iPedia Free Information Center

Information about Professional Video Camera

Enlarge picture
Sony camera head with Betacam SP dock recorder.
Enlarge picture
A remote-controlled camera mounted on a miniature cable car for mobility.
Enlarge picture
Cameraman at a baseball game.
A Professional video camera (often called a Television camera even though the use has spread) is a high-end device for recording electronic moving images (as opposed to a movie camera, that records the images on film). Originally developed for use in television studios, they are now commonly used for corporate and educational videos, music videos, direct-to-video movies, etc.

There are two types of professional video cameras: High end portable, recording cameras (essentially, high-end camcorders) used for ENG and EFP image acquisition, and studio cameras which lack the recording capability of a camcorder, and are often fixed on studio pedestals. Portable professional cameras are generally much larger than consumer cameras and are designed to be carried on the shoulder.

Technology

It is common for professional cameras to split the incoming light into the three primary colors that humans are able to see, feeding each color into a separate pickup tube (in older cameras) or charge-coupled device (CCD). Some high-end consumer cameras also do this, producing a higher-quality image than is normally possible with just a single video pickup.

Studio cameras

Most studio cameras stand on the floor, usually with pneumatic or hydraulic mechanisms to adjust the height, and are usually on wheels. Any video camera when used along with other video cameras in a studio setup is controlled by a device known as CCU (camera control unit), to which they are connected via an optical, Triax or Multicore cable. The camera control unit along with other equipments is installed in the production control room often known as Gallery of the television studio. When used outside a studio, they are often on tracks. Initial models used analog technology, but digital models are becoming more common. Some studio cameras are light and small enough to be taken off the pedestal and used on a cameraman's shoulder, but they still have no recorder of their own and are cable-bound.

ENG cameras

Often used in independent films, ENG video cameras are similar to consumer camcorders, and indeed the dividing line between them is somewhat blurry, but a few differences are generally notable:
  • They are bigger, and usually have a shoulder stock for stabilizing on the cameraman's shoulder
  • They use 3 CCDs instead of one (as is common in digital still cameras and consumer equipment), one for each primary color
  • They have removable/swappable lenses
  • All settings like white balance, focus, and iris can be manually adjusted, and automatics can be completely disabled
  • If possible, these functions will be even adjustable mechanically (especially focus and iris), not by passing signals to an actuator or digitally dampening the video signal.
  • They will have professional connectors - BNC for video and XLR for audio
  • A complete timecode section will be available, and multiple cameras can be timecode-synchronized with a cable
  • "Bars and tone" will be available in-camera (the bars are SMPTE (Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers) Bars similar to those seen on television when a station goes off the air, the tone is a test audio tone)
  • Finally, they will often use a professional medium like some variant of Betacam or DVCPRO.

Dock cameras

Some manufacturers build camera heads, which only contain the optical array, the CCD sensors and the video coder, and can be used with a studio adaptor for connection to a CCU or various dock recorders for direct recording in the preferred format, making them very versatile. However, this versatility leads to greater size and weight, and dock cameras have become rare in recent years. They are, however, still favored for electronic field production and low-budget studio use, because they tend to be smaller, lighter, and less expensive than most studio cameras.

