Digital Video (DV) Frequently Asked Questions

Revised 13 May 2007
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Text and pictures Copyright © 1998/1999/2000/2001/2002/2004/2005/2006/2007 David H Dennis; all rights reserved.

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As a frequent visitor to rec.video.production and rec.video.desktop, I've noticed that there are few convenient sources of information on DV equipment and tips. Worse, most of those that exist are run by companies that seem rather more keen on selling the latest one-day wonder product than one might hope.

Every once in a while, a denizen of these groups decides that a FAQ is necessary, but as far as I know, nobody has taken the time to write one. I have more experience writing FAQs than I do with video, but I have put together a short, fully edited production using the products mentioned here, so I think I know enough to help educate others. For more about me and the other documents I've written, visit my personal web page.

This is an opinionated document because I'm an opinionated person; however, I have tried to express all views fairly, even when they're obviously wrong :-).

If you have contributions you'd like to share or comments you'd like to make, drop me a line at david@amazing.com.

The DV FAQ's official URL is http://www.amazing.com/dv/dv-faq.html

Can I make money with DV equipment?

The equipment is not likely to be the problem; the problem is going to be your skills, which are both talent to create what you need and the ability to sell it to people who are inclined to pay you.

If you want to do a one-off project, I'd recommend that you hire a professional videographer and crew. This will probably cost you less than paying for equipment and your time spent learning it, and it will give you more time to focus on what you actually want in your project. Best of all, you're guaranteed a good-quality result, assuming you have an adequate budget and hire competent people.

You should only get into this business and buy the equipment if you really love creating video, and you have a project you feel would make you succeed, or sufficient contacts to get video making jobs. If you don't have those things, your equipment is more likely to sit around gathering dust than making you money.

As someone who has started numerous entrepeneurial ventures - most of them sadly unsuccessful - I can say that starting a business is a great deal harder than it looks.

Should I get into digital video? What's the best format?

You probably should, unless you're wedded to the past. Pretty much every video camera and accessory available today is digital. The days of the analogue camera are very much gone. (This was a real question when the MiniDV camcorder was launched and this FAQ written back in 1998!)

The question remains as to what kind of video camera you should buy, and that depends on your needs, as we will discuss in later sections.

There's pretty much no video but digital video available today, so this isn't really the debatable question it was when this FAQ was first written in 1998. Now the relevent question is whether you want to use traditional MiniDV or the newer high definition formats.

I always love considering the high end, so naturally we can consider eccentric billionaire (and I mean this in a good way) Jim Jannard's groundbreaking new venture, RED camera. For $17,500 plus $12,000-odd for a lens, viewfinder and other needed items, you can get a camera that can shoot ultra-high definition video, at essentially the same quality as 35mm film.

His camera is still under development, but early reports are quite impressive. Unfortunately, it will not be available for some time. On 12 May 2007, Jim posted on the reduser forums to say that there is going to be about a five week delay before they have an exact delivery schedule. The best estimates are that any current order should arrive at your doorstep in about a year. Updates can be found at the reduser.net forums.

So it's not available just yet, and the formidable costs of the disk space needed to edit RED video make it out of reach for many, even those who could afford the initial price. So let's talk about some cheaper alternatives.

In the high end, a lot of people prefer to capture to disk instead of tape. This has huge advantages. Squeezing your video on tape requires that it be compressed to a small percentage of its original resolution and size. Saving it to disk lets you keep more of the original video stream intact, allowing a much higher quality image. Of course you still have to pay for all that storage in the end, but with disk storage you can attach it to your computer and easily copy out what you need.

However, most solutions currently available are way too expensive for most people. As a result, RED-style resolution, even if amazingly less expensive than it was previously, is going to be out of our reach.

Next down is the HDV video format, which squeezes high definition on a MiniDV tape. A lot of skeptics said it could not be done, and the first camera to do it, made by JVC, was downright awful. But the format has matured with time, and although the images are not as beautiful as "pure" high-definition video, they are much nicer than regular definition.

Unfortunately, a caveat is necessary when considering high-definition camcorders. Beause the images are so severely compressed, translating high definition images to a regular TV may actually create inferior quality images to standard definition. So if you have a product whose primary audience is still on the trailing edge of video, you may want to stick with standard definition digital video.

Standard definition video can best be had in the popular MiniDV format. I've included some information about other digital formats here, but really, MiniDV is the only really popular supported SD format. I would not recommend buying a camcorder that is not MiniDV (or HDV) compatible, or one of the cutting-edge systems mentioned above.

There have been some efforts to create camcorders based on DVD and smaller tapes, but unfortunately you sacrifice quite a bit of quality and don't pay any less. Worse, there are very few editing systems available for these formats.

Sony has made a new tapeless HDV camcorder using a 30gb hard drive to record video. This is a great idea and I look forward to seeing its continued development, but at this time it's not compatible wth major editing systems. Until that changes, I can't recomend the format. A review of this unit claims that Sony's Vegas Video will soon have editing support. No word on whether the format will ever be supported under Final Cut Pro or anything else.

• If you want the most beautiful results, get a RED and you won't be sorry.
• If you want the most beautiful affordable results, get a high definition camcorder, and you won't be sorry.
• If you need compatibility with regular televisions, or if you can't afford the first two options, buy a MiniDV camcorder.

What should I look for in a camcorder other than format?

If you want the most intense colors not using CMOS, you need a 3CCD (often called three-chip) camcorder. This has one image sensor for each of the three primary colors, red, green and blue. These cameras are quite expensive but well worth the extra money for the more vivid, higher quality color.

The primary difference in image quality between consumer and professional camcorders is three-chip or CMOS versus the rest of the market.

The first HDV camera was a one-chip and because of that colors were largely washed out and unattractive.

If you are looking to shoot professional quality productions, easy to use manual controls are very important. Unfortunately, manual controls, together with high-quality optics, bulk up the camera. A lens with manual controls is bigger and heavier than one without.

From a shooter's perspective, manual controls that are connected to the lens are vital - that is, a manual zoom ring and a manual focus ring. Very few cameras not aimed at professionals have these features, so most of us wind up compromising. Even the interchangable lens Canon XL series (XL1, XL2, XL HD) camcorders come with an automatic lens and manual lenses are only available at significant extra cost and lacking in critical features.

A standard definition camcorder will give you attractive closeups, of faces for example, but landscapes will look fuzzy and lacking in detail.

A high-definition camcorder will give you beautiful landscapes and attractive closeups.

Basically, the more panoramic your shot, the more high definition matters. Sports in high definition really show up well because you can read the names and numbers of the uniforms more clearly, but an intimate drama with lots of closeups might not look too much better in high def.

How good are still pictures taken with a video camera?

Generally, awful. If you are at all serious about still pictures, you should buy a digital SLR, which will give you far, far superior pictures to any digital video camcorder, even high definition.

In particular, still pictures from one-chip cameras look almost as bad as typical cellphone pictures.

When I first bought my MiniDV camcorder, it was actually better quality than the digital still cameras available at the time. However, that only lasted for about a year after I bought it. The XL1 stills I took then would now be considered of laughable quality, and I paid $4,400 for my XL1. Ah, the joys of being an early adopter!

But I'm not sorry because I got some great pictures with my XL1 that I wouldn't have if I'd waited.

Despite all this, there are some cases where taking stills with a video camera may be the best thing you can do. If you can use the progressive scan mode of your video camera (often called frame movie mode), you can cut out individual frames from your video and use them as stills. This is great for sports or your kids, where individual frames of moving pictures can be easily selected and enjoyed.

So no, don't use your video camera as a still camera -- but do consider taking individual frames out of video and saving them as stills. The quality might not be the greatest, but it's a way you an capture things you might get in no other way. We talk about this in more detail later on.

So, how much will this all cost me?

In 2006, DV can be as cheap or expensive as you want it to be. At the low end, you can use your own PC, the free video editing program bundled with Windows XP and a $500-odd video camera and get results that would have looked pretty darn impressive a few years ago.

Professional results require professional equipment, but you can get pretty close with prosumer equipment. This is equipment aimed at consumers but designed to give them near-professional results. HDV cameras like the Sony FX1, Canon XL HD and others can get highly professional results. And if you don't want to leap into high definition, you can get great results from the Canon XL2, Canon GL2, Sony VX-2100 and Sony TRV-900. Most people won't be able to distinguish videos made with these cameras from professional work produced with $25,000 cameras. This class of camera costs roughly $2,000 on up.

How much more disk space does HD video take up than SD?

According to Jim Heid (via Jeff Carlson), one hour of DV takes about 13 gigabytes, while one hour of HDV video takes from 38-50 gb, depending on the complexity of the video being encoded.

My Prejudices

I also blatantly favour Macs over PCs, for four reasons.

First, Apple has made a huge difference in this field. Introducing Final Cut Pro made professional-grade video editing available to individual pros and advanced hobbyists. It might be a stretch, but most of us can come up with $1,000-odd if it's for the dream.

Apple also gave quality video editing for the rest of us with iMovie, and for those who want to dabble with sophisticated tools, Final Cut Express gives you 90% of what's in Final Cut for a third the price.

In short, Apple's earned their stripes. They've come up with the industry's best tools, priced them fairly, and they richly deserve our loyalty.

Second, when I started video editing, PCs were almost impossible to set up and highly unreliable when they were.

Third, I've done Windows programming and a smidge of IT. I've looked down the belly of the beast, and quite frankly I just plain don't like Windows. At all.

Because of this, I have virtually no experience with video editing in Windows and so Windows coverage in this document's pretty spotty. Due to my own prejudices, I doubt that this will ever change.

But Macs are so much more expensive than PCs!

If you don't own a quality LCD monitor, the new generation of Intel iMac at $999 is a better deal. The dual core Intel processor really flies for video editing - in fact, it's more powerful than the $3,000 PowerMac G5 I bought a few years back.

Generally, Windows PCs are a huge pain to set up, maintain and run. And Apple's software is easily best of breed. The Final Cut Studio package, for $1,299, gives you everything you need to do professional video work.

The heap entry level Windows PC is not nearly as powerful as the Mac Mini or iMac, so it's not strictly fair to compare prices. If you compare the dual core processor systems on both platforms, they are very similar in price, with the Mac maybe 10-20% more expensive. For me, thep price difference is well worth it.

