MICRO TIMING-PHASE DISCUSSION

MICRO TIMING-PHASE RECORDING

When Beta was young editing transitions between scenes was accomplished in one of two ways. The first option was for the tape to be stopped when it was not to be recorded, then pressing the record button when it was to resume. During the time interval the machine came to a complete rest and all movement was halted. The second method was to activate a pause function, this put the machine in a standby mode with the video drum turning and the tape not moving. Both of these types of "edits" (called crash edits) were very crude, and extremely noticeable in the play picture. Evidence of the edit was displayed as picture tearing, flips or loss of sync. To correct this situation and provide clean, virtually noise free edits the micro timing-phase (µTP) system was developed. Special circuitry incorporated into various Beta models would back the tape up slightly when record was requested before beginning the forward movement of the tape. No recording was performers during this reverse movement of the tape. Once forward movement began a slight delay prior to actual recording allowed the electronics to match the signal coming in to the signal already present on the tape. If everything operated on schedule the transition from one scene to the next (the edit) when played back showed almost no disturbance or phasing at the edit points. One of the reasons for the better performance of these edits was that the tape was already moving at the time when recording was switched by the circuitry. This is a great improvement over a situation where the tape is starting up from a dead stop, as with the crash edit method. When dubbing from one machine to the other micro timing-phase is a great improvement over the crash edits but pre-roll editing offers a better solution. For information on pre-roll editing consult various areas throughout this Site, to examine an explanatory chart click here.