DV v. D8 (again)

[DrMordrid]

While 500 lines only during tape dubbing is in the dox that isn't all that clear in the ads, is it? The link to this information is a number "2" in the ad with the text way at the bottom of the page in dark grey letters on a black background. You'd almost think they don't want you to read it 'eh? ;-)

In their qualification text Sony also lays-off responsibility for compatability problems with NLE systems to the other manufacturers: "Please consult the manufacturer of other brands of editing equipment and computers for compatibility questions". Thanx Sony.

As for color bleeding it is by no means anywhere near this level in the single CCD DV cams I've seen. It sure doesn't show up on my Panasonic cam, or especially on my friends Canon. Talk about color fidelity and sharpness in a single CCD cam.

If bleeding on single CCD DV's were at similar levels as on the D8's these cams wouldn't be able to register 480+ lines of rez. The bleed would have obscured the details of the test pattern as it did in the TR-7000 images. To me this is further hints of lower quality CCD's being used in the D8's.

Also, color bleeding doesn't fully explain the color shift of the solid fields in the TR-7000 images. A problem in the auto white balance can explain it easily.

One other point for those who want to use the cheaper 8mm tapes (not Hi8'S): Sony recommends this: "If a standard 8mm tape is used, the same camcorder should be used for recording and playback".

So, if your cam dies and you replace it with another D8 are your previously taped treasures D.O.A., severely wounded or what? I doubt that disclaimer is in there for the fun of it.

What happens to your old tapes if/when the D8's heads go slightly out of alignment? Can they be put back as they were so the old tapes can be read properly?

Just asking.

Dr. Mordrid

[Patrick]

Doctor, doctor, doctor.....

You must be sitting there with a big grin on your face when you type out these posts. A big grin because even you can't take everything you state seriously. I know I certainly don't.

Let me take the last couple of paragraphs from your last post and make just a couple of minor alterations:

>>>>>
So, if your cam dies and you replace it with another Mini-DV, are your previously taped treasures D.O.A., severely wounded or what?

What happens to your old tapes if/when the Mini-DV's heads go slightly out of alignment? Can they be put back as they were so the old tapes can be read properly?
>>>>>

Ok, now it's me who's just asking.

[Patrick]

By the way, our video club did a test where we took several D8 camcorders and made recordings on each with regular 8mm tape. We then played back the tapes in the other D8 camcorders that did not make the original recording. We viewed the footage on a 32 inch TV and did NOT notice any problems with the image quality. It was perfect.

As much as I like some Sony products, I also believe they're as deceitful as any other company. I think they're just trying to drum up sales of Hi8 tape.

[DrMordrid]

Just swapping terms does not a good point make. I know it's a cute old rhetorical tool but....

I'd be smiling too if Sony hadn't made such a thing of that CYA disclaimer. In spite of your clubs tests my experience is that companies don't make such disclaimers in the dark. They usually have reasons behind their madness. Most likely something that came up in the endurance testing.

Dr. Mordrid

[Patrick]

"...a cute old rhetorical tool..." ???

Aw, come on Doc, you're jamming out on me here.

They're just as valid questions as what you had originally asked.

[Brian Ellis]

Without any rhetoric.

Mini DV is an International Standard therefore the cameras are adjusted to specific criteria and the tapes would be interchangeable.

D-8 is a Sony in-house affair and they can write their set-up protocol as they see fit. I don't say they would, but it would be perfectly in order for each camera to be set up individually without an adjustment to even an internal standard or with a wide tolerance of parameters. It may be that 90% of the cameras are sufficiently close to each other that the tapes are interchangeable, but the remaining 10% are not and therefore justify the illegible warning. I agree with you, Doc, there must be a reason for their printing that and I suspect that it is possibly because they have adapted a mechanism which was never designed for it, in the first place.

Interestingly, I have not noticed other manufacturers, such as Samsung, Canon, Sharp etc) rushing to adopt the D-8 "standard", the way they did 8 and Hi-8. I can hardly believe they have not looked at it so that, if they have not adopted D-8, there must be a darn good reason (e.g., they produce DV already and find that D-8 offers no real advantages). Interestingly, both the VHS-C guys, such as JVC and Panasonic, and all the 8/Hi-8 guys, excepting Samsung but including Sony themselves, have adopted Mini-DV, so it is clear where all the R&D lies.

