#AG 1960-1970 Hi8 or SVHS
11 messages in this thread
Hi Bob
<This concerns me. Is this the tape or the camera.>
It's not not the tape or the camra. It's the Hi-8 format. Hi-8
always generates a fair amount of noise in bright colors, especially
red. I'm not sure if S-VHS is the same way. Plug your camera into
your tv and point it at something that's bright red. Record at the
same time. When you look at the monitor, you will probably see
little or no noise in the red. Now play back the tape and you'll
see noise in the red. I shoot on the EVW-327, and although reds look
excellent on the monitor, they suffer when put to tape.
You mentioned in your response to Christopher about editing with S-VHS
and losing a generation. You wouldn't have to lose a generation
editing with S-VHS. You could edit from Hi-8 directly to S-VHS,
which is what a lot of people do.
CK
Craig & Bob, PMFJI,
When you say plug your camera into your TV (and it looks o.k.) and
then look at the tape (and it is noisy) does that mean that people
that shoot Hi-8 and possibly SVHS are going to get a huge boost in
quality by recroding straight to digital non-linear devices like the
new NewTek portable D2 recorder? The "Flyer in a box" will allow you
to skip the whole tape thing until the final output to tape, and if
that is the weakest link in the Hi-8 and SVHS world, won't that help
a bunch?
>>The "Flyer in a box" will allow you to skip the whole tape thing until the
final >>output to tape, and if that is the weakest link in the
>>Hi-8 and SVHS world, won't that help a bunch?
I guess if I was at a fixed sight this would be possible..
Bob.
The new PCTOASTER/FLYER is intended to be portable. I believe its
about 18 inches by 6 inches by 6 inches. You carry it around in a bag
and plug your camera into it.
Michael
PMFJI –
Not only do you get better recording, by bypassing the tape, but the resolution
of most cameras are better than the resulting resolution recorded to tape. I
seem to remember that our Canon L1 captures over 500 lines, but records close
to 400, a 20% loss.
The NewTek portable D2 recorder, which houses the Toaster/Flyer for
Windows, has a battery pack so it can be carried on location. It has
room for 3 3.5" drives (max capacity at this moment 4GB each) which,
at 5 minutes per GB, would record just about one hour. That
resolution produces almost no compression loss (see DV article on NLE
systems) and, therefore, completely eliminates the drop frame
features of Hi8.
Of course, it would also be easy to hook up to in the studio. In either case,
the drives are designed as plug-ins, so spares could be swapped out for more
capacity. At current pricing, the 4GB's are about $1,900.
Hank
Videology, Inc Where service is our business with
P.O.M.P. under all circumstances
Hi John.
Yes. If you were able to take your Non-linear editor to the site
where you're shooting, and plug your camera directly into the editor
and use it as a recorder instead of tape, that would really improve
your picture quality, providing you used a low compression ratio and
have a LOT of hard drive space.
CK
Hi Craig –
This is the new option that NewTek has built into their Toaster for Windows
product. It has batteries and three 3.5" harddrives and can store video and
timecode in the field. I know AntonBauer was looking to provide them with the
necessary battery options. The "bay" could also provide some editing
capabilities with the attached LCD display, and you could also hook it to a
laptop and do full editing in the field.
Hank
Videology, Inc Where service is our business with
P.O.M.P. under all circumstances
"It's not not the tape or the camra. It's the Hi-8 format. Hi-8 always
generates a fair amount of noise in bright colors, especially red. I'm not sure
if S-VHS is the same way."
From my experiences, I'd say it was a limitation of the signal encoding used
in both Hi8 and SVHS. Color information has to be put through a frequency shift
during recording in order to prevent chroma and luma from interfering with each
other; All colors suffer, especially blue and red… and the human eye is more
sensitive to red. This process is often called "color-under" and it is used on
Beta thru EdBeta, S/VHS, and Hi/8mm (is it not used on BetacamSP or MII).
-Chris
CNR Media Services
Hi Chris.
Thanks for the explanation on the noise problem. What exactly does color under
mean? I know Betacam records signals as Y,R-Y,B-Y. I'm guessing
Y=luminance(+green?) R=red and B=blue. If green is not included with Y, then
where is it? Would this be a color OVER format?
Thanks
CK
Betacam certainly isn't "color-over" (it's not _that_ good); think of it as
"color-on-par" <g>. Color-under is just an expression that means the color
signal is being squashed into a lower-than-normal bandwidth. That's why when
you examine an image from a dub using two color-under formats, the color often
looks like someone did a messy watercolor job on a sharp B/W photo; the color
tinting that is added to the basic B/W image follows the details less
acuurately… it has a lower resolution.
-Chris
CNR Media Services
Hi Chris. (Is that alright if I call you Chris?)
Thanks for the explanation on the color-under concept.
CK