Show and Tell: Pro Cameras

I got very worked up over the "all of these look like a '93 Handycam" comment, but then I realized these all are actually pretty low-end professional SVHS and DV machines. A good Betacam from 2001 can look almost as good as early HD footage, the color reproduction is WAY better than any Handycam. Consumer gear has only recently caught up to the professional market level in terms of color reproduction. The mid- and high-end professional cameras had bigger sensors, with more photosites, arranged in a 3CCD setup, resulting in a higher color and luminance resolution. Also, the amplifiers for the signal out of the CCD where much quieter then the ones put into consumer gear, resulting in just a beautiful, clean picture. You could crank them up to +21dB and still get a good picture. When you watch the picture from one of those on a high-grade reference monitor, you can easily fall in love.

Proprietary stuff in broadcast is an insane subject, and one could never get to the bottom of that cursed hole. The devil is in the details.

Crazy to imagine but I use the Sony M7 almost daily at my job. I work in live television and more specifically in sports broadcasting We use the M7 as what's called a "clock camera" so that the people in the telivision truck and more specifically the graphics operators can see the score and stats. It has a nice zoom lense so you can shoot a scoreboard on the other side of the stadium, and it outputs analog so you can send it over thousands of feet of BNC with no issue.

Thanks to you I started looking differently at old video equipement. I dusted out my dads old casette video cam and discovered a tape from my parents wedding. They divorced when I was 1y old so I actually never saw them together so happy like on that tape. Thanks bro

I’m so glad technology connections recommend you! Great vids keep it up :)

Fun facts about modern professional cameras that may interest you: - Multicore cable is no longer used. It was replaced by Triax cable until recently when a hybrid fiber/copper cable was introduced that commonly is referred to as SMPTE Fiber. - The same tripod mount is still used to this day. You will see tripods from the 80's being used with brand new cameras quite frequently. - While the CCU does technically control the camera, you actually have another piece of equipment attached to it called an OCP or RCP (Operator Control Panel or Remote Control Panel). This will usually have a menu system for the camera's features as well as easy access to controls for white balance, color correcting, iris, etc. The person doing this usually is known as the shader and will have one of these for each camera. - The price for a lot of these cameras could actually range up into $50,000 to $100,000 for just the body and those prices can still be found today. I've seen quotes for Sony HDC-4800 cameras up to $150,000 depending on options. - We still use the vmount batteries to this day, though most often other equipment ends up on those mounts. Usually something like a cell-modem video encoder. Many V-Mount battery packs usually just are NP-F to V-Mount plates because these days NP-F batteries are used with literally everything. - Pro video hardware has basically just gotten higher resolution and more standardized. Connectors have only changed when they can no longer support the bandwidth for higher resolution video or need to carry a digital signal instead of audio. Lenses are largely the same, and most of the time the only reason to change is because they were designed for 4:3 and we shoot 16:9 now. Almost all the physical interfaces are the same, so tripods, viewfinders, and other accessories still work unless the electrical interface has been updated. - Outside of external control, the biggest reason we spend tens of thousands on professional cameras is for things like dynamic range and multiple sensors and things that help us get much better performance in a variety of lighting conditions.

As someone who works at a TV station, this stuff still fascinates me, which is why I love watching videos like this. It's also amazing to see how far the technology has come, but how much is still the same because it just that good and works.

Something about this video is really comfortable to watch. I think it's how you manage to present such a niche topic in a genuinely interesting way. Also the way you talk has a "chill but interesting" teacher vibe. Subbed and I look forward to more!

Love this. When I was a young up-and-comer in the news world, let's say 1998-ish, we had a friend who'd come up as a freelance TV news cameraman at a suspiciously young age. He had one of those new industrial loft conversion condos. And in his suite were TWO full ENG cameras. Seemed like the height of awesome at the time. Now they can be found.

My local news station would’ve killed for some of those cameras back in 1998.

i just watched your last video and this gets posted. what great timing

Why tf doesn’t this channel have at least half a mil subs? This is some damn good quality content.

Man i love this worked for wrgb and this brings back so many memories. All these things were so expensive in the day. A SONY Betacam would easily set you back $60.000. Now they are worthless.

Thank you for taking the time to put subtitles!

Nice collection! The first pro camera I ever used was a Sony M3A back in 1988. Had JVC KY-25s on the first production truck I worked on, and you're right about the dockable decks being a cost saving option. My truck usually ran 4 cameras, but on occasion I would need a 5th, so I would get one of the ENG cam's and swap the recorder for a camera back to use the cam with my 5th CCU. By doing that, the company didn't have to buy another camera that would just sit around unused much of the time. Your take on modularity and standards is spot-on too. The CCU that ran the KY-25 would also work with the KY-19 (1/2" CCD's) or the KY-27. Probably worked with other models too, but those are the ones I can verify. If, whenever this pandemic ends, you find yourself in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, drop me a note. I'd be happy to set you up a tour of one of our production trucks. (I work for a packager that does a lot of ESPN stuff) Might make for a good companion vid on how the CCU works and how multi-cam production happens.

This was good fun, love old tech and I have some PVMs for my retro junk too! Love learning about this stuff, subscribed

8:50 I used Firewire on Sony cameras a lot to get the feed out of the camera, but also to feed back in and preview on an external screen using Sonic Foundry's Vegas (later acquired by Sony Software). So, yes... it was used quite a lot of bidirectional data transfer/video feed.

I probably worked with all of them at some point in my 40 plus career as a TV cameraman. First one coming directly from when they changed over to video from 16mm film, the RCA TK 76, Ikegami 77, HL79 and 95 Unicam, and every Sony Betacam and Panasonic variety in between. Last tape based formats I worked with were DVC Pro and Betacam SX.

Ok, two things. First, your SF-P3 looks so awesome. So flat and boxy, I love it. Second, taking classic video of a car show would be very cool.

I own a Sony DXC-M3A and still shoot professional videos with it all the time. I love the look and feel of saticon tubes