🚀 go-pugleaf

For the MAEstro Project, we wrote a number of drivers for videodisc
and videotape players, including the PC-VCR.  It is our most widely
used device, since we use it for student editing of video.  However,
if I were asked whether I would recommend it, I would say no.

The PC-VCR is incredibly flaky.  The command set is fine, and much
simpler to debug than any Sony command protocols we've worked with,
including VISCA (why the hell does VISCA encode digits as binary-coded
decimal?!).  But, it has a number of problems.  Sometimes the NEC will
simply refuse to listen to your commands.  Sometimes the NEC just
won't read the timecode on the tape, regardless of the condition of
the tape (it fails on brand-new, high quality S-VHS tapes).  The first
minute or so of your tape is pretty much useless as frame-addressable
tape.  The NEC doesn't reliably read the headers it's supposed to be
able to write to the tapes, rendering this feature pretty much
useless.

I could go on and on, but to summarize, our experience with the NEC
PC-VCR has been, shall we say, a learning experience.  We learned a
lot about using videotape for editing (and how much it's worth to pay
for decent hardware), but given the chance to purchase a NEC PC-VCR
today, I would not do so.

The one qualifying statement I can make about the NEC is that we
*have* used it for a number of projects on campus, successfully.  We
had to nursemaid the NEC through the projects sometimes, but for the
most part it did the job.

My recommendation?  Buy a Sony CVD-1000 (a.k.a., the "Vdeck").  It
costs about $100 less than the PC-VCR, it's much lighter and smaller,
the transport seems faster and is definitely more responsive, and most
importantly, the deck (so far) seems to be much more reliable.  Plus,
the Vdeck has a few special effects built-in (audio and video fade,
for example), and it can read the RC timecode burned onto Hi-8 tapes
by Sony camcorders that have that feature (saving you the time of an
extra pass through the tape).

By the way, the Vdeck is Hi-8 mm format.

It's a shame that NEC won't be selling the PC-VCR anymore, because it
probably means that they won't be re-engineering it to introduce a
successor product.  Too bad.

That's my opinion.  If you want more information about MAEstro, send
mail to "maestro@sioux.stanford.edu", or get the source for yourself
via anonymous ftp from the same host (sioux).  You can look at our NEC
driver code yourself if you like.

	George
 
--
______________________________________________________________________________
George D. Drapeau			Internet: drapeau@sioux.stanford.edu
Libraries and Information Resources
Stanford University