When I worked in TV news (2002-2012) we used portable decks very similar to this one for pool feeds. For some events, like high-profile court cases, sporting events related to the olympics, events with high-profile politicians, and other things, only a single pool camera would be allowed inside. All the news stations had to agree to share that one pool camera. Now, it was possible to wait for the event to be over, then wait for a copy of the tape or memory card to be made, but for something like a high profile court case it would be a race to be the first to report the latest developments. So, the pool camera would send a feed out to some adjacent hallway or storage room where a bunch of people like me, from different news stations, would all be crouched there with portable broadcast decks, like the one featured here. Because these decks all had inputs and outputs they could be daisy chained together, so you could have several different stations all recording their own feeds simultaneously. We wouldn't go shoot a story with a deck like this slung over our shoulder. That used to be the way TV news was done back in the early days of video news cameras, after 16mm film, but by the time Betacam came along the record decks were built into the camera, and having a separate shoulder slung deck wasn't necessary. The other place that portable broadcast decks like this were used was in high end TV or commercial production. If you were shooting a high end commercial, or a network television program out on a location, chances are you would actually be shooting on film. The film cameras would have a small video camera built into them, creating a video feed of exactly what was being recorded to the film, and the film camera itself would have a video output for connecting to external video devices. This way you could have a producer, director, and others all seeing what the camera was filming in real time without having to look through the optical viewfinder. It would be a low quality video feed, even black and white, but it was better than nothing. Portable video decks, like the one featured in this video, could be connected to the film camera's video output, along with the time-code from the film camera. An editor could then edit this video version, with the same time code as the film, leaving the precious film negative untouched and in its pristine state. Once the edit was locked, since the timecode was exactly the same as the film's, an Edit Decision List (EDL) could be exported and sent to the film lab. As the film was developed, it could then be cut and conformed to the EDL. That finished film edit could then be transferred straight to a high quality video format as a first generation dub, giving you the highest possible image quality while still affording the editor the ease of working with video.
Kind of like a video press box interesting. What's a press box..... I keep doing a live/streaming event and I offer up audio outputs for the various folks that roam In with professional cameras Half the time I get the blank stare of what the hell are you talking about. I did have one person knew what it was and used it though. Meanwhile the news last night had somebody in a room talking and all you could hear was the Echo. Which was beat by the news tonight where they're literally next to a Street and all you can hear is the traffic and not the sheriff I think talking.
@@imark7777777 Wow, you must live in a really crappy news market for things to be that bad. But, I'm not surprised. The trend in TV news has been to hire MMJ's (Multi-Media Journalists) who are essentially reporters, only they are given a prosumer camera and expected to not just report, but shoot and edit their own stories. Devices like the LiveU even make it possible for them to do their own live shots. When I've seen MMJs have the kind of audio issue you describe, I find that they are usually using a wireless mic correctly. The issue is that the camera is also recording sound from its on board mic to a separate channel at the same time. When the import the footage, they don't know how to separate the channels, so the audio from the on board mic drowns out the good audio. One perhaps interesting tidbit is that in my entire time in TV news I never heard anyone call it a press box. The term that was always used was a mult-box, as in multiple audio sources. Eventually I figured out that non-news people often refer to mult-boxes as press boxes, but I've never heard anyone in television call it that.
I want to make your line: "I'm a professional and I don't have time for that Mickey mouse horsesh!t" into a t-shirt and wear it at work. Honestly through me because I've seen a few of your videos and have never heard you talk like that. It's spot on, and I can't agree more
I don't even do video production and I'm lusting after that thing. There's something so satisfying about a no-nonsense, purpose-built, all-metal cinderblock of a device that just plain works. What a good get.
I’ll third your comment, I’m interested in AV equipment, but not a collector or anything. There’s something to a dense well built unit with an army of inputs and outputs, reminds me of a nice live audio board
Yes, a device that is the complete opposite of cheap consumer products from Ali express. Metal instead of plastic, well documented specs, well written instructions, will still function properly after years of daily use, full manual modes and so on. I like professional equipment. :)
It's just amazing to see someone explore and talk about something they clearly love to death. And if I happen to be less dumb while watching someone be enthusiastic a out something, all the better. He never fails to disappoint. I'm just waiting for him to do a video with technology connections for the greatest crossover in history
Honestly I have no interest in most recording media but I've watched all his videos for that reason. The level of depth and ease of explanation is great.
That broadcast equipment overbuiltness... Only people that could survive zombie apocalypse is live TV crews cause they have indefinite support of heavy blunt weapons, capable of disposing a zombie horde while outputting crisp picture live.
Loved it! 5:10, "Just" - How right you are! I'm an IT consultant, and I cringe every time someone starts a sentence with "I *just* need...", because I've learned, the hard way, that whatever follows is going to be uninformed, unrealistic or both. "Why can't I/you just..." is rarely any better. Gotta go now and take care of a client who *just* needs me to download the Internet onto a CD-ROM so he can read it at home.😛🤪😝
@@thegamecorner2275, what now feels like centuries ago, I was a Programmer/Analyst working for a bank, which, for reasons best known to magazine publishers, "earned" me complimentary subscriptions to InfoWorld, PC World and several other trade rags. In an article about the then-nascent Internet, an IT worker was quoted as having been approached by his company's CEO, who handed him a diskette (the article didn't say what size) and told, "Would you please download the Internet onto this diskette so I can read it at home?" Clearly, I never forgot that quote. But in the spirit in which you recommended a DVD, I guess the Internet was a much smaller thing back then!
I encounter the XY problem plenty at work, where I have to help customers solve a very broad spectrum of electronics issues. It's always fun when in the rare case they get pissed off when I ask questions trying to figure out the problem they're trying to solve. The other day I had a pair of guys get indignant at me when I kept trying to figure out why they were telling me they "just needed a 36-volt AC adapter, the kind a laptop takes."
"Just"-itis seems to be a pervasive illness within the IT world. After a couple years of running into this on both sides of the problem, I've started to treat the word with caution in my own dictionary. Whenever I feel like I'm explaining something "easy and apparent" and want to reach for the "just" I don't. Most things appear only simple in a total vacuum.
Without you CRD, my existence would have been incomplete not knowing about this equipment. Thank you. This is why I break into my miniature piglet bank to support your Patreon. Don’t ever stop improving. CRD 3.0 has proven to be a huge success! Also, look at you just rolling in a vintage media/TV cart without having to rearrange your whole space! NNNNOOOOIIIICCCCCEEEE!
Man thank you for this channel. You are one of best in this section of UA-cam, the same level as TechnologyConnections, LRG and TechMoan, you have a even better energy, more chilled less nevrotric and more understandable. Keep up the good work 👏
@@Tedd755 I'm not denigrating anyone I'm subscribed to all I mentioned and have the utmost respect for them. I'm just pointing out he is more chilled than them so, many times his explanations aren't 10 minutes tangent in a format because the audience is nitpicky in the comments
@@Tedd755 No one is being denigrated here. OP name dropped channels with over a million subs and highlighted their opinion on the high comparable quality of CRD vids in comparison. Dork.
@@pisacenere I'm sorry, how is calling someone neurotic _not_ denigrating? I'd love to hear your reasoning. Especially as you claim you have "the utmost respect for them".
@@Tedd755 simple I think neurotic is a style of addressing the odience, explaining ALL the little details about a problem, TechnologyConnection makes often a second video because some comments points out a minimal error he has made in the presentation without the understanding that maybe the problem is many viewers of these channels are so interested in be right than being entertained. Is a show for me not an deep analysis of some minute details of a little capacitor in a 1985 VHS that I don't think I will be ever come across and I don't care for another video because he named the capacitor VX569 instead of AX569, this is neurotic for me. I'm interested in the novelty of older technology but I don't intend to buy anything of this things, I stream video, record digitally, I listen to music on Spotify with Bluetooth. I want the show, the novelty, the history ramifications of the invention, he gives me exactly that.
Even if they don't seem as popular as computer videos, I believe you're doing important work documenting the history of video capture. Thank you for all you do. ❤
100% agreed on "just". I've remarked in the past that any response from myself or anyone else that starts with "Why don't you just..." 99% of the time indicates that you do not understand the problem. I've caught myself a couple times just before saying it, and instead asked more about what the problem was, or what was trying to be solved. Cheers!
Yes well meaning people always give us suggestions for our shop and I'm like it's not a lack of ideas it's a lack of hands, money, time, energy.. Sometimes the ideas are just not practical for us. Some things I would love to do.
@@CathodeRayDude XKCD's comic called "Physicists" is a textbook example of "just." That said, sometimes it helps to have an outside perspective that can look at the problem from a different angle. In rare cases one can already be so far down the rabbit hole trying to figure out a solution to one particular aspect of a workflow that one may miss a much simpler solution and workflow
I don't know why PC cases keep using those wonky long travel switches, it could have just been a 6mm tactile buckling dome switch and it would have felt nicer as well. It still has to be a momentary switch unfortunately though, due to how everything in the PC is designed.