History

  • 1926 to 1933 "Cameras" were a type of flying spot scanner using mechanical disk.
  • 1936 saw the arrival of RCA's iconoscope camera.
  • 1946 RCA's TK-10 studio camera used 3" IO - Image Orthicon Tube with a 4 lens turret. The RCA TK-30 (1946) was widely used as a Field Camera.
  • The 1948 Dumont Marconi MK IV was a Image Orthicon Camera. Marconi's first camera was shown in 1938. - link to MK IV. EMI cameras from the UK, were used in the US in the early 1960s, like the EMI 203/4. - Ext. link. Later in the 60s the EMI 2000 an EMI 2001.
  • In 1950 the arrival of the Vidicon camera tube made smaller cameras possible. 1952 saw the first Walkie-Lookie "portable cameras". Image Orthicon tubes were still used till the arrival of the Plumbicon.
  • The RCA TK-40 is considered to be the first color television camera for broadcasts in 1953. RCA continued it lead in the high-end camera market till the (1978) TK-47, last of the high-end tub cameras. - Link to History of TV Books online
  • Ikegami introducted the first truly portable hand-held TV camera in 1962.
  • Philips' line of Norelco cameras were also very popular like models PC-60 (1965), PC-70 (1967) and PCP-90 (1968 Handheld). Philips/BTS-Broadcast Television Systems Inc. later came out with a LDK line of camera, like its last high end tube camera the LDK 6 (1982). Philips invented the Plumbicon pick up Video camera tube in 1965, that gave tube cameras a cleaner picture. BTS introduced its first HandHeld Frame transfer CCD- Charge-coupled device-CCD camera the LDK90 in 1987.
  • Bosch Fernseh marketed a line of high end cameras (KCU, KCN, KCP, KCK) in the US ending with the tube camera KCK-40 (1978). Image Transform (inUniversal City) used specially modified 24 frame KCK-40 for their "Image Vision" system. This had a 10Mhz bandwidth twice NTSC resolution. This was a custom pre HDTV video System. At its peak this system was used to make "Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl" in 1982. This was the first major DI digital intermediate post production using a Film recorder for Film out.

Also See

References

A video camera is a camera used for electronic motion picture acquisition, initially developed by the television industry but now common in other applications as well. The earliest video cameras were those of John Logie Baird, based on the electromechanical Nipkow disk and used by
..... Click the link for more information.
movie camera is a type of photographic camera which takes a rapid sequence of photographs on strips of film. In contrast to a still camera, which captures a single snapshot at a time, the movie camera takes a series of images, each called a "frame".
..... Click the link for more information.
Film stock is the term for photographic film on which motion pictures are shot and reproduced.

