#Broadcast quality?
Your assumptions are correct – Framestores are read directly by ADPro and
converted to an enhanced CCIR 601 digital video signal and recorded on 8mm
Exabyte tapes. These tapes (and the drives) are compatible with the Abekas
family of digital disk recorders. You send the tape to any of many service
centers to be converted into any other media.
The tremendous upside is that you get the exact same quality as the finest of
broadcast methods because you're using the exact same method. Your also taking
a tremendous up front savings since you don't have to buy a lot of fancy video
equipment.
Of course, the up front savings (probably in the range of $10K) is to be
balanced against a long term expense of needing an outside service center to
translate your tapes.
The 8mm tapes are of the 5 gig variety…another benefit of this method is that
when you are not using the Exabyte drive for digital video, you get to use it
as a high speed 5 gig backup device.