19:50 1440x1080 resolution wasn't an anomaly, it was the limitation of technology at the time, for both recording and camera sensors. Sony's HDCAM format from 1997 recorded 1440x1080i but inputs & outputs 1920x1080 via HD-SDI, Panasonic's DVCPRO HD recorded 1280x1080i. (Sony later increased to full 1920x1080 recording on their HDCAM-SR format in 2003.) Both format's resolution made their way toward corresponding prosumer formats: Sony's 1st gen XDCAM HD, HDV, early AVCHD formats (1440 was still used on lower bitrate settings of recorders that has a 1920 record mode to save space), & Panasonic's P2. On the camera end, Sony & Canon used non-square pixel sensors that matched the recording format, however some cameras, especially 3-chip ones, used pixel-shifting to increase apparent sharpness. Sony's HDR-FX1 was a 3CCD HDV camera that has the green CCD shifted horizontally by a half pixel (each CCD is 960x1080 and shifting the green attained a total resolution of 1440x1080), Panasonic's AG-HVX200 has a 960x540 sensor for each three CCDs which were pixel-shifted in both dimensions. As for HDV, it was an ingenious invention that allowed high definition recording on affordable media that was readily-available at the time, at a time when flash memory of a similar capacity (about 12GB per 1 hour MiniDV tape) was prohibitively costly. An 8GB SD or Memory Stick in the latter-half of the 2000s were around $100, hence why many tapeless camcorders of that era used optical media and hard drives, with flash media only used when recording time wasn't of importance.
You don't look awkward. you look like a professional, freelance video journalist. You have succeeded. Also, I love that I can usually recognize your on site locations, as I'm a Kitsap resident. Keep up the great work. Additionally, I like how you finished by wheeling out the TV cart, like it was video day at school. Excellent.
I always absolutely love how unapologetic you are in regards to your personal standards and needs. "Yes, your kludgy way may technically work and is good enough for *you*, but that doesn't make it actually *good* production practice!" It's uncompromising, in a mentally healthy way (IMO of course). 💯👍🥰
Sad to hear people are less interested in your cameras - analog cameras are the main reason I found your channel and loved every single bit of it! Its just this cool niche that nobody else seems to be covering as well as you do. So yeah, just wanted to say you got your dedicated analog video aficionados watching
As someone who spent a non-insignificant amount of her youth watching SD video and volunteering with broadcasts, your video camera (and camera-adjacent tech) videos really make me nostalgic. Keep up the awesome work; looking forward to what you make with this thing!
The “just” thing. I feel it so hard. It comes up a lot in disability communities. Well-meaning but infuriating strangers, who know literally nothing about one’s condition, bring up ideas they had in literally under 5 seconds as if it’ll help. I don’t know if they really think I’m that unintelligent that their exceedingly obvious suggestion never occurred to me, or if they just lack the self-awareness to even analyse the situation that way. Aaanyway this is a great little device. I love the colour accuracy of that screen, it must’ve cost a decent fraction of the manufacture price of the device. Also, 4 entire XLR inputs is lovely. I had mistakenly taken the proprietary Sony connector as EIAJ, and then was disappointed when you had to use composite or S-video; heh. Still, how well does the VTR work with that JVC cam? I still think that orange-red metal body is so sexy. It’s a bit of a shame your camera videos don’t do as well, unless I’m misunderstanding your comment about it there. I guess I can understand why an old PC or stuff might have a bigger audience, but man, those camera vids are my favourite. I was about to list my most favourite examples but ended up just typing I’m pretty sure all of them. Gotta admit, I thought you were going to plug into that HDV camera with FireWire and dub to the CF with the entire camera, heh. It’s good of Sony to make it operable on its own at least. Lastly, I think you might just be cursed re FireWire on computers. I read your other comments outlining all the difficulties, and I have never ever ran into that problem on G4 or early Intel Macs, even when I had flaky DV dubbing on Windows XP computers at school. But then, I only used miniDV half a dozen times on borrowed cameras before getting my own SD camera. Hm, it just occurred to me, might it be the higher bit rate of DVCAM somehow tripping-up the consumer-grade software which is expecting bog standard Dad Cam type footage? While the professional gear was built to handle all of it no sweat. Well aaanyway, thanks very much for another cool video!
"I don’t know if they really think I’m that unintelligent that their exceedingly obvious suggestion never occurred to me, or if they just lack the self-awareness to even analyse the situation that way." It's the latter, I assure you. I encounter this kind of thing all the time - and I'm not disabled, this is just how people act when they want to be thought of as helpful. Happens at work with video workflow things, happens with friends when we're talking about our own problems.
Thank you for sharing this! I suspected that such a thing must have existed in the late SD DV era, but I was never really able to find an example. Seems like the industry moved past this one pretty quickly, which makes the quality of the build all the more impressive.
20 years before this topmachine came on the market we had the Hitachi VT680ME, a portable VHS recorder with a built- in monitor. It was the third version of the portable VHS deck from this company which i.m.o. shows that the need in the market for a built- in monitor was very high from the beginning. Of course the monitor was a tube (we are talking about 1984, no led screens yet) so this deck was not that portable. The VT6800 was in those days a very light weight portable recorder but it's sistermodel VT680M was not practical to carry on your shoulder while filming. Another reason that the DSR50 was on my wishlist is that you could use the machine as a player in the edit. Like the BVW50 betacam (no built- in monitor) you only needed one edit machine or use the DSR50 as your second player in a regular 2 machine edit set for making dissolves and the like. I never bought a DSR50, it was expensive and hard to get. One extra reason to love the DVCam era: if you run out of tapes while you're abroad, you could buy these DV consumer tapes instead of the high graded DV Cam tapes. You mention the 124 minutes as a maximum but I always used 184 minutes DVCam tapes. And consumer DV tapes.
I'd love to know more about your experience shooting SD video professionally in the 2020s. Most of my interest in older technology is as curiosity and hobby, but as a media professional myself I'm also interested in how you're deploying this stuff in a modern setting. Very interesting.
Wow cool device you got there. I agree. When you're met with solid, rugged, modular, fail-safe professional tech - it just blows everything away. I used to work in film, and firewire was king. I miss it.
I dig it! Thats such a great solution to the problem especially on the conversion side. I always used to be on the "why dont you just do it on a PC" side until I tried plugging my midi drumkit into my computer. Now I've done a complete 180. If you can do what you have here and replace a pc/laptop/raspberry pi or whatever with a dedicated device thats almost always the way to go. It might be possible to do the same thing with a laptop hanging of your chest but I guarantee it goes to sleep halfway through a recording. Or frame skips. Or has latency that makes it hard to use as a view finder. Or some other weird issue that you would never have possibly foreseen. Its cool that you can show us footage from all sorts of cameras in your collection now, look forward to seeing the videos.
I really love how relaxed yet engaging your channel is. No overused jump cuts, no distracting edits, just one man and his passion for what he's talking about.
Actually dvcam standard is 1/3 faster tape speed. I've worked with dsr250p for years and it is still usable. Dsr250p had the same tape mechanism and could use minidv, minidvcam, dv and dvcam tapes.
@@CathodeRayDude I think I still have 240 min. dv tapes, camcorders like dsr250 tend to chew them after 5-6 reuses. I've used to fix them by shorting.Some Sony DVcam tapes had a feature called MC it was a memory chip which coud store index codes and even user defined chapter names. Old nostalgic times... :)
@@CathodeRayDude Basically yeah. I just looked it up because it's been years since I've shot MiniDV/Cam. I remember getting 40 or 45 minutes per tape on my camera compared to MiniDV. Interestingly, Digital 8 runs at nearly the same tape speed as DVCAM. Sony must have liked that speed. :)
DVCAM is cross-combatible with MiniDV - as far as I recall, all DVCAM decks could play MiniDV. It's literally the same format, but without some additional capabilities and on a narrower track pitch. Also there was playback compatibility DVCPRO and DVCAM but I can't remember the specifics - I think DVCPRO decks could play DVCAM. Can't remember if the same was true in reverse. And all HDV decks will also play MiniDV and DVCAM. And Digital8 is just the DV25 codec implemented on 8mm video cassette, so a Digital8 camera (or deck, a few existed I think) will play Hi8 and Video8. The age of tapes was a wild time!
The HDV section is so weird for me to hear about all that in such past tense. 😅 I shot so many weddings and events on HDV tapes and have a closet full of them. Really was a decent quality format.
Alot of the 3 CCD 1080i cameras from the early 00's would offset each of the color CCD's by 1/3 of a pixel on each side of the lens's prism. Allowing for a Luma res ~2x that of the Color res (4:2:0 Color). I'm not sure how much of that was marketing wank, but that's why the 1M pixels look as nice as they do :)
Yeah, I'm being *slightly* uncharitable because I know they're doing some Wacky Math & Optics Stuff that makes it perform better than the raw resolution suggests, but hey - as far as I know, by 2011 or so, a "1080p" sensor had exactly _1920 by 1080 elements_, and I have a hard time signing on with any ship that doesn't sail that way.
@@Stoney3K the recording format was 1440x1080, not the sensor format, they didn't use anamorphics for that, even HDV cameras with a 1920 width sensor would only record 1440, namely my HDR-HC1 had a 1920x1440 4:3 sensor which would only use a 16:9 portion for video and record in 1440x1080i
Fun video, thanks for making it. But as someone who lived through all the formats, devices, cables, $$$ and workarounds I'm glad it's all safely in the past, relegated to 24 minute UA-cam videos where it belongs.
