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DV Technology and the Camcorder

Dec 30, 2005

📄 Contents

␡

About DV
Matching a DV Camcorder to Your Shooting Style
Access to Controls
Camcorder Resolution and Picture Quality
What Are NTSC/PAL/SECAM Broadcast Formats?
What Do You Need to Know About Scanning Modes?
Do You Need Automatic Camcorder Controls?
Optical vs. Digital Zoom
Audio Options
Getting DV into Your Computer
Your Mission

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What Do You Need to Know About Scanning Modes?

We've discussed scanning, but we haven't looked at how different scanning modes might affect your selection of a DV camcorder. Not every camcorder supports every scanning mode. Depending on the nature of your project, especially its intended release media, you will need to make sure your camcorder supports the needed scanning mode.

Camcorders use two possible scanning modes:

Interlaced (mainstay of ATV)
Progressive (considered more "filmic")

Interlaced

Interlaced scanning will be with us for awhile, since broadcast technology has to remain backward compatible with the old ATV standard. That means if you're aiming your video project at release on NTSC video, you'll probably shoot in 4:3 aspect ratio, 30I (30 fps, interlaced). Any consumer or professional NTSC DV camcorder will do the job.

NOTE

When you're studying product literature and trade magazine articles, you may see the scanning-mode designation 60I, which means "60 fields per second interlaced." It's therefore equivalent to 30I, or "30 frames per second interlaced." In general you may see 60I used more commonly to refer to HD cameras. Perhaps the rationale is that a high-def field exceeds the resolution of a normal standard-def frame. To be consistent, this book sticks to the frame rate, not the field rate, when discussing scanning modes.

Curiously enough, HDTV was originally intended to be compatible with old sets, which meant interlaced scanning. This plan was abandoned as impractical, but one of two predominant HDTV broadcast formats still uses interlaced scanning. It's designated 1080I because it has 1,080 scan lines. So, one scanning mode only available on HD camcorders is 1080I—with a variety of frame-rate options. This HDTV format is designated by the number of scan lines rather than by fps, which can vary by broadcaster.

Progressive

If you are planning to release your project on film, or want your video to look like film, you will probably set your camcorder to use progressive scanning mode, in which interlacing is turned off and the camcorder captures the entire picture one frame at a time, like a motion picture camera. Progressive scanning eliminates artifacts due to interlacing and blurs rapid motion a bit, which contributes even more to a film look.

The most common progressive scanning option for NTSC camcorders is 30P—30 fps without interlacing. Even if you are producing primarily for video, this mode can give a filmed look to your production. A show shot in 30P and converted to NTSC in post will look more like a film that was converted to television.

Another option, which first appeared in HD and is now appearing in prosumer DV camcorders (starting with the Panasonic AG-DVX100), allows you to shoot at 24 instead of 30 fps. This mode is called 24P, which stands for 24 fps progressive. The 24P mode provides a one-to-one match with motion-picture frame rate, and makes for better transfers. Watch for 24P scanning to become an increasingly common DV camcorder feature.

The other most commonly used HDTV mode, found only on HD camcorders, is 720P, which progressively scans 720 lines—at various frame rates (like the interlaced HDTV format, the number of scan lines is fixed but fps can vary by broadcaster).

Making Video Look Like Film

Most of the time you will want your video to look like...a video. But sometimes, whether you are tailoring your production for film transfer or simply trying to create a television show that has a glossy, high-quality film look, you will want to make your video look more like film. This can be accomplished by using a combination of DV camcorder settings and postproduction techniques. Film-look characteristics include:

Resolution . If you require theater-quality, 35mm film resolution, shoot in HD. In comparison, transferring a standard DV video to film for big-screen theatrical exhibition looks like 16mm. That's not necessarily bad: It can give your production an interesting cult-movie quality. If you get a chance to see 28 Days Later which was shot in PAL DV, on the wide screen, you'll see what we mean. This movie had a budget large enough to shoot on film, but its producers chose DV to get the look they were after.

Film grain and video noise . Film resolution is much higher than DV, and even a bit higher than today's HD, but since the photosensitive particles in the film emulsion are distributed randomly, grain structure is often visible in projected film, especially in low light. If you want to capture that look, you can actually add "noise" to the video image during post, providing a grainy, film-like texture. If you want to make a video production look like an old newsreel or home movie, one type of digital processing will even add random scratch marks to your footage.

Contrast range . This is the variation from the brightest to the darkest areas in a scene. The contrast range of film is about 100:1. The contrast range of video, limited by the current state of the art in CCD and related technologies, is only about 30:1. The blacks in a film look blacker than they will in video; the whites look whiter, and you can see more detail in both shaded and sunlit areas. In video, if you expose for a dark face in the shade of a tree, the brightly lit areas will be washed out. If you expose for the brightest areas, the face under the tree will turn to mud. So, to give your video a film look, you must pay careful attention to keeping your lighting even. Although you can handle some contrast-range problems through color correction in post, the best way to address this issue is by lighting the scene very carefully in the first place.

Color space . If you're shooting primarily for film transfer, color space doesn't matter. However, due to variations in specific lenses, chips, and circuitry, each camcorder will give a somewhat different look. Plan on shooting tests with different camcorders, doing transfers to specific film stocks, and evaluating the results.

Motion capture . Progressive scanning modes (30P or 24P) will look more film-like than interlaced modes, because they provide some blurring of fast-moving objects—an effect audiences associate with film.

Depth of field . Depth of field defines the range of distances that will remain in focus within a single shot. In general, video offers greater depth of field than film. While it may seem counter-intuitive, most cinematographers consider that to be video's disadvantage. The cinematographer's goal is to show the viewer where to look, and controlling focus is one way to do that. If everything in the shot is in sharp focus, it's harder to direct the viewer's attention. To achieve a shallower, and more film-like, depth of field, look for a vidcam with a large CCD—or optical target area. (You can also use lower f-stop settings and longer lenses.) The bigger the chips (or the optical target area) in the camcorder, the more shallow the depth of field you can achieve. For more information on lighting scenes to achieve depth, see "Use Rim Light for Depth" in Chapter 6.

TIP

You can buy an adapter developed by P+S Technik that lets you use standard motion-picture lenses on some prosumer and professional camcorders. With the adapter in place, the CCD chip is no longer the initial optical target. Rather, the image is focused on a ground-glass screen that's the same size as a 35mm frame, after which the resulting image is reflected onto the chips. The larger optical target creates a shallower, and more visually pleasing, depth of field—permitting the videographer to use those motion-picture lenses to their best advantage.

If you don't have access to a 24P NTSC camera, would a PAL video camera do better for shooting film look? This question lies at the heart of a fierce controversy. Ask low-budget filmmakers who aspire to make Hollywood productions, and the answer you'll hear most often is, "For sure." PAL's 25 fps frame rate is so close to film's 24 fps that transferring from PAL to film is assumed to be easier and presumed to look smoother. In addition, PAL offers 20 percent higher resolution—625 lines per frame instead of 525—which looks better on film. Finally, some people think PAL's 4:2:0 color space looks more film-like. This is why some North American filmmakers pay a premium to rent PAL camcorders for their projects, even though they are relatively difficult to find outside Europe.

However, another set of filmmakers (including the authors of this book) aren't convinced. A lot depends on the "look" of the individual camcorder and the expertise of the lab doing the tape-to-film transfer. (For more information on video-to-film transfers, see "Releasing on Theatrical Film" in Chapter 12.)

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