Chapter 11 - Recording formats and device settings

FWIGSS

Focus, White Balance, Iris, Gain, Shutter Speed, Sound - the acronym to help students remember six basic camera functions that anyone operating a digital video camera must grasp in order to achieve professional results.

Betacam SP & MII

1986- Sony and Pana. upgrade pro. rec. formats. MII fared better than failed M. Betacam grew to be the dom. pro. tape format throughout 1990s.

D2

1988- Ampex & Sony first dig. tape format to be widely accepted by pro. users.

DVD video

Digital Versatile Disc video, requires a sample rate of 48 kHz as the industry standard

Encoding

The method a device or software application uses to numerically represent a multimedia asset in binary form.

Neutral density (ND) filter

A filter reduces the overall amount of light entering the camera without altering the color properties of the light.

Follow focus

A follow focus is a focus control mechanism used in filmmaking with film cameras and in television production with professional video cameras. It is ergonomic rather than strictly necessary; in other words it does not contribute to the basic functionality of a camera but instead helps the operator be more efficient and precise. It is usually operated by a focus puller (often called the 1st assistant camera, or 1st AC) but some camera operators prefer to pull their own focus (the act of changing focus is called "pulling" or racking focus).

AAC (Advanced Audio Coding)

A format (MPEG-2) that extended the stereo capabilities of MPEG-1 to multichannel surround sound. *Compression produces a superior quality recording and a smaller file size compared to MP3 files encoded at same bit rate.

U-matic (3/4 inch)

A longstanding prosumer analog tape format released in 1971. Japanese consortium of Sony, JVC, and Matsushita (Panasonic). Gave field prod. 1st viable alt. to a film based production workflow.

Quicktime

A multimedia container format released by Apple Computer in 1991. MPEG-4 spec released 10 yrs later based almost entirely on Quicktime. Because of native compatibility w/ MPEG-4 many cameras, editing apps, and encoding programs include both QuickTime/Mov and MP4 encoding options. Only tangible diff. between the two is that the MOV version included QuickTime wrapper and .mov file extension while other has MPEG-4 wrapper and .mp4 file extension.

Panasonic P2 Memory Card

A solid-state memory card format for use with its top-of-the line broadcast camera. Panasonic 2004. Made up of multiple SD cards enclosed in a PCMCIA card case. 2012, Pana. released smaller version of P2, microP2 which is compatible w/ SDHC/SDXC memory card specifications.

Ultra-high-definition television (UHDTV)

Also known as Ultra HD television, Ultra HD, UHDTV, UHD and Super Hi-Vision today includes 4K UHD and 8K UHD, which are two digital video formats that were first proposed by NHK Science & Technology Research Laboratories and later defined and approved by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).

Pulse Code Modulation (PCM)

An industry-standard method for professionally recording sound, using the technique of sampling to reduce a continuous signal into a sequence of discrete samples that can be defined mathematically. ** Most common codec used for rec. audio as a dig. stream of binary data. British engineer- Alec Reeves- 1937. Way to reduce noise during transmission of speech over Telephone lines. Theory relied on process called sampling to trans. a continuous signal into a sequence of discrete measurements occuring at regular intervals. Each measurement rep. one instance of sound wave's properties at a single moment in time. Fidelity of PCM audio stream det./ by 3 variables. 1. sample rate ( # of samples recorded ever sec.) 2. bit depth (specifies # of bits used to encode the value of each sample) 3. bit rate (# of bits per second transmitted during playback)

AIFF

Audio Interchange File Format. An uncompressed audio file format created by Apple Computer for recording and transmission of digitally sampled sound.

Audio compression

Audio compression has the potential to reduce the transmission bandwidth and storage requirements of audio data. In both lossy and lossless compression, information redundancy is reduced, using methods such as coding, pattern recognition and linear prediction to reduce the amount of information used to represent the uncompressed data.

AVCHD

Consumers, AVCHD is a proprietary file-based recording format that has since been incorporated into a growing fleet of prosumer and professional camcorders.

Audio tracks-Video tape

Contain 2 audio tracks. Used in tandem for recording one two-channel stereo signal or separately for two monaural feeds.

