DV Formats - Everything You Need To Know

10/7/2018 DV Formats: Everything You Need To Know - VideoUniversity
DV FORMATS: EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO

KNOW
By Adam Wilt
Editor’s Note: Special thanks to Adam for his work on this excellent
article. For more articles by Adam and for information on his
Engineering and Production Services, please visit Adam Wilt’s Web
Site. To contact Adam by email go to the bottom of this page..
You won’t nd a better videotape format in terms of

price/performance for standard-de nition television than DV or its
related formats DVCAM and DVCPRO. Also, DV is the rst
broadcast-quality format small enough for a camera master to fall
into a cup of tea (trust me on this; no need to try it yourself).
I rst experienced DV in October of 1995, when I saw a Sony DCR-

VX1000 hooked up to a 32″ Sony XBR monitor at Fry’s Electronics
in Sunnyvale. I was impressed by the live pix, but blown away by
the o -tape playback, which looked as good as live. I lay awake for
three nights, thinking “the world has changed: Digital For The Rest
Of Us…” before buying a VX1000, and selling my pro/industrial
EVW-300 3-chip, interchangeable-lens Hi8 camcorder to pay for it…
Most people start with the FAQ, and cruise around from there. The
new stu is listed at the top of the FAQ, so it’s a good place to
start.
[Last updated 2 July (Mac G3 SCSI).]
Technical Comparisons Frequently Pix Links
Details / Reviews Asked
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Questions
Top of Page
>Technical Details<
Comparisons/Reviews
DV: Technical Details
FAQ
Links
The DV formats tabulated:
Format speci cations and current equipment capabilities
DV DVCAM DVCPRO Digital8
consortium of
60
manufacturers
Panasonic; also
including
suppliers Sony Philips, Ikegami, Sony
Sony,
Hitachi.
Panasonic,
JVC, Canon,
Sharp.
consumer
(although JVC
consumer
intended makes a professional /
professional / (Video8 &
market dockable DV industrial / ENG /
industrial Hi8
segment(s) VTR for the EFP / broadcast
replacement)
pro/industrial
market)
who’s consumer /
professional / professional /
actually professional /
industrial / ENG / industrial / ENG / consumers
buying the industrial /
EFP EFP / broadcast
stu ENG / EFP
tape type ME (Metal ME (Metal MP (Metal Particle) ME, MP (uses
Evaporate) Evaporate) Video8, Hi8

tapes)
10 microns
(SP)
track pitch 15 microns 18 microns ???

6.7 microns
(LP)
10 microns
(SP)
15 microns (10
track width microns on some 18 microns ???

6.7 microns
early gear)
(LP)
28.6 mm/sec
tape speed 18.81 mm/sec 28.215 mm/sec 33.82 mm/sec
(estimated)
miniDV:
80/120 min
small: 63 min.
(SP/LP)
(note: small is
larger than miniDV Video8, Hi8

std: 3.0/4.6 hrs
cassettes & miniDV: 40 cassette) standard 120
(SP/LP)
max. loads min.std: 184 min. minute tape:
(4.6/6.9 hrs std: 123 min./184 60 min.

possible using min.**
DVCAM 184
min tape)
63 minutes (AJ-
D700/810);
123 min. (AJ-

max. camera 80/120 min.
184 minutes D200/210); 60 min.
load (SP/LP)
184 min. (AJ-

D215)**
compression 5:1 DVC- 5:1 DVC-format 5:1 DVC-format 5:1 DVC-
format DCT, DCT, intra-frame; DCT, intra-frame; format DCT,
intra-frame; 25 Mbps video 25 Mbps video data intra-frame;
25 Mbps video data rate rate 25 Mbps
data rate
video data
rate
720×480, 4:1:1 720×480, 4:1:1 720×480, 4:1:1 720×480,
(NTSC) (NTSC) (NTSC) 4:1:1 (NTSC)

resolution &
sampling 720×576, 4:2:0 720×576, 4:2:0 720×576, 4:1:1 720×576,

(PAL) (PAL) (PAL) 4:2:0 (PAL)
2 ch @ 48
2 ch @ 48 kHz, 2 ch @ 48 kHz, 16
kHz, 16 bits;
16 bits; bits;
4 ch @ 32
audio 4 ch @ 32 kHz, 4 ch @ 32 kHz, 12
2 ch @ 48 kHz, 16 kHz, 12 bits;
recording 12 bits; bits;
bits; locked, plus
one analog audio will accept 2

