#Sony CVD-1000?
17 messages in this thread
A friend of mine has a Sony CVD-1000 Hi8 video tape recorder. It's a
little white box that comes with a serial interface to his Mac, and a
simple Hypercard stack to control it. It's not clear that it could do
single-frame recording, but it could do computer-controlled searches,
playback and recording according to time-code. It also says "VISCA"
compatible. What can this deck do? Who is it marketed to?
VISCA is a protocol supported by everyone except Amiga developers. Sony
gives the spec to any and all manufactures. It's kinda like what Arexx is
to us.
–Paul < Motorola Inside >
That's the Vdeck. It's for the Multimedia folks. No, it won't do single
frame. I had a guy that had one research this for me. It just wouldn't do
it.
Do you have our 3D / Toaster test set up yet? <g>
By the way, the 9650 came in today!
No, I haven't prepared that 3D Studio vs LightWave scene yet. I don't have
the time to tinker with fun stuff like that.
Hmm, I wish I had a 9650. I saw a used demo going for about $4100… was
that a good price?
I got this one for $4192 plus shipping. Brand new in the box with US
warranty. It looks like a real cool deck. It's home formatting a tape right
now so I can try my first frames tonight. I filled up a 500MB drive with
TGA files in the last 2 days so I should keep the deck busy for the next
few hours!
Larry,
Could you let us know how the operation goes?
How fast can you spool the frames off your harddrive?
–Paul
Well, it went pretty well. After getting BCD to send me a new ROM image via
CIS and burning a new rom so the BCD 2000a know I had the Sony and having
to build and extender card because the 2000A has the Amiga connector on it
that won't allow it to plug into my PC slots. I finally got it hooked up
and running about 11:30 PM friday night. I sent about 500 frames to it and
only have had a problem with a bad tape. 1 tape worked fine but another
tape missed 3 frames in a row and I couldn't even manually record on those
3 frames. It's taking about 28 seconds to bring up the TGA file and do the
insert edit. I'm still using a kludge method with one of the BCD programs
executing in a batch file. I'm going to write a program that will ask you
for the starting and ending file name and talk to the deck directly (
without the BCD controller inline ) and see how fast that works. I'm very
pleased with the deck so far. I think what I have learned so far is I need
to test several tapes and space the animations out on the tape instead of
laying them down one after the other to reduce the wear on the animations I
have already put down.
I see the problem with not spacing the animations on tape. Geez, that's a
lot of shuttling over the same section. Take a look at Fuji Pro tape it
has a very high Co-hevisa something 🙂 , uh, it's good tape.
–Paul
I guess you mean they use good glue on the Fuji tape ? <g>
I have been buying tape locally and they don't stock Fuji. I plan to order
some tape and Fuji is one of the ones I'm going to try. One thing I did
find strange. Sony put a sticker on the top of the 9650 saying NOT to use
ME tape and to only use MP tape for single framing. Looks like they are
finally admitting to ME being unstable. <g>
I still have a lot to learn about this taping part of animation. I even
took Friday and Monday off as vacation to have a 4 day weekend to play with
it. I think I have a good method down now and have had excellant results so
far.
FYI, Vdeck and Vbox work well with Gold Disk's Video Director package for
near-single-frame editing.
I have Video Director for the Amiga and just found out I can get a VISCA
adapter for the 9650 so I plan to look at the Video Director for the PC and
a VDECK to go with my 9650. I have no doubt that the Vdeck and Vbox ( if
attached to a Lanc device with time code ) would give frame accurate edits.
My 9650 states 3 frames accuracy if using RC time code ( which is what the
Vdeck uses as far as I know ) and 0 frames using "Industrial" timecode. (
which is what the 9700 also uses I think ) I hope to have a Vdeck early
next year and we'll see!
Post your Vdeck results, by all means.
Just as soon as my wallet recovers enough from Christmas ( kids sure are
expensive!) I plan to buy a Vdeck and will let you know.
VISCA is Sony's Answer to SMPTE time code.It is fully Computer
Controllable for editing,searches etc. I believe they include a Command
sheet with the CVD-1000 so folks can write their own control software
relatively easily since all thats needed is to send codes thru the RS-232
port.It will also mount in 5 1/4" Drive bay on a computer.It's marketed at
the folks who do DTV.I've seen em for $1400 or so thru Computability(that
was months ago the price may have dropped by now).
It will also interface to Sony Control L port devices as well.And there is
also a $385 box that converts VISCA time code to SMPTE and Vice Versa.
There was a review of the Vbox and CVD-1000 a while back in AVid the Amiga
Video Journal.
Hope this helps ya John.Midgard Graphics.
VISCA is a control protical made by Sony for RS-232 control of there low
end prosumer decks, the CVD-1000 V-Deck has it built in, and you can
purchase that $400 box mentioned to convert certain Sony devices using
Control-L hoolkup to RS-232 VISCA. It Does not in anyway have anything to
do with Time code, the deck uses Sony's RC consumer time code on it. Also
it will not go in a 5 1/4" bay of a computer.
Gold Disk offers, Video Director that has control of this unit on the
Amiga, and it works pretty well with this unit..
Forrest
Forrest I best recheck that Ad in A/Video as I could have SWORN that there
was a box to convert VISCA T/C into SMPTE T/C
Again VISCA is not a time code but a control protical. But the box that
you may have seen converts RC time code to SMPTE..
Forrest