Shooting Computer Screens and TV with HDV Camera

[Brian Duke]

Hi,

Does anyone know if you can shoot computer screens and TV with HDV camera's, specifically the GY-HD100U without getting the running boxes like you do a lot unless you have a special camera. I am new, so please forgive me if this is a stupid question, but I plan on getting a HDV camera this week and shooting video from TV sets and computer screens, and I don't even a running bar on my footage.

Thanks

[Colin Pearce]

It would depend on whether the monitor or TV is a plasma, LCD or the traditional CRT (tube). I have no problem with my Sony Z1 HDV camera shooting my LCD screen.

[Brian Duke]

Originally Posted by Colin Pearce

It would depend on whether the monitor or TV is a plasma, LCD or the traditional CRT (tube). I have no problem with my Sony Z1 HDV camera shooting my LCD screen.

What if it is regular tube? My computer screens are LCD so I doubt those will be a problem since you don't seem to have any.

Brian

[Chris Hurd]

There is indeed a "variable shutter" function in the HD100 for shooting computer screens. Brian, have you downloaded and read the HD100 owner's manual yet? You can learn a lot about the HD100's capabilities by doing so. The link is http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=49287

[Colin Pearce]

Originally Posted by Brian Duke

What if it is regular tube? My computer screens are LCD so I doubt those will be a problem since you don't seem to have any.

I expect you will have problems if you were trying to shoot a CRT playing NTSC with an NTSC camera (I suspect the TV runs at 29.97fps while the camera runs at exactly 30fps [60i] or vice versa). There doesn't seem to be a problem with PAL TVs and PAL cameras (both run at exactly 25fps [50i]). I could be way wrong there.

However there is little doubt in my mind that a plasma and LCD will not have the problem, while a CRT in NTSC land would be problematic.

[Christopher C. Murphy]

If you have the luxury - capture the television stuff to a computer instead of shooting it. Once it's on the computer you're golden..

[Sean McHenry]

OK, as odd as this will sound I was doing just that a short time ago tonight. Why? Well we have a nagging question as to how the cameras and decks are handeling differing frame rates so I did a simple test.

I created a non-drop frame timeline in Avid Xpress 5.20 and added bars for about 30 seconds. I then created titles with the numbers 1 through 30. I added these one at a time in order, to the timeline over the bars and repeated this for 30 seconds.

I fed the output of the timeline via 1394 to my DSR-11 deck and from there to the standard television with 16:9 switch. I recorded the TV screen shooting it with the HD-100 JVC camera in 16:9 in HDV at 24p, 30p and 60p as well as DV format (60i). Tomorrow at the day job we will suck it into the DS and step through the time line to see if any frames are being dropped.

Back to the point, using the variable shutter speed you can almost completly wipe out the rolling bars so generally, yes, the camera seems to handle shooting my television screen pretty well. Some cameras had a function called "Clear Scan" that did the same thing, variable shutter speeds tend to freeze the rolling frames.

Interesting thing I noticed after shooting for about an hour today. Vegas had no problems with HDV at 720, 24p but Avid has no presets for 720 at 24p. They do have 29.97 and 59.94. Odd.

Sean McHenry

[Steve House]

Originally Posted by Colin Pearce

I expect you will have problems if you were trying to shoot a CRT playing NTSC with an NTSC camera (I suspect the TV runs at 29.97fps while the camera runs at exactly 30fps [60i] or vice versa). There doesn't seem to be a problem with PAL TVs and PAL cameras (both run at exactly 25fps [50i]). I could be way wrong there.

However there is little doubt in my mind that a plasma and LCD will not have the problem, while a CRT in NTSC land would be problematic.

Both HD and HDV 1080-60i NTSC run at 29.97 fps, same as standard definition.

[Sean McHenry]

This is coming down to the label placed on the mode by the manufacturers. With some manufacturers it seems 60i means 29.97f or more accuratly, 59.94i. Calling 30 and 60 rather than 29.97 and 59.94 seem to be a big issue.

We have been confused here more than once on this.

Sean

[John Mitchell]

Originally Posted by Sean McHenry

Interesting thing I noticed after shooting for about an hour today. Vegas had no problems with HDV at 720, 24p but Avid has no presets for 720 at 24p. They do have 29.97 and 59.94. Odd.

Sean McHenry

Avid's is "coming soon". They are definitely working on it.

[Sean McHenry]

See the other thread but, I just wish if they are going to announce support for a camera, they would support all the modes. Still love Avid, they are just super slow out of the gate on this one. The race was over a long time ago with Vegas, Canopus (who would have thunk it), Pinnacle (ditto) and Premiere winning to the pole. We're just waiting for the rest of the horses to hit the finish line. Even Ulead beat them to the ribbon.

I know it will be great but man, good thing we aren't holding our breaths. I can tell you, a significant number of the folks on the Avid forums have gone to Vegas and Premiere as they are wanting to get into HDV right now.

The Axio is making some inroads finally as a great HD tool.

Sean