The UK's most affordable and flexible Digital Betacam (DigiBeta), Betacam SX, MPEG IMX Betacam transfers.
A personal service by an engineer with 20 years of video experience. Transfers to DVD, computer and more.
Costs from £20 per tape, extra copies £3.50 or less. Discounts for quantity. Lowest prices in the UK but the highest quality.
Used in television studios throughout the world, Digital Betacam is a very popular professional video format. There are two tapes sizes, the smaller ones are very similar to domestic Beta (Betamax) tapes to look at. My equipment will handle both the smaller and larger sized cassettes and also can play Betacam SX and MPEG IMX tapes. Video99 also handles all analogue Betacam tapes.
You may come across Digital Betacam or Betacam SX tapes which have been recorded by a professional video company, for example in creating training, advertising or promo films. But how can you view the recording? Video99 can transfer these recordings to normal viewable DVD, or to DV-AVI computer files on hard disk, or even miniDV or DVCAM tape. The quality is of course excellent, though note that any such copy is less than ideal for broadcast use because DVD and DV use more compression than the original tape format.
The Digital Betacam player we use for our video transfers is the very expensive Sony J3.
Professional Digital Betacam (DigiBeta) tapes (large size on left and small size on the right above) are blue or blue-grey. Betacam SX tape shells are bright yellow and MPEG IMX cassettes are a muted green. Much the most popular form are the blue Digital Betacam tapes.
Basic Menu from £20 per tape: The menus are limited to just a title, but you get a chapter point every 5 minutes so it is easy to move around the DVD. Extra copies of these DVDs cost just £3.50 each and are recommended.
We are aware that these tapes tend to be a little longer than their marked times. Other business charge extra as soon as you go over, say 30 minutes, but our pricing is much fairer. For a basic DVD, the cost per tape is:
| Running time of each tape | Cost per tape (1-9 tapes) | Cost per tape (10 tapes or more) |
| 0-35 minutes | £20 | £15 |
| 36-65 minutes | £35 | £30 |
| 66 - 125 minutes | £40 | £35 |
Deluxe Menu from £30 per tape: Nice menu icons showing what is on that part of the recording, and if you email me with titles I will put them on the DVD for you too. I place the chapter breaks at points of interest or new recordings. These menus look like professionally recorded DVD films. Extra copies are very cheap, just £2.50 each, and well worth taking.
| Running time of each tape | Cost per tape (1-9 tapes) | Cost per tape (10 tapes or more) |
| 0-35 minutes | £30 | £25 |
| 36-65 minutes | £45 | £40 |
| 66 - 125 minutes | £50 | £45 |
DVD-ROM from £25: Up to 20 minutes hours on one DVD-Rom in high quality DV-AVI video files.
Options include transfer to DV AVI format files on hard disk for larger quantities of tapes (5 or more), and transfer to miniDV or DVCAM. Just email me for details.
| PAL | NTSC | |
| YES | YES | |
We have a new and easy order page, just select what kind of tapes you have and supply your details. If for any reason you get stuck filling out the form, just email me and I'll help you personally. It's a personal service I offer, not like some of the big video editing houses. I understand that in many cases you will not be able to tell how much material is on the original recordings. If recorded on equipment from another country, see the Television systems explained.
Not everyone
needs their tapes returned once they have the DVDs, but if you do, please remember to include postage costs. For a single
(small) video tape in the UK, this is just £2.50 For larger quantities, and tapes from outside the UK, I will let you know.
Ideally can you ensure you send the tapes in a package which is sufficiently large and robust for me to use to send back your original tapes. Usually I will send the DVDs to you ahead of returning your tapes, then when you've confirmed you are happy with the
DVDs, I will return your tapes. This way I can help you further if necessary - for example you can now see you want a different part of a tape transferred on its own or you want extra copies.
"Hi Colin, I’ve had a quick scan of the take and it all looks good, so yes, you can send the master back. Thanks Yusuf" Digital Betacam to miniDV tape. 26.01.10
"Colin We have received the Birthday videos on time We'r so pleased a fantastic job. "Well Done" Many Thanks Barry & Caroline" Digital Betacam tapes made into a Deluxe Menu DVD with boxes and 10 copies. An outfit in Glasgow failed to run the tapes and left the customer waiting for months before returning them. 20.11.09
"I'm truly pleased you pointed me in this direction when we first spoke about archiving. With my eternal gratitude and very best wishes... Malcolm" Customer initially asked for DVD transfers but I suggested hard disk DV-AVI files.30.11.09 - Since then the same customer has returned with several more batches of work.
If you have any questions, just email
me and I'll reply promptly. Also see the video99.co.uk Questions
and Answers (FAQ) All material on
this web site is copyright www.video99.co.uk
and www.colin99.co.uk though trade
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Last updated 02 July 2011