Technological advancement has miniaturized the large cameras on specially mounted trolleys to portable video cameras and recorders for broadcasting images. This transition started in 1982 when JVC and Sony released the first professional camcorders. The Betacam, designed by Sony, slowly gained popularity and became the standard device for both news gathering and video editing. This was followed by Betamax in 1983 – the first consumer camcorder. At this stage, they were bulky and generally rested on the user`s shoulder during recording. Even today most camcorders are designed for right-hand users with very few possessing ambidextrous ergonomics.
Both JVC and Sony started improving the quality of camcorders which led to the development of digital devices in 1990. These had cassettes even smaller than the 8mm media allowing further reduction of size of tape transport assembly. The digital variety further improved the audio and video quality over the best analog camcorders. With the advent of digital models, the market has grown substantially being facilitated further by its price and size reduction. Today a device fits in the palm and is sold at a retail price of less than $150.
Camcorders comprise of three basic components : lens, imager and recorder. The lens solely focuses and gathers light on the imager. The imager is the eye of the camcorder which converts captured images into electrical video signals. The recorder encodes the video signals into storable form. The lens offers professional control of all major optical functions such as aperture, shutter speed and focus, etc. The recorder function is responsible for writing the video signal onto a recording medium (magnetic video tape).
Camcorders are normally classified by their storage device. The highest quality digital format such as Betacam and Mini DV, etc., suffer from little generation loss during recording, dubbing and editing. In analog recordings, noise and bandwidth issues relating to cables, amplifiers and mixers are a problem while in digital connections such problems are minimized.
Both JVC and Sony started improving the quality of camcorders which led to the development of digital devices in 1990. These had cassettes even smaller than the 8mm media allowing further reduction of size of tape transport assembly. The digital variety further improved the audio and video quality over the best analog camcorders. With the advent of digital models, the market has grown substantially being facilitated further by its price and size reduction. Today a device fits in the palm and is sold at a retail price of less than $150.
Camcorders comprise of three basic components : lens, imager and recorder. The lens solely focuses and gathers light on the imager. The imager is the eye of the camcorder which converts captured images into electrical video signals. The recorder encodes the video signals into storable form. The lens offers professional control of all major optical functions such as aperture, shutter speed and focus, etc. The recorder function is responsible for writing the video signal onto a recording medium (magnetic video tape).
Camcorders are normally classified by their storage device. The highest quality digital format such as Betacam and Mini DV, etc., suffer from little generation loss during recording, dubbing and editing. In analog recordings, noise and bandwidth issues relating to cables, amplifiers and mixers are a problem while in digital connections such problems are minimized.
No comments:
Post a Comment