Yeah but I miss the archival aspect of tape. Put it on a shelf and you know you have a backup of your raw footage that will most likely be good for a couple decades. I didn't even mind the tape import process. It often gave me some time to do other things.
@@CathodeRayDude until the SD card stops working, or until you deal with USB stability issues, etc. If only everything used CF Express, and you could plug in over thunderbolt for a minimum of problems.
@@CathodeRayDude indeed a thousand times easier and recently a less expensive option than tape, but the three SD cards that i’ve seen s#it the bed is way worse than the one tape that went bad on me in 1999.
I’m impressed by how perfect the color of that wall is. The color is relaxing, the hue is perfect, the contrast it provides seems optimal… the color choice seems odd, but genius.
Just a delightful video. 😁 Seeing your struggles with the tech not even 20 years old one can't appreciate and marvel enough the progress we've made in that short time.
Best informational video I have ever seen. Great to see someone doing what they love. Your presentation is excellent. You have a much more confident delivery than any of the other "tech-guy" channels and the difference makes it much more watchable. Keep up the good work.
I’m so happy people get to enjoy this equipment in todays world. Us professionals literally threw this stuff to the curb when HD came out in 1998 and never looked back. But getting good use out of well made gear is so cool! Thanks for bringing back some great memories. I still have my DSR1500!
I absolutely love this! I joined the broadcast community at the very tail end of the heyday of this kind of equipment. Even today there's an air of respect around these devices.
I adore you and your videos so much. I have not had any interest in most of the products you are showcasing but your enthusiasm, knowledge and ability to dive deep into everything you are showing is fascinating me. I am able to shut off all of my ever cycling thoughts when I am watching a video of yours. Everytime you upload I feel joy and excitement. I just want to thank you for that.
Yes! Mini-DV 1080i! When I was studrying multimedia design back in college over 12 years ago we had a bunch of those and I remember being able to see individual water droplets when filming a shot in the rain. That was so cool!
I love it when I can get notified of a high quality upload and there's only a few comments or views. I doubt this will last much longer, as you're approaching the 100k mark, but it's nice to be able to say I was here before you blew up.
Just a suggestion for powering old cameras...modern batteries may not fit but DC voltage is DC voltage. I'm sure a few 18650's with a voltage regulator and some connectors taken from a dead battery would do it. I've only done similar to make an old NES portable and it fit inside of the body
You don't even need a regulator. Broadcast stuff runs from 11V to 17V, they updated the range with the increased used of LiIon batteries in the early 90s. V-Mount batteries (which is what the DSR-50 uses) are a common standard, used in nearly all pro video gear and beyond, today, typical packs are 14.4V LiIon with a max voltage of 16.8V (4x 4.2V) and plenty of them are filled with 18650 cells. I already bought dead V-mount batteries and just installed new cells. And if the internal pack of the recorder isn't enough, there are battery belts with that 4pin XLR. That pro video gear is so wonderful when it comes to usability and compatibility among brands. And for powerering anything else, there are V-mount battery plates for some bucks, if the voltage doesn't fit, add a switching regulator, voila, one battery type for everything :)
He has made a point to say, in the past, that he has NO interest fooling around with incendiary devices. ;-) While I'm not above hacking together some Lithium batteries, I definitely respect that stance.
@@nickwallette6201 Yeah, putting together liIon packs is not something for everyone, I also don't like it a lot, but with that cheap Chinese spot welder and enough care, it can save some bucks compared to the prices of brand new packs :)
The end of this video really demonstrates how awesome add-ons and accessories were for old tech. Now that one or two devices do everything, it's easy to forget how fun it was to dream about all the potential of your stuff if you could just get ahold of that next upgrade, or to plan your major tech purchases based on the product ecosystem.
Great as always! I would love a good solid analogue camera for that authentic old school camera look. Filters and PP just looks too .... Well it's got no feel. The workflow. I had sane issue with older systems, computers, consoles etc. Dumping games, footage etc. I have a very powerful XP pc using my old PC parts. The important bit is that it NATIVE compatible to XP. Mines a i5 4690k with a 680 GPU and Xfi card. It has every in and out IO on it and also doubles as my network share. Even the audio is analogue to digital on the fly due to the xfi Means I can just plug everything old into it, XP even has good DOS compatibility, to modern... Everything x32. As it doubles as my network share, I can just grab all the dumps straight into my workflow on my current devices and even edit/use the data throught the network for editing. Meaning it keeps my modern systems clean. As a bonus..... It platys 90s and 00s games like a dream!!! Thanks fir great content mate 🙂
When I first got in to television in the mid 00s these things were still floating around. In places like the US Senate buildings for larger hearings and such only certain numbers of operators we're allowed in the room. A lot of us were pushed in to this cramped side room with a bunch of wall plates with bnc and xlr connections. The station I was working for had a camera that could record to a tape from an external bnc source, I don't remember the make or model, but others were using these. These were great as you didn't want to be lugging the studio version of this around.
dude you have no idea how much i'd love to see just a modern dedicated 10-pin camera recorder. I've owned a canon vc-30 for most of my life, but not the recorder. After going through over a dozen busted recorders on eBay last year, I managed to find one that works. Now that it's running, i can say it's easily my favorite piece of equipment. My main tool's a sony NX5U, and this 40-year-old camera is infinitely more fun to shoot with. Which is why I'm pleased to see that this exists. It sounds like it's the closest we've got to a high quality digital 10-pin recorder for analog cameras.
Very interesting and astute take on the older generations of video equipment. I did most of my video production work in the 1980s and 90s when NTSC was king. I lost touch with the pro video industry after that, so this video serves as an interesting bridge between 2000 and 2015, when I rekindled my video interest. Thank you for the informative trip down memory lane and beyond!
Yes, I totally get it. As a long time serving electronics/mechanical engineer, there is nothing like having the right tool for the job. As you say, sure, you can fumble around with all sorts of adapters, cables, leads etc, but get the right tool. This has clearly been thought through carefully to meet the demands of an industry, designed by people who actually use and understand what's needed out in the field. At the risk of sounding like a cliché, designed by professionals for professionals. Agree about the power switch thing too, robust and reliable clunky power switch on kit like this is essential and usually a sign of a robust design.
I was about to comment saying it would have been really cool to have the preview screen running while you explained it. Bravo my friend, Bravo. Should have had faith.
I actually just watched your JVC video this week. Glad you see a new video from ya! Hope you're doing well amid all the craziness that seems neverending. You're one of my new favorite youtubers.
I also have always had trouble with firewire. We used to have a Sony miniDV camcorder. For what it was, excellent picture quallity. Back then i used Premiere on Win XP. On two separate computers, it would take turning everything on and off multiple times before it finally started to capture.
For MiniDV capture on PC, I used the small little WinDV utility. Only 38KB, but all it did is capture DV input from firewire to an AVI file, and it did it flawlessly. It'd even automatically start a new AVI file for every new clip on the tape. If I had a DV AVI that had been captured by something else and I wanted to split it, I'd use the DVdate utility to go back through and split the file into individual clips. For HDV video capture, I used the HDVSplit utility, which basically combined the functions of both WinDV and DVdate into one program, but for HDV footage. I personally used these programs on a Windows 7 PC, where they worked fine. Based on reviews on Videohelp, the programs WinDV and HDVSplit still work on Windows 10 64-bit for people.
Pickup an old HP XW8200, run Windows XP on it and see if you can get an old Avid Xpress Pro or Media Composer license. That is a solid setup and pretty bulletproof on DV ingest.
I captured 1080i video from Mini DV using one of the Sony CF units in Windows 10 about 5 years ago. Adobe Premiere did it perfectly first time using an ancient PCI FireWire card. I was impressed as it's the only time I've ever used FireWire.
Oh man, this is beautiful. I learned professional video when that DSR250 was state of the art, and we also learned to shoot on analog cameras using a Umatic deck similar to this one. It had a very durable carry sling, and was about 25 kilos. I don't miss shooting that way at all but I am still glassy eyed looking at this device, thinking oh god why couldn't we have used one of those when I was in school??
I too have had items like this that I am enamored with - and was recently able to move out of our house in the first 18-year "clearing operation" during the Summer. What I DO love about these far more traditional/old school things, is that - you will instantly get a different kind of attention and "sway" in a crowd with THIS than you will with a smartphone in a gimble. It's why I still cling to my DSLR inside of live events to capture photos. It's not because the optics are better, it's because it instantly provides a different kind of presence in a crowd of any size. It's also instantly easier for people to identify "the photographer" when you're given that moniker, and I like that a lot. Does it provide what is the HIGHEST END-ALL OF EVERYTHING? No. Does it give me the fizz to do what I do at the quality I need it done at to achieve photo/video collection and get it to the web to share? Absolutely. Bully for you and your efforts to showcase OLDER SCHOOL GEAR that gets the job done. The only massive drawback here is the power/battery issue. Carrying a couple of spare batteries isn't rocket science, but it IS weight.
You're awesome. I've been neck deep in college classes the last few months and haven't had time to visit your channel, so I've been binge watching this evening. Your content is so original, your humor is on point, and your attention to detail is impecible. You've carved out a unique niche on the internet.