Friends of mine who use PCs like Vegas video better than any other package. Adobe Premiere has improved with Premier Pro but still lags behind Apple's solutions.

The bottom line is that unless you have a PC that's already powerful enough to do video editing, it's going to be very close in price to a modern Intel iMac, MacBook or Mac Pro.

How would I compare MiniDV with the Digital8 format?

In concept and potential image quality, they are strikingly similar. Since they use the same basic recording method, you can use the same editing equipment and software with either, and maximum quality should be exactly the same.

MiniDV has two major advantages that make it superior technology. The first one applies to any system, while the second applies strictly to the high end.

Since the tapes are very small, incredibly tiny cameras can be made. This is very good if you want to slip something in your purse or pocket for spur of the moment vacation shots. Some of this advantage is reduced by the fact that MiniDV tapes are hard to find, so you're likely to need to pack them for your trip instead of buying them along the way.

Because MiniDV is considered the "prosumer" or "semi-professional" format, extremely high-quality cameras are made for it, such as the Canon XL1, Sony VX-1000 and Sony TRV-900. These cameras will easily blow away anything available for Digital8.

The main disadvantage of MiniDV is that tapes can be difficult to find. You can buy 8mm or Hi-8 capable tapes virtually anywhere; I've seen them in grocery markets, drug stores, you name it. MiniDV tapes, being produced for an elite audience, normally are found only in large video superstores such as Good Guys, Frys and Circuit City. Strangely enough, I rarely find them in the high-end camera stores that actually sell most high-end DV equipment.

A correlary to this is that MiniDV tapes are expensive relative to 8mm. They cost roughly double the cost of a comparable 8mm tape.

One advantage of MiniDV tapes is that they are designed to be fairly durable when used for digital recordings. I've heard reports of Hi-8 tapes (when used in the older Hi8 format) wearing out very fast; this doesn't seem to be as much of a problem with MiniDV, although I will admit that I have not tested it to the limit.

While I had thought that the higher speed used to record Digital8 (double the speed of 8mm/Hi-8 recording) would be a major problem, apparently this is not the case. The European PAL system already runs Hi-8 tapes at nearly the same speed as Digital8.

The bottom line is that I'd get MiniDV unless I was likely to have trouble obtaining tapes. Low-end MiniDV cameras start at around $100 more than Digital8.

The good news in all of this is that we're likely to get more progress on the video editing front, which will benefit both MiniDV and Digital8 users. A year ago, when I bought my video editing system, FireWire was an expensive optional extra; now, it's standard on many computers. Apple now includes FireWire in even its low-end iMac computer line, and Sony has built-in FireWire in its VAIO computers. While I am skeptical about the performance of VAIO computers, I have no doubt that someone will eventually get it right.

At this point, although Digital8 has some potential problems I discussed above, I think the extension of digital formatting to low-end equipment is a potentially revolutionary development. As a result, I would definitely choose digital8 equipment over Hi-8 or 8mm. If you stick with the lesser formats, editing your video will be difficult, and the results won't be nearly as good.

I'm a high-end professional. Will I like MiniDV or the low-end HDV format?

Curiously enough, the answer to this question has little to do with image quality. Unless your audience is one of grizzled video professionals determined to find fault in some aspect of the cheapo gear, they will be quite impressed by the quality of a good three-chip MiniDV camcorder.

The main problem with MiniDV equipment is that it's aimed at the "prosumer" - the consumer who wants to think of himself as a semi-professional, but who still needs consumer-level features such as auto-iris and power zoom. As a result, professional features such as focus barrels marked with clear distance measurements for pull focus, and manual colour balance adjustment are missing in even the most pretentious MiniDV equipment. Instead, we have servo-electronic zoom and focus rings, considerably less precise than the manual gear you're used to. And we have white balance set by aiming your camera at a white object, not by setting individual colour adjustments.

If this is unacceptable to you, you're bound to dislike MiniDV equipment, even though you can get absolutely fantastic picture quality out of it.

The Canon XL1, and its successor the XL2, now has numerous manual lens options. They are covered well in thet Canon XL1 Watchdog's article. I will add that I purchased the 14x manual lens on eBay for $630 (less than half the cost of the newer lens) and have been very happy with it.

(Although this answer was written years ago, the situation with the newer high definition camcorders has not changed significantly.)

MiniDV Camcorder or Digital Still Camera: Which is better?

If you're a photo buff and want to take high-quality still pictures, I highly recommend a digital SLR, such as the Canon Digital Rebel or the Nikon D70.

When I first wrote this FAQ, I used my video camera as a digital still camera. There was just nothing on the market in the digital still camera field that was better.

Nowadays, though, Digital SLRs are so much better than video cameras to take stills that there is no contest. At all. Some video cameras now have still photography options, but in my opinion they're next to worthless.

If you want to create stills from your videos, you should bear the following in mind: Digital video is highly compressed and a lot of detail is left on the cutting room floor when the image is saved. This is necessary to make it possible to save 30 images a second to tape, but current still image technology lets us take single images that are a megabyte in size or more. DV camcorder images are particularly unsatisfactory when you're taking wide panoramas, such as views from a hill. Use a digital camera for your view images when at all possible.

Because of this enormous difference in level of detail, a digital still camera image reduced to 720x480 will have enormously more detail than a DV image, even though the same number of pixels is involved.

Curiously enough, you won't notice this much in close-ups of, say, someone's face. If you want to get the best images of subjects in motion such as kids playing, a video camera is likely to be your best bet. If you want to get pictures of objects to sell on eBay, you really need the extra detail of a digital still camera.

If you are considering a digital video camera based on claims that it will take high-resolution still pictures, beware. The claims are technically true; it will create 1024x768 images, but they will be horrible - washed out and fuzzy. If you want good digital still images, you really need a still camera.

To print an 8x10 photo, you need at least a 3 megapixel camera. Digital Video camcorders might give you a decent quality printed image the size of two postage stamps side by side. Never consider DV camcorder images printable at any high-quality level.

This is another one of my very old answers that has stood the test of time. Both DV (includihng the new HDV format) and digital SLRs have substantially increased in quality, but there is still an enormous difference in image quality between a good HDV camera and a comparablye priced digital SLR.

What relationship does DV have with the popular DVD discs?

DV is designed as an acquisition format - its reason for existance is for you to take pictures using it. You'll almost always copy a DV tape to VHS or some other format when you want to distribute it to others.

DVD is the opposite - it's a distribution format. You use an acquisition format, such as film or DV, to make your videos, and then you transfer them to DVD. Because of the complexity of the compression system involved, this takes a long time; unlike DV tapes, you cannot simply acquire DVD in real time. Thus, there will never be DVD cameras.

DVD uses the MPEG-2 compression system, which is similar to the popular JPG format - you can do moderate compression and have a perfect image, or you can do a large amount of compression and have a barely viewable one.

The main difference between this and the compression scheme used for DV tape is that the DV tape scheme is simpler and compresses a great deal less. This is because it has to be done in real time, as pictures are streaming into the camera at incredibly high speeds. Note that this says nothing about the respective quality of the two images; DVD can be better despite being higher compression because it takes more time to analyze the image.

The only connection DV has with DVD is that you can use a DV camera and editing setup to produce a movie that is then saved to a DVD disc - just like a VHS tape, but the process is far more involved and expensive.

My thanks to Ketil Albertsen for this information.

[8 September 1998] Some cameras have been developed that record in a compressed MPEG format; however, quality is very low. Sometime next year, DVD disk cameras should start making an appearance; see this story for details. No word on how good image quality will be on the new units. There is no doubt, however, that disk-based recording is going to be more convenient than the current tape - at least when adequate quality is achieved. Thanks to Victor Mandelstam for bringing this to my attention.

What are the advantages of digital tape? What is "Generation loss"?

(This answer is retained in the FAQ primarily for historical interest, because the old analogue formats, where generation loss was a problem, are completely obsolete.) There are two basic formats for recording: Analogue and Digital. VHS, Beta, SuperVHS, 8mm, Hi-8, etc are analogue formats. DV and MiniDV are digital.

With analogue recording, the intensity of a signal is recorded on tape directly as a value. Simple.

With digital recording, the intensity of a signal is recorded as a digital signal - a bunch of 1s and 0s.

You might think at first that this seems very stupid; after all, a digital value starts as less precise than an analogue one. That is, an analogue one might be 1.0225062, which might be stored digitally as 1.023; some information gets lost in the conversion. This is the same reason some audiophiles complain about CD sound; there are some frequencies that simply cannot be reproduced using a digital format.

The problem is that tape recording technology is far from perfect. In analogue recordings, the value that comes off the tape is taken as it is, no matter how it may be distorted by things such as stretch in the tape, tape defects and problems with the recording heads. This kind of damage is cumulative - the more you use the tape and the more times the tape is copied, the worse things look.

In digital recordings, there are numerous checks and balances in the format design that make it possible to make sense out of even severely distorted material. As a result, the image coming off your tape will be perfect unless the tape is severely damaged. And you can record it into as many tapes as you want, with the same perfect copy in each one.

To show the effects of generation loss yourself, take one of your non-digital tapes, and dub it to another one. You'll find the quality has declined somewhat. Dub that copy to a new one, and you'll find the quality declined substantially. This is generation loss.

This was a truly alarming problem when editing was done with tape machines. Editing is naturally done most easily in short segments, so it would be easiest to work with a 10-minute scene, create the perfect one, and then copy that perfect edit to a master tape along with all the other scenes you made. This would run the tape through "three generations" - first, the original source tape, then the edits for the individual scenes, and then the final master. That would create unacceptable quality tape.

So what people had to do was edit in that fashion and create something called an Edit Decision List (EDL). Then, the EDL would be used off the source tapes, a complex, time-consuming and error-prone process.

Oddly enough, this is somewhat moot, because digital editing is almost always done within a computer. As a result, you'll almost never have more than two generations of tape in any event. However, thanks to the non-existant generation loss, your tapes will be just as clear, crisp and beautiful as the original, even after having gone through the editing process. This is the promise of Digital Video, and I can give you the good news right now: It's a promise kept. But it's not a cheap promise to redeem, as you will see.

