Features - Sony MSW-A2000 Operation Manual

1-1 Features

The MSW-A2000/A2000P/M2000/M2000P/2000 is a
digital videocassette recorder based on the MPEG
IMX format.
This unit uses large scale integrated circuits for signal
processing, and has a simple internal construction,
allowing it to provide functionality at least equivalent
to a conventional VTR in a compact (4U size),
lightweight, and low power consumption design.
It not only offers recording and playback in MPEG
IMX format, but can also play back tapes recorded in
Betacam SX format or analog Betacam format
Furthermore, the MSW-M2000/M2000P can also
playback tapes recorded in digital Betacam format.
a) The MSW-2000 does not support analog Betacam format.
MPEG IMX format
The MPEG IMX format uses the same 12.65-mm
width tape as the conventional Betacam series. This
economical format uses 50 Mbps high image quality
MPEG-2 compression, and offers up to three hours of
recording.
The video signal compression, as in the Betacam SX
format, uses MPEG-2, and compressed data can be
passed directly without loss of quality, not only to
VTRs, but also to other devices with MPEG support,
such as nonlinear editors or servers. There is thus high
compatibility with the next generation of digital
television formats supporting MPEG-2.
The audio tracks allow up to eight channels to be
recorded, and this also provides future extensibility for
multichannel, multilingual broadcasting, data
broadcasting, and so on.
Direction of tape travel
Video
Audio
Audio
Video
Control (CTL) track
a) Supplemental Automatic Tracking signal
a) .
Direction of head
motion
SAT a)
Time code track
High-performance heads and compatibility
playback function
The newly developed high-performance heads and
dynamic tracking (DT) technology provide high-
density recording and playback in narrow tracks with
high reliability. In addition to the MPEG IMX
recording and playback heads, this unit is also
equipped with Betacam SX format playback heads,
digital Betacam playback heads, and analog Betacam
DT heads, to provide compatibility playback functions,
and allowing a wide variety of recorded resources to
be used effectively.
(Note that the compatibility playback functions differ
depending on the models covered by this manual.)
High-precision digital signal processing
and range of interfaces
The MPEG IMX VTR digital video signal processing
uses 4:2:2 component video signals complying with
ITU-R Rec 601/SMPTE 259M, which are compressed
with ISO/IEC 13818-2000 MPEG-2 compression.
While supporting a wide range of input and output
signals, all of the VTR internal processing is digital,
providing high stability and reliability.
The audio signals, similarly, are based on AES/EBU
format, and are subjected to digital signal processing
while still uncompressed.
The following interfaces are standard equipment, for
ease of connection to different external devices.
• Analog composite signal input/output
• Analog component signal input/output
• Analog audio signal input/output (4 channels)
• Serial Digital Interface SMPTE 259M input/output
(component digital video/audio, 8 channels)
• AES/EBU serial digital audio input/output (8
channels)
• SDTI-CP SMPTE 326M input/output (MPEG video/
audio data)
• Time code input/output
1-1
Chapter 1 Overview