What I also miss of older rigs is their HEFT and feel in that - they really are resilient. I just bought a new smartcam gimble and while it's solid, doesn't feel like it's going to sway apart under the weight of the phone - you know what it ISN'T? It's not super-solid like this device you've got here. This is the kind of thing that's featured in an 80's crime drama where someone is MURDERED with it. It's stout, includes a copious amount of AWESOME connections and - oh yeah, a friggin' status screen. Love it and this video.
10 out of 10! I totally agree with what you have said in this video. I too am dabbling in this territory, and absolutely love the way some of the pro products were built.
Great video. So unusual to see that red color in a video camera ..You'd have to go back to the 80s like the GR-C1! Glad you mentioned the HDV format. So many people don't realize the first HD video format was actually on tape, not on an SD card. Great job.
Great Video. I purchased a Z5E in 2021 and later picked up an MRC1. Still need the dock for it however. Great video and I never realised such such a tape deck existed. Can’t believe you were sent a Z7E for free 🥰 Keep up the good work.
the last time i had an emotional reaction to a subtly inset video in a video was, um, . . . hey, it was video of the screen savers playing on a cathode ray tube mounted in an equipment rack slightly beside/behind my favorite youtube tech talk dude. and that was the first time as well. now that’s two i owe you, junior.
Dude I can only imagine the elation you felt when you finally found your unicorn. Some people don't love their kids as much as you love that recorder 😁
About the closest successor I've seen that ticks most (but sadly not all) the boxes is the Sony HVRM10U portable recorder. Nice big built in monitor with VU meters, composite/s-video inputs with analog audio, firewire port and NP-F battery power. Unfortunately it's not as rugged and corners were definitely cut: soft power button, manual audio levels via menu only, RCA jacks and unbalanced audio, 4-pin FW, and sadly no strap mounts so case is required. Like I said, close. I'd say DV formats are the best way of preserving SD video in native format, which can then more or less easily be adapted to more modern progressive playback methods. Kudos for mentioning the FS-4 and MRC1 units. Used those heavily back in the day for easier footage transfer.
For saving DV over Firewire, the 'dvgrab' utility on Linux worked the best for me when pulling old camcorder footage, if willing to go down the Linux path. It let me grab the raw DV data then do whatever I wanted with it (ffmpeg convert, etc).
I’m curious to know what workflows this form factor of VTR, with a tape format this modern, this deck was being used for. I can see it was built as a “drop in” replacement for the analogue VTRs in the same form factor. However, I don’t know of a camera from the 2000’s that would need a portable pack recorder. You’ve shown the camera back VTRs before and how they adapted a camera from 26 pin. Maybe on set playback for film? But there I can’t imagine 26 pin (I know as multicore) being used for that. Even larger studio cameras of the time could use a recording back, rather than needing the 26 pin connector for a VTR. And if the camera is connected to a CCU (Camera Control Unit: remote picture quality controllers), they don’t have a 26 pin pass through for a recorder. Which would allow for recording in component on one cable as you mention. I worked in outside broadcast in the early 2000’s. But never with these formats. Our workflow was still analogue (U-Matic mostly, some Beta and one BetaSP) via composite, because our primary output was to VHS for customers. Later replaced with DVD-R. Quality wasn’t as much of an issue for our customers as the content.
Well, I was going to say those strap lugs look just like the buttons on guitars that the strap connects to. But then you pulled out the strap and I've never seen anything like that. It almost sounds like a seatbelt when you connect it. Now I want to find a strap like that big enough for my guitars.
The trouble is the angle - these are designed to sit perfectly perpendicular to the surface, so on a guitar you'd have a lot of off-axis force that would eventually break the lug or latch. Guitar buttons need to flex on 2-3 axes since they have to be used dynamically rather than just as shoulder straps, otherwise yeah, these would rock.
@@CathodeRayDude I do have one or two guitars which have the same flat tops on the buttons. It just depends on where the lugs are placed, so I suspect that the film/video version of the lugs is at least based on that. You can quite obviously put a guitar strap on one of these decks and call it a day if you want, your mileage may vary the other way round.
17:08 Firewire capture. Here are some pointers to get flawless capture: 1 Windows 10 desktop, not Mac or laptop. 2 Software: WinDV or Pinnacle Studio (older versions such as Ultimate 12 seem particularly good). 3 Capture to an SSD. Not the one with the operating system on it. 4 Set the priority of your capture software to High using Task Manager, select the app, More Details, then Priority. I've created a batch file to do this quickly when using Pinnacle Studio. My systems run all day like this, perfect capture with zero dropped frames, no lip-sync issues, no corrupted files.
For your workflow, it looks like there is still pretty good FireWire support on Linux, so you might be able to get a better transfer process going that way, on some sort of dedicated Linux box you set up just to get a digital file.
You blew my mind when you loaded the mini tape. I have never seen that, and I’ve been around since…. A while. Yeah, a while is good. At any rate, I’ve also never been around professional video, film or digital production equipment. It’s been a long time since something has really awed my inner tech geek kid. He went all, “What?! That was awesome! Now let me push the button. It’s my turn. Not your turn.”
When I saw an HDV camcorder on the internet a few weeks ago, I figured you had to have one. I looked and never found a video on it, but I'm looking forward to one!
Great video 🏆 I'm so glad that you've brought up this camcorder (also, big thanks to the viewer for supplying it) because I used to film with it back in 2010. So many good memories.
@11:50 HECC YEA ka-CHUNK ka-CHUNK switches!! They just *let you know* that things are solidly in place on way or the other. For me, the best part is that they are MUCH easier to replace with... literally any kind of electromechanical toggle, OEM fit, or not. Hecc, you might even be able to disassemble, clean, realign/tension, and reassemble the old switch if they are made well enough!
I love how you're passionate you are about a camcorder's aesthetic. Seriously. Reminds me of me when I fell in love with my Sony MiniDisc Player that had an all metal case. Besides feeling great in your hand the front was a blue aluminum that was fun just to listen to the front open (for the disk) as it would make this tiny, clean, clinking noise that made you feel like you had a delicate piece of surgical equipment in your hands. I gotta buy another one.
Now I kinda want to make a Raspberry Pi-based system with almost no adapters that just saves uncompressed video to a massive SSD. Assuming it's built the way it should be, there would be no issues with video cutting out or anything, and it would be freaking awesome.
![1000ft of ANALOG HD video over a single cable?! [AHD/CVI/TVI]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YYAVrLBKavM/mqdefault.jpg)
When I worked in TV news (2002-2012) we used portable decks very similar to this one for pool feeds. For some events, like high-profile court cases, sporting events related to the olympics, events with high-profile politicians, and other things, only a single pool camera would be allowed inside. All the news stations had to agree to share that one pool camera.
Now, it was possible to wait for the event to be over, then wait for a copy of the tape or memory card to be made, but for something like a high profile court case it would be a race to be the first to report the latest developments. So, the pool camera would send a feed out to some adjacent hallway or storage room where a bunch of people like me, from different news stations, would all be crouched there with portable broadcast decks, like the one featured here. Because these decks all had inputs and outputs they could be daisy chained together, so you could have several different stations all recording their own feeds simultaneously.
We wouldn't go shoot a story with a deck like this slung over our shoulder. That used to be the way TV news was done back in the early days of video news cameras, after 16mm film, but by the time Betacam came along the record decks were built into the camera, and having a separate shoulder slung deck wasn't necessary.
The other place that portable broadcast decks like this were used was in high end TV or commercial production. If you were shooting a high end commercial, or a network television program out on a location, chances are you would actually be shooting on film. The film cameras would have a small video camera built into them, creating a video feed of exactly what was being recorded to the film, and the film camera itself would have a video output for connecting to external video devices. This way you could have a producer, director, and others all seeing what the camera was filming in real time without having to look through the optical viewfinder. It would be a low quality video feed, even black and white, but it was better than nothing.
Portable video decks, like the one featured in this video, could be connected to the film camera's video output, along with the time-code from the film camera. An editor could then edit this video version, with the same time code as the film, leaving the precious film negative untouched and in its pristine state. Once the edit was locked, since the timecode was exactly the same as the film's, an Edit Decision List (EDL) could be exported and sent to the film lab. As the film was developed, it could then be cut and conformed to the EDL. That finished film edit could then be transferred straight to a high quality video format as a first generation dub, giving you the highest possible image quality while still affording the editor the ease of working with video.
Kind of like a video press box interesting. What's a press box.....
I keep doing a live/streaming event and I offer up audio outputs for the various folks that roam In with professional cameras Half the time I get the blank stare of what the hell are you talking about. I did have one person knew what it was and used it though. Meanwhile the news last night had somebody in a room talking and all you could hear was the Echo. Which was beat by the news tonight where they're literally next to a Street and all you can hear is the traffic and not the sheriff I think talking.
@@imark7777777 Wow, you must live in a really crappy news market for things to be that bad. But, I'm not surprised. The trend in TV news has been to hire MMJ's (Multi-Media Journalists) who are essentially reporters, only they are given a prosumer camera and expected to not just report, but shoot and edit their own stories. Devices like the LiveU even make it possible for them to do their own live shots. When I've seen MMJs have the kind of audio issue you describe, I find that they are usually using a wireless mic correctly. The issue is that the camera is also recording sound from its on board mic to a separate channel at the same time. When the import the footage, they don't know how to separate the channels, so the audio from the on board mic drowns out the good audio.
