I did search as best I could first. I found these two threads:

http://www.b-roll.net/forum/showthread.php?t=22441

and

http://www.b-roll.net/forum/showthread.php?t=21471

but, that’s info circa 2008, and doesn’t really answer my question.

So, I *thought* I got the steal of the century on a Betacam SX. Hey, SP was king and still can fight, so SX should be more better, right? 😮

Well, I didn’t do enough due diligence. Apparently, I bought the only Sony camera without the universal connector! 😡 In fact, it appears with one exception, the only way out is the tape (no interest in driving tapes to dub) or the friggin monitor tap.

It seems a waste to have all that glass and 3 chips if it’s only a composite video out.

SO… options:

1 – sell camera, do better.
2 – Composite will be ok for local ENG stringer work, you worry too much
3 – start on the quest to find (supercheaply) the unicorn-like SDI 701/702 converter, and use that to squirt it into the laptop
4 – find a pinout of the semihidden 40pin accy conn and see if there’s some usable video signals to make my own breakout box.

-Shawn

PS – I sent out an email to the local affiliates and community cable channels on what formats they prefer / accept. No responses yet.