A friend asked me 3 or 4 weeks ago whether to go for a top-end SVHS-C, a Hi-8, a D-8 or a mini DV. I suggested that he go to a good shop and look at the results of shooting the street outside the shop and inside the shop onto tape and looking at the tapes on the best TV in the shop. He did just this (some shopkeepers are co-operative, even today!) and rejected the analogue cameras out-of hand. He had more difficulty between the D-8 and DV but finally opted for the Panasonic NV-DS77, even though it was a tad over his budget. I looked at some of his results a couple of days ago and they were impressive, I would say approaching my 3-CCD quality. I saw no colour bleeding.

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Brian (the terrible)

[Grigory]

An answer:
First, I'll ask Sony to repair damaged camcorder. This is typical action for any camcorder.
Next, if it die, I will bye DV format camcorder (let me decide WHAT - D8 or miniDV), and find (if necessary) another D8 camcorder to transfer data if necessary.

I am sure that:
1. Sony wants to keep production of Hi8 ME tapes.
2. Takes care about the customer complaints, who will try to use very old video8 tapes for D8, and may have problems because of bad tape quality/condition.
3. Make honest statements in manuals.

You see:
RR_G works on many motherboards, but not on mine, and very often not on ABIT. Is there a warning in the manual?

D8 can accept many video 8 tapes, but may definitely have some problems with some of them. There IS warning. Note, tapes are influenced to wearing, so what was acceptable for analog 8, be have problems with D8.

Once again, looking at DV stream, I could not find ANY distorted frame. Don't tell me about error recovery - DV data has only ECC error correction, it is impossible to repair bad compressed data block without recompression of several neighbours, interpolation, and compression back. This is not done, of course. So, DV data tells me the truth about tape reliability. This is very much similar to extraction of digital audio from CD with CD ROM drive. While audio players can correct/mask/interpolate lost data blocks in sound processor, CD ROM always shows data AS IS. So, you can sometimes get glitches from the disk that is played perfectly in player.

Wait, I'll tell you about the first dropped frame/block/pixel.

As for standard adoption, it is a question to Mr. Marketing, who's decisions very often have nothing to do with technology.

Color bleeding is very much less on european units, which you forgot to confirm.

To make it less visible, the common technique is to LIMIT the color resolution, making it actually worse than 4:1:1. This may work on many camcorders.

As for white balance, correct test could be with Auto WB turned ON on both devices.

In my shooting, the auto white balance seems to be almost every time adequate in real life conditions. It is working very much better than on my old VHS-C Panasonic camcorder.
Manual white balancing is not allowed, but typically is not necessary for casual shooting.
I don't think that D8 is good for job. For casual family records, most of us simply forget to do manual white balancing at all. So, well working auto circuit does its job.

Grigory

[Keith Wiebe]

Well let's look at this:
Sony Digital 8 TR7000=$650
firewire output and analog input
Can record 1 hr on a $3 tape
Can record in 0 lux=nightshot
mike input and headphone output
able to play back my old hi-8 tapes and output firewire in the process

Now tell me what other camcorder comes close to this for the money? Dr Mordrid's Panasonic probably doesn't have nightshot or analog inputs! (please correct me if I'm wrong). I'm looking in the new B/H catalog and they list a Panasonic DV900/910 and they are only listing recordings around 380 lines of resol. I would agree that at low light levels there is some color problems but it seems to be common to Sony's hi-8 models also. I shot some indoor pict. at a retirement home and there was indoor flouriscent lights and the pictures turned out beautiful and the data indicated I was at f1.4 and 6db gain. I didn't notice any color problems. If recording in low light one can resort to recording in b/w mode which takes care of the color problems. In total darkness one can turn on the nightshot. I love Sony's intelbattery setup as it tells how many minutes are left on the battery and when charging it tells how many min. as it's charging. The steady shot works wonderful. I don't believe anyone knows how long these units will last so that should not be discussed here at this time.

[Brian Ellis]

Keith

You never get something for nothing. You are happy with the features your camera offers. I am happy for you. I just say that my requirements are not the same as yours. I have never, for example, felt the need to shoot a black cat in a coal cellar at midnight. As I have no need of Hi-8 compatibility and knowing what I know about D-8, I just say that it is my belief that Mini-DV offers the best performance and thus value for money, in my case. Other than the features I mentioned, most DV camcorders also offer other features that D8 does not. Each plus feature means there is a minus feature within a single price bracket. Unfortunately, many of the plus features are simple and useless gadgetry that is never used or likely to be used, such as 80 x digital zooms that simply degrade the picture beyond any pretence of quality.