One perhaps interesting tidbit is that in my entire time in TV news I never heard anyone call it a press box. The term that was always used was a mult-box, as in multiple audio sources. Eventually I figured out that non-news people often refer to mult-boxes as press boxes, but I've never heard anyone in television call it that.
I want to make your line: "I'm a professional and I don't have time for that Mickey mouse horsesh!t" into a t-shirt and wear it at work. Honestly through me because I've seen a few of your videos and have never heard you talk like that. It's spot on, and I can't agree more
This is the apex of analog video just like Tyrannosaurus was the apex of the Cretaceous.
( ☉д⊙)
Tay can you please say hi to me so I can flex on my friends
Omg it's the chocolate Rain guy
why is chocolate man under my vintage electronic vidoes
Hey this isn't a Doug DeMuro video, what are you doing here??
I don't even do video production and I'm lusting after that thing. There's something so satisfying about a no-nonsense, purpose-built, all-metal cinderblock of a device that just plain works. What a good get.
Indeed, same.
I’ll third your comment,
I’m interested in AV equipment, but not a collector or anything.
There’s something to a dense well built unit with an army of inputs and outputs, reminds me of a nice live audio board
Same here, but not being a producer I would prefer it with VHS.
Sony pro gear was soooooo well-designed.
Yes, a device that is the complete opposite of cheap consumer products from Ali express. Metal instead of plastic, well documented specs, well written instructions, will still function properly after years of daily use, full manual modes and so on. I like professional equipment. :)
Man, the attention to detail on what the little preview screen is showing while you talk is one of the many reasons I like your channel :-)
Oh, was he trying to point something out on that screen?
I didn’t notice.
;)
It's just amazing to see someone explore and talk about something they clearly love to death. And if I happen to be less dumb while watching someone be enthusiastic a out something, all the better. He never fails to disappoint. I'm just waiting for him to do a video with technology connections for the greatest crossover in history
Him setting up the infinite loop on the screen nearly killed me
Honestly I have no interest in most recording media but I've watched all his videos for that reason. The level of depth and ease of explanation is great.
That broadcast equipment overbuiltness... Only people that could survive zombie apocalypse is live TV crews cause they have indefinite support of heavy blunt weapons, capable of disposing a zombie horde while outputting crisp picture live.
Well we sit in our Bombshelter basement watching.
I’ve covered wars, you know!
Your dorkiest ghostbuster setup still looks cooler than anyone with a selfie stick. Can't wait for your first full film on this type of equipment.
Slinging the recorder across his chest reminded me of _Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas._
Loved it! 5:10, "Just" - How right you are! I'm an IT consultant, and I cringe every time someone starts a sentence with "I *just* need...", because I've learned, the hard way, that whatever follows is going to be uninformed, unrealistic or both. "Why can't I/you just..." is rarely any better. Gotta go now and take care of a client who *just* needs me to download the Internet onto a CD-ROM so he can read it at home.😛🤪😝
Yeah, you need at least a DVD to store the entire internet! What kind of Luddite was this guy?
@@thegamecorner2275, what now feels like centuries ago, I was a Programmer/Analyst working for a bank, which, for reasons best known to magazine publishers, "earned" me complimentary subscriptions to InfoWorld, PC World and several other trade rags. In an article about the then-nascent Internet, an IT worker was quoted as having been approached by his company's CEO, who handed him a diskette (the article didn't say what size) and told, "Would you please download the Internet onto this diskette so I can read it at home?" Clearly, I never forgot that quote. But in the spirit in which you recommended a DVD, I guess the Internet was a much smaller thing back then!
@@thegamecorner2275 Pretty sure if you compress it you can fit it onto a Jaz drive.
I encounter the XY problem plenty at work, where I have to help customers solve a very broad spectrum of electronics issues. It's always fun when in the rare case they get pissed off when I ask questions trying to figure out the problem they're trying to solve. The other day I had a pair of guys get indignant at me when I kept trying to figure out why they were telling me they "just needed a 36-volt AC adapter, the kind a laptop takes."
"Just"-itis seems to be a pervasive illness within the IT world. After a couple years of running into this on both sides of the problem, I've started to treat the word with caution in my own dictionary. Whenever I feel like I'm explaining something "easy and apparent" and want to reach for the "just" I don't. Most things appear only simple in a total vacuum.
Without you CRD, my existence would have been incomplete not knowing about this equipment. Thank you. This is why I break into my miniature piglet bank to support your Patreon. Don’t ever stop improving. CRD 3.0 has proven to be a huge success!
Also, look at you just rolling in a vintage media/TV cart without having to rearrange your whole space! NNNNOOOOIIIICCCCCEEEE!
Man thank you for this channel. You are one of best in this section of UA-cam, the same level as TechnologyConnections, LRG and TechMoan, you have a even better energy, more chilled less nevrotric and more understandable. Keep up the good work 👏
You know, it's possible to praise someone _without_ denigrating others.
@@Tedd755 I'm not denigrating anyone I'm subscribed to all I mentioned and have the utmost respect for them. I'm just pointing out he is more chilled than them so, many times his explanations aren't 10 minutes tangent in a format because the audience is nitpicky in the comments
@@Tedd755 No one is being denigrated here. OP name dropped channels with over a million subs and highlighted their opinion on the high comparable quality of CRD vids in comparison. Dork.
@@pisacenere I'm sorry, how is calling someone neurotic _not_ denigrating? I'd love to hear your reasoning. Especially as you claim you have "the utmost respect for them".
@@Tedd755 simple I think neurotic is a style of addressing the odience, explaining ALL the little details about a problem, TechnologyConnection makes often a second video because some comments points out a minimal error he has made in the presentation without the understanding that maybe the problem is many viewers of these channels are so interested in be right than being entertained. Is a show for me not an deep analysis of some minute details of a little capacitor in a 1985 VHS that I don't think I will be ever come across and I don't care for another video because he named the capacitor VX569 instead of AX569, this is neurotic for me. I'm interested in the novelty of older technology but I don't intend to buy anything of this things, I stream video, record digitally, I listen to music on Spotify with Bluetooth. I want the show, the novelty, the history ramifications of the invention, he gives me exactly that.
Even if they don't seem as popular as computer videos, I believe you're doing important work documenting the history of video capture. Thank you for all you do. ❤
100% agreed on "just". I've remarked in the past that any response from myself or anyone else that starts with "Why don't you just..." 99% of the time indicates that you do not understand the problem. I've caught myself a couple times just before saying it, and instead asked more about what the problem was, or what was trying to be solved. Cheers!
I think everyone's guilty of it from time to time, myself included - but we can all try to do better, hah!
Yes well meaning people always give us suggestions for our shop and I'm like it's not a lack of ideas it's a lack of hands, money, time, energy.. Sometimes the ideas are just not practical for us. Some things I would love to do.
@@CathodeRayDude XKCD's comic called "Physicists" is a textbook example of "just."
That said, sometimes it helps to have an outside perspective that can look at the problem from a different angle. In rare cases one can already be so far down the rabbit hole trying to figure out a solution to one particular aspect of a workflow that one may miss a much simpler solution and workflow
I'm so glad we agree about power switches. Every pushbutton spring-loaded power switch I've ever had just gets stuck eventually, even my PC case's.
Didn’t Steve Jobs hate push power buttons?
God I love old PC power switches. Switches that feel so good you can use them as a fidget toy.
@@Hafk As long as it's not connected to anything. ;)
If it doesn't kachunk-kachunk, I don't want it.
I don't know why PC cases keep using those wonky long travel switches, it could have just been a 6mm tactile buckling dome switch and it would have felt nicer as well. It still has to be a momentary switch unfortunately though, due to how everything in the PC is designed.
19:50 1440x1080 resolution wasn't an anomaly, it was the limitation of technology at the time, for both recording and camera sensors. Sony's HDCAM format from 1997 recorded 1440x1080i but inputs & outputs 1920x1080 via HD-SDI, Panasonic's DVCPRO HD recorded 1280x1080i. (Sony later increased to full 1920x1080 recording on their HDCAM-SR format in 2003.) Both format's resolution made their way toward corresponding prosumer formats: Sony's 1st gen XDCAM HD, HDV, early AVCHD formats (1440 was still used on lower bitrate settings of recorders that has a 1920 record mode to save space), & Panasonic's P2. On the camera end, Sony & Canon used non-square pixel sensors that matched the recording format, however some cameras, especially 3-chip ones, used pixel-shifting to increase apparent sharpness. Sony's HDR-FX1 was a 3CCD HDV camera that has the green CCD shifted horizontally by a half pixel (each CCD is 960x1080 and shifting the green attained a total resolution of 1440x1080), Panasonic's AG-HVX200 has a 960x540 sensor for each three CCDs which were pixel-shifted in both dimensions. As for HDV, it was an ingenious invention that allowed high definition recording on affordable media that was readily-available at the time, at a time when flash memory of a similar capacity (about 12GB per 1 hour MiniDV tape) was prohibitively costly. An 8GB SD or Memory Stick in the latter-half of the 2000s were around $100, hence why many tapeless camcorders of that era used optical media and hard drives, with flash media only used when recording time wasn't of importance.
