MacMillan Films Production Tips

VIDEOTAPE FORMATS
Here are the main videotape formats that producers use. I've listed them in order of quality starting with the lowest quality first. Ranking analog and digital standards is subjective because it difficult to make an apples-to-apples comparison. Digital formats make more use of compression (bad) so that they can enjoy copying and editing without quality loss (good).

VHS
S-VHS
3/4-Inch
Hi-8
Digital-8
DV or DVC
DVCPRO or D7
DVCPRO 50
DVCAM
BetaSP or Betacam SP
D9 or Digital S
DigiBeta or Digital Beta
HDV
DVD
HDCAM
DVCPRO 100

VHS (Video Home System)
This is the analog format you know best - the videotape movies you rent at Blockbuster to play on your home VCR. JVC developed it in 1976 and wisely licensed it generally making it the de facto home standard. Loved by producers for it's affordability and difficulty to pirate, the format is also a curse. With less than 240 lines of resolution, poor color and contrast handling, VHS copies of a program are always a big step down from the finished program or what is know as the "master" - which you pray is in a better format then VHS.

Only programs where the image quality is unimportant are mastered in VHS. And don't be seduced by ads that, "record on tapes you can play on your VCR." These advertisements prey on a common misconception in the marketplace that confuses the tapes your camera should record on with the final VHS distribution copies. While VHS is fine as a delivery format, it is terrible as an origination format. This is because the camera originals will need to be copied and manipulated to make them into the finished program. And, this copying and manipulating only adds noise and hiss - especially when you start with a noisy tape like VHS.

With so much misinformation out there, it is not surprising that a further misconception prevails - namely to think that copying a VHS tape to a better format will somehow improve the quality of the images on it. This is, unfortunately, not the case. While producers do this all the time to add timecode (a professional reference code that gives every video frame a number) and improve image stability, there is little that can be done to actually improve the image quality. Once copied in VHS, the tape is permanently tainted. If you want to edit the program further or make additional copes of it, you'll need to hunt down the original master from which it was made - or live with bad quality.

S-VHS (Super-VHS)
This analog format was introduced by JVC in 1987 and is a huge improvement on regular VHS. S-VHS records luminance (video brightness information) and chrominance (video color information) on separate tracks which keeps the signal cleaner - especially if you use multi-pin S-VHS wires rather then line wires. It also has 400 lines of resolution - up from 240 for regular VHS. Keep in mind that while VHS tapes will play in an S-VHS machine, S-VHS tapes will not play in a regular VHS machine. Also, if you want your S-VHS machine to actually record in S-VHS, you'll need to buy special S-VHS tape stock - which looks like VHS but is actually a metal particle tape.

3/4-Inch
This format uses a 3/4-inch tape and I only mention it because BBD&O and other advertising agencies bought so many 3/4-inch machines in the 1980's that the format lives on in the advertising community. The format benefits from the large tape and has an "SP" variant, which is significantly better than regular 3/4-Inch. No longer made by Sony, this format is now officially dead - except when an ad director asks to see your reel.

Hi-8
Hi-8 is an analog format developed by Sony back in the 1990's. It's is a high-banded version of 8 mm that gives a good picture but is has been overtaken by the new consumer grade digital formats such as DV which are definitely preferable if you're going to invest in equipment.

Digital 8
Digital 8 is a consumer 8-mm digital format introduced by Sony in 1999. It uses motion-JPEG type compression. While the cameras and recorders will work with the standard 8-mm tapes, they work better with evaporated metal Hi-8 tape.

DV or DVC
A digital component format introduced by numerous companies in 1996, DV is the new de facto consumer digital format. The format delivers excellent results considering it uses 5:1 compression.

DVCPRO or D7
DVCPRO is the digital component version of the new consumer digital format. Introduced by Panasonic in 1995, it also uses 5:1 compression, but uses faster tape speeds and larger metal particle tapes to deliver professional results. Panasonic listened to input from producers when it developed the cassettes, which are robust and large enough to label. The small cassette is about the size of an audiocassette (3 13/16 x 2 1/2 x 9/16 inches) and the larger is only slightly bigger (4 15/16 X 3 X 9/16 inches). DVCPRO machines will usually play back Sony's DVCAM format - but Sony DVCAM machines will not play back DVCPRO.

DVCPRO 50
This is an extension of the DVCPRO format featuring milder compression and two additional digital audio channels. This format and DVCPRO are very popular with news organizations because the are inexpensive, adequate quality wise and being digital - edit without quality loss.

DVCAM
Introduced by Sony in 1996 as their answer to DVCPRO, this format is as good as DVCPRO but not compatible with it.