What are all the digital formats?

MiniDV is the consumer format, the one that you're almost certainly going to be using if you're a reader of this FAQ. MiniDV cassettes are small, cute and can record an hour in standard format. MiniDV tapes cost from $ 14 to $ 20 each. MiniDV cameras cost from around $ 1,000 to $ 4,500. There is a 90 minute slow speed format, but I don't recommend using it; the one time I tried, unusable video was the result.

HDV is the high-definition form of MiniDV. The tape's the same, but the image quality is significantly different. The even higher level of compression means that aspects of this format are disappointing to many people. We will consider this in a later section of the FAQ.

Digital8 is Sony's consumer grade format. All consumer Sony camcorders from 1999 on will use it. The actual format is the same quality as MiniDV, but Sony's cameras are all one-chip (see the discussion of this later in the FAQ), so they generally have washed out colours compared to the fancier 3-Chip MiniDV camcorders. They are also significnatly larger than MiniDV camcorders due to the larger tape size. The big advantage is that you can buy tapes in drug and grocery stores, which you can't do for MiniDV.

[For amusement value, I have left in this material about scarce MiniDV tapes; it is now easy to get MiniDV tapes at just about any consumer electronics store. But still no grocery markets!]

One interesting fact about DV is that MiniDV tapes have been in short supply for some time. This problem seems to be easing, but if you have an important project you're about to embark on, buy the tapes for it before going on location. This isn't like 8mm or VHS cassettes, that you can get at any grocery market.

Curiously enough, the high-end camera store I bought my XL1 at almost never has tapes available. I've had the best luck at consumer electronics stores such as Good Guys, Fry's Electronics and Circuit City. But be aware that stock of tapes is very inconsistent. Generally, you will find the most consistent supply in stores in rich areas of your city, because - let's face it - MiniDV is not a format known for economy. Oddly enough, I've also had good results in one near-slum area, where apparently the store was allocated tapes but they never sold!

If you're in the Los Angeles area, look at the La Cienega Blvd Good Guys store if you're having a hard time finding tapes elsewhere. I almost always find them there.

In quest of the elusive MiniDV Tape I took a trip to South Florida between December 29, 1999 and January 9, 2000. During my trip, of course, I used many MiniDV tapes on my XL1, and it soon came time to replenish my supply. Sadly, neither The Good Guys nor Fry's Electronics exist in South Florida. This is unfortunate, since they are by far the most stable sources for MiniDV tapes I've found. I first visited Naples, Florida, a small city. Their Circuit City, despite selling the Canon GL1 MiniDV camcorder, had no tapes. "We usually sell them," the suited manager claimed, "We just don't have them now." He suggested Service Merchandise, a very strange store that seems to sell the bottom-feeding worst of everything. I could have told him there was no way on this planet MiniDV tapes would emerge there, and I was right. They, in a misguided effort to please, found some DVD blanks; "Is this what you're talking about?" the salesman asked with a hopelessly bewildered expression on his face. Sadly, they weren't. I tried Radio Shack; no luck there, either. By the time I was able to locate Ritz Camera, where I had been informed they definitely could be found, it was after closing time. Oops. Fortunately, I was able to use the remaining time on some of my existing tapes intelligently, and that fended off the crisis for the time being. But I was not a happy camper, and worried pretty much continuously that I'd run out of precious tape space. A day later, I was in Miami. I thought for sure that then it would be trivial to find MiniDV tapes. At the Aventura Mall, Wolf Camera had 30 minute Sony tapes with the chip for $ 20 each. They had only two left, with the possibility of additional supplies coming in later today. In the Aventura Circuit City, despite once again prominently displaying the Canon GL1, they had exactly one 60 minute JVC tape remaining, for $ 10.99. I grabbed it and fled. Incidentally, the gift shop at the Miami Seaquarium, as you might have predicted, does not sell MiniDV tapes. The chap at the counter was very nice but obviously tired of the question. Apparently they get frequent requests for the tapes, so perhaps in the end, this crisis will finally be resolved thanks to demand.

DV is the name for a format identical to MiniDV except that it uses large, expensive tapes that can record up to three hours, versus an hour (at normal speed) for MiniDV. These tapes cost around $ 50 each. Sony's least expensive "professional" camera, the DSR-200, uses this format. A DSR-200 cost around $ 5,500. Sony's DV VCR handles both MiniDV and DV, which could be important to you if you want to produce a video that's over an hour.

DVCPro is a format created by Panasonic that is the same as MiniDV, but works better in linear editing equipment. See below for details.

I would like to thank Calum Tsang for some corrections regarding the high-end formats. DVCAM is DV plus locked audio; prices start around $ 14,000.

Here's Calum's description of Sony's line:

Format	Usage
8mm/Hi8	Consumer cameras
VHS/SVHS	Consumer decks
MiniDV/DV	Prosumer/Low end industrial
DVCAM	Midrange industrial, low end broadcast
BetaCam SP	Higher end industrial, broadcast
BetaCam SX	Broadcast, ENG
DBeta	High end broadcast, network
HDCAM	HDTV, 1080i, high end.

He also writes:

Of course, there are odd balls here and there, The DCR-VX1000 looks like a high priced yuppie toy, yet is used by many a professional etc. Also: BetaCam SP, at the high end industrial end, can be found at $14,000 or so in products like the UVW series/class of cameras and decks. They're not as good in picture quality, only have two tracks of audio, and are less sturdy than their PVW (midrange) or BVW (broadcast) Betacam SP brothers,

These formats are often compared to BetaCAM SP, which is a high-end professional analogue format. Beta SP cameras cost over $ 50,000, with editing equipment running in the hundreds of thousands of dollars for a complete system.

If you're interested in the nitty-gritty technical details, here's a summary of technical differences between the formats

So, how will the result look on VHS tape?

Surprisingly, considering all the criticism that has been made of VHS, it will look just fine. If the source material is great, the VHS copy will look great, too.

However, be sure to use a good quality VHS tape. Off-brand tape can produce very poor results.

It's worth remembering, too, that high definition video often does not translate well to VHS or DVD because the higher resolution is not seen but the larger amount of compression is.

So, how will the result look on the web?

Pretty good, actually, if you're willing to use minimal compression and your audience has cable modem or DSL connections. Unfortunately, this means a couple of minutes of video will be many megabytes in size; all my efforts seem to wind up at 12mb or so. If that doesn't intimidate you, don't be afraid of using a fairly high quality export option at 320x240.

Fortunately, the one thing that's changed since this answer was first written is that bandwidth is much cheaper and lots of people have broadband internet connections, to the extent that Apple just started a video download service (in September 2006) that features 1.5 gigabyte downloads! I remember when most hard disks were smaller than that. Now I have 2 gb of RAM in my PowerBook G4 laptop.

So I talked then about hesitating to put a 12mb video on the web. Now you can upload that to Youtube and they'll pay for the bandwidth. Sometimes progress is pretty darn cool.

How will still images captured from video look on the web?

You can see an XL1 image I created on the right.

For the XL1 (which is the only camera I own), this varies depending on whether you used Frame Movie Mode or Regular video mode.

With digital SLRs reasonably affordable, I no longer recommend this technique for images that are not cut out of moving video. At the same time, I also found that you can cut memorable stills out of your video when you're shooting live action, and I still recommend doing that. Just don't try to print the images; they won't look good.

My Koi Carp pictures were done in frame movie mode, and the only blurring was when my pictures were out of focus. For people interested in more spooky subjects and extreme low light photography, check out these pictures of the ARCO oil refinery in Carson, CA

Sidebar: Capturing images from your videos 10 June 1998 For the pictures I link to above, I used the following procedure to get the images: I took the pictures (rather obviously!) I scanned the tape looking for promising images. When I found something that looked good, I captured a few seconds of it. I viewed the resulting movie with the Apple MoviePlayer, searching for that ideal frame. I captured the frame using the Edit/Copy menu option. I pasted the result into a new Photoshop document. I cropped some images. I left others uncropped, mainly when I thought they looked amazingly great. I saved the Photoshop document as a JPG. Generally, the less rapid motion existed in the still images, the better they looked. Constant movement should probably be corrected with higher shutter speeds.

While we're at it, a few courageous people were kind enough to submit their own pictures. Naturally, I'd appreciate any additions to this list of DV captures on the web from various cameras.

Frank Ditto has some great Sony VX-1000 pictures. Thanks for sharing, Frank!

Steven Bradford shows off his web stills taken from 16mm film

C Kurt Holtler has a web page with captures from his Sony PC10 DV camera. There have been some interesting complaints about dull colours with modern Sony video cameras, and these captures seem to bear them out. Note that, in his full-sized capture page, he brings the colours back to life with a little tweaking. I was quite impressed, however, with the overall resolution and clarity of the image.

If you're concerned about the flatness of colour - which, after all, would be quite difficult to fix in a moving image - you may want to get a Canon XL1 or GL1/GL2, which are generally more vivid in their colour rendition.

What do you think of the new high-definition camcorders?

As of December 23, 2004, Sony just introduced the HDR-FX1 at a very appealing $3,699 price point. It's the first high definition camcorder likely to make sense to most people. I certainly want to check one out!

Sony's camera films at a higher resolution than the JVC, but doesn't feature true progressive scan. As we say elsewhere in the FAQ, this means that it will create terrible stills, which is a big disappointment. This also means 35mm film frames upconverted from the camera's DV images will have hideous video artifacts.

Here's an early review of the camcorder.

During NAB 2005, Panasonic introduced a new camera that records data on memory cards instead of tape. This camera is capable of recording to a higher quality HD standard, and it has HD experts very excited. The price is $5,995, but unfortunately the memory cards add about $2,000 per 8 minutes of recording capacity. It's also supposed to be recording in MiniDV, but I think that's just standard, not high, definition. This looks very promising, and hopefully we'll have some clarification on this issue.

A high-definition camcorder will certainly stroke your ego, and the new Sony is likely to produce the highest quality images of any prosumer camcorder. But look before you leap; most actual video will be viewed as standard definition for years to come.

A major problem with high-definition video is that it uses an entirely different aspect ratio from standard broadcast TV. If you shoot HD, you will find that either the left and right sides of your video will be clipped when your production is viewed on a standard TV, or the image is letterboxed, meaning there will be black bands on the top and bottom of your image. Because of this, you have to decide early on whether your audience will be people using standard or high definition TV and plan accordingly.