You don't look awkward. you look like a professional, freelance video journalist. You have succeeded. Also, I love that I can usually recognize your on site locations, as I'm a Kitsap resident. Keep up the great work. Additionally, I like how you finished by wheeling out the TV cart, like it was video day at school. Excellent.
I always absolutely love how unapologetic you are in regards to your personal standards and needs.
"Yes, your kludgy way may technically work and is good enough for *you*, but that doesn't make it actually *good* production practice!"
It's uncompromising, in a mentally healthy way (IMO of course). 💯👍🥰
Sad to hear people are less interested in your cameras - analog cameras are the main reason I found your channel and loved every single bit of it!
Its just this cool niche that nobody else seems to be covering as well as you do. So yeah, just wanted to say you got your dedicated analog video aficionados watching
As someone who spent a non-insignificant amount of her youth watching SD video and volunteering with broadcasts, your video camera (and camera-adjacent tech) videos really make me nostalgic. Keep up the awesome work; looking forward to what you make with this thing!
The “just” thing. I feel it so hard. It comes up a lot in disability communities. Well-meaning but infuriating strangers, who know literally nothing about one’s condition, bring up ideas they had in literally under 5 seconds as if it’ll help. I don’t know if they really think I’m that unintelligent that their exceedingly obvious suggestion never occurred to me, or if they just lack the self-awareness to even analyse the situation that way.
Aaanyway this is a great little device. I love the colour accuracy of that screen, it must’ve cost a decent fraction of the manufacture price of the device. Also, 4 entire XLR inputs is lovely. I had mistakenly taken the proprietary Sony connector as EIAJ, and then was disappointed when you had to use composite or S-video; heh.
Still, how well does the VTR work with that JVC cam? I still think that orange-red metal body is so sexy.
It’s a bit of a shame your camera videos don’t do as well, unless I’m misunderstanding your comment about it there. I guess I can understand why an old PC or stuff might have a bigger audience, but man, those camera vids are my favourite. I was about to list my most favourite examples but ended up just typing I’m pretty sure all of them.
Gotta admit, I thought you were going to plug into that HDV camera with FireWire and dub to the CF with the entire camera, heh. It’s good of Sony to make it operable on its own at least.
Lastly, I think you might just be cursed re FireWire on computers. I read your other comments outlining all the difficulties, and I have never ever ran into that problem on G4 or early Intel Macs, even when I had flaky DV dubbing on Windows XP computers at school. But then, I only used miniDV half a dozen times on borrowed cameras before getting my own SD camera.
Hm, it just occurred to me, might it be the higher bit rate of DVCAM somehow tripping-up the consumer-grade software which is expecting bog standard Dad Cam type footage? While the professional gear was built to handle all of it no sweat.
Well aaanyway, thanks very much for another cool video!
"I don’t know if they really think I’m that unintelligent that their exceedingly obvious suggestion never occurred to me, or if they just lack the self-awareness to even analyse the situation that way."
It's the latter, I assure you. I encounter this kind of thing all the time - and I'm not disabled, this is just how people act when they want to be thought of as helpful. Happens at work with video workflow things, happens with friends when we're talking about our own problems.
@@thecianinator that’s oddly comforting, haha.
Your broadcast gear videos are my favorites, especially the cameras
That red JVC was awesome
Same!
A quality, well thought out, useful product
Truly a rarity
Thank you for sharing this! I suspected that such a thing must have existed in the late SD DV era, but I was never really able to find an example. Seems like the industry moved past this one pretty quickly, which makes the quality of the build all the more impressive.
20 years before this topmachine came on the market we had the Hitachi VT680ME, a portable VHS recorder with a built- in monitor. It was the third version of the portable VHS deck from this company which i.m.o. shows that the need in the market for a built- in monitor was very high from the beginning. Of course the monitor was a tube (we are talking about 1984, no led screens yet) so this deck was not that portable. The VT6800 was in those days a very light weight portable recorder but it's sistermodel VT680M was not practical to carry on your shoulder while filming.
Another reason that the DSR50 was on my wishlist is that you could use the machine as a player in the edit. Like the BVW50 betacam (no built- in monitor) you only needed one edit machine or use the DSR50 as your second player in a regular 2 machine edit set for making dissolves and the like. I never bought a DSR50, it was expensive and hard to get.
One extra reason to love the DVCam era: if you run out of tapes while you're abroad, you could buy these DV consumer tapes instead of the high graded DV Cam tapes. You mention the 124 minutes as a maximum but I always used 184 minutes DVCam tapes. And consumer DV tapes.
"you're supposed to be running the camera ~ the camera isn't supposed to be running you"
I'd love to know more about your experience shooting SD video professionally in the 2020s. Most of my interest in older technology is as curiosity and hobby, but as a media professional myself I'm also interested in how you're deploying this stuff in a modern setting. Very interesting.
Exactly. WHY WOULD THIS FOOTAGE BE OF ANY VALUE?
Wow cool device you got there. I agree. When you're met with solid, rugged, modular, fail-safe professional tech - it just blows everything away. I used to work in film, and firewire was king. I miss it.
The good news is that Thunderbolt has taken its place, and works phenomenally.
I dig it! Thats such a great solution to the problem especially on the conversion side. I always used to be on the "why dont you just do it on a PC" side until I tried plugging my midi drumkit into my computer. Now I've done a complete 180. If you can do what you have here and replace a pc/laptop/raspberry pi or whatever with a dedicated device thats almost always the way to go.
It might be possible to do the same thing with a laptop hanging of your chest but I guarantee it goes to sleep halfway through a recording. Or frame skips. Or has latency that makes it hard to use as a view finder. Or some other weird issue that you would never have possibly foreseen. Its cool that you can show us footage from all sorts of cameras in your collection now, look forward to seeing the videos.
I really love how relaxed yet engaging your channel is. No overused jump cuts, no distracting edits, just one man and his passion for what he's talking about.
1.037 million pixels sounds just about right for 960x1080 sensor resolution BTW.
Actually dvcam standard is 1/3 faster tape speed. I've worked with dsr250p for years and it is still usable. Dsr250p had the same tape mechanism and could use minidv, minidvcam, dv and dvcam tapes.
I probably mixed it up with DVCPRO, which I believe does run twice as fast.
@@CathodeRayDude I think I still have 240 min. dv tapes, camcorders like dsr250 tend to chew them after 5-6 reuses. I've used to fix them by shorting.Some Sony DVcam tapes had a feature called MC it was a memory chip which coud store index codes and even user defined chapter names. Old nostalgic times... :)
@@CathodeRayDude Basically yeah. I just looked it up because it's been years since I've shot MiniDV/Cam. I remember getting 40 or 45 minutes per tape on my camera compared to MiniDV.
Interestingly, Digital 8 runs at nearly the same tape speed as DVCAM. Sony must have liked that speed. :)
@@roxics faster speed assures less chance for errors. I've never seen any drops on new tapes.
DVCAM is cross-combatible with MiniDV - as far as I recall, all DVCAM decks could play MiniDV. It's literally the same format, but without some additional capabilities and on a narrower track pitch.
Also there was playback compatibility DVCPRO and DVCAM but I can't remember the specifics - I think DVCPRO decks could play DVCAM. Can't remember if the same was true in reverse. And all HDV decks will also play MiniDV and DVCAM.
And Digital8 is just the DV25 codec implemented on 8mm video cassette, so a Digital8 camera (or deck, a few existed I think) will play Hi8 and Video8.
The age of tapes was a wild time!
The HDV section is so weird for me to hear about all that in such past tense. 😅 I shot so many weddings and events on HDV tapes and have a closet full of them. Really was a decent quality format.
Still stands up today for sure. Those Sony HDV camcorders deliver brilliant picture quality.
Man this is so dope. At one point I said out loud, "woah woah woah woah," and had to rewind to make sure I heard that right. Well done CRD!
Alot of the 3 CCD 1080i cameras from the early 00's would offset each of the color CCD's by 1/3 of a pixel on each side of the lens's prism. Allowing for a Luma res ~2x that of the Color res (4:2:0 Color).
I'm not sure how much of that was marketing wank, but that's why the 1M pixels look as nice as they do :)
Yeah, I'm being *slightly* uncharitable because I know they're doing some Wacky Math & Optics Stuff that makes it perform better than the raw resolution suggests, but hey - as far as I know, by 2011 or so, a "1080p" sensor had exactly _1920 by 1080 elements_, and I have a hard time signing on with any ship that doesn't sail that way.
Don't forget using anamorphic lenses so they could get away with squeezing a 16:9 picture in a 1440x1080 sensor.
@@Stoney3K the recording format was 1440x1080, not the sensor format, they didn't use anamorphics for that, even HDV cameras with a 1920 width sensor would only record 1440, namely my HDR-HC1 had a 1920x1440 4:3 sensor which would only use a 16:9 portion for video and record in 1440x1080i
there is no greater aesthetic than clicking small bits of tech together 21:25
Fun video, thanks for making it. But as someone who lived through all the formats, devices, cables, $$$ and workarounds I'm glad it's all safely in the past, relegated to 24 minute UA-cam videos where it belongs.