As I said earlier, you pays your money and you gets what you pays for.



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Brian (the terrible)

[Keith Wiebe]

That's right, you get what you pay for! I paid for a digital 8 camcorder for $650 and people who don't own one want to tell us how bad they are! Go and get one for yourself instead of badmouthing something you know nothing about and stop speculating about the quality, etc.

[Patrick]

"... most DV camcorders also offer other features that D8 does not..."

Ok Brian, please back up that statement with some facts. I'm asking you nicely to list some of these features that "most DV camcorders" have that are not available with D8.

Will this be a long list?

[CMB]

ok pepople heres my 2 penneth!!!

i just got a sony TRV110E and i love it
its to replace my now dead cannon UC9-hi
first impressions are good
the nightshot id amazing and will no doubt be good for a laugh, but i cant see myself using it on shoots....

as soon as i got home i went on the net and ordered a pc-dv/analogue in enabler which
(cross fingers should be with me soon)

that means for £700 i have a Digital Camcorder theat can ouput and record (be it DV/composite/S-VHS digital quality

How can you be that?? I paid £800 for my cannon a little over 2 years ago

Now if i was rich, i would have thought about the TRV900, but i still need to be able to play back hi-8 tapes
so for me D-8 was best choice and i am VERY imnpressed.
i use 3 chip pro-digital cameras at college and i cant wait to see how my baby compares :O)

(actually if i was rich , i would have bought both cameras HA HA HA)

[Brian Ellis]

Patrick

OK, here goes and I am quoting from Camcorders Buyers so, if there is a mistake, don't blame me. I do not say that any one or all of the features are of any use, but you know that makers love adding cheap and useless features to try and boost sales!

1/4" 460 kpixel CCDs on D-8|1/4" 680 kp on some single CCD DVs 1/3" on others
20:1 zoom on D-8|10-16:1 on DV (see earlier post)
no manual shutter control on D-8|control on 18 out of 22 DVs (including all Sonys except TRV10)
no single frame animation on D-8|available on 5/22 DVs
2/4 D-8s have mono viewfinders|2/22 DVs have them
D-8s don't have twin speed|all DVs except 3 top-end machines (2 early Sonys and the new Canon) do
D-8s do not have audio dub|20/22 DVs do
1/4 D-8s have still photo capabilities|20/22 DVs do

Will this do, to be going on with?

Incidentally, some of the features quoted for boosting D-8 sales are also available on Hi-8s!
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Brian (the terrible)



[This message has been edited by Brian Ellis (edited 14 November 1999).]

[VIKINGMAN]

Matter of the fact is, that the D8 format is something Sony made to have soomething og "their own", build on know technology, therefore they have low development costs, low production costs and they can acchive low end prices for the consumer.

That said, the DV-format is to prefer as far as recording result at long life durability goes. Sony took their already know drive-mechanism and made some (small) changes, a drive NOT developed for the high speeds and wear of Digital8. Whereas others (Pana, JVC and Sony itself!) build new cams, that are build to the higher speeds. Better (bigger) lenses that give better pictures and so forth....of the DV-format.

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ASUS P2B-S, PII-350 (o/c to 412MHz), 128MB RAM, Cheetah 9.1 GB, Matrox Mill. G200SG, SB 64AWE, Plextor 32x CD-Rom, Sony CDU-924S CD-R, Canon BJC-7000 InkJet and Canon CanoScan 300 Scanner.

[Keith Wiebe]

Were do you people get the idea that the tape mechanism won't hold up? Brian's list doesn't do much to discourage one from buying dig 8 that's for sure. BTW they do have a manual exposure control. I'd like some one to show me a dv cam that has analog in and out, dig in and out, can play back my old hi-8 tapes, mike and headphone jacks? A very simple request! If you don't like them, don't buy one!!!!! The only people complaining about them it seems is the people who don't own one! I think they are jealous of the lower cost of the machine and tapes!!! No, they won't have as good of picture as the more expensive machines (3 ccd machines for sure) but under good conditions can look amazingly good. Seriously, if the video quality is much concern, one needs to dump the Rainbow Runner first!