Redbook standard

Created by Sony and Philips for the audio compact disc (CD) 1980, Red Book Standard specifies a sample rate of 44.1 kHz and a bit depth of 16 bits. **Digital film and video production, a slightly higher sample rate of 48kHz was adopted . Raate conforms to encoding standards set by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Time Warner for the DVD (digital versatile disc) recording platform in 1995

Codec

Encoding algorithm- Short for coder-decoder. A computer program or algorithm designed for encoding and decoding audio and/or video into raw digital bitstreams.Specially created file format used to arrange the underlying bits (0s and 1s) to conform with encoding. Must be able to decode (read) file format to play file back. Supported when device or program able to decode and make sense of it. Unsupported when it cannot.

Bit depth

In digital audio sampling, this is the number of bits used to encode the value of a given sample. **Affects its dynamic range and the amount of noise and distortion introduced during the recording process. Determines how many zeros and ones are assigned to each sampling interval. More bits, more descriptive the encoding can be to reflect the subtle fluc. in the waveform's amplitude. Most common bit depth settings used in pro. audio and video rec. are 16 bit and 24 bit. 24 bit is superior in terms of dynamic range, but higher bit depth results in larger audio file.

ISO/IEC/ITU

International Organization for Standardization/International Electrotechnical Commission/International Telecommunication Union - ISO is an international standard setting body composed of representatives from various national standards organizations. IEC is a non-profit, non-governmental international standards organization that prepares and publishes International Standards for all electrical, electronic and related technologies - collectively known as "electrotechnology". ITU is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) that is responsible for issues that concern information and communication technologies. Created World Standards Cooperation in 2001 "to strengthen and advance the voluntary consensus- based international standards systems. ** 1988 ISO/IEC jointly est. a working group called Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) and tasked it w/ developing open standards for digital audio and video encoding.

Red digital cinema

Made by The Red Digital Cinema Camera Company - an American company that manufactures digital cinematography and photography cameras and accessories. Hobbit films were shot with a Red Camera. Founded in 2005 produces advanced high resolution cameras used in professional filmmaking. Released first camera in 2007. Dubbed Red One advanced 4K image sensor (4096*2160) more than 4 times resolution of standard HD. Use proprietary solid state drives SSDs to store 4K and higher resolution recordings. Red MINI-MAG SSD can store 512 Gb pf data while larger REDMAC comes in 3 sizes, 48 Gb, 64GB, and 240 GB.

Record format

Media file formats with extensions such as .wav, .aif, .mp3, .mp4, .mov, .m4v, etc.

MPEG

Motion Pictures Experts Group - a working group of authorities that was formed by ISO and IEC to set standards for audio and video compression and transmission. It was established in 1988 by the initiative of Hiroshi Yasuda (Nippon Telegraph and Telephone) and Leonardo Chiariglione group Chair since its inception.

Sony SxS memory card

One of the three solid-state media by Sony and Panasonic for time-based recording. The other two are Professional Disc and P2. Sony intro. XDCAM in 2003- line of high end cameras using Pro. Disc an optical recording medium like Blue-ray disc, capable of storing up to 50 GB of data. 2007 Sandisk/Sony announced joint release of SxS memory card. Solid state memory card format that comb. high speed flash memory with standard PCI express case. SXS 1 intro. in 2009 as less expensive alt. Shorter life span even though rated to last 5 years under heavy use.

Professional disc

One of the three solid-state media by Sony and Panasonic for time-based recording. The other two are SxS and P2.

Container format

Or wrapper. A unique kind of file format used for bundling and storing the raw digital bitstreams that codecs encode.

Transcoding

Proc. of converting file from one format to another.

Compression and Codecs

Process of encoding/ transcoding data file using fewer bits. Compression codec des. to reduce the file size of digital asser w/out adversely affecting its resolution. MP3= compression codec.

