U-matic digitization workflow

Hello everybody,

This is my first question in the forum, i hope I'm doing it properly.

I work in a post-production studio in Italy as editor and colorist.

We’re approaching to a project that requires to have old U-matic, Betacam and DVCAM tapes deinterlaced and digitized, so we were thinking to purchase some tools such as Ultrastudio and Teranex to aquire and upscale the material in order to have HD clips from the original analogic material.

Since I didn’t get clear information by the seller I am in contact with and I couldn’t find anything satysfying on the web I have some basic question to ask:

Can anybody suggest me which is the proper workflow?
Which hardware do I need to get the best quality files to work on once in post production? I’m afraid Teranex by its own is not enough because of some connectivity lack.
I’m working with an IMac 5K workstation and LaCie 12big Thunderbolt 3 RAID storage.

Since I’m working with DVCAM my output is a 4 pin Firewire IEEE 1394, using an adapter would work with the Thunderbolt Input of Ultrastudio?

Do I need a TBC to stabilize the composite signal from U-matic, or does Ultrastudio solve the problem?

Which is the best file format for the output, since I will color it in DaVinci?

Thank you for your time, I will appreciate your advices.

You definitely need a TBC to capture from old analog tapes. I recommend a dedicated broadcast TBC, as the built-in TBC of a deck is sometimes insufficient.

I disagree that an internal TBC is bad. Get a Sony BVU-950 U-Matic, and that'll do a good job playing back old 3/4" tapes provided it's been well-maintained. Those things were tanks, really well-designed. The BVUs also have the benefit of moving the head-switching noise into the vertical interval, which is an advantage over previous-generation VCRs. You will need to set the levels via waveform monitors and vectorscopes and so on, but it'll at least tell you if the results are reasonable for archival capture.

one more thought,
i would capture at the tape's native raster & framerate
keep those safe, clone the files
and do any further processing on cloned files

yea BVU950's were the last / best, we always ran thought a TBC, but no idea if that was really needed, it was there, the workflow was solid, it wasn't broken so we never fixed it

i sold the analouge gear years ago, along with TBC's, DA's and sync gen, and have sent any requests for 3/4->files to the folks i sold it all to

still have a analouge breakout cable for my Aja kona card somewhere... hopefully i'll not need it ever again

Hello, I'm afraid BVU are very old and used beasts, better to find a newer pair of SP as low as possible with drum hours and good TBC like British Snell or JVC with DUB to Y/C ; also baking hoven may be usefull for more and more tapes ?

Hello, I'm afraid BVU are very old and used beasts, better to find a newer pair of SP as low as possible with drum hours and good TBC like British Snell or JVC with DUB to Y/C ; also baking hoven may be usefull for more and more tapes ?

Naw, I own one. They're out there and pop up on eBay all the time. (I just checked and there's five up there right now, but they're not cheap.) In LA, there's even a company (VTR Services) that will maintain and align 3/4" machines, especially BVUs. How much longer... that's a good question.