Blog Post Archives

Betacam The original Betacam format was launched on August 7, 1982. It is an analog component video format, storing the luminance, “Y”, in one track and the chrominance, on another as alternating segments of the R-Y and B-Y components performing Compressed Time Division Multiplex, or CTDM.[1] This splitting of channels allows true broadcast quality recording with 300 lines of horizontal luminance resolution and 120 lines chrominance resolution (versus ≈30 for Betamax/VHS), on a relatively inexpensive cassette based format. The original Betacam format records on cassettes loaded with oxide-formulated tape, which are theoretically the same as used by its consumer market-oriented predecessor Betamax, introduced 7 years earlier by Sony in 1975. A blank Betamax-branded tape will work on a Betacam deck, and a Betacam-branded tape can be used to record in a Betamax deck. However, in later years Sony discouraged this practice, suggesting that the internal tape transport of a domestic …