MPEG-4

See Advanced Video Coding. More recent set of standards having to dow w/ compression and encoding of high- def audio and video signals. Like many open standards MPEG-4 has been modified and expanded many times. Divided into multiple subsections called "parts" with each one specifying one particular aspect of the overall specification. From inception in 1998-2014, it has evolved into an extensive 30 part standard/ Most important of these for audio and video professionals was intro. in 2003 and is called MPEG-4 part 10 Advanced Video Coding. YOUTUBE AND Viemo

Bit Stream

Sequence of bits used to represent individual video or audio signals.

MPEG-1

The Moving Pictures Experts Group's first project (published in 1993). MPEG-1 is most remembered for establishing the popular MP3 audio format.

MPEG-2

The Moving Pictures Experts Group's second project approved advanced standards for encoding SD and HD video formats at a significantly higher bit rate. This became the international standard for encoding SD video on a red laser DVD. One of first standards for encoding video but because the image quality was so poor, its acceptance was short lived. ISO.IEC released in 1996. Introduced H.262 ab advanced format for encoding SD and HD video at a sig. higher bit rate than MPEG-1 allowed. Soon became international standard for encoding SD video on a red-laser DVD. New formate paved way for DVD to replace VHS. **Was incorporated into digital tape formats like HDV. XDCAM, tapeless video formats like MOD and TOD, & terrestrial HDTV broadcasting standards ATSC and DVB. Evolving standard that has been amended several times since initial public release.

Video track-Video tape

The area of the videotape used for recording the video information.*Widest region and is used to store the picture portion of a TV program.

Video compression

Video compression uses modern coding techniques to reduce redundancy in video data. Two common methods for video compression: interframe compression to eliminate both spatial and temporal redundancies and intraframe compression to eliminate spatial redundancies while ignoring temporal redundancies.

Zebra

Viewfinder displays cross-hatched diagonal lines resembling Zebra stripes over any portion of the image that is overexposed. Iris can then be adjusted up or down until the stripes go away entirely or are barely visible, resulting in properly exposed image.

Analog Tape Formats

1970s ushered in era of Electronic News Gathering (ENG) and Electronic Field Production (EFP) w/ invention of camcorder and variety of consumer and pro. videocassette tapes VHS and U-matic. *Generation loss. When a program was copied from one tap to another. Copy of analog tape never as good as the original it was dubbed from. 1st gen dub (copy from orig) qual. loss not too noticeable, signal degradation gets progressively worse with each add. dub to next gen. 4th gen. looked far worse than one reproduced from orig. **VTR- videotape recorder

Digital Tape Formats

1980s marked by digital rev. changed nature of broadcast tech and production workflows. Elimination of gen. loss during editing, and duplication. Digital VTR recorded video and audio signals ass discret binary values, could be copied w/out error from 1 tape to next. Data point = 0 or 1 so every copy is identical to master recording. Legacy analog formats & Dig. format recorded in SD. 720*486. (Nat. TV Standards Committee) OR PAL (Phase Alternating Line 720*576) Mid/late 1990s= HD format, very expensive. Alternate to full-bandwidth HD = low res. HD (1440*1080) on standard DV tape, sold at fraction of cost. Hybrid HDV appealed to prosumer and edu. markets.

Sony Betacam and Panasonic M

1982. Sony- 1st component video format designed spec. for pro. use. Both component formats used a new narrower tape medium that was only one-half inch thick. M format- highly unsuccessful.

D1

1986 Sony and BTS first dig. tape format to market. Provided a way for broadcasters to dig. write an uncompressed component NTSC video signal to tape. Costly and inefficient format and had limited success.

D3

1991- Panasonic-Decks able to write uncompressed composite video to a 1 half inch wide tape, narrowest yet for pro. dig. format.

Digital Betacam/Digibeta

1993- Sony great success over first dig. component recorder.

D5HD

1994- Pana. High def companion product to D5

D5

1994- Pana. rec. uncompressed dig. component SD video.

DVCPRO

1995- Pana. Prosumer varient of the DV specification. Market to low-budget pro. users looking for alter. to expensive digital formats.

Betacam SX

1996- Sony- cheaper version of Digital Betacam spec. designed for those working in ENG.

DVCAM

1997- Sony- Own pro. format baseded on DV standard.