I was thinking of upgrading to high definition in the next year or so, but my wariness about compatibility with standard video has made me a little shy about actually doing it.

Canon's initial HD camcorder, the XL HD, has impressed reviewers with its high-quality images, but at $9,000 retail, has left consumers less than happy. I liked the original $4,400-odd price point of the original XL1 a lot better.

Canon listened to us and has introduced a new line with a $3,999 model starting in October of 2006. It promises to provide similar image quality than the XL HD, with essentially the same optics and image sensors. It also introduces a new fast autofocus system, which was urgently needed, especially since focusing in HD is notoriously difficult.

While the Sony FX1 has definitely improved its controls significantly over the old VX-1000 and 2000, I still trust Canon more as a camera maker. But when I do buy a new camera, I will check out both Sony and Canon with exceptional care.

What do you think of Sony's current line?

[25 January 2007] I got my hands on Sony's line of HDV camcorders. They are divided into three basic groups.

The HDR-FX1 is the granddaddy of the group, with a list price of $3,700. It's large and bulky but liked the control setup better than the smaller cameras, particularly the zoom handle (which makes manual zooms much smoother) and the top-mounted LCD, which was easier to read than the lower mount most cameras have.

The HDR-FX7 shaves a few dollars off the price and looks roughly like a 2/3 scale model of the Fx-1. With no zoom handle and the LCD placed more conventionally I found the camera less appealing than the FX-1. It felt only marginally lighter, but of course I might havge felt differently if I'd had longer with the two units. The CMOS sensor seemed to produce an identical picture to the FX-1's 3 CCDs.

Both cameras balanced well and felt good in my hands. In the end, I give a slightly edge to the FX-1 due to its superior controls.

A dark horse is the much cheaper HDR-HC7 which I also tried. In DV camcorders, there was always an enormous picture quality difference between cheap consumer cameras and expensive 3CCD units like the FX1. In the case of the HC7, picture quality was surprisingly similar to its big brothers - colors were sharp and bright, not washed out as in older style consumer units. In fact, the limitations of the HDV video format are probably going to be much more probematic for shooters than CCD versus CMOS sensor differences.

So the main advantage of the more expensive units is not raw image quality, but the ability to do manual adjustments such as manual zoom and focus, and the better balance of the heavier cameras, leading to a steadier hand and less shaky images.

In short, even amateur filmmakers who have only $1,400 to spend can get a pretty good looking images. People with the money are going to prefer the fancier units, but anyone with an idea and a $1,500 credit limit nowadays can start shooting very nice looking images.

Sadly, Sony's straight to DVD and hard disk-based camcorders don't work with third-party editing software, and can't be used on a Mac at all. As a result, I can't recommend them even though the hard drive recording option would be very tempting to me.

Cameras are extremely subjective animals, as you will probably see if you visit the rec.video.production newsgroup. People who buy cameras tend to become devoted to them; after all, they are a very substantial investment, and a great deal of the owner's ego is on the line.

Here are a few of the most important factors to consider when looking for a MiniDV camera:

Standard vs High Definition. See above.

Picture quality. If you want professional results, you want a 3-Chip (often called 3CCD) camera. This has one image sensor for each of red, green and blue, the colours that blend together to form your video image. This provides superior, sharper images. Unfortunately, it practically defines the words "expensive camera"; nearly all three-chip cameras are pricey, semi-professional gadgets.

[28 July 2002] Canon has updated its GL1 with the GL2, which seems to have fixed most of the complaints people had about the GL1. The GL2 now has manual level controls and a host of new features. I'd definitely pick it over the TRV900 and successors. Price is about $2,500.

[20 September 2006] Canon now has a new HD camcorder, which will be available in late October. It brings a similar form factor to the GL1/GL2 but with the high definition capabilities of the XL HD. I think it will be a great unit, but only time will tell whether it lives up to its promise.

All Panasonic's cameras, even their cheap ones, are now 3CCD. This looks like a major breakthrough, but in practice I think they're hobbled by the usual problems with consumer camcorders such as the lack of manual controls.

Pixel counts and pixel shift. The number of pixels in your image sensor determines how sharp your picture will be. The Sony VX-1000 uses 410,000 pixels per CCD (being a three-chip camera, it has three CCDs), and the Canon XL1 uses 270,000 pixels per CCD, again having 3 CCDs. The XL1 compensates for this lower resolution through a system called Pixel Shift, which lets the 270,000 pixels behave as more by placing them in slightly offset positions for each colour. This works because a NTSC video image is a black and white image that is then overlaid by colour. Pixel shift, therefore, gives the same monochrome resolution as the higher resolution CCDs, while enabling each individual pixel to be larger, thus improving low-light sensitivity.

Those who have compared images from both cameras note that the colours are more vivid on the XL1, and low-light sensitivity is far superior. However, the VX-1000 has a slight edge in sharpness.

[28 July 2002] The VX-2000 has been updated with a LCD screen and dubbed the VX-2000. It apparently has improved significantly in image quality, with some saying it's better than the XL1. However, there have also been problems with the audio - the microphone tends to pick up the hum of the tape mechanism. Unfortunately, the XL1S, the XL1's replacement, still doesn't have a LCD screen, but overall, I'd still take it over the VX-2000.

The truth is that you can get beautiful images from either camera, so I would use other factors to decide which one you want. However, I would definitely think twice before getting anything other than a three-chip camera.

Look and feel. A camera is a very personal thing; you will be spending a great deal of time together. Look for controls that you find easy to access and manipulate. This is where I find my XL1 really shining over the competition; the controls are easily accessible, and everything has a smooth, professional feel, just as a $ 4,000 gadget should. I found the VX-1000 considerably less satisfactory in this respect. Those who appreciate the VX-1000, however, note that it's quite a bit less conspicuous; interview subjects who are intimidated by the "professional" look of the XL1 relax when confronted with the less intimidating VX-1000.

Note that Sony has narrowed this gap considerably with the HDR-FX1. Only "fondling" the cameras will demonstrate for sure which one is on top today.

FireWire. Every digital camera should have a FireWire port, which is the only way to transfer images out of the unit in their full digital glory. Sadly, there are some otherwise good Panasonic DV cameras that don't have one, so watch out. If you don't have FireWire on your camera, you're going to have to buy an incredibly overpriced DV VCR or another DV camera with FireWire, so be forewarned.

Image Stabilization Systems. The best MiniDV cameras, such as the Canon XL1/XL2 and Sony VX-1000/2000, use optical image stabilization, a technique using mechanical elements in the lens to re-shape the image as the camera shakes. This is considered far superior in quality and effectiveness to the more common electronic image stabilization.

Electronic stabilization requires a camera with a large number of pixels, say 600,000 versus the more typical 400,000. The way it works is that those 200,000 elements are held in reserve for when the camera shakes. When shaking is detected, the camera simply frames the image differently. Of course this means the actual resolution is no better than 400,000 pixel cameras, and in practice the electronic gizmos used to detect camera movement don't seem to work as well as optical stabilization. So by all means select a camera with optical stabilization if this feature (and image quality) is important to you.

Viewfinders. Many MiniDV cameras, especially at the lower end, tend to use the larger LCD viewfinder, which looks a lot like a LCD video monitor in miniature. Those look good enough in the store, but they're bound to be washed out in sunlight and hard to deal with. If you like the idea of the LCD monitor, be sure to get a unit that has both a LCD and a standard viewfinder; that will give you the best of both worlds.

Most of the professional cameras have now surrendered to the lure of the LCD, often in conjunction with the conventional viewfinder. As with most technologies, improvements are continuous and at this point I think few camerapeople would want to live without their LCD.

Menus. Virtually every video camera has some kind of menu system. This system should only be used for infrequently-used features, such as setting up frame movie mode or setting the time and date. Cameras that use these menus to set focus and exposure are best avoided.

Manual Controls. At minimum, you need manual exposure and zoom, for the times when you need full control over your picture. Unfortunately, the viewfinder of my XL1 is quite misleading about exposure. The best way to judge exposure, akward though it may be, is to hook a video monitor to the monitor outputs of the camera. Then you'll get the full story. Otherwise, it may actually be better to rely on the automatic exposure and/or the exposure compensation dials. As with a still camera, it takes practice to use these features successfully.

 Zebra Stripes. Video cameras are particularly vunerable to a problem called saturation, where the light parts of the image have no detail at all. More sophisticated professional or semi-pro-class cameras have a feature where saturated parts of the image are flagged with horizontal grey bands called zebra stripes. You can then adjust your exposure until the point where they vanish, for the best detail. A highly recommended feature. Both the Canon XL1 and Sony VX1000 have this.

Audio Features. MiniDV cameras are often lacking in audio features, even though the format itself is loaded with them. The fullest featured cameras, such as the Canon XL1, have two modes of stereo sound: 16-bit for two channels or 12-bit for four channels. The 16-bit mode is highest quality but is less flexible if you're recording from a large number of sources; the 12-bit mode gives you more channels but lower quality.

Interchangeable Lenses. Right now, the Canon XL2 and XL HD are the only MiniDV/HDV cameras with interchangeable lenses, so if that's important to you, you have only two choices. Fortunately for camcorder buyers, the lens that comes with the unit is normally extremely versatile, so you may not need interchangeable lenses at all. They are mainly useful if you have the need for extreme wide angle or telephoto lenses. The XL1 is going to have a special wide angle lens soon, which will definitely answer many people's prayers. Unfortunately, the lens will run you about $ 1,200, and discounts are unlikely since the unit is in very short supply. Some of the deficiencies of the regular XL1 lens are being addressed by a new, professional lens provided by a third-party supplier; price is about $ 1,700, and it's exclusively manual; no automatic exposure or power zoom is offered. The adapter for standard Canon EOS 35mm lenses costs $ 500, and any EOS lens is going to be an extreme telephoto for the XL1. So unless you're doing spy photos, the EOS interchangeability is of limited usefulness.

FireWire and S/Video output. This one's simple: Unless you're getting a DV VCR to go with your camera, don't get a camera without a FireWire input/output port. This will let you use your camera for editing without generation loss, as explained later in the FAQ. It also allows for direct control of the camera by your computer, which is great for capture.

