My God, What Have We Wrought?
Harvey’s been claiming to be so damned busy these days. What’s he doin’? Glad you asked. I’ve been dealing with what everyone deals with at the workplace: Frustration.
Warning! Tech Talk! Who cares? I do, dick, cause it’s making my life very Goddamned crazy!
Item #1:
Formats are ever changing in our biz. Just like Betamax yielded to VHS ( NOT because of quality, but because of the number of hours you could safely leave it alone in the house with the pets), vinyl to CDs to MP-3 downloads, the broadcast video world does the same, with some nasty ass wrinkles. It takes years of schizophrenia to settle in on a standard format to shoot in out of the millions that will go by the boards. For example, one that CBS goes with for their news divisions across the country means… nothing to the rest of the universe. Mark, my bandmate bought a gorgeous D-9 camera with broadcast lens for $14,000, only about $5K more than the lens alone was worth. How’d he get such a good deal? NOBODY in the industry went with D-9. No one edits D-9. He bought a beautiful Edsel.
So class, we’ve got standard definition (ntsc), what we’re all watching on our Trinitrons tonight, and the new fab Hi Definition of the future. But what does that mean? Well it means if you turn to a Hi-Def broadcast on a Hi Def set, you can get 1080 lines of interlaced beauty. Zits will never look the same in this resolution.
But how do we, the pros, capture the image that gets edited and broadcast? For 20 years, Beta SP was the pretty much universally recognized broadcast video format. But this, along with a handful of others are all standard definition, and while there’s still tons being shot Standard Def, well…
Sony has the 1080i format of Hi Def, which is really what all conversations lead to. Panasonic has the Varicam that really thrives at 720. Then there’s HDV, a smaller format using a different digital recipe or codec that delivers the right number of lines, but uses smaller chips, at least in the cameras we've seen so far. Then there’s Digi-Beta, a standard definition format that looks REALLY good, so some are still shooting with that and transferring it to Hi Def for broadcast.
The latest trend, however is to shoot stuff in 24 frame progressive scan modes that pull frames out in a systematic way from the 30 frame a second modality of ‘regular’ video. This gives the picture a glossy, herky jerky, “film” look. Everyone’s shitting over it. Features are being shot with it. It’s the ‘look dujour’ but probably with a reasonably long life. I mean we’ve been doing full blown, better yet… full PRICE shoots using, not our $40,000+ Betacam (which we have now rid ourselves of), but the $3500 Panasonic that shoots 24p. So now THAT becomes a factor in all this. Sony, while leading the way in High Definition missed the boat and didn’t buy into the 24p revolution, but they ARE Sony, so… they have a new Hi Def cam, that may have a nice new (for them) 24 Frame function, but it records the material via blue laser onto these discs. Cool… but who has the playback decks (fancy drives) in their edit rooms for hired guns like us who, for the most part, shoot, and hand off the shot material to the clients? Dunno.
So we start by buying a Canon XL H1, HDV camera that will provide both 1080i in 24f, 30f, 60i, AND standard definition ntsc in 24f and 30f and blah, blah, blah+ a nice fruit salad of ‘whatever he says’ cool features, yes?. Cool. Nice lens. Only $10,000 when all is said and done. Get this and sit back and wait for the next $40K ish investment that will define the next decade, right? Yeah, but THIS camera opens up worm after worm concerning time code, compatibility with the Sony and Panasonic DV and HDV playback decks, and on and on and on and… at the end of the day, what camera did THESE rock stars use?
No really: http://consumer.usa.canon.com/ir/controller?act=ModelDetailAct&fcategoryid=165&modelid=12152
D-Mom thinks it looks like “One of those cars that changes into a dancing robot.” Check out the REALLY IMPORTANT music.
Item #2 is under consideration. Let me float this one:
A FAR-INFRARED AND MOSSBAUER STUDY OF SOME HEXACOORDINATE ADDITION COMPLEXES OF TIN (IV) HALIDES: THE DEVELOPMENT OF A CAUSE AND EFFECT MODEL TO ACCOUNT FOR THE CORRELATION BETWEEN TIN-LIGAND FORCE CONSTANT AND THE ISOMAR SHIFT.
or
who had nicer boobs?
a) ann-margaret
b) liz tee
c) Sophia el
d) Marilyn
Tough choice.
Warning! Tech Talk! Who cares? I do, dick, cause it’s making my life very Goddamned crazy!
Item #1:
Formats are ever changing in our biz. Just like Betamax yielded to VHS ( NOT because of quality, but because of the number of hours you could safely leave it alone in the house with the pets), vinyl to CDs to MP-3 downloads, the broadcast video world does the same, with some nasty ass wrinkles. It takes years of schizophrenia to settle in on a standard format to shoot in out of the millions that will go by the boards. For example, one that CBS goes with for their news divisions across the country means… nothing to the rest of the universe. Mark, my bandmate bought a gorgeous D-9 camera with broadcast lens for $14,000, only about $5K more than the lens alone was worth. How’d he get such a good deal? NOBODY in the industry went with D-9. No one edits D-9. He bought a beautiful Edsel.
