Betacam (SP)

Betacam SP was until the 1990's the broadcast standard for TV. It replaced Betacam which (ironically) was developed from the failed domestic format Betamax which lost out to VHS in this market. The format has since been evolved into Digital Betacam which is the current TV standard for SD aquisition and, until fairly recently, most transmissions. The SP format is a component analogue system relying on signal bandwidth to produce the highest quality picture. There are in fact three standards of Betacam SP, Universal, Professional, and Broadcast. It is only the Broadcast range of machines that use the full 5.5mhz bandwidth. These machines are designated with a BVW prefix. UVW and PVW prefixed machines use only 3.5mhz and are not as good quality, but very good none the less. Three connections to and from this format are required to acess the full quality picture, known as component connections, they consist of Y, B-Y, and R-Y. These are used to recreate the original Red Green Blue colours of the signal plus the luminance value of the picture.