Betacam vs Betacam SP vs Digital Betacam
 

I am reading on Beta / BetaSP, and as I understand it,

* Beta recordings can be played on BetaSP machine,
* BetaSP recordings made on oxide tape are, basically, standard Beta recordings? So they can be played on standard Beta machine.
* BetaSP recordings on metal tape are SP recordings? But I am getting an impression that these can be played on a standard Beta machine, albeit with lower image quality.

Please, help me with the above :)

This is a great video that fully explains all the various Beta formats.

https://youtu.be/hGVVAQVdEOs

Thanks, but I am not interested in watching a 40-minute video to get yes/no answers to three simple questions.

For someone interested enough to ask the question I'd think they would.

Betamax and Betacam were 2 completely different signal recording formats, and are not compatible with each other despite sharing a common cassette shell.

I believe Betacam and SP were compatible but the older machines didn't put out enough oomph to magnetize the new metal tapes to make a recording.

Interesting video! I learned a lot! Thanks for the link!

I am not interested in Betamax neither about whether an old machine can record on metal tape. The main question out of the three is whether metal SP recording can be played on a regular Beta.

No. BetaCam or BetaCam SP cannot be played on consumer Beta.

I am not interested in Betamax. Let me rephrase. The main question out of the three is whether metal SP recording can be played on a regular Betacam.

Glad you rephrased to ask what you really meant below. To %99.999 of people who know the difference between Betamax and Betacam "regular beta" is Betamax.

In my defense, I thought that "SP" implies I am talking about Betacam. Anyway, here are the questions, please confirm or disprove the following:

* First-generation Betacam recordings can be played on Betacam SP machine
* Betacam SP recordings made on ferric oxide tape are, basically, standard Betacam recordings? So they can be played on standard Betacam machine?
* Betacam SP recordings on metal tape are SP recordings. I am getting an impression that these can be played on a standard Betacam machine, albeit with lower image quality, wanted to confirm this. Or maybe they can be played with almost the same image quality as SP? Or cannot be played at all?

Actually it runs the other way. SP tape can play in a standard betacam deck and will show the full 330 horizontal lines, the difference is with the recording electronics. I have recorded Betacam SP on oxide tape in the past with the only penalty of more dropouts.

When SP was conceived it was a slight improvement in s/n ratio and the luma bandwith was pushed up slightly thanks to the metal tape, the biggest change was with the L tape that could handle 90 mins of recording.

Thanks!

So, SP machines allow to manually choose SP or regular mode no matter what the tape is? I thought there was a detection hole or something that would prevent doing this.

So between regular Betacam and SP the major difference is that the basic machine cannot record on metal tape? Playback wise they are compatible backwards and forward?

M and M-II are not compatible at all? M-II cannot play M tapes?

No idea about the Panasonic M-format BetacamSP uses a set of detect holes in the center just behind the loader area to determine the tape for things like EQ, tension ect and can be fooled for stupid Betacam tricks. I poke a 1/16 hole in the center of the group on the standard SP tapes to record DigiBeta, a 90 minute SP tape runs 124 minutes in DigiBeta . If I get a minute I will look at my service books and get the hole matrix function layout.

No, you cannot manually select between betacam sp and standard betacam. The hole in the cassette shell is the determining factor. MII cannot play material on standard M tapes.