SD Video Transfer Service
If you have a requirement to send footage to other countries or view footage sent to you from other countries then the chances are you will need to have the footage converted to a format that is compatible for use within the destination country. At Images4life we offer a complete transfer and conversion service offering transfer between PAL - NTSC - SECAM. All of our conversions are performed using broadcast quality convertors supplied by Kramer Electronics, the level of conversion offered by these converters is far superior than standard converters used by most companies.
For more details on which format should be requested either contact our sales staff on free phone 0800 043 0668 or refer the table below which documents the most popular countries and provides information on the format required for that country.
Below are some of the supported tape formats for both our SD transfer service and also formats conversion service. Hover the mouse above the each title for an information and picture.
MiniDV - Formally known as DVC is a format developed and release by a consortium of electronics manufacturers including Sony, JVC and Panasonic. The format was release in 1995.
The format uses small tape cassettes and has the ability to record up to 60 mins standard play or 90 mins Long Play per cassette.
The video information is recorded onto the tape using the industry standard DV codec as used in the Sony Digital 8 format.
MicroMV - Developed and released by Sony Corporation in 2001 this format used cassettes approx 70% smaller that MiniDV making them ideal for the production of small camcorders.
The technology used to record the video information to tape also changed with this format, instead of using a DV codec it was decided by Sony to use MPEG2.
The format is considered obsolete as Sony have not offered this format in any camcorder since 2006.
DVCAM - Developed and Released by Sony Corporation in 1996 this format was to compete against DVCPRO released by Panasonic. DVCAM used the same DV codec as MiniDV but the video head pitch size and tape speed is 50% faster to reduce dropout and enable full frame accurate editing.
Betacam - Developed and Released by Sony Corporation in August 1982. Targeted at the commercial video industry this technology recorded the luminance and chrominance information on alternating sections of the tape with a line resolution of 300. The image quality obtained by Betacam was excellent and soon became very popular for professional videographers.
Betacam SP - The SP version of Betacam stands for "Superior Performance" and takes the line resolution up to 340. This format was released in 1986 and it is this format that was adopted by many TV stations around the globe to become an industry standard.
Umatic - Developed and Released by Sony in 1971, this format was among the first to contain the video tape inside a protection case, before this video tape was open "reel to reel "
Standard Umatic was soon upgraded by Sony in order to offer higher line resolutions, and this was done with the introduction of "Hi-Band" Umatic Recorders.
With the introduction of Hi-Band Recorders this lead to the majority of TV studio's using Umatic as an industry standard for archiving TV shows
Even to this day most TV studio's will have a variety of Umatic players in order ti be able to play back archived video shows, although most are now converting the footage to a digital form for long term archiving.