Analogue inputs. See the sections on analogue video, below, for detailed information. This feature now exists in virtually every camcorder on the market today, but if you're buying a used unit, you should watch out for this feature if it's important for you.

Reviews in Video Magazines, such as Videomaker. Generally, by reading between the lines, you can get a decent impression of a camera through magazine reviews. Bear in mind that the magazine, in search of advertising, is likely to make the best possible spin, even on a bad product. However, their duty to their readers forces them to tell you the truth -- just not as directly as you might wish. For example, a recent review praised the innovative user interface of one camcorder; if you read the review in detail, you would find that this included manual focus being set by the zoom control when the menus were manipulated in a certain way ! Needless to say, I wouldn't buy that camera.

Which is better, the Canon XL1 or the Sony VX-1000?

This has been a highly controversial question for a long time, virtually as long as the XL1 has been available.

In my experience, most people posting on the newsgroups have experience with only one of the two cameras, and have an odd tendancy to defend the one they blew $ 3,500 plus on. This is only natural, of course, but it doesn't give us the truth.

Fortunately, I was able to get my hands on both cameras for about a day to do an extensive review. My preliminary conclusion is that the XL1 is the clear winner. Visit my XL1 versus VX-1000 page for a detailed analysis.

The look and feel of the VX-2000 and Canon XL1S, the successors to these two models, has not changed significantly. Image quality of both cameras has improved substantially as technology marches on.

The new Sony FX1 high definition camcorder has fixed a lot of the look and feel problems. It seems like it was designed especially to meet many of the objections I had in my review. It's worth a look, especially if you like high definition and are willing to accept the compromises current technology entails.

Are there other high-end cameras I should consider?

Panasonic introduced the first true 24 frame per second camcorder a few years back. It has better image quality than the XL1 and people have gotten excellent results sending the image to 35mm film.

A lot of people were very excited by this camera, even though I'm still not convinced that 24fps is any better than 30fps for most people. After all, almost all of our productions are going to wind up on video, not film.

If you're buying a camera now for transfer to film, though, it's hard not to recommend Sony's just introduced HD camcorder. That will have much more detailed images.

Where should I buy my camera?

If you want to see, touch, feel and physically pick up your camera, I strongly recommend an upscale camera store in your city. They are more likely to have what you need in stock, they are much more knowledgeable, and they give far better service than the consumer electronics giants. Surprisingly enough, I've found prices to be a bit lower than in the major consumer electronics chains. I've had excellent results from Samy's Camera in Hollywood; they stock the XL1, VX1000 and DSR-200, so you can see pretty much the whole field there.

Big consumer electronics stores have the major advantage of letting you fondle (in the words of Bill Conduit) the equipment without interruption. This is very useful when making a decision about which camera best suits your needs. The Good Guys and Fry's Electronics have the best selection. The Good Guys has much better service than Fry's, so that's where I'd recommend you go. Circuit City generally doesn't have much high-end stuff, although I found a high-end Panasonic three-chip camera there once. That was the first and only time I've seen one.

If you want to save money, you're stuck with mail order. I recommend you head over to Phillip Greenspun's photo.net and check out his recommendations on mail order outfits. Unfortunately, the best mail order doesn't seem to cost that much less than retail, but at least you can save on sales tax.

I hear there are lots of problems with the Canon XL1. What's the scoop?

This is an obsolete section, but I'm leaving it in for nostalgia's sake.

I have a detailed comparision between the two cameras.

For detailed information on the XL1 and breaking news on the camera, visit The Canon XL1 Watchdog.

I am personally extremely satisfied with my XL1, and the people who see the results I get out of it seem impressed.

Where should I buy my capture board/editing system?

When this FAQ was first written, this was more of a question than it was today, since setting up a video editing system, at least on the Windows side, was a bit of a black art.

I strongly recommend that anyone interested in checking out mid-level video editing solutions visit the Apple retail stores. The salespeople are knowledgeable, the Internet connections are fast, and you can play with the gadgets to your heart's content. Even if you eventually decide to buy elsewhere, I think it's the best starting point.

Any Macintosh available off the shelf from the Apple store today will do just fine with video editing, and the included iMovie software has gotten millions involved. For mid-level professional software, Final Cut Express ($299) will get the job done, and of course if you're high end Final Cut Studio ($1,299) has everyting you need to edit like a pro.

Apple stores generally have both sound and video specialists who will steer you in the right direction.

Note that the basic computers often available in Wal-Mart, Best Buy and CompUSA are not video editing ready. You will have to buy a FireWire card and sometimes additional memory and disk space. Generally, you can expect to get these features on a $800-1,000 plus PC system, making Apple very competitive in the market.

What kind of accessories do you need with your camera?

Kevin Felts of Aurora Video suggested that I add a section on accessories, since many of them are vital in giving you the best possible pictures.

Tripods come in many sizes, shapes and prices. Most of the units you can pick up at consumer electronics stores are horrible - they feel like they'd collapse in a light breeze.

I find my Bogen unit decent enough; it's about $ 350 with a fluid head. Kevin Felts says that what you really want is a Cartoni fluid head ball leveling two-stage tripod for $ 750. He says that it's far superior to the Bogen, which he doesn't think much of. Sounds intriguing, but unfortunately I haven't gotten to see one, so I can't give a firm evaluation.

Cases. Kevin endorses Porta-Brace, a name I've heard on the newsgroup quite a few times. They make "great camera bags and raincovers". Not cheap, but great quality, he tells us.

Monitors. He recommends the Citizen M329 (2.9") and M938 (3.8") mini LCD monitors. Be sure to get a hood for daylight shooting. These are particularly useful when you fly commercially and need to keep weight down.

What's all the excitement about 24 frames per second?

Because movies were originally designed to run at 24 frames per second, and since everyone wants to make a "film", there is an almost cultlike feel among those who wish to shoot 24fps.

The reality is that most of those movies will be "upconverted" to 30fps (actually 29.97 if you want to be stuffy about it) because that is the speed of video. So if you can shoot at 30 frames per second progressive scan, you're better off than shooting 24. Nonetheless, the mystique of 24 fps continues.

Note that most "film look" plugins introduce additional distortion and fuzz to your image in an effort to duplicate grain. What they won't do is put the additional detail in your image that going to film or HD video will.

What's all this excitement about Frame Movie Mode or Progressive Scan?

Progressive scan (Sony's term) and Frame Movie Mode (Canon's term) are the same.

This is a very controversial topic in the world of HD because Sony's new HD camcorder is higher resolution than JVC's, but it doesn't have progressive scan, as JVC does. Most people seem to agree that JVC's camera is an interesting novelty but not much of a camera. However, the lack of progressive scan is a real problem with the Sony.

[10 June 1998] Here is Michael Pappas' article on Frame Movie Mode, which explains what it is and why you might want to use it.

The article will probably convince you that you want to make all your productions using frame movie mode. It means, after all, that every individual frame will be distinct and crystal clear, a tremendous advantage when capturing stills from your production.

Unfortunately, like many things in life, it's not that simple. In order to understand why, let me attempt my own explanation of how frame movie mode works.

Normal video is interlaced, meaning that instead of capturing, say, 500 lines at once 30 times a second, it captures every other line 60 times a second. This is why it's so hard to make a still picture out of a video; at any time, you have half of the picture on the screen in the first 1/60th of a second and the other half in the second 1/60th of a second.

The equipment we have to display video, then, is designed to refresh half the image once every sixtieth of a second. What frame movie mode does is to capture an entire image every thirtieth of a second. Then, when it's broadcast as NTSC video, it's converted into two half frames - but instead of being different, as they usually would be, they are identical.

For some reason that, quite honestly, I don't really understand, this tends to stop motion. It seems odd to me because a movie runs at 24 frames a second, and can still sustain a clear, smooth illusion of motion. And yet a tape using Frame Movie Mode at 30 frames per second looks jittery and strange. Why this is, I'm not sure. But that's the way it is.

I want to make a movie. Should I use film or video?

Using film will cost you literally thousands of dollars for enough film to shoot a 90 minute move. The equivalent number of MiniDV tapes will cost you less than $ 100. For the minimum cost of producing and editing a film, you could buy the setup that I've purchased and have equipment to produce quality videos for years.

If you're not highly skilled with film, your first few productions will look pretty embarassing. Because of this, I would strongly recommend using video for your first projects; that way, if you mess up, you can just record over the bad parts and go on.

If you are highly skilled, however, film has a hypnotic claim on many of us that just cannot be resisted. You will get much, much better quality on film, that will definitely be noticable on the big screen. Realistically, however, for most productions it's hard to resist the siren song of video, especially since cameras such as the XL1 and VX1000 are fully capable of producing very high-quality images.

[28 July 2002] I'm going to add some simple advice here: Film is far superior to video if you are making a production involving vast panoramas. If you want to photograph the sweep of the mountains, the gleam of the ocean, and so on, you definitely want film.

But if you're shooting an intimate personal drama consisting mostly of medium shots and close-ups, the odds are that most people won't be able to tell the difference between film and frame movie mode.

This is, of course, less true with high definition video. There's probably enough distortion in the HDV format to make it distinctly inferior to film. However, Stephen Spielberg and others have gone to extremely expensive ($100,000 plus) special high defintion cameras and gotten results indistinguishable from film.

What's the difference in quality between DV and professional formats?

If you were to hand two identical tapes to an expert, one made using MiniDV equipment and the other using professional-grade digital or analogue equipment, he would be able to tell almost immediately which was which. This is because of compression artifacts in the image that are not difficult to find if you conduct a careful search for them.

If you were to hand both tapes to an end user - the type of person who will actually view your production - he would almost certainly consider the end result more than acceptable.

You can see the differences if you take a picture of a test pattern or an image with strong diagonal lines, which the MiniDV format is not that good at rendering due to the way it compresses information. You'll find the diagonals are somewhat fuzzy when compared to the tack-sharp quality of the rest of the picture.

The format in general is so good that news-gathering operations such as ABC News and CNN have made extensive use of standard "consumer-grade" MiniDV cameras. Some very professional work, particularly in the documentary area, is being done with these cameras.

