DNW-9WSP

Betacam SX is the ½ inch digital replacement for analogue Betacam SP. The camcorder range includes IT, 4:3 and 16:9 widescreen products at costs substantially lower than analogue Beta SP. Typical applications include news gathering, sport and general television production.

Betacam SX is the digital successor to analogue Betacam SP. Industry-standard MPEG-2 compression technology makes Betacam SX a full broadcast format with picture quality superior to SP, excellent multi-generation performance and also very rugged for field us

MPEG 2 4:2:2P@ML recording
The MPEG 2 4:2:2P@ML recording compression scheme is optimised for picture content recording video at 18 Mbps. Four channels of 16 bit 48Khz sampled audio are also recorded. The use of half-inch tape enables a huge data redundancy overhead providing an immensly robust recording. Specially formulated tapes of up to 60 minutes duration are available. However, in an emergency, Betacam SP tapes can also be used.

Compact and Lightweight
A compact and lightweight design gives a weight of 6kg including a Li-ion battery, lens and tape. This significantly improves the ability of a cameraman to work for long periods, compared to a Betacam SP unit, while 6 kg is estimated to be the minimum that a professional cameraman needs for adequate picture stability while using a long lens.

Composite output
Full colour composite playback in the field is possible, without an external adapter. Applications include providing feeds for satellite uplinks. An SDI output is available with a small adpater that fits on the back of the camcorder.

Fail safe audio recording
Although the Betacam SX format has 4 channels as standard, the camcorder by itself only has 2 analogue inputs. Therefore, for safety, channel 3 of the camcorder VTR always records the front microphone, and channel 4 the wireless microphone regardless of the position of channel 1 and 2 selector switches on the camcorder. This ensures that the cameramen always records some audio. When the optional CA-701 is added four fully independent audio recording channels are available.

Shot data recording
Recorded onto a special data area on tape is the Betacam SX meta-data. This comprises information such as date, time, camera ID, cassette number and shot data. Shot data comprises a mark that is laid down automatically every time the camcorder goes into record, then two other marks which can be recorded manually by the cameraman. Shot mark 1 is recorded by pressing the "return video" button on the lens whilst recording. Shot mark 2 is recorded by a double press of the "return video" button on the lens whilst recording. In this way, shot mark 1 may be used to indicate a "good shot" and shot mark 2 to indicate a "bad shot". The shot data may be retrieved on Betacam SX VTR's including the portable VTRs - DNW-A220P and DNW-A25P.