Sony - BCT-94SRL

Specifications

Description

Sony HDCAM SR BCT-94SRL

• The most advanced metal particle tape in Sony's 1/2 broadcast family of professional tape products
• Metal particles 50% smaller than HDCAM tape with improved magnetic characteristics yielding: 2X the output (6-7dB), 2.7X the recording density of HDCAM tape, and 3.3X the density of D5-HD tape
• Tele-File label with IC memory built on cassette to capture content metadata
• Specially designed locking album case with improved tape protection characteristics
• By providing full bandwidth RGB, HDCAM SR helps bridge the gap between acquisition and Digital Intermediate workflows.
• HDCAM SR's ability to store RGB images in real time, cost effectively and in a timely manner, will lead to higher quality composite effects and film to tape archiving.
• The HDCAM SR contains metal particles that are approximately half the size of HDCAM allowing for a much higher density recording layer that provides an additional 6 dB of signal saturation.
• Along with the higher density recording, the smaller particles allow the cassettes to capture recording wavelength to 0.29um representing the highest performance of metal tape in the broadcast family.
•  HDCAM SR has recording lengths up to 50 minutes for the small size cassette, and 155 minutes for the large cassette in 24P mode.
• HDCAM SR utilizes the 4:4:4 capture. At 24P it will facilitate the highest quality transfers to motion picture film and support enhanced blue/green screen compositing and the creation of contemporary special effects. Using 4:4:4 RGB HDCAM SR uses no chroma subsampling, but instead yields more of the full bandwidth of the HDSDI signal.
• Also called 94SR, formerly the BCT-94SRL/3 now the BCT-94SRL/4

HDCAM SR Recording Time Chart

What is HDCAM SR?

What is HDCAM SR? HDCAM was technology first introduced in 1997, which was essentially for Digital Betacam, but built in High Definition. This system used an eight-bit DCT and offered compressed 3:1:1 recording. It also had a resolution of 1440x1080, though the original codec used non-square pixels. The HDCAM SR was introduced in 2003 and was a higher particle density tape. What was the point of this? This superior tape was capable of recording in 10 bits 4:2:2 or 4:4:4 RGB. It also had a video bit rate of 440 Megabits and a total data rate of over 600 megabits.

What was significant about HDCAM SR was that it gave users the option to capture more of the full bandwidth of the HDSDI signal, or the High Definition Serial Digital Interface. Furthermore, the new HDCAM SR tape has a bit rate of 880 megabits, allowing for a single 4:4:4 stream, but at a much lower compression than what most users are used to. HDCAM SR uses a superior MPEG-4 compression format, which is ideal for enhancing the quality of the images. HDCAM SR also increases the number of audio channels with twelve total.

Why so much enthusiasm over MPEG 4? Because this is a state of the art algorithm that is accepted practically anywhere, on any medium and in any location. It allows for full recording of large bandwidth images with no losses. It is ideal for compression and the choice of professional editors. You can have access to the same HD quality recording as the major network studios by buying HDCAM SR tapes.

HDCAM SR is very common in the entertainment industry, especially in filming HDTV programs. As a matter of fact, when you see your favorite show state that it is broadcasting in HD they are probably referring to this type of High Definition Digital recording. HDCAM SR tapes are usually black with a cyan colored lid and can be on the pricey side, since you are dealing with a superior form of format here. Some tapes can sell between $45 (for six minutes of recording time) to over $200 for approximately two hours. Regardless of the tape you're interested in, you can get the best deal on HDCAM SR cassettes at TapeOnline.  

For more on HDCAM SR check out our FAQ page .

• TOL Part #: VSP-BCT-94SRL
• Manufacturer's Part #: BCT-94SRL/4
• Model: BCT-94SRL
• Product ID: 1930