The bottom line is that unless you're making a sitcom or Movie of the Week for television, people aren't likely to notice the quality differences. If you're making an industrial video or adult film, people are likely to notice how much better your products look than those created on older equipment.

What can I do about my old analogue tapes?

This section of the FAQ is obsolete if you're buying a new camera; even the new XL1S has analogue inputs nowadays. However, I have left it in just in case people have bought used equipment or are still struggling with this question.

This was probably the saddest question we're asked on the group, because without spending a whole pile of money, there were no good answers.

There are still no good answers if you've already bought your camera and don't want to buy another one; however, there is a reasonably-priced way out for most people now.

The options are:

• Buy a Sony TRV-900 or Canon GL1/GL2. This gives you three-chip image quality (said to be slightly inferior to the Canon XL1 or Sony VX-1000) together with more features and analogue inputs. Problem solved, for about $ 1,999 retail.

• Buy a Sony TRV-9. Same basic idea, but the camera's single-chip instead of three-chip. I'd recommend this route if you already have a three-chip camera and just want to record tapes.

• Buy a DV VCR, a $ 3,500 proposition. This might still be the best solution for many, because it gives you a rugged, professional quality tape deck.

• Get a capture card with analogue inputs, such as the Canopus DV-REX. Unfortunately, this is about a $ 2,500 proposition, compared to $ 750 for typical FireWire only capture cards, or $ 0 for built-in FireWire on your next computer.

• Buy a consumer-grade analogue capture card, such as the Aurora Fuse for the Mac or Iomega Buz for the PC.

• Buy a Sony Digital8 Camera. Not only do they have analogue inputs, you can also use them to play existing Hi-8 tapes. I mention some caveats that make this a less promising format than MiniDV, but it's hard to beat for sending your 8mm tapes to digital.

  Note that if you want to copy your tapes to a digital format, you will still need to hook up your old 8mm/Hi-8 camera to your new Digital8 unit; you obviously can't use your Digital8 camera to play your old tape and record a new one at the same time. In short, a MiniDV camcorder with analogue inputs will work just as well in this role as Digital8.

Nowadays, with a non-linear editing system based on a computer (whether Mac or Windows). I have left this question and answer in just in case a few readers are curious about it, but it's really not relevant anymore.

This is a very complex question, worthy of a FAQ of its own.

There are two basic types of editing: Linear and Non-Linear.

Linear Editing involves the use of tape and VCRs. Get two VCRs, connect them to each other, and start and stop them as necessary to copy only the video that you need. This method of editing is best if there are long sequences in your tape that you're basically copying unaltered. You're not going to be able to produce a music video (with several edits per second) this way, but it could be natural for weddings.

A slightly more sophisticated form of linear editing involves three VCRs and a special effects generator (SEG). Attach two VCRs to the input of the SEG and attach the third to the output. The main advantage of this is that you can have instant effects instead of having to render (see below). Unfortunately, there are presently no digital SEGs, so your gorgeous digital video goes straight to analogue and will suffer from generation loss, exactly what you were trying to avoid by going digital in the first place.

Linear editing requires a more or less constant fast-forwarding and rewinding of tape. This is sufficiently hard on a tape transport mechanism that it's recommended that you not use a camera for it; instead, you need to buy two or three VCRs. Sadly, this would cost $ 6,000 to $ 9,000 in the situation outlined above, which makes the similarly expensive but easier to use non-linear editing system look more attractive. And I haven't even included the special effects generator, which can cost $ 1,000 and up. This is why I recommed sticking with Hi-8 if you want to do linear editing; the equipment needed to do this for DV doesn't really exist, and what pieces of it do are prohibitively expensive.

As I mention in another section of this FAQ, even DV VCRs are not good at linear editing, because of the tight packing of information on the tape (called track pitch). This will make it quite difficult to get to the right frames of your production when editing. As a result, even if you have the budget for the rather overpriced linear editing setup we mention above, it's unlikely to be satisfactory to you.

Non-Linear Editing involves the use of a capture card, a computer and software. Get your camera, hook it up to the capture card in your computer, and capture only the video segments you want in your final product. Then, use software to manipulate the clips into a time line, add special effects, and you have a final production.

The main drawback of non-linear editing is that it requires incredible amounts of disk space. You'll need about three gigabytes of space for every 15 minutes of captured, full-quality digital video. So if you want to capture an hour, you'll be taking up about 12GB.

Because of the costs involved in both solutions and the extra convenience produced by non-linear editing, I really can't see any reason to go with linear editing for DV. The remainder of this FAQ will focus on non-linear editing systems.

The picture on the left is of Radius EditDV, which has since been renamed Cinestream. It was the system I used at the time I first started working on this FAQ. I have since switched to Final Cut Pro for the Mac.

Can I use digital formats with my existing linear editing setup?

Yes. Norman W Boe, a wedding videographer, has used a Canon Optura with his Panasonic AG-1980-based linear editing setup with considerable success; he just hooks up the S-Video output like any other video camera or VCR. He says that quality is significantly higher than with his Hi-8 units because of the lack of generation loss.

However, the Optura's legendary low-light problems have made it impossible for him to use it in most situations. He says that his toe-dipping into digital was largely a mistake, for the reasons I cite here. He suggests that the XL1 might have been a better purchase for him due to its superior low-light performance; however, it was not available when he bought the Optura. He has subsequently bought one; I helped talk him into it. :-)

Unless you actually need to mix together analogue and digital tapes, the best solution might be to just hang on to your existing analogue equipment to play your old tapes.

There are also companies that will do this conversion for you. Unfortunately, the conversion is mind-bendingly expensive. (The link leads to a company that recently advertised these conversions).

If you do need to mix your old and new tapes, and don't like the cost of any of the solutions mentioned above, you may want to consider sticking with Hi-8.

What is non-linear editing like?

This section has been revised to use Final Cut Pro's terminology but I will keep the old screenshots for now. I now use a 23 inch Cinema Display and a screen shot of my current screen would be overwhelming.

[Added 7 June 1998] All non-linear editing programs work in a basically similar way. This specific explanation focuses on Final Cut; fortunately, the new Premiere interface looks quite similar.

The first step is to capture all the video you intend to have in your finished tape. The best way to keep track of clips is to capture one clip per scene. For example, in my bird video, I had one bird nodding his head in a cute way and wiggling his wings. I captured those as two separate scenes, so I could rearrange them during editing.

Clips first reside in the "Bin", to the left. As you can see, the bin can be split into separate directories so you can easily find the clips you want. Generally, you split the clips into folders during capture, and then drag the folders into EditDV, where they become multiple bins as you see in this screen capture.

You can double click the clips in the bin to move them to the monitor window:

The source monitor window lets you trim the clips to the right length. Pacing is extremely important in video production; to produce an entertaining video that doesn't drag, one of the most important hints I can give is to make sure you trim your clips tightly. This will create a much more entertaining video than if you don't, even if you feel sad that your favourite clip won't be shown as much as it should.

To trim your clips, look right below the clip display for the black left bracket. It is where the clip will start when you drag it down to the time line. The black right bracket is where it ends.

The red vertical line indicates the current frame being displayed. You can drag the black triangle at the top to view a different frame.

When you first start editing, the left and right brackets will be at their respective ends of the mini-time line below the image. Simply drag the pointer to where you want the clip to begin, and press the "[" or "]" button to position the start and end points.

You can also use the Play button to play the clip starting at that point, or the "|>|" button to play the clip between the two brackets.

This is conceptually easy, but you can spend hours doing it. The longer you spend, the more entertaining your production is going to be.

It's a lot easier to actually do than it is to describe, although I won't try to deceive you - it can take many hours to get the clips just right.

Once you think everything's correct for this clip, you drag it to the timeline, which EditDV calls the "sequencer". When you play the clip, it will appear in the right side of the trim window.

A common problem is to match a narration sound track to the clips you have available. For example, you might have your narrator speak and want to cut away to an example, with your narrator continuing to speak. This is quite easy using non-linear editing; you just tell the NLE software to copy the visual parts without the soundtrack. You will want to specify precise start and end points of the clip you're inserting, so it will not overwrite parts of your narration you still want on screen.

One handy tip I figured out: The best time to switch clips in a narrated video is during a break in the narration. Note how in the sequencer example, I have the narration track open. That way, I know exactly where I want to cut my clips in; just look for point without any waveforms showing.

Final Cut Pro version 3 lets you record narration while watching the video being played; this ensures that your video is properly synchronized with the sound track.

All in all, using a NLE system is a lot of fun, giving you tremendous flexibility in what you can put together. This flexibility is very important when you want to match your production to narration. However, it can be very time-consuming because you may have to make a lot of tries before you get your video exactly as you want it.

Video captures used in this example Copyright © 1998 David H Dennis; All Rights Reserved

What is "rendering"?

In the olden days, when I first wrote this FAQ, rendering was the curse of the non-linear editing system user. Well, it still is, but if you're using the right system, you won't come across it very often.

Final Cut Pro, for example, added huge numbers of real time features starting in version 4. In version 5, they've built on this even more. Effects such as dissolves appear immediately without any kind of waiting time.

However, if you're doing composites with more than a few layers, you'll still encounter rendering. And of course there are many systems other than Final Cut Pro that lack real time abilities. For these, rendering continues to be the NLE user's curse.

So what is rendering?

Long answer: When you edit a project, there are points where you are actually changing the video image in the clips. For instance, when you do a dissolve, one image fades in while the other fades out. This makes a very complex change in the image, which takes an awesome amount of computing power.

The process of making the dissolves work is called rendering

I would like to correct an earlier version of my FAQ. I previously said that Adobe Premiere renders the entire production, regardless of the presence of effects. Actually, it works just like EditDV and the DV300; it renders only parts of the production that are changed - i.e. titles and transitions, as long as the production is using the same codec, resolution and frame rate.

If any of those change, however, any video editing program will re-render the entire production. This is the reason for my previous misconception.

What is time code? What problems does it present?

Time code is a value put on every frame of your digital video tape, showing the number of hours, minutes, seconds and frames you are in your tape, starting with 00:00:00;01 and moving on, normally to 01:00:01.

