From: brown@vidiot.UUCP (Vidiot)
Newsgroups: rec.video.production
Subject: Re: Sony EVO-9700
Keywords: HI8 editing
Date: 15 Oct 92 00:35:33 GMT
Reply-To: brown@vidiot.UUCP (Vidiot)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Vidiot's Hangout

In article <1992Oct13.055636.29991@RedBrick.COM> jfr@RedBrick.COM writes:
<In article <2046@celia.UUCP> celia!will@usc.edu (Will McCown) writes:
<>To users/owners of the Sony EVO-9700 some questions that the sony literature
<>doesn't answer:
<>
<>1)  How accurately does it edit?
< 
<     The 9700 can position tape with absolute frame accuracy, due to the
<     use of its 8mm time code.  It can only jam-edit, relying on its
<     mechanism's stability to hold frame accuracy as best as possible.
<     To this end, it is quite good, but not perfect.  I have made many
<     videos on the 9700 and I have only missed a few edits, and never
<     by more than a frame.  It has built-in safety precautions, for
<     instance, it doesn't permit an insert edit of more than 60 seconds
<     just in case there is any slippage.  If you try to do one of that
<     length, it runs for 60 seconds, stops and recalculates the current
<     time code numbers and continues the edit.  As a result, 60+ seconmd
<     inserts can appear to have a frame or two dropped out of the middle.
<     Since I have never tried to do a 60+ second edit (and generally see
<     no need to), this is not a major problem for me.  It is NOT "frame
<     accurate" as a capstan-servo editing deck would be, but it has been
<     plenty accurate for my purposes, far more than typical SVHS, VHS
<     and even many 3/4" editing systems are.

Oh yuch!  I do 3/4" Umatic-SP SMPTE-LTC editing and I do lots of editing that
lasts longer than 60 seconds, all the time.  Insert editing is a very valuable
tool for me.  Having to do 60 second chunks at a time is pretty stupid.  This
has got to be a major design blunder by Sony.  First there was beta in a TV
(non table top) and the short cassette size, and now 8mm that can't be edited
for shit.

Personal opinion, of course.

<>2)  The literature has the cryptic footnote: "To execute a video insertion,
<>    the tape being inserted must be recorded by the same machine."  Is this
<>    true?  What happens if you insert video on a tape from some other
<>    machine?
< 
<     This is a confusing documentation glitch.  What this means is that
<     you can't do an insert ONTO a tape that was originally recorded
<     on another deck.  Thus, if you have a camera master and want to
<     insert a scene directly into the middle of the master, it won't
<     work (or at least is not guaranteed to work well).  What you do is
<     copy the master to the 9700 (thereby creating a 2nd generation copy
<     that was recorded by the "same machine") and then do the insert
<     edit onto that 2nd generation tape.  Since this is the way I do
<     most of my editing anyway (I shoot two-camera, using one as a
<     master shot and the other for most cutaways, copy the whole master
<     shot tape onto the 9700 and then insert from the second tape), it
<     works fine.  I can conceive of situations where this might be a 
<     limitation, but you can usually get around it (although it costs
<     you a generation to do so).  
<
<     The reason for this, by the way, is that the differences between
<     record mechanisms are pretty significant (at the micromillimeter
<     level) and there is no way that a tape recorded on another machine
<     (with possibly different tolerances in its head and track pitch)
<     could be accurately lined up in the 9700 for insert editing.

Another design problem.  Works great on my Umatic-SP machines.

What was Sony thinking when they designed 8mm?  Wasn't it designed as a consumer
product only?
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Newsgroups: rec.video