[Dave A]

It is a great solid Betacam recorder/editor, later in the Betacam universe, usually lashed to another deck via a Sony edit controller run on RS-232 for deck-to-deck editing. You can do local editing on a tape with the faceplate editor. In/out/video only/audio only, etc. The head hours are getting high. Sony Service in Teaneck, NJ still services them and their prices are high but not unreasonable and it will be like new. If it plays, run it 'till the heads die and buy another one. Probably cheaper than repairs.

The first thing you learn with these old decks is that old tapes sluff off oxide and clog the heads sending your video to snow. You will learn the trick of keeping the top lid unscrewed so you can lift up any boards covering the heads and clean the heads with your fingertip dipped in rubbing alcohol...not wet but just damp...and gently rubbing them top to bottom across the head gap. Powered down of course. Then wait a minute for it to dry and try the tape again.

Another trick is to just fast-forward and rewind the tape before you try to play it. This will loosen up the tape that has sat for years and is sticking to itself. If the deck drags down, stops and give an error code because of the "sticktion" you might give up on this tape. If it does error code and stops, just power down, hold the eject button and power up again. This usually ejects the tape. If it works, this usually dislodges most oxide problems on one pass. Problem is that this pass probably clogged the head. Clean and it will probably play all the way. I do this with my Umatic tapes and BVU-950 deck.

If you want a camera, the old-school BVP-3/30 cameras are 3-tube and a learning experience by themselves. My era. A BVV-1 deck is a record only deck. After that the BVP-xx series CCD cameras and decks are everywhere.

Have fun with this era of broadcasting.