The importance of time code is that it lets your video editing software find a position on the tape easily and automatically. If I know I want to go to 00:30:01:10 (30 minutes, one second and ten frames) into the tape, I can just tell the capture software, and there it will go.

Unfortunately, this is not as good as it sounds because many DV cameras, including the Canon XL1, record time code on the tape as it is written. So if you have gaps in your recording (as you will if you run the camera, turn it off, and then run it again), you'll find gaps in the time code as well. When recording on blank tape, you see, the camera simply starts at 00:00:01 again.

You can fix this problem in one of two ways: First, you can record blank information or colour bars on the entire tape. Second, at least on the Canon XL1, you can always turn off your camera using the "Standby" button. As long as you do this, the XL1 will remember your exact tape position and time code will be written continuously. Unfortunately, this doesn't work once you've played back the tape, since the XL1 doesn't remember where you just left off in recording. To solve this problem, you may want to record some extra blank frames at the end of the tape, and resume from them. That will ensure that you have continuous time code.

What is 16:9 and 4:3?

[11 November 1999]

The proportion of horizontal versus vertical resolution. For instance, 4:3 means that a if a picture is 4" wide, it's going to be 3" tall. 16:9 means that a 16" wide picture requires 9" in height.

Gareth Randall comments that that you cannot convert a 4:3 image to 16:9 without either distortion or putting horizontal black space to the left and right of the image. When I was in Fry's Electronics today, I saw a TV picture that was 4:3 stretched to 16:9 and it looked awfully bizarre.

You have been warned.

What is the best video editing software?

[Updated 28 July 2002]

The legendary best is probably Avid Media Composer; unfortunately, with a hardware/software bundle costing more than $ 40,000, this may not be a viable option for most of you.

Avid now has a $1,500 package that works on either a Mac or a PC; it's cut down somewhat for DV, but has received mostly favourable reviews. Unfortunately, if you are not already an Avid user, the learning curve is just about vertical. I simply cannot recommend this package over Final Cut Pro unless you are already an Avid user. For a few more details, see my DV Expo roundup.

Under $ 1,300 programs/packages:

Apple's Final Cut Studio ($1,299) has revolutionized the video editing industry, by bringing sophisticated video editing software to the personal computer. This package, originally created by Macromedia, has a slick interface that reminds me of a fighter pilot's cockpit.

With a set of manuals weighing in at over 1,400 pages, and with almost 100 controls on the screen, it can be intimidating to some. But it's not that difficult to learn, and it has amazing features to those patient enough to find them by reading the manual.

You can do amazing things with Final Cut, including compositing with virtually unlimited layers. If you want to dabble in special effects, this is a very cool way to start, since rendering is fast and it's not difficult to learn.

Final Cut has all but eliminated Premiere from the market, to the point that you mostly see it in bundles included with real time hardware and the like. There's no question that it's a far better program than Premiere for most purposes.

Final Cut is now sold only as Final Cut Studio, which also includes Soundtrack Pro, Motion and other software. Sound Track Pro enables you to compose your own music by combining loops and your own sound recordings. I've found it an excellent package that's a lot of fun to work with. Motion does compositing and special effects; it's also a great package. All in all, the new extras are well worth the $300 price increase.

The main disadvantage is that it runs only on Macintoshes. Being a Mac user, of course, I don't consider that much of a problem, but PC die-hards might be a shade upset.

Go to any Apple Retail Store to see Final Cut Pro in action. I think you'll be impressed.

Final Cut Pro now has a little brother, Final Cut Express. With the exception of the compositing features, you can do pretty much everything with Final Cut Express that you could with Final Cut, and the user interface is nearly identical. It includes the less elaborate version of Soundtrack and no Motion.

Vegas video is perhaps the leading video editing software for Windows. Sadly, since I am no longer a Windows user of any significance, I haven't tried it and know little about it.

Adobe Premiere was the standard by which all other editing programs were measured for many years. When Final Cut Pro was introduced, Premiere stagnated and FCP actually outsold it despite being Mac only. Premiere eventually fought back with Premiere Pro, which I hear good reports of but have very little detail.

Ulead Media Studio Pro, a PC-only product, has a whole pile of features, but users seem to have even more problems with it than Premiere. In May of 1999, I got a message from someone who says that this is no longer true, and that the product now works fine, and has far more features than competing products. I'd like to hear from more than one user before I make any definitive judgement, though; drop me a line and let me know how you've done with it.

[2 November 1999] Charlie Hills, the founder and administrator of the MediaStudio Pro Users' group, informs me that the software has gradully matured, and the 6.0 version he's beta tested has exceptional promise. "Very stable, mature and useful" are his exact words. So it might be worth taking a look, especially if it's bundled with your capture card of choice (as it often is). Certainly Premiere is so bad (in my admittedly biased judgement) that any competition at the low to middle end is bound to be helpful. Visit his Media Studio Pro Users' Group for more information. The web site for his book, Getting Results with MediaStudio Pro may also be useful.

Incidentally, Ulead has done some very nice work with their graphics packages and photoshop plugins, which I would probably still use if I hadn't foresworn the dreaded Windows platform for my graphics stuff. Their "SmartSaver" Photoshop plugin was very cool. So the company may be foreign, and their writing skill might be a bit weak at times, but they definitely can produce quality software.

In 1998, my assessment of the market is that nobody, with the possible exception of Radius, quite has it right. I think the market has a lot of potential for new entrants. I left the last couple of sentences in because I was right; Final Cut Pro came in and just swept everything away

What Mac is best to run Macintosh-based video editing software??

With the new Intel machines having dual core processors across the board, basically any Macintosh will do fine for video editing. You can even use a notebook if you want; the new dual core units are fully as powerful as my dual processor PowerMac G5.

The Mac Pro will, of course, give you the best performance and wonderful expandability, with room for up to four hard drives. Because external drives often prove flaky, this is a huge advantage over even the older G5 machines.

The new 24 inch iMac should be just about ideal for video editing with its huge screen and powerful processor. You'll only benefit signficantly from the dual dual core Mac Pros if you want to use Motion or other compositing/motion graphics applications.

What about a Mac notebook?

You'll want a MacBook Pro with as large an internal disk as you can get, especially if you want to do video editing on planes. And fly American Airlines ("More room") so you can spread out with your notebook. When you fly lesser airlines, you'll find that when the person in front of you leans back in his seat, your PowerBook G4 will be crushed. (Or you could always fly First Class in any airline, but that's a shade expensive).

The faster your PowerBook, the more real time effects will work, so getting the fastest available machine really pays off. Another thing that pays off is getting the 17 inch model with the huge screen; the screen real estate really helps a lot. The bigger the monitor, the better.

I own a PowerBook G4/400 and I've found that you can get an amazing amount of video editing work done if you're bored and the G4 is there in front of you. So get cracking, editors!

What about a PC-based system?

This is my weak spot; I loathe PCs and Windows with a passion, so it's a bit difficult for me to be helpful. But since you asked nicely, you'll probably want to look at Avid Xpress DV ($1,500) or Premiere.

Although every copy of Windows XP now includes Microsoft's MovieMaker video editing software, this product is so vile that it's a waste of disk space on your computer and nothing more. You have been warned. Check the reviews if you don't believe me.

If you want low-end PC-based video editing, your best bet is a Sony VAIO with their MovieShaker software. I tried it in the store, and although it's not nearly as nice as Apple iMovie, it's at least usable. However, note that the VAIO is just about as expensive as the iMac, so you'd might as well get the real thing instead of the imitation. But if you're determined to use Windows (silly boy!), it should at least get you started.

Support is horrible! Where do I go for help?

Digital Video is a burgoning field, and as a result support lines can be overloaded and service can be strained. Here's a partial list of other places on the net where you can get help.

Members of the Creative Cow forums have been very helpful to me when I've had video-related problems.

The rec.video.desktop newsgroup is a large general forum, where you can learn more about computer-based video editing.

I have a XXX computer. Can I use it for video editing?

I don't think there is anything you can ask your computer to do that puts more demands on it than video capture, editing and rendering. Unless you're on a really lean budget, I strongly recommend dedicating a system to this function. That has one other advantage: If you have a PC now, and use it for various things, you can leave it free to do those, and buy a Macintosh to do video editing. That way, you have access to both platforms and you can use each one for what it does best. That's what I do, and I'm very happy with the arrangement.

That being said, the bottom line recommendation is that you probably don't want to do DV-quality video editing on your computer unless you have a Macintosh G3 or later system, a high-end PowerMac from a year or less ago, or a Pentium PC with at least a 200mhz processor.

From all accounts, it will be extremely hard to install video editing software on a PC-based system that you already own and use extensively. There are two basic reasons for this:

• A lack of device addresses. A PC has device addresses (three digit hexidecimal numbers like "3ba") and interrupt request lines (IRQs). This is one part of the PC that has not changed significantly for years and years. As a result, the number of IRQs is painfully inadequate for many combinations of devices. What this means is that if you have a tricked-out PC with accessories such as a scanner, SCSI disks, sound cards, and so on, you may not have enough spare IRQs in your system to accomodate your shiny new video capture card. Only by spending tedious hours playing with these settings can you have any decent hope of getting a working system together.

• PCs have an inherently poor design. Perhaps you've noticed the dreaded "Windows Disease", a progressive slowing down of your machine that starts on the day you buy it. More and more software junk accumulates as you use your machine, and this makes conflicts between the various components of your system more and more likely. This problem seems much less serious on the Mac, and is a major reason I recommend them over the PC.

  Note that if you don't take my advice and use the same Windows-based computer for video editing as you do for regular use, installation of complex video editing software will increase the "Windows Disease" and make your system slower.

Note that, with a new Mac running around $ 600-1,000 and new PCs selling for ever-decreasing costs, it's fairly cost-effective to dedicate a machine to video editing. This is especially true if you're a computer professional like me and can use one machine for work while the other one's grinding.

If you still want to use your existing Windows computer for video editing, Editing with the Computer looks like a pretty good description of what you'll have to go through. Read it and weep.

What sort of disk drive do I need for video editing?

A big one. A very big one.

Get the largest internal disks you can. Nowadays that usually means 250gb or more.

When you run out of internal drive space, the La Cie line of "Big Disk" and "Bigger Disk" works well for editing with the G5.

