Posted by Richard Crowley on 12/24/12 11:29

"beaufort" wrote ...
> A few days ago, I shot some footage
> with an ancient Sony 8mm camcorder
> dug out of a drawer.
>
> This is a 1988/89 model Sony, and the
> last time it was used was maybe '91.
>
> It was a clear sunny morning and I kept
> the exposure on manual.
>
> I edited the stuff on Vegas, then
> burned it to CD using SVCD settings.
>
> And you know what? It looked about
> the same as DV material. In fact there
> weren't any blocky compression artifacts
> on the 8mm images. The image was
> softer but in a pleasing way. The contrast
> was good and so were the colours. The
> shadow detail was also good.
>
> So what's the problem with analogue?

"weren't any blocky compression artifacts"?
But then 8mm analog is not compressed with
any digital method so you can't really expect
to see any artifacts, can you?

"the image was softer..." and THAT is the kind
of "compression" we see with analog formats
(including 8mm video). In particular, the color
parts of the picture are significantly compressed.

However, when shooting with really good light,
even inexpensive 1-chip cameras have produced
remarkably nice pictures.

Note that some of those older analog camcorders
had better camera sections (and lenses?) than the
digital stuff they're selling now. Back then, a
video camcorder was a video camcorder (not a
still digital camera, and a "web-cam", etc.) and they
weren't seduced by the siren-song of the capabilities
of the digital processing to throw a bunch of junk
in there that does nothing for the video picture
quality. :-(

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