, and s-video. See what I mean about “sexy.”

Now it’s way past the “honeymoon” stage and I am still completely enamored by this machine. And when I plug the deck’s firewire into my Final Cut Pro, the stars align and it’s absolutely glorious! They always say the best relationships are the ones that are easy!

But actually, I’m in love with another deck at the same time. Even though I’m not in Salt Lake City, Hollywood accepts me being in love with two machines at once.

My Sony HVRM15U Deck is another piece of perfection. That one single deck handles all these formats:

HDV – small cassettes

HDV – Large cassettes

DVCAM NTSC – small cassettes

DVCAM NTSC – Large cassettes

DVCAM PAL – small cassettes

DVCAM PAL – Large cassettes

MiniDV NTSC

MiniDV PAL

16×9 Anamorphic

LetterBox

4×3

Now that’s a lot of versatility in a single machine. Seriously, it turns out that these two machines handle more that a dozen formats between the two of them. With all these formats going in and out of fashion, it’s so wonderful to be in a stable relationship that has the versatility to cope with a lot of difficult situations.

Moral of the story: True love means having a relationship with a deck that understands your needs.

kirk