Talk:U-matic

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Contents 1 Audio CD mastering 2 Spelling 3 Long footnote on porno 4 Two cassette sizes 5 Further Infomation on Compatability Requested 6 U-Matic for CD mastering 7 Light Trails 8 BVU for Submastering

[edit] Audio CD mastering

Someone should add that the U-matic tape was the original mastering tape for Audio CD and is only recently being phased out in favor of other digital tape formats and error-checked CD-R burned on high quality CD recorders.

Details here. http://www.edinformatics.com/inventions_inventors/compact_disc.htm

[edit] Spelling

In accordance with Wikipedia recommendations, this article should preferably retain Commonwealth English ('British') spellings, as those were used in the original version. (This comment posted in response to changing of spelling to U.S. English by one editor). Fourohfour 10:55, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Nothing against the fine country of Great Britain (from where my parents hailed) but I'm not sure why British spelling should be preferred over American spelling, which often contains fewer letters and is arguably used by more far more people. (E.g., the population of the United States is about five times that of Great Britain.) Also, my British relatives tell me that the American spelling of things is starting to make its way across the Atlantic.

[edit] Long footnote on porno

The long footnote on porno was written by Donreed for the article on videocassette recorders. It was too long and too tangenital for that article, so I transferred it here. Even here, it is dubious. For one thing, it never establishes that there was any commercial market in pornographic U-matic tapes in the 1970s, on which his whole hypothesis depends. — Walloon 08:43, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

This theory is interesting, *but* it smacks of original research. I've labelled it with "citation neededs". I also think that "porno" is too much like slang for an encyclopedia, and changed it. Fourohfour 12:17, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I usually don't go for the giant deletion but first he doesn't state clearly what he's saying. I'm guessing he's saying that porno collector box makers choose the size because all the porn stores had shelves made for U-matic tapes that they bought at flea markets. If that's the case then the note could be shorter and there needs to be something in an article on porno. --Gbleem 17:12, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I can't help noticing that in this talk section on pornography, the word "tangential" was misspelled "tangenital"! (A Freudian slip, perhaps?) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.6.66.193 (talk) 08:03, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Two cassette sizes

There is no mention of the two cassette sizes. A picture of such would be good too. But I'm less than clear as to which of the three Umatic variants was available for each of the two sizes. Can some put this into the article? Colin99 19:56, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Further Infomation on Compatability Requested

The article says "Sony introduced the semi backwards-compatible High-band" -- with these players being used often in archival settings currently the article would serve a broader audience to explain the "semi backwards" comment. Could someone add a paragraph or sentence stating if the player/recorders in the U-matic line can play all U-matic tapes or not? See http://umatic.palsite.com/models.html for list of players with the three types of U-matic: (LB), HB & SP (and the optional NR designation.)

The question is unanswered in the article: Do U-matic [all] players play [all] U-matic tapes?

This would be helpful in discovering what a U-matic deck does.

--Dcsutherland 09:18, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] U-Matic for CD mastering

Could someone add to the Compact Disc article something about U-Matic VCRs with a PCM adaptor being used for audio CD mastering? What'd be especially nice is the exact specifications of how many bits of data per video line were used, and how that adds up to the 44.1Khz sampling rate. That's why audio CDs use 44.1Khz rather than something nicely divisible by 2 like 48Khz. Try telling that to many audiophiles and they'll go on about Nyquist frequency and lots of other retconned technobabble about why 48Khz wasn't used, when the truth is just the mundane fact of how much audio data Sony/Phillips was able to pack into each video frame on the tape. ;)

[edit] Light Trails

Television shows that were recorded in the 1970s and early 1980s on U-matic tape often had "light trails" -- smears of light that appeared when a light source was on camera. Much like a long-exposure photograph of a moving light source, except presumably the videotape wasn't a long exposure, as the tape itself was moving. Is there an explanation for this effect? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.8.237.123 (talk) 17:32, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] BVU for Submastering

In the 80s-90s I worked in a documentary a/v production house in the US and we used BVU 3/4" most often to submaster from the ampex 1" Type C videotape system to the VHS tape deck since it was less fragile, being in a cassette and all. IIRC, the workflow was as follows:

Raw footage from Panasonic MII (and later Betamax) mixed with narration to MII or Beta and edited onto 1" then submaster to 3/4" then dupe to VHS for direct sales distribution. Cowbert (talk) 00:24, 10 April 2008 (UTC)