Video tape History VHS
The word video comes from the Latin words “To See”.
What Is Video tape ?
In a nutshell VT is the recording of moving Images onto magnetic tape.
In most cases it uses helical scan heads to read the electronic information magnetically, as well as recording Images.
Analogue and digital.
VT can be used to record digital formats such as Mini-DV, DVCAM or analogue formats such as VHS and video 8.
History of VT.
In 1951 in the USA the BCE company gave the first demonstration of video tape recording but the image quality was very poor.
Broadcast.
The first example of broadcast video came in 1956 with Quadruplex machines. The one draw back with this system was its inability to freeze the picture.
Domestic market.
In 1971 Sony released a VCR cassette recorder based on a format called U-Matic.
Betamax
1975 saw Sony launch the Betamax format.
VHS In the following year of 1976 JVC launched VHS and the rest is history.
End of an era.
By the late 1990’s DVD was already putting the nail in the coffin of VHS. With its superior resolution and noise free picture DVD was destined to replace the VHS format.
Professional.
With the advent of greater storage capacities for solid-state digital media. One would be led to believe that VT is a thing of the past.
Even thou digital media have fallen in price to archive HD video in a solid-state form or onto hard drives is still an expensive business. Also the reliability of hard drives is still no match for the old video formats.
HD formats.
HDV was used to capture HD video using the Mpeg-2 encoding method. It was really the same as Mini-DV.
Sony HDCAM was the biggest seller when it came to HD video tape for the broadcast market and is still used for Television programmes worldwide due to its longevity and reliability.
SD Video Lives: A Q&A with Pat Johnston of AheadTek
Documentary Films video and 8mm Kodak
Documentary Films, 8mm Kodak film showing the Great Port of London.
Below is a short clip of an hour long Documentary films showing the history of The Great Port Of London. The start of the video was shot by us on HD video in the London Docklands and shows Des Cox introducing the vid
eo. The programme then goes into our transfer of
8mm cine film footage of London Docks, explaining the history of the various merchant shipping.
Cine film to digital transfer.
All the 8mm cine film to digital footage was captured to our Apple computer via Black magic Design Hardware using the Pro Res 4.2.2 capture preset.
Colour correcting documentary films from 8mm Kodak cine.
From there we colour corrected the 8mm Documentary films footage and using timecode provided by Des. The 8mm Kodak film clips where put into the correct sequence.
Voice over
The voice over was recorded in our studio using the on screen timecode display in Adobe Premier CC so that Des knew the correct timing.
Once all the voice over sections had been recorded we then added them to the timeline in FCP X and trimmed where necessary.
8mm cine film sound effects
Des has over the years built up an impressive array of sound effects of all types of ships, Tugs and general dock side sounds. Laying the sounds and adjusting the volume levels to fit the scenes was a painstaking task but in the end they brought the old 8mm cine film to life.
Music
The last sound to be placed was the music which was provided by Snowbow Productions
Credits
The last job to complete was to add credits and the final music track to the documentary films.
London video shooting Docklands HD
For the start of the documentary that we are producing for Snowbow productions, Des wanted London video shooting of The Docklands to show how it looks now. When compared to footage shot in the past.
London video shooting.
8mm cine film clip showing the Docks of old.
London film shots of The Docklands in the past.
In the original 16mm film about the Old London docks a little girl is shown looking at the very busy old docks, crowded with cargo ships from all over the world. As far as possible we had to shoot the same scenes from the 16mm film in HD footage to show how the landscape had radically changed over the years.
Picture taken by me showing the London Dockland area present day.
Matching London video shots.
Video below showing a plane taking off from London City Airport. This scene can be seen in the 16mm taken years ago when the port was full of cargo ships.
London video shooting locations.
We started the London video shoot at the Royal Dock down the river from the City area. Des Introduced the documentary by doing a piece to camera giving a brief history of the docks and about when he used to work on them in the past.