HDCAM

1997- Sony- high def version of Digital Betacam w/ ability to record 1080i video at native res of 1440*1080

MPEG IMX

2001- Sony- advanced dig. HD format that is fully compatible with the DTV (Dig. TV standard) Provided full support for all legacy Betacam formats.

HDV

2003- Consortium of Canon, JVC, Sharp, & Sony. introduce the HDV standard as a way to record HD vid. on standard DV tape. Dec. the res. of the HD image to 1440*1080. HDV provided an affordable way for low-budget pro. to begin working in HD.

AVCHD (Advanced Video Coding High Definition)

2006- Sony and Panasonic jointly released. Proprietary format based on the MPEG-4 specs. Incorporated into a growing # of consumer, prosumer, and pro. camcorders and has been licensed for use by other manufacturers like Canon, JVC, and Hitachi. Consumer grade AVCHD Lite has max. resolution of 720p. Offers broad set of parameters that can be individually set by camera operator for defining how a video signal is encoded. Video quality setting is sim. to the JPEG compression setting on DSLR. Choosing highest bit rate produces the best quality image with the least amount of compression, but higher setting also reduces the amount of recordable material you mem. card can hold.

MP3 (MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3)

A popular consumer audio compression codec that's used to reduce the file size of a digital recording by a factor of 10:1, allowing the user to fit thousands, rather than hundreds, of songs on a portable music player. First set of standards initially pub. in 1993 under the name MPEG-1. Part 3 of 5 part standard released in 1995 specifying the details for three classes of lossy audio compression. 3rd class termed MPEG-1 Audio layer III intro. the MP3 audio compression format. One of the most widely known audio codecs in the world. First dig. format designed for encoding and storing musical dig. on a portable audio player. Users could now compress a Cd-quality audio track, orig. distributed as uncompressed WAV or AIF by a ratio of 10:1. Drastic red. in file size, consumers could now store roughly 10x as many songs on portable device. Lossy format- results in permanent loss of original file data. Discard 90% of original data in sound file.

Rack focus

A popular technique that shooters use to rapidly shift the viewer;s attention from one subject to another along the z-axis.

Open standard

A standard that is publicly available and has various rights to use associated with it, and may also have various properties of how it was designed. * Pub. released specification or set of specifications used in the design of a product, process, or protocol.

H.264/H.265

H.264, MPEG-4, and H.264/MPEG-4 are formats for AVC (Advanced Video Coding). A high-quality compression codec developing primarily as method for distributing full bandwidth high-definition video to the home video consumer. H.265 is for high efficiency video coding. H.264 produces exceptional picture quality at a fraction of the file size of earlier methods of video encoding. Quickly gained a following as one of the most widely adopted video compression formats of all time. Vast majority of dig. cameras support MPEG-4 encoding while nearly all video nonlinear editing software programs support native capture and editing of MPEG-4 encoded media files. **H.264/MPEG-4 excellent encoding for Standard HD video but not designed to handle advance bandwidth and compression of ultra HD TV. UHDTV. = Next generation television, packs 4 to 16 times as many pixels into the image raster ass standard HD. 2013 ISO/IEC, MPEG & ITU-T video Coding Experts Group jointly announced new standard High Efficiency Video Coding Dubbed H.26, the HEVC specification as the successor to H.264/MPEG-4. Supports video resolutions up to 8K (8192*4320) pixels and twice compression performance than predecessor.

High-definition television (HDTV)

High-definition television (HDTV) is a television system providing an image resolution that is of substantially higher resolution than that of standard-definition television. HDTV is the current standard video format used in most broadcasts: terrestrial broadcast television, cable television, satellite television, DVDs, and streaming video.

Bit rate

In telecommunications and computing, bit rate (sometimes written bitrate or as a variable is the number of bits that are conveyed or processed per unit of time. * With lossy compression formats MP3 and AAC the # of bits assigned to each sample varies making concept of bit depth irrelevant. TRANSMISSION speed of a compressed audio stream during playback locally or online. Expressed in kilobits per second. MP3 bit rate is user defined from range of 16 to 320 Kbps. Higher the bit rate the better the quality of the recording. Higher bit rates produce larger files that require more transmission bandwidth and/or time to stream then files encoded at lower bit rates. Too high hinders smooth playback. ***128 Kbps is considered the minimum threshold setting for hi-fidelity. Best results 192 Kbps or 256.