will accept 2 will accept 2 ch @
(see “locked cue track; plays ch @ 44.1
ch @ 44.1 kHz, 44.1 kHz, 16 bits
vs kHz, 16 bits
16 bits via via 1394 I/O; back 32 kHz, 12 bits
unlocked“Â via 1394 I/O;
1394 I/O; locked (but some and presumably
below) unlocked
unlocked (but VTRs can be made 44.1 kHz, 16 bits.
(but can
can record to record
record
locked audio unlocked via
locked audio
via 1394) 1394)
via 1394)
These tapes
DV, DVCAM, & DV*, DVCAM, & DVCPRO VTRs; DSR- Digital8
can play
DVCPRO VTRs DVCPRO* VTRs 2000 DVCAM VTR camcorders
back in…
DV & DVCAM
These VTRs Video8, Hi8,
DV & DVCAM* tapes (DVCPRO in DV, DVCAM*, &
can play Digital8
tapes the DSR-2000; Oct DVCPRO tapes
back… tapes
’99)
IEEE-1394 DSR-V10, DSR-20,

Sony & Canon
I/O DSR-30, DSR-40,
camcorders AJ-D210/215
and VTRs; camcorders and AJ-
(a.k.a. DSR-200/200a, yes
newer JVC D230 VTRs with
“FireWire” or DSR-500, DSR-
camcorders optional adapter.
“i.link”) 2000, DRV-1000
(output only)
SMPTE 259M no DSR- AJ-D750/650/640 no
SDI (serial 60/80/85/2000 VTRs with adapter
digital VTRs with adapter
interface)
AG-D780 VTR;
4X digital I/O no DSR-85 VTR NewsByte NLE with no

onboard VTR
Analog DSR-
AJ-D750/650/640
component no 40/60/80/85/2000 no
VTRs
I/O VTRs only
yes (DRV-100
Y/C &
& many yes (DRV-1000: yes (no Y/C on AJ-
composite yes
camcorders: output only) D750)
I/O
output only)
LANC & IEEE-1394

LANC & IEEE-
(DSR-V10, DSR-
1394Â (Sony,
20/30, DSR- RS-232 (AJ-
Canon);
200/200a); D230/640/650/750);
LANC & IEEE-
Edit control Panasonic 5-
RS-232 (DSR-20); RS-422 (AJ- 1394
pin
D640/650/750)
(Panasonic); J-
RS-422 (DSR-
LIP (JVC)
40/60/80/85/2000)
*Interformat interchange:
DV plays back in all three format VTRs; DVCPRO VTRs require
a cassette adapter to play back miniDV tapes.
DVCAM plays back in most DV VTRs excepting the DCR-VX700
and DCR-VX1000 camcorders which were designed prior to
the introduction of DVCAM.
Early model DVCPRO VTRs (made before June 1997) require
an EPROM upgrade to allow the servos to track DVCAM.
Check the serial number: it’s of the form MYxxxxxxx, where
M is a month letter, A-L, and Y is the last digit in the year.
F7xxxxxxx means the machine was built in June 1997, and it’s
OK. H6xxxxxxx would mean the machine was born in August
of 1996 and the EPROM upgrade would be required.
To play back DV or DVCAM in a DVCPRO machine, use the
setup menus to specify DV or DVCAM before you insert
the tape! The playback mode “locks in” when the tape is
inserted, so if you set DV or DVCAM mode after loading the
tape, playback will still be attempted as if the tape were a

DVCPRO tape.
PAL 4:2:0 DV and DVCAM played back on a DVCPRO are
digitally resampled to generate a PAL 4:1:1 DVCPRO signal.
DV in LP mode will not play back in DVCAM or DVCPRO VTRs.
miniDV tapes cannot be played back in the NewsByte VTR
even with the cassette adaptor.
DV in SP mode appears to be the universal tape format: it
will play back in any of the VTRs.
DVCPRO appears to be the universal playback VTR: it’ll
play back any of the DV-based formats, as will the new (NAB
’99) DVCAM DSR-2000.
See also: How DVCPRO (D-7) plays back DV tape — and why it
doesn’t record DV (which also probably explains why your
DVCAM deck won’t record DV either). Courtesy Panasonic
Broadcast and Digital Systems.
The 4X high-speed transfer decks will not perform 4X play
with a DV cassette!
**DVCPRO std. cassette run times:
The “standard” standard cassette holds 123 minutes of tape, but

there is a newer, 184 minute tape load available using the same
sized cassette. All DVCPRO equipment accepting the std. size
cassette should be able to record or play for 184 minutes, but only
the newer equipment (such as the AJ-D215 and later model AJ-
D230s; the 400-series VTRs should also t this description) has
been programmed to “understand” the larger load. If you put a
184 min. cassette into an older bit of equipment, it’ll think that
such a cassette can