BetaSP (or Betacam SP)
BetaSP has been the workhorse broadcast industry standard for shooting and mastering a program for twenty years. With 330 lines of resolution, it was introduced by Sony in 1986 and is an analog component format. Component means greater video signal processing quality because the video can be copied and edited in its three component colors rather then as a composite video signal. BetaSP uses half-inch metal particle tape that come in both small and large cassettes. The small cassettes come in lengths up to 30-minutes and the large cassettes in lengths up to 90 minutes. Actually, the 90-minute tapes typically have a few extra minutes on them so it is possible to master programs up to 95 minutes long on them.

While BetaSP machines are a part of every video facility, Sony has a monopoly on the format. This means that while the machines come in three price grades (1) the pro broadcast BVW series, (2) the hi-end industrial PVW series, and (3) the low end industrial UVW series, they are all relatively poor value compared to newer formats. In fact, it is this lack of value and a desire to reap the advantages of digital that has spurred the market for other, less universally accepted formats.

DVD
Digital Video Disc (DVD) is the high end consumer playback standard. It uses 5:1 compression but compensates by uses M-Peg2 encoding and 500 lines of resolution to insure high picture quality. What is exciting about this format is that consumer recorders are now on the market. These recorders will allow up to 1,000 re-recordings per disc and approach 500 lines of resolution. Unfortunately, these recordings will not play back on older DVD players. As DVD recorder prices continue to drop, DVD will replace VHS as the preferred playback and record consumer format.

D9 or Digital S
Introduced in 1996 by JVC, D9 is the great value of the industry. Unfortunately it has not yet won the respect of most engineers so you won't find it at many facilities. It uses inexpensive metal particle S-VHS tape stock and, by the way, it can also play back S-VHS recordings.

D9 uses 4:4:4 compression the same as DigiBeta. BetaSP is 4:2:2 and DV is 4:1:1. Without getting technical, these lower numbers mean more compression is applied to the color information. What this means, is that D9 is a great format for color information and DV is not.

DigiBeta or Digital Beta
Digital Beta was introduced in 1993 by Sony to compete with DCT and D5 and has quickly overtaken them to become the new accepted format for high-end SDTV. SDTV is short for Standard Definition Television and is what we think of as video today - that is non High-Definition Television (HDTV). Producers who move up from BetaSP to DigiBeta are always blown-away by the clean picture - even in low-light situations - and by the ability to make perfect copies - actually clones since there is no signal loss. In order to make the data fit, 2:1 compression is used but you'll have a hard time seeing it.

The cassettes come in the same two sizes as BetaSP but tape lengths are up to 40 minutes for the small cassettes and 124 minutes for the large. Don't assume that all DigiBeta machines play BetaSP tapes. Only the "A" series machines do this - something they accomplish with two completely distinct electronic board sets.

Another thing you'll want to keep in mind if you're used to working with BetaSP, is that the audiometers on a DigiBeta machine work differently. Because DigiBeta records a serial digital stream - which has no equivalent to amplitude or volume in the analog world - Sony has put in some great but counter-intuitive audiometer electronics. While you set the audio "level" for tone to zero in the usual way, you'll notice that program for some reason comes in hot (in the plus 5 to 10 range). You'll want to turn down your level -- DON'T. So while the analog mixer peaks at zero, the DigiBeta peaks at plus 10. This is normal. By the way, never, ever allow the level to go above 20. While this is hard to do, it is fatal if you go over. It's not called the "digital cliff" for nothing.

HDV
This is a format that came to life in 2006 with 3-chip cameras from Sony, Panasonic and JVC. It is a great solution for just about everyone who was shooting DV because its 16:9 letterbox aspect ratio will mean that your images will look good on HiDef television. Even family videos should now be shot in HDV. The HDV specification was developed jointly by JVC, Canon, Sony, and Sharp around the same MPEG-2 compression used by US broadcasters to squeeze HD out to household television sets. While higher-end HD camcorders use an intra-frame compression scheme (which means each frame of video is compressed separately) the MPEG-2 format uses interframe compression (which eliminates redundancy between frames). Interframe compression allows the video to be recorded at a 19mb/sec data rate, low enough to allow the video to be recorded on the same cassettes as the DV format. The HDV specification supports 1080i HD video and new three-chip HDV camcorders support that mode. This format is a fantastic option for the cost. It suffers from 4:1:1 compression so you'll have trouble if you want to do chroma keying because of the color compression. HDV cameras capture almost three times as much information as DV.

HDCAM
Introduced in 1997 by Sony, HDCAM is a half-inch High-Definition Television format that looks like DigiBeta and uses a lot of compression (about 7:1) to cram HD onto tape. The machines have both analog and serial HD inputs and outputs.

DVCPRO 100
DVCPRO100 is Panasonic's High-Definition extension of DCVPRO. It uses the 1/4-inch tapes in the same two cassette sizes as DVCPRO but the tape travels at much higher speeds.