Ampex Corporation

Invented the world's first open reel audio tape recorder in 1948. Dubbed Model 20, used by American Broadcasting Company (ABC) for the tape-delayed transmission of Bing Crosby Show. Was the first tape-delayed broadcast of radio program in the US. Another 8 yrs to release 1st commercial videotape recorder, VRX-1000 or Mark IV introduced at National Association of Raddio and TV Broadcasters convention in Chicago in 1956.

Proprietary Format

Is a file format that is designed to work specifically with the software application that created it. *Designed/ licensed to work only w/ specific equipment or comp. software.

Noise photography and video

Noise is the commonly-used term to describe visual distortion. It looks similar to grain found in film photographs, but can also look like splotches of discoloration when it's really bad, and can ruin a photograph. Noise tends to get worse when you're shooting in low light.

AVC (advanced video coding)/ H.264

Or AVC, H.264, MPEG-4, H.264/MPEG-4, or MP4. A high-quality compression codec developing primarily as method for distributing full bandwidth high-definition video to the home video consumer. Digital camera/camcorder. Many people use H.264 and MP4 interchangeably but H.264 = video compression codec and MP4 is container format.

Sample rate

Or sampling rate. In a digital recording system, indicates the number of samples (or measurements) recorded each second. Designated in kilohertz (kHz) units. Professional audio is recorded at a sample rate of 44.1 kHz, or 44,100 samples per second.* Nyquist's work sampling theory and Industry Standard. **Bell Laboratories- engineer Henry Nyquist discovered that the sample rate must be twice as large ass the bandwidth/ frequency range of the signal being recorded. Human hearing - Range of 20 Hz to 20kHz. Minim. sample rate of 40kHZ required to effectively capture and encode all frequencies w/in human range of hearing.

Scanning method

Recording interlaced of progressive frames. Legacy NTSC and PAL formats only support interlaced scanning but HD supports both methods. Unless specific request from client to film interlaced, go with progressive. Progressive mode prod. sharper image overall and conforms more close to current industry standards for elc. display screens and mobile devices. Interlace can be converted to progressive easily. Editing and software programs had a de-interlace option. Best to acquire video in the same format yo plan to export it to when finished however.

U-matic SP

Sony- used chrome tape and enhanced signal pro. to produce a better picture. Remained composite videotape format. Regarded as One of the most succ. and longest lasting video formats of all time.

File-based recording

Tapeless recording for both audio and video work.

Quantization

Term often ass. w/ bit depth and used to describe the mathematical process of assigning discrete numerical values to each voltage measurement.

Videotape

The magnetic tape used for storing video and usually sound in addition. Information stored can be in the form of either an analog or digital signal. The surface area of a videotape is divided into linear regions called tracks. Most tape-based formats include one track for video, two tracks for audio, and one track for synchronization or control data.

Control track- Video Tape

U.S broadcast video systems trad. generate 30 fps. Marks where these frames begin and end in order to ensure the videotape plays correctly.

Multimedia container/ wrapper file

Used for bundling and sorting raw bitstreams that codecs create. Codec PCM used to encode each bitstream while a container like WAV or AIFF keeps them together in single data file. Each codec performs single encod/decod. function. Quicktime= pop. container format. Supports vast assort. of codecs, inc. 1. GIF, JPEG, PNG,& TIFF graphics. 2. AIFF,AAC, MP3, AND WAV audio. 3. AVCHD, DV, MPEG-4, H.264, and Quick time move video.

WAV

Waveform Audio File Format. An uncompressed audio file format developed jointly by Microsoft and IBM for recording and transmission of digitally sampled sound.

Dolby Digital AC-3

Widely popular multichannel surround sound standard capable of supporting up to 7.1 channels of audio. Adds two add. side mounted speakers (L-R) into mix. Dolby Digital 5.1 = six channel broadcast, cinema, and home theater standard that distributed audio to five normal range speakers three in front (L-C-R) and two in rear (L-R) w/ 1 subwoofer for low frequency sounds.