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dandeco

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Dec 5, 2008
1,268
1,080
Brockton, MA
I now have a part-time gig with my college's TV studio, helping archive and digitize their master tape library. During the winter break, we finally got the new Macs for our video editing lab, to replace the 2017 Retina 21.5" iMacs we got that year (they had 3.4 GHz quad-core i5 chips, 16 GB RAM, 256 GB SSDs, and AMD Radeon Pro 560 graphics cards with 4 GB dedicated VRAM)...

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Look at that! We got them in blue and yellow, to match the school colors. We've also got Satechi USB-C hubs that we'll soon be setting up for use with them. (The other Mac lab also got one last autumn for the teacher's workstation.)
These are actually M3 iMacs, because the order was initially placed during the summer but took a long time to process for some reason. They have 24 GB of RAM and 512 GB SSDs, and as expected, they all run Mac OS 15 Sequoia. We already have the latest Adobe Creative suite installed on them, along with the current versions of Audacity, AVID Media Composer, DaVinci Resolve, Pro Tools, and the Microsoft Office suite.

Our radio/TV studio director was impressed with the Apple Silicon transition, especially when he got an M2 Max-equipped 16" MacBook Pro and saw a significant speed and horsepower increase over his 2018 Intel MacBook Pro. So of course, it seemed only natural that one of the Mac labs in this building would similarly make the switch, especially since here we try to make sure things are as up to date as possible.

Beginning next week, I will be working on digitizing their library of Video8 and Hi-8 cassettes, using my Sony Digital8 camcorder hooked up to the teacher's station iMac via the FireWire and Thunderbolt adapters. (I was working on archiving digitizing U-Matic master tapes, until our U-Matic tape deck broke, so we're going to have to outsource those.) It's already been exciting preserving the U-Matic tapes not suffering from Sticky Shed Syndrome until the deck broke down, so I can imagine this will also be neat to see! And on an Apple Silicon Mac, no less!
 
Nice! I think we have those iMacs for the Digital Audio Arts section.

I love the choice of going Yellow and Blue, which are similar to our school colours too (Blue and Gold).
 
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Very Nice! When I went to college (1978-1982), everyone had typewriters. I would have killed for even an SE/30 ($6,000+ at the time).
I bet. Funny enough, the Fine Arts building at my college was actually built in 1978! The room the video editing lab is in was originally the old radio studio, before they moved it to another part of the building some time in the 80s or 90s and this room became a tape storage library. Then in the early 2000s it became a video editing lab, but master tapes are also still stored in here, and we're trying to get them safely archived digitally.
 
I bet. Funny enough, the Fine Arts building at my college was actually built in 1978! The room the video editing lab is in was originally the old radio studio, before they moved it to another part of the building some time in the 80s or 90s and this room became a tape storage library. Then in the early 2000s it became a video editing lab, but master tapes are also still stored in here, and we're trying to get them safely archived digitally.
All our tapes are gone, but I've got two DVcam decks in a drawer in my office. Amazing to think that those decks were $6k+ when new.
 
Well, today was my first day digitizing Hi-8 tapes for the college...
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Logging onto the Teacher's Station iMac for the first time.

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Hooking up my Sony DCR-TRV460 via the FireWire and Thunderbolt adapter daisy-chain. Strapped to the back of the stand is a large Belkin 11-in-1 USB-C dock (the other iMacs have smaller Belkin 7-in-1 USB-C hubs strapped to the stands).

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Today I got three Hi-8 tapes imported, via the QuickTime Player's video capture function. Some of the tapes have a bit of trouble, but next time I come in I'm bringing my Hi-8 head cleaning cassette to see if that makes a difference (I'm also going to use it in the camcorder tonight, just to be safe).
 
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Are your tapes various brands? Each brand had different lubricators (I think Sony was liquid, while Panasonic was a powder, etc.) and if you mixed brands, it could gunk up the heads real bad.

About half of my miniDV tapes are unreadable, and I've lost quite a bit of footage. Good luck with your capturing, hope it goes well!
 
Are your tapes various brands? Each brand had different lubricators (I think Sony was liquid, while Panasonic was a powder, etc.) and if you mixed brands, it could gunk up the heads real bad.

About half of my miniDV tapes are unreadable, and I've lost quite a bit of footage. Good luck with your capturing, hope it goes well!
That sounds pretty likely. Of course, cleaning the heads does make a difference. I did lose a couple of MiniDV tapes to something like that.
 
It can. Are you still able to get head cleaner? The ones I used were fitted into a cassette.
Yep, I have a Video8/Hi-8 head cleaner cassette.

this sounds very nice. How fast are the new macs compared to old ones?
Indeed they are. The students have told me they definitely noticed a big boost in speed.
 
Well, today was my first day digitizing Hi-8 tapes for the college...
View attachment 2478790
Logging onto the Teacher's Station iMac for the first time.

View attachment 2478791
Hooking up my Sony DCR-TRV460 via the FireWire and Thunderbolt adapter daisy-chain. Strapped to the back of the stand is a large Belkin 11-in-1 USB-C dock (the other iMacs have smaller Belkin 7-in-1 USB-C hubs strapped to the stands).

View attachment 2478792
Today I got three Hi-8 tapes imported, via the QuickTime Player's video capture function. Some of the tapes have a bit of trouble, but next time I come in I'm bringing my Hi-8 head cleaning cassette to see if that makes a difference (I'm also going to use it in the camcorder tonight, just to be safe).

Git yerself a license to Topaz Video AI. It will clean up those Hi-8 imports beautifully.
 
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