Fully agreed. "Put in an SD card and press record" is superior in every way, especially the part where you can be _certain it's actually working_
Yeah but I miss the archival aspect of tape. Put it on a shelf and you know you have a backup of your raw footage that will most likely be good for a couple decades.
I didn't even mind the tape import process. It often gave me some time to do other things.
@@CathodeRayDude until the SD card stops working, or until you deal with USB stability issues, etc. If only everything used CF Express, and you could plug in over thunderbolt for a minimum of problems.
@@CathodeRayDude indeed a thousand times easier and recently a less expensive option than tape, but the three SD cards that i’ve seen s#it the bed is way worse than the one tape that went bad on me in 1999.
THE INTERNET IS A BETTER PLACE 'COZ YOU EXIST. Always an absolute pleasure to watch your videos.
I’m impressed by how perfect the color of that wall is. The color is relaxing, the hue is perfect, the contrast it provides seems optimal… the color choice seems odd, but genius.
Thanks for throwing in "local maximum" casually. At least in your high school they did teach some math that stuck.
Just a delightful video. 😁
Seeing your struggles with the tech not even 20 years old one can't appreciate and marvel enough the progress we've made in that short time.
Best informational video I have ever seen. Great to see someone doing what they love. Your presentation is excellent. You have a much more confident delivery than any of the other "tech-guy" channels and the difference makes it much more watchable. Keep up the good work.
This video was so necessary for my existence. I would love for Sony and these companies to send you stuff and answer our questions.
I’m so happy people get to enjoy this equipment in todays world. Us professionals literally threw this stuff to the curb when HD came out in 1998 and never looked back. But getting good use out of well made gear is so cool! Thanks for bringing back some great memories. I still have my DSR1500!
I absolutely love this! I joined the broadcast community at the very tail end of the heyday of this kind of equipment. Even today there's an air of respect around these devices.
"Mickey Mouse Bullshit" might just be my FAVORITE new phrase. Excellent.
I adore you and your videos so much. I have not had any interest in most of the products you are showcasing but your enthusiasm, knowledge and ability to dive deep into everything you are showing is fascinating me. I am able to shut off all of my ever cycling thoughts when I am watching a video of yours. Everytime you upload I feel joy and excitement. I just want to thank you for that.
Yes! Mini-DV 1080i! When I was studrying multimedia design back in college over 12 years ago we had a bunch of those and I remember being able to see individual water droplets when filming a shot in the rain. That was so cool!
I love it when I can get notified of a high quality upload and there's only a few comments or views. I doubt this will last much longer, as you're approaching the 100k mark, but it's nice to be able to say I was here before you blew up.
Me too. I will have a claim to fame that i was a 25k subscriber.
Just a suggestion for powering old cameras...modern batteries may not fit but DC voltage is DC voltage. I'm sure a few 18650's with a voltage regulator and some connectors taken from a dead battery would do it. I've only done similar to make an old NES portable and it fit inside of the body
You don't even need a regulator. Broadcast stuff runs from 11V to 17V, they updated the range with the increased used of LiIon batteries in the early 90s. V-Mount batteries (which is what the DSR-50 uses) are a common standard, used in nearly all pro video gear and beyond, today, typical packs are 14.4V LiIon with a max voltage of 16.8V (4x 4.2V) and plenty of them are filled with 18650 cells. I already bought dead V-mount batteries and just installed new cells.
And if the internal pack of the recorder isn't enough, there are battery belts with that 4pin XLR.
That pro video gear is so wonderful when it comes to usability and compatibility among brands.
And for powerering anything else, there are V-mount battery plates for some bucks, if the voltage doesn't fit, add a switching regulator, voila, one battery type for everything :)
He has made a point to say, in the past, that he has NO interest fooling around with incendiary devices. ;-) While I'm not above hacking together some Lithium batteries, I definitely respect that stance.
@@nickwallette6201 Yeah, putting together liIon packs is not something for everyone, I also don't like it a lot, but with that cheap Chinese spot welder and enough care, it can save some bucks compared to the prices of brand new packs :)
@@MichaelKukat Totally agree. :-)
@@MichaelKukat yeah that’s a good point. I have an unusually large tolerance for fires in my office
Love the channel, keep up the great work
The end of this video really demonstrates how awesome add-ons and accessories were for old tech. Now that one or two devices do everything, it's easy to forget how fun it was to dream about all the potential of your stuff if you could just get ahold of that next upgrade, or to plan your major tech purchases based on the product ecosystem.
Man tech has come a long way since I was in high school. I forget this until I see something like this.
You are so right about not d-ing around when it comes to capturing things that you don’t get another chance at.
Great as always! I would love a good solid analogue camera for that authentic old school camera look. Filters and PP just looks too .... Well it's got no feel.
The workflow. I had sane issue with older systems, computers, consoles etc. Dumping games, footage etc.
I have a very powerful XP pc using my old PC parts. The important bit is that it NATIVE compatible to XP. Mines a i5 4690k with a 680 GPU and Xfi card. It has every in and out IO on it and also doubles as my network share. Even the audio is analogue to digital on the fly due to the xfi
Means I can just plug everything old into it, XP even has good DOS compatibility, to modern... Everything x32.
As it doubles as my network share, I can just grab all the dumps straight into my workflow on my current devices and even edit/use the data throught the network for editing. Meaning it keeps my modern systems clean.
As a bonus..... It platys 90s and 00s games like a dream!!!
Thanks fir great content mate 🙂
When I first got in to television in the mid 00s these things were still floating around. In places like the US Senate buildings for larger hearings and such only certain numbers of operators we're allowed in the room. A lot of us were pushed in to this cramped side room with a bunch of wall plates with bnc and xlr connections. The station I was working for had a camera that could record to a tape from an external bnc source, I don't remember the make or model, but others were using these. These were great as you didn't want to be lugging the studio version of this around.
Man, the late nineties and early two thousands really were a kind of renaissance
dude you have no idea how much i'd love to see just a modern dedicated 10-pin camera recorder.
I've owned a canon vc-30 for most of my life, but not the recorder. After going through over a dozen busted recorders on eBay last year, I managed to find one that works.
Now that it's running, i can say it's easily my favorite piece of equipment. My main tool's a sony NX5U, and this 40-year-old camera is infinitely more fun to shoot with.
Which is why I'm pleased to see that this exists. It sounds like it's the closest we've got to a high quality digital 10-pin recorder for analog cameras.
Very interesting and astute take on the older generations of video equipment. I did most of my video production work in the 1980s and 90s when NTSC was king. I lost touch with the pro video industry after that, so this video serves as an interesting bridge between 2000 and 2015, when I rekindled my video interest. Thank you for the informative trip down memory lane and beyond!
Yes, I totally get it. As a long time serving electronics/mechanical engineer, there is nothing like having the right tool for the job. As you say, sure, you can fumble around with all sorts of adapters, cables, leads etc, but get the right tool.
This has clearly been thought through carefully to meet the demands of an industry, designed by people who actually use and understand what's needed out in the field. At the risk of sounding like a cliché, designed by professionals for professionals.
Agree about the power switch thing too, robust and reliable clunky power switch on kit like this is essential and usually a sign of a robust design.
I was about to comment saying it would have been really cool to have the preview screen running while you explained it.
Bravo my friend, Bravo. Should have had faith.
5:45 This delivery is just perfect. I exhaled through my nose at that.
I love "shit brick-house". This is my new favorite turn of phrase.
I'm sure he's used that phrase before, it's backwards but still sounds great.
@@Dedubya- It's one of those small CRD running gags that appears every so often, like "dipping mustards" or "high-power nerds".
I actually just watched your JVC video this week. Glad you see a new video from ya! Hope you're doing well amid all the craziness that seems neverending. You're one of my new favorite youtubers.
I also have always had trouble with firewire. We used to have a Sony miniDV camcorder. For what it was, excellent picture quallity.
Back then i used Premiere on Win XP. On two separate computers, it would take turning everything on and off multiple times before it finally started to capture.
For MiniDV capture on PC, I used the small little WinDV utility. Only 38KB, but all it did is capture DV input from firewire to an AVI file, and it did it flawlessly. It'd even automatically start a new AVI file for every new clip on the tape.
If I had a DV AVI that had been captured by something else and I wanted to split it, I'd use the DVdate utility to go back through and split the file into individual clips.
For HDV video capture, I used the HDVSplit utility, which basically combined the functions of both WinDV and DVdate into one program, but for HDV footage.
I personally used these programs on a Windows 7 PC, where they worked fine. Based on reviews on Videohelp, the programs WinDV and HDVSplit still work on Windows 10 64-bit for people.
Pickup an old HP XW8200, run Windows XP on it and see if you can get an old Avid Xpress Pro or Media Composer license. That is a solid setup and pretty bulletproof on DV ingest.
I captured 1080i video from Mini DV using one of the Sony CF units in Windows 10 about 5 years ago. Adobe Premiere did it perfectly first time using an ancient PCI FireWire card. I was impressed as it's the only time I've ever used FireWire.
Oh man, this is beautiful. I learned professional video when that DSR250 was state of the art, and we also learned to shoot on analog cameras using a Umatic deck similar to this one. It had a very durable carry sling, and was about 25 kilos. I don't miss shooting that way at all but I am still glassy eyed looking at this device, thinking oh god why couldn't we have used one of those when I was in school??
