i was just wondering if anyone knows anything about the color bars on the 953. i have looked at them and they don't seem much use to me. i would much prefer the proper smpte color bars with the black and white bars and the grey. they don't seem much use to me without them. sure you can set the colors so they look "alright" but you can't get them correct without having the contrast and brightness right. it would be good to see these bars in a newer camera. anyways if anyone knows about them can you please inform me of their use and wether they are any good.

Justin

If the word SMPTE isn't mentioned anywhere in the manual
regarding the color bars, then it most probably isn't the real
deal and thus not of much use.

There are other solutions depending on what you want to do.
Most NLE's can generate a full SMPTE compliant signal them-
selves for you to calibrate an editing suite monitor for example.
Or you can record these bars onto a DV tape (back to your
camera) so you can watch the tape on location to setup a
monitor there.

colour bars are good for striping tapes.. thats what i use em for at least anways...

apart from that, i have no use for ANY colour bar for the work i do...

Not everybody thinks striping is such a good thing (multiple
passes over the tape + wear and tear on the heads). With that
being said, why don't you just record black? No need to strip
with bars really. And if you really want bars, then this non
standard bars would suffice I'd think (for this purpose).