Once the opening sequence was recored for the documentary we move on up the river to the Excell Centre to film Anna’s piece to camera where she explains how much the London Docks have changed since she was a little girl.
Sound for the London video shoot.
All the sound on the day of the London video shoot was recorded using Beyerdynamic radio microphones and monitored using closed back Beyer headphones. One tip to remember when using radio microphones is to position them near to the speakers chest because that is where the microphones pick the sound up from. Also if the Radio Microphones can be keep under clothing this helps prevent external noises being picked up.
Video below showing a plane taking off from London City Airport which used to be the heart of the old London Docks.
https://vimeo.com/106727177
Link for the Museum about the London Docklands.
For more Information about London video shooting Telephone 01323 873513
Documentary archive 8mm film Kodak
Archive 8mm film and 16mm cine film for a documentary of the London Docks.
8mm film archive voice over
Des Cox of Snowbow productions commissioned us to produce a documentary about the London Docks in the 1960’s and 1970’s.
Des had collected a huge amount of 8mm and 16mm cine film showing the London docks at there height. The footage included a lot of the ships that Des used to work on during his days in the Merchant Navy.
Archive 8mm film conversion to digital video.
First port of call was to transfer 8mm film and 16mm film to a digital video format for editing purposes.
All the 8mm and 16mm film was cleaned prior to cine conversion to HD video.
The video codec we decided on to archive 8mm film was Apple Pro Res 720p using a very low compression for picture quality and ease of compositing the final footage.
HD video editing service.
Editing the 8mm.
Picture above of FCP X screen the green sections on the time line are the audio clips.
Editing the 8mm and 16mm cine film was a lengthy process involved identifying the correct merchant ships and the correct parts of the Old London docks. The length of time that each ship appear on screen was crucial because it had to match in with the timings for the voice over which was to be layer down at a later stage in the video editing.
Archive 8mm film. Voice over.
The voice over was very complexed because the final programme is a hour long. Des was the voice over artist due to his acting experience and his fantastic knowledge of British ports and Merchant shipping. We recorded Des’s voice using a Sennheiser ME-66 shotgun microphone which is an industry standard microphone for video production. This was then recorded onto a Zoom H4n digital recorder at 48 k quality.
Archive 8mm film. Keeping it synchronised.
During the voice over Des was shown the edited video without the sound but timecode running at the bottom of the screen. This helped Des to know exactly where the voice came in to the pictures on the screen.. Adobe Premier CC was used for the timecode because it has superior timecode facilities compared with Final Cut X.
Video camera crew shoot Canon 5D mark 11 Sussex
Video camera crew shoot Canon 5D mark 11 Sussex.
The Shoot.
I was asked to take part in a Video Camera crew shoot in Sussex at the Six Bells pub in Chiddingly Sussex by Rupert Cobb of Gun Hill Studios.
Details of the video camera crew shoot.
The shoot consisted of 4 x Canon 5D cameras shooting from various angles. Space was cramped and it was filmed during a live gig.
The shoot started at 9pm and went onto 11.30 pm. I personally shot around 30 gig of video with 2 battery changes and 3 Memory card swaps. Once the memory cards were full they were downloaded to an Apple Laptop, then wiped to be used again.
Sound
All sound was recorded separately through a mixing desk into an Apple laptop.
Canon 5D.
After about 30 minutes of video shooting with the canon 5D did get quite hot this is due to the the camera not being a dedicated video camera.
Video camera crew. Andrea shooting Canon 5D with 70-200mm lens.
Canon M
As well as taking the Canon 5D. I packed the Canon M camera which has the same sensor as the canon 650D and shoots 1080P video. Once placed on a slider behind the band this provided some excellent moving shots.
Video Cameras. As well as shooting on the Canon 5 D we also use the Canon XF100 which can record at 50 Mega Bits per second at 4:2:2 colour space for broadcast video production.
Excellent link covering all aspects of video camera areas of shooting HD video with the Canon 5D http://www.cinema5d.com