I love this old stuff.... watching your videos SAVES ME from having to buy these things myself on ebay!
I too have had items like this that I am enamored with - and was recently able to move out of our house in the first 18-year "clearing operation" during the Summer. What I DO love about these far more traditional/old school things, is that - you will instantly get a different kind of attention and "sway" in a crowd with THIS than you will with a smartphone in a gimble. It's why I still cling to my DSLR inside of live events to capture photos. It's not because the optics are better, it's because it instantly provides a different kind of presence in a crowd of any size. It's also instantly easier for people to identify "the photographer" when you're given that moniker, and I like that a lot. Does it provide what is the HIGHEST END-ALL OF EVERYTHING? No. Does it give me the fizz to do what I do at the quality I need it done at to achieve photo/video collection and get it to the web to share? Absolutely. Bully for you and your efforts to showcase OLDER SCHOOL GEAR that gets the job done. The only massive drawback here is the power/battery issue. Carrying a couple of spare batteries isn't rocket science, but it IS weight.
That things freaking cool. I rigged a space heater to work with a house thermostat, that's MY new favorite thing.
Oh that side full of input/output ports is an engineers wet dream! Awesome!
You're awesome. I've been neck deep in college classes the last few months and haven't had time to visit your channel, so I've been binge watching this evening. Your content is so original, your humor is on point, and your attention to detail is impecible. You've carved out a unique niche on the internet.
What I also miss of older rigs is their HEFT and feel in that - they really are resilient. I just bought a new smartcam gimble and while it's solid, doesn't feel like it's going to sway apart under the weight of the phone - you know what it ISN'T? It's not super-solid like this device you've got here. This is the kind of thing that's featured in an 80's crime drama where someone is MURDERED with it. It's stout, includes a copious amount of AWESOME connections and - oh yeah, a friggin' status screen. Love it and this video.
Your channel is my new favorite thing. It fits nicely somewhere between Techmoan and the 8 Bit Guy.
I love these videos because it’s a comforting nostalgia for my days in film school in the 2000’s.
10 out of 10! I totally agree with what you have said in this video. I too am dabbling in this territory, and absolutely love the way some of the pro products were built.
Great video. So unusual to see that red color in a video camera ..You'd have to go back to the 80s like the GR-C1! Glad you mentioned the HDV format. So many people don't realize the first HD video format was actually on tape, not on an SD card. Great job.
Great Video. I purchased a Z5E in 2021 and later picked up an MRC1. Still need the dock for it however.
Great video and I never realised such such a tape deck existed.
Can’t believe you were sent a Z7E for free 🥰
Keep up the good work.
Fantastic video. You're steadily introducing me to an entire world of video production equipment that I had no idea existed.
14:50 - the best thing i've seen in quite some time, just look!
The amazing look of the setup put on is just about as geeky as it gets 😊
the last time i had an emotional reaction to a subtly inset video in a video was, um, . . . hey, it was video of the screen savers playing on a cathode ray tube mounted in an equipment rack slightly beside/behind my favorite youtube tech talk dude. and that was the first time as well. now that’s two i owe you, junior.
Amen to your view on adapters and dongles.
Amen to your anti soft power button stance.
You deserve to grow even bigger, keep doin what you're doin!
Dude I can only imagine the elation you felt when you finally found your unicorn. Some people don't love their kids as much as you love that recorder 😁
14:45 CRD gesturing on the little screen had me dying with laughter! 😂
Also, I love your video camera videos - your passion shows. Never thought I'd be interested in retro camera videos, but here I am.
About the closest successor I've seen that ticks most (but sadly not all) the boxes is the Sony HVRM10U portable recorder. Nice big built in monitor with VU meters, composite/s-video inputs with analog audio, firewire port and NP-F battery power. Unfortunately it's not as rugged and corners were definitely cut: soft power button, manual audio levels via menu only, RCA jacks and unbalanced audio, 4-pin FW, and sadly no strap mounts so case is required. Like I said, close. I'd say DV formats are the best way of preserving SD video in native format, which can then more or less easily be adapted to more modern progressive playback methods. Kudos for mentioning the FS-4 and MRC1 units. Used those heavily back in the day for easier footage transfer.
For saving DV over Firewire, the 'dvgrab' utility on Linux worked the best for me when pulling old camcorder footage, if willing to go down the Linux path. It let me grab the raw DV data then do whatever I wanted with it (ffmpeg convert, etc).
Yep I used that too it's great. Maybe have a dedicated PC to "digest" the footage.
I’m curious to know what workflows this form factor of VTR, with a tape format this modern, this deck was being used for. I can see it was built as a “drop in” replacement for the analogue VTRs in the same form factor. However, I don’t know of a camera from the 2000’s that would need a portable pack recorder. You’ve shown the camera back VTRs before and how they adapted a camera from 26 pin. Maybe on set playback for film? But there I can’t imagine 26 pin (I know as multicore) being used for that.
Even larger studio cameras of the time could use a recording back, rather than needing the 26 pin connector for a VTR. And if the camera is connected to a CCU (Camera Control Unit: remote picture quality controllers), they don’t have a 26 pin pass through for a recorder. Which would allow for recording in component on one cable as you mention.
I worked in outside broadcast in the early 2000’s. But never with these formats. Our workflow was still analogue (U-Matic mostly, some Beta and one BetaSP) via composite, because our primary output was to VHS for customers. Later replaced with DVD-R. Quality wasn’t as much of an issue for our customers as the content.
Interesting insight. I was thinking the same thing, seems like most portable cameras would have had built-in recorders by 2002.
Well, I was going to say those strap lugs look just like the buttons on guitars that the strap connects to. But then you pulled out the strap and I've never seen anything like that. It almost sounds like a seatbelt when you connect it. Now I want to find a strap like that big enough for my guitars.
The trouble is the angle - these are designed to sit perfectly perpendicular to the surface, so on a guitar you'd have a lot of off-axis force that would eventually break the lug or latch. Guitar buttons need to flex on 2-3 axes since they have to be used dynamically rather than just as shoulder straps, otherwise yeah, these would rock.
@@CathodeRayDude Ah, gotcha. I didn't think about the angles.
@@CathodeRayDude I do have one or two guitars which have the same flat tops on the buttons. It just depends on where the lugs are placed, so I suspect that the film/video version of the lugs is at least based on that. You can quite obviously put a guitar strap on one of these decks and call it a day if you want, your mileage may vary the other way round.
17:08 Firewire capture. Here are some pointers to get flawless capture:
1 Windows 10 desktop, not Mac or laptop.
2 Software: WinDV or Pinnacle Studio (older versions such as Ultimate 12 seem particularly good).
3 Capture to an SSD. Not the one with the operating system on it.
4 Set the priority of your capture software to High using Task Manager, select the app, More Details, then Priority. I've created a batch file to do this quickly when using Pinnacle Studio.
My systems run all day like this, perfect capture with zero dropped frames, no lip-sync issues, no corrupted files.
For your workflow, it looks like there is still pretty good FireWire support on Linux, so you might be able to get a better transfer process going that way, on some sort of dedicated Linux box you set up just to get a digital file.
You blew my mind when you loaded the mini tape. I have never seen that, and I’ve been around since…. A while. Yeah, a while is good.
At any rate, I’ve also never been around professional video, film or digital production equipment. It’s been a long time since something has really awed my inner tech geek kid. He went all, “What?! That was awesome! Now let me push the button. It’s my turn. Not your turn.”
When I saw an HDV camcorder on the internet a few weeks ago, I figured you had to have one. I looked and never found a video on it, but I'm looking forward to one!
Great video 🏆 I'm so glad that you've brought up this camcorder (also, big thanks to the viewer for supplying it) because I used to film with it back in 2010. So many good memories.
If I was running at TV station in 1995, I would commission a time machine to go head hunt Cathode Ray Dude.
@11:50 HECC YEA ka-CHUNK ka-CHUNK switches!! They just *let you know* that things are solidly in place on way or the other. For me, the best part is that they are MUCH easier to replace with... literally any kind of electromechanical toggle, OEM fit, or not. Hecc, you might even be able to disassemble, clean, realign/tension, and reassemble the old switch if they are made well enough!
I love how you're passionate you are about a camcorder's aesthetic. Seriously. Reminds me of me when I fell in love with my Sony MiniDisc Player that had an all metal case. Besides feeling great in your hand the front was a blue aluminum that was fun just to listen to the front open (for the disk) as it would make this tiny, clean, clinking noise that made you feel like you had a delicate piece of surgical equipment in your hands.
I gotta buy another one.
HDCAM is equivalent to HDV in terms of quality. HDCAM SR is equivalent to modern day HD footage, PBS still uses it.
Now I kinda want to make a Raspberry Pi-based system with almost no adapters that just saves uncompressed video to a massive SSD. Assuming it's built the way it should be, there would be no issues with video cutting out or anything, and it would be freaking awesome.
A shirt that summarizes "just" as a four-letter word, I'd buy that.
Now I gotta resist the urge to get a DV deck and tapes and record a bunch of anime to them like I wanted to in the early 00s, thanks lol