History

1889-1899

Modern motion picture film stock was first created thanks to the introduction of a transparent flexible film base material, celluloid, which was
..... Click the link for more information.
Television (often abbreviated to TV, T.V., or more recently, tv; sometimes called telly, the tube, boob tube, or idiot box in British English) is a widely used telecommunication system for broadcasting and receiving moving pictures
..... Click the link for more information.
A television studio is an installation in which television or video productions take place, either for live television, for recording live to tape, or for the acquisition of raw footage for postproduction.
..... Click the link for more information.
direct-to-video (also known as made-for-video, straight-to-video and, more recently, straight-to-DVD) is one which has been released to the public on home video formats (historically VHS) before or without being released in movie theaters or broadcast on
..... Click the link for more information.
A camcorder is a portable electronic device for recording video images and audio onto an internal storage device. The camcorder contains both a video camera and (traditionally) a videocassette recorder in one unit, hence its portmanteau name.
..... Click the link for more information.
ENG is a broadcasting (usually television) industry acronym which stands for electronic news gathering. It can mean anything from a lone reporter taking a single camcorder out to get a story to an entire television crew taking a satellite truck on location to do a live
..... Click the link for more information.
Electronic field production (EFP) is a television industry term referring to television production which takes place outside of a formal studio, in a practical location or special venue.
..... Click the link for more information.
A television studio is an installation in which television or video productions take place, either for live television, for recording live to tape, or for the acquisition of raw footage for postproduction.
..... Click the link for more information.
additive primary colors of a CRT color video display]] Primary colors are sets of colors that can be combined to make a useful range (gamut) of colors. For human applications, three are often used; for additive combination of colors, as in overlapping projected lights or in
..... Click the link for more information.
Editing of this page by unregistered or newly registered users is currently disabled due to vandalism.
If you are prevented from editing this page, and you wish to make a change, please discuss changes on the talk page, request unprotection, log in, or .
..... Click the link for more information.
In older video cameras, before the 1990s, a video camera tube or pickup tube was used instead of a charge-coupled device (CCD). Several types were in use from the 1930s to the 1980s. These tubes are a type of cathode ray tube.
..... Click the link for more information.
charge-coupled device (CCD) is an analog shift register, enabling analog signals (electric charges) to be transported through successive stages (capacitors) controlled by a clock signal.
..... Click the link for more information.
Pneumatics is the use of pressurized air to effect mechanical motion. Pneumatics is employed in a variety of settings. In dentistry applications, pneumatic drills are lighter, faster, and simpler than an electric drill of the same power rating (because the prime mover, the compressor, is
..... Click the link for more information.
Hydraulics is a topic of science and engineering dealing with the mechanical properties of liquids. Hydraulics is part of the more general discipline of fluid power. Fluid mechanics provides the theoretical foundation for hydraulics, which focuses on the engineering uses of fluid
..... Click the link for more information.
wheel is a circular device capable of rotating on its axis, facilitating movement or transportation or performing labour in machines. A wheel together with an axle overcomes friction by facilitating motion by rolling. Common examples are found in transport applications.
..... Click the link for more information.
The camera control unit (CCU) is installed in the production control room (PCR), and allows various aspects of the video camera on the studio floor to be controlled remotely.
..... Click the link for more information.
Triaxial Cable is a type of electrical cable similar to coaxial cable, but with the addition of an extra layer of insulation and a second conducting sheath. It provides greater bandwidth and rejection of interference than coax, but is more expensive.
..... Click the link for more information.
A multicore cable is a generic term for an electrical cable that has multiple cores. The term is normally only used in relation to a cable that has more cores than commonly encountered.
..... Click the link for more information.
A television studio is an installation in which television or video productions take place, either for live television, for recording live to tape, or for the acquisition of raw footage for postproduction.
..... Click the link for more information.
An analog or analogue signal is any time continuous signal where some time varying feature of the signal is a representation of some other time varying quantity. It differs from a digital signal in that small fluctuations in the signal are meaningful.
..... Click the link for more information.
A digital system is one that uses discrete values (often electrical voltages), representing numbers or non-numeric symbols such as letters or icons, for input, processing, transmission, storage, or display, rather than a continuous range of values (ie, as in an analog system).
..... Click the link for more information.
An independent film, or indie film, is usually a low-budget film that is produced by a small movie studio. Additionally, the term is used to describe less commercially-driven art films which differ markedly from the norms of plot-driven, mainstream classical Hollywood cinema.
..... Click the link for more information.
charge-coupled device (CCD) is an analog shift register, enabling analog signals (electric charges) to be transported through successive stages (capacitors) controlled by a clock signal.
..... Click the link for more information.
additive primary colors of a CRT color video display]] Primary colors are sets of colors that can be combined to make a useful range (gamut) of colors. For human applications, three are often used; for additive combination of colors, as in overlapping projected lights or in
..... Click the link for more information.
In photography and image processing, color balance (sometimes gray balance, neutral balance, or white balance) refers to the adjustment of the relative amounts of red, green, and blue primary colors in an image such that neutral colors are reproduced correctly.
..... Click the link for more information.
focus, also called an image point, is the point where light rays originating from a point on the object converge [1]. Although the focus is conceptually a point, physically the focus has a spatial extent, called the blur circle.
..... Click the link for more information.
diaphragm is a thin opaque structure with an opening (aperture) at its centre. The role of the diaphragm is to stop the passage of light, except for the light passing through the aperture.
..... Click the link for more information.
Betacam is a family of half-inch professional videotape products developed by Sony from 1982 onwards. In casual use, "Betacam" singly is often used to refer to a Betacam camcorder, a Betacam tape, or a Betacam video recorder.
..... Click the link for more information.


This article is copied from an article on Wikipedia.org - the free encyclopedia created and edited by online user community. The text was not checked or edited by anyone on our staff. Although the vast majority of the wikipedia encyclopedia articles provide accurate and timely information please do not assume the accuracy of any particular article. This article is distributed under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License.
Herod_Archelaus


page counter