So class, we’ve got standard definition (ntsc), what we’re all watching on our Trinitrons tonight, and the new fab Hi Definition of the future. But what does that mean? Well it means if you turn to a Hi-Def broadcast on a Hi Def set, you can get 1080 lines of interlaced beauty. Zits will never look the same in this resolution.
But how do we, the pros, capture the image that gets edited and broadcast? For 20 years, Beta SP was the pretty much universally recognized broadcast video format. But this, along with a handful of others are all standard definition, and while there’s still tons being shot Standard Def, well…
Sony has the 1080i format of Hi Def, which is really what all conversations lead to. Panasonic has the Varicam that really thrives at 720. Then there’s HDV, a smaller format using a different digital recipe or codec that delivers the right number of lines, but uses smaller chips, at least in the cameras we've seen so far. Then there’s Digi-Beta, a standard definition format that looks REALLY good, so some are still shooting with that and transferring it to Hi Def for broadcast.
The latest trend, however is to shoot stuff in 24 frame progressive scan modes that pull frames out in a systematic way from the 30 frame a second modality of ‘regular’ video. This gives the picture a glossy, herky jerky, “film” look. Everyone’s shitting over it. Features are being shot with it. It’s the ‘look dujour’ but probably with a reasonably long life. I mean we’ve been doing full blown, better yet… full PRICE shoots using, not our $40,000+ Betacam (which we have now rid ourselves of), but the $3500 Panasonic that shoots 24p. So now THAT becomes a factor in all this. Sony, while leading the way in High Definition missed the boat and didn’t buy into the 24p revolution, but they ARE Sony, so… they have a new Hi Def cam, that may have a nice new (for them) 24 Frame function, but it records the material via blue laser onto these discs. Cool… but who has the playback decks (fancy drives) in their edit rooms for hired guns like us who, for the most part, shoot, and hand off the shot material to the clients? Dunno.
So we start by buying a Canon XL H1, HDV camera that will provide both 1080i in 24f, 30f, 60i, AND standard definition ntsc in 24f and 30f and blah, blah, blah+ a nice fruit salad of ‘whatever he says’ cool features, yes?. Cool. Nice lens. Only $10,000 when all is said and done. Get this and sit back and wait for the next $40K ish investment that will define the next decade, right? Yeah, but THIS camera opens up worm after worm concerning time code, compatibility with the Sony and Panasonic DV and HDV playback decks, and on and on and on and… at the end of the day, what camera did THESE rock stars use?
No really: http://consumer.usa.canon.com/ir/controller?act=ModelDetailAct&fcategoryid=165&modelid=12152
D-Mom thinks it looks like “One of those cars that changes into a dancing robot.” Check out the REALLY IMPORTANT music.
Item #2 is under consideration. Let me float this one:
A FAR-INFRARED AND MOSSBAUER STUDY OF SOME HEXACOORDINATE ADDITION COMPLEXES OF TIN (IV) HALIDES: THE DEVELOPMENT OF A CAUSE AND EFFECT MODEL TO ACCOUNT FOR THE CORRELATION BETWEEN TIN-LIGAND FORCE CONSTANT AND THE ISOMAR SHIFT.
or
who had nicer boobs?
a) ann-margaret
b) liz tee
c) Sophia el
d) Marilyn
Tough choice.
posted by H. Harvey at 12:42 AM
3 Comments:
Beta SP is great, but unless you service your own equipment - or know someone who keeps their equipment serviced...S.O.L. after about 10 years.
Thanx for visiting my blog; yes, I love Tin Huey and I think I even have a solo 45 by you in here somewhere. I got the info about Mark's birthday from some "Famous people birthdays" website, so no idea if it's accurate. It said he and I shared a birthday, August 10th. I hatched in '58...
So glad that a CD of "Contents Dislodged" exists - I have a Japanese LP of it with a "lyrics sheet"!
- Ron Kane (20thcentmusic.blogspot)
d) NONE OF THE ABOVE. Winona Shoplifterrydertruckrental.
...and the tch talk gave me shingles.
cb
Winona's may be all that, but last time I saw her talk, all I could check out was her seeming trailertrash (lovely, I'll grant you, however) maw yapping away.
if we're talking modern, and don't need huge, well, I'd encourage throwing Miss Ashley Judd's little friends into the ring, but... I'm done with this thread.
As far as giving you shingles with tech talk, well... touche, Butts.
xoxo
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