Hello all- I just found a place that is GIVING away Sony Umatic players and recorders. My question is, what use are they? Is Umatic still being used? Thanks

Giving away is good. What model numbers? If they #2850's and 2860's they are good for boat anchors. If they are BVU's you got something worth a little. The 5000 and 7000 series are worth very little. The 800 and 900 series (BVU) are still used in many facilities today.

Jeff- They are VP-7020 , and if you're interested, I'll post the place for you. The page say that they are "In servicable condition- the heads were checked before putting them in storage".

The reason I asked about them, is that I'm not familiar with Umatic. I assume that it is, or was, a high end format like digibeta and 3/4?

Umatic is 3/4"

Fond memories of the BVU-110 so-called "portable" deck; about sixty pounds or so it felt, we had them at UT-Austin when I was in school. As undergrads we were privvy only to the very short six-foot cam-to-deck cables, try following your camera operator with a 110 slung around you on such a short leash without running him over. The graduate students rated the much more leisurely twenty-footers. Those were the days...

U-Matic and 3/4 are the same thing in the early to mid 80's U-Matic SP was brought out (higher band width) and remains in use today. The 7000 series is regular 3/4 to the best of my memory. Not interested, but thanks for offering and posting the info.

Thanks for filling me in on the older equipment. If it isn't DV, it's before my time or over my head...

Hey!
I'm interested in the U-Matic decks. I have a lot of old legacy footage.

Richard

Richard- Here is the place
http://broadcast-usa.com/miami/

We had to get a 3/4" dub made a year or so ago for some TV station in a little town out in central Kansas, so some decks are still in use. Most dub houses still have at least one 3/4" deck, and I know of one large post house whose big agency clients still have 3/4" players. There are some things in the world that really should go away but don't.
Chris...my memories are of carrying the 110, plus a 3-tube camera with a battery that weighed as much as a DSR250, and an O'Connor 50 tripod, by myself, up and down hills, shooting exteriors and interiors at industrial locations all over the country. I had back surgery about 10 years ago.

If I did the same kind of shooting today, I could get better results with a PD150 with all the batteries and tapes I'd need for a week in one little Portabrace bag. I used to carry around a 24" X 36" case full of 3/4" tapes, enough of those 20 minute suckers for 3 or 4 days. Excess baggage charges on every flight I took then would have paid for my tape stock for a year these days. The good ol' days...weren't.

I hear you guys. There's precious little to reminisce about fondly when it comes to video technology. For me, starting with the 1/2 black and white Sony Portapaks, through the 2-piece VHS consumer and industrial setups and up to a BVU-110 3/4" recorder banging around your waist, the two piece systems were inferior in every way to today's DV gear--especially ergonomically! And think about the difficulties of shooting with tubes versus chips--those who came into this with the DV wave, imagine having to worry about pointing your camera at a bright light or glint and permanently burning the tubes (requiring hours of "burning out" if you were lucky, or expensive service if you weren't). I left a camera on the ground for 5 minutes once, not realizing it was pointed at a chrome car bumper and thus photographing a glint from the sun. Picked it up and discovered a big nasty burn in the image that never went away. UGH!

Thanks for the lead guys. I just ordered one.

Richard

How does one get the video onto a Umatic? Is it RCA, S-video, or something even more archaic and difficult? I realize there is more out there than just firewire, more than I will ever use. Also, how expensive are the 3/4 tapes?

Depends on the deck, some have 26 pin input, all have bnc composite, and some have S video also. And they have a dub cable to go from one 3/4" deck to another.

The decks they are giving away are rack-mount, and play only. They have already given out all the desk top models

If they're players only, then there's not much you can do with them if you don't have a boat. Somebody might come along one day with a 3/4 tape and may want you to make a VHS dub or something.

The price is right. Free (Shipping is cheap) And I have a ton of legacy footage in U-matic. Works for me

U could always employ a hammer to make modern art?

Zac

<<<-- Originally posted by Zac Stein : U could always employ a hammer to make modern art?

Zac -->>>

I did that with an old Mac computer once. It was so empowering.

"Legacy footage"...is that what we're calling old tapes now? I love politicospeak, even when it trickles out into the real world. I've got to save that one....heheheh..."Uh, sure, I could shoot this with the DSR500, or I could use our legacy camera at no extra charge..." (12 year old Betacam).

In terms of creating art by bashing computers...my daughter still has a mobile made from a Zip drive when she was in film school. It was one of those Jazz drives that crashed all the time. One of the students who was a gun nut took it out in the woods and blew it away with a .45, gathered up all the pieces and made a mobile out of it. And then I had a dead motherboard framed and hung on my wall for awhile. People would look at it and say, "Oh, cool." And I would say, "Yeah, it symbolizes the pain and agony inherent in not following the rules and doing daily backups."