Define "DV"

[Sean McHenry]

Ah shucks. Don't pay us no mind. We're just pokin' our sticks in the mud.

We always play by the rules, don't we Stephen? Just testing how strong the envelope is, and what it all means. Opinions will vary.

Sean

[Joey Taylor]

Hopefully I didn't come across as rude....

I'm not telling anyone to go away. My comment was mainly aimed at Stephen... only because it was like, man, do we really need an argument/debate over THIS?

[Robert Martens]

I don't know one way or the other with the format discussion, but this interests me:

Originally Posted by Stephen van Vuuren

I don't think you can say that. Video can be progressive or interlaced and all of it is measure in frames e.g. 60i is more correctly 29.97fps. Interlacing (fields) is just a necessary evil creating by broadcasting & other bandwidth limitations as was thus widely adopted by broadcast video. But there has always been progressive video in the past, present and future.

But either way, a field or frame is a still image.

"Frame" can have one of two definitions, as I understand it: one complete image, or one sample of time. In the film world, they are one and the same. Twenty-four complete pictures are exposed every second, and the motion of the scene is sampled twenty-four times. But video is different. In normal NTSC video, the camera never captures a complete set of scan lines, only one field at a time. This gives us zero frames per second by the first definition, but 59.94 under the second.

Video captured progressively, or film sources transferred to video, are progressive even if displayed as interlaced, because they take an entire, solid image and break it up into two fields. Regular, run-of-the-mill interlaced footage, however, is captured and played back (though perhaps not stored) field by field, and what we call a "frame" is actually composed of two individual, distinct images, separated by just about one sixtieth of a second. They're close, but they are discrete, hence the comb effect at the edges of moving objects.

Video is spoken about in terms of frames as a matter of convenience, for comparison to film, and because that's how it gets cut, but video frames are markedly different than film frames, and I should think discussing fields would be the most technically accurate way of describing the footage.

[Sean McHenry]

"Rarrick!" - Gabby Johnson in Blazing Saddles.

"On the nosey" - Igor in Young Frankenstein.

Robert is right. 1 field cannot be a frame of video really as if you eliminate the blank scan lines in a single field you would have an image that's full width but half height. Not a usable "frame" of video there. If you could view a single fields of video on some sort of screen, you would find it unwatchable.

Still, it's just another interesting debate. I am a Broadcast Engineer don't forget. I do know a little about television (can't say I like the programming all that much). Film still baffles me but TV I sort of get.

Sometimes I don't choose my words as exactly as an Engineering type should and that can muddy the issue.

Sean

[Stephen van Vuuren]

Broadcast and interlaced video are not the only forms of video. Web video, computer video, CGI etc. have existed for decades with no interlacing fields used at all. So frames is the operative word, not fields. All video has frames. Some video is interlaced into fields. "Progressive video" is not a new thing.

The very first video in fact was "sequential scanning" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_scan

[Sean McHenry]

Ah, now that is a good point Stephen. My assumption (yes, I know) is that everything I do will one day be shown to an audience live, and it has so far, on a projector or some sort of broadcast capable viewing device, that to me says standard broadcast definition video/audio in 60i.

However - since most folks see this contest and it's results on the web, that is quite a good argument for doing any darned frame rate that a computer can display. However the question remains. Can I shoot it on my cell phone or VHS, or beta or whatever as long as the final form didn't derive from animation or film.

I suppose if you eliminate animation and film sources, everything else except a paper flip book (which really would be animation I guess) should be good-to-go.

PS, saw INLAND EMPIRE Friday night - my brain is still swollen.

And Stephen, you're a good guy but DV as in the DV format is by definition 60i, interlaced video so once again we are at, "define DV".

Sean