Sony SVO-1500 - Should I Refurbish It?
Posted: Wed Mar 15, 2017 5:31 pm
I picked up a Sony SVO-1500 VHS player for free from a company that used it for small in-house production work. It appears to have been well cared for and it is working OK. I did some research and it turns out that Sony will still service/refurb the unit at $135/hr (US). I'm going to be digitizing about 100 old personal (not commercial) VHS tapes and I'm wondering if it's worth putting a few hundred dollars into this deck vs. purchasing something of unknown quality from eBay or purchasing a new consumer grade deck.
My signal chain is the SVO-1500 > tvONE 1T-TBC > Intensity Shuttle Thunderbolt > iMac. From there I'll be working working in FCPX.
My test setup seems to work well with no dropped frames but I am looking for a better TBC just in case (more likely when) I run into tapes that are really bad. Once I've got everything rock solid, the fun begins.
I'm a newbie and truly appreciate the feedback. Thanks.
My signal chain is the SVO-1500 > tvONE 1T-TBC > Intensity Shuttle Thunderbolt > iMac. From there I'll be working working in FCPX.
My test setup seems to work well with no dropped frames but I am looking for a better TBC just in case (more likely when) I run into tapes that are really bad. Once I've got everything rock solid, the fun begins.
I'm a newbie and truly appreciate the feedback. Thanks.