If you troll around the web long enough, you'll probably find people who say you need SCSI drives, which are very expensive. Nowadays, the standard interface included with your computer will work just fine.

How do I capture DV video into my computer?

You need two things:

• Your video camera or VCR. Since most people don't want to buy the DV VCR due to its outrageous price, you'll usually just use your camera for this. Note that this can put wear on your heads and drive mechanism; however, for typical use it shouldn't be a problem.

• A FireWire port or card.

Here's the capture screen of Radius MotoDV, which is the capture part of their EditDV video editing system:

The whole process is quite simple, as long as everything is working correctly. You click on the Play/Pause button to play, and click on it again to Pause. The Start Capture button lets you begin capturing. During capture, it's replaced with an End Capture button. You normally capture a little bit more than you need on each end, and trim the clip within your editing application.

For information on Final Cut Pro, see below.

How does video capture work in Final Cut Pro?

Traditionally, in Final Cut Pro you are supposed to log your tapes before capturing them. This means that you watch your tapes, and set in and out points of the data to capture. This has the advantage of minimizing the amount of disk space you use, but it's horribly time-consuming and very hard on your tape transport.

Thanks to today's enormous disks, it's a lot easier to just use "Capture Now" to capture the entire tape. You can then split it into start/stop points automatically.

Recent versions of Final Cut Pro have accomodated lazy people like me with automatic start-stop detection. Select it from the menu and your video is automatically chopped up into sub-segments which map to when you started and stopped your camera, based on time code. I found this extremely useful since it made finding stuff a lot easier.

What does FireWire actually do? Are there alternatives?

FireWire is an interface standard that connects your computer and DV device (your DV camera or VCR). It has two functions: First, to control your DV device, and second to exchange data between the computer and DV device. These are related but separate functions, all of which are integrated into one convenient record/play back system.

So using FireWire, you can tell your camera to play, pause, fast-forward, rewind and stop, and you can tell the computer to capture what's being sent to it. You can also tell your camera to record what's being sent to it by the computer.

There are some other systems for control of camcorders and VCRs, which are generally used with older analogue equipment. However, your digital camcorder may have one of these ports so you can more easily integrate it with analogue video systems.

Control-L, which was previously marketed as LANC, in a slightly different form, is Sony's system. It was invented by Sony, and taken up by Canon and others. It's known for not being terribly accurate, but it does the job.

Panasonic has a different system that's incompatible with Control-L. My understanding is that it's a somewhat more accurate system than Control-L; it's aimed at a more professional audience. As far as I know, Panasonic is the only brand that supports it. (Hopefully, some kind soul will give me the name of this system, which seems to have slipped my mind).

Unfortunately, since Sony and Canon seem to be the big brands in the mid to high-end camcorder market, and Panasonic is the big brand in the mid to high-end VCR market, we have a little problem, two totally incompatible systems that won't talk to each other. Oops.

Note: The following information references obsolete systems that I don't think anyone should consider at this time, since comptuer-based solutions are now fairly economical. However, I know from experience many people like information on even the oldest and most primitive systems, so i'm leaving it here.

FireWire fixes all these ugly problems, so I think the matter of these battling standards is basically obsolete except at the very low end. (I included this section at the request of a reader, Kentil Albertsen, who was curious about the older technologies).

You can also read some technical details about FireWire, if you are so inclined.

What's the best low to mid-level (circa $ 750) capture card?

At this time, I would not recommend a separate capture card. Use your computer's FireWire port. If your computer doesn't have a FireWire port, a card is about $20. But you're probably better off buying a computer that already has FireWire built in.

All current (or even close to current) Macs have built-in Firewire.

There is one exception to this. My PowerMac G5 has both FireWire 800 and FireWire 400 ports. I discovered that if you use the FireWire 800 port for an external drive, attaching a video camera to the FireWire 400 port doesn't work well. In this case, you should buy a FireWire 400 card (the $20 ones sold for PCs work fine) and use it for the camera. I haven't had any trouble with the G5 and FireWire since I made that change.

These units both allow you to deal with both analogue and digital material using the same box, and don't require use of a camera; they have their own analogue to digital converters.

For these extra features, you pay about $ 2,500, as opposed to about $20 (or included with your computer) for the cards and software discussed above.

Unfortunately, as far as I can tell there is no Macintosh product at this price level; you're stuck with using Windows 95 or NT. This is a great pity, since the Mac has a much smoother user interface, and installing software on it is considerably less heartbreaking.

What do I get when I spend tons of money, like on an AVID system?

It used to be that you would get real-time rendering, but now Final Cut Pro based systems offer that for much less.

Avid is a much harder program to learn, with an enormous learning curve. These more expensive systems are almost certainly not worth getting unless you're comfortable with the Avid user interface and don't want to change.

For the record, what is the FAQ maintainer's configuration?

I have not purchased a DV system in some time. If I were to buy new today, I would buy a HDV system.

Here's the DV equipment I bought in 1998, together with its approximate cost. The system you can buy today for similar money is enormously superior.

How can I save disk space during non-linear editing?

[This might still be a useful technique for big projects, but with huge disks going for very low prices, it's no longer necessary for the most part]. As you start to capture and manipulate clips, you will find your disk space vanishing like mist on a summer's dawn. An 11.5GB disk, like the one I bought, can hold less than an hour's worth of video. And if you're doing a lot of effects and transitions, the final video you render will eat up space as well.

I find the best way to deal with this problem is to edit my video in small, natural segments. In my video on pet bird care and training, for instance, I have short segments on picking your bird, teaching her the "UP" command, teaching her more complex commands, dealing with multiple birds, bird safety, and so on. To create my video, I edit each one of those segments and tie them all together to make the final video.

The main advantage of working this way is that, once you're done with one segment, you can render a final copy (Export Program Movie in Radius EditDV) and delete all the source clips. The only caution you have to follow is to make sure the final product is exactly as you want.

If you want to be cautious, make a backup copy of all the clips that you used by making a project containing all of them and printing them to tape. That way, you won't have to go endlessly through your original source tapes to find that one segment you lost and want to re-edit.

How do I sharpen my captured images?

[8 September 1998] Clifford Bernard writes us as follows:

I read your FAQ on non-linear editing with interest. I've just started making movies from MiniDV footage on my Mac with Radius MotoDV. (Mac 8500/200, Panasonic NV-DS1). I have a possibly useful hint for sharpening up images captured between frames of interlaced video. I found this quite by accident when I tried to use a captured fame as a still background for fading credits in Premier. I had a captured pic (a lot like the one on your FAQ) of some big goldfish swimming in shallow water. It looked fine playing back on my RGB monitor (not interlaced) but when I played back on a TV, the the image quivered, making my pretty fish pic look like fish in Jello. I solved the problem by opening the pic in Photoshop (vs 4.0) and using the de-interlace filter (filter/video/de-interlace). I soon noticed that when I applied this filter to blurred captures, it instantly pulled them into sharp focus.

(EditDV): My video isn't playing out well through the timeline

If your video "stutters" when you're playing it through the time line, this probably means that your disk drives are too slow. This is especially common when you are almost out of disk space, or when you use your main system disk or a slow drive (like an Iomega Jaz) to play video.

Obviously, the straightforward advice is to buy a better disk system, such as the UltraSCSI drives mentioned before. But what if you're on a budget and just don't want to blow over $ 2,000 to solve this problem?

I'll let you in on a little secret: If you use the "Print to Video" menu option from the file menu, your video will come out perfectly, every time, even if you're using sluggish devices to store it. Apparently the additional processing necessary to play through the time line (such as moving the pointer and manipulating the various interface windows) slows down the system enough to make playback erratic at times.

(EditDV): Is an external monitor worth using?

Since NTSC colours are different from what you see, and since it's nice to see your image on the "big screen", I wouldn't go without an external monitor.

The only exception is if you're doing video that's going to be distributed via computer. In that case, there's little point in using an external monitor.

Are there any alternatives to spending all this money?

There are, if you're not afraid to sacrifice quality. But if you are, you're losing the major advantages that made you interested in DV in the first place.

All of the relatively inexpensive solutions for video editing are analogue, and therefore result in generation loss, as we discussed earlier in this document. Once you make that sacrifice, you'd might as well go all analogue for your editing.

If you want a less expensive, but still decent quality solution, look into buying a used three-chip Sony Hi-8 camera or the Canon L1 or L2. Both will give you close to the raw image quality of the current DV cameras, but of course you'll face generation loss from the start. You can put together a Hi-8 tape-based editing system for between $ 1,500 and $ 3,500, depending on the special effects sophistication you need. Cuts-only editing should be yours for the low end of that range, even for new equipment.

If you want to start on DV and move on to better editing systems later, you can always use your camera at one end and a Hi-8 or Super VHS deck at the other to create an analogue master. This will work, but it will result in worse quality and be a great deal harder to use than a NLE system.

The Video Director Studio 200 is an interesting gadget designed to automate this process, for about $200. It will find the beginning and end of each scene on your tape, and let you put them together. It even claims to offer transitions, but they are awful; you can tell a Video Director edited tape when you see the outgoing frame freeze and the effect coming in. It's not acceptable in my opinion.

As you can see, your cheaper alternatives are pretty bleak - which is why I said in the beginning of this FAQ that you probably want to think twice before getting into Digital Video unless you have a sound, money-making project in mind.

Who is Bill Conduit and why do people hate him so?

Bill is very knowledgeable about the world of video; I think he must spend half his life pouring over press releases, USENET posts and various rumour mill publications to get his information.

However, Bill is a creature of the present. If CANON comes up with a great video camera, he will be the first to sing its praises. If there is then a problem with CANON's camera, he will immediately say that it's a piece of junk and CANON should be crucified for selling it. But then CANON fixes the problem and the camera winds up being a perfectly fine thing again. Bill likes the new, likes the WOW, but has an unsteady trigger finger. In short, if he says something that seems unfair to some vendor or another, it probably is. Use your own judgement.

Bear in mind, however, that Bill is exactly the kind of gadfly one needs in order to make sure companies do the right thing. Without the pressures exerted by Bill and friends, manufacturers would be much more likely to cut corners in customer support. If you don't like Bill - and many don't - bear that in mind.

I read him, ponder what he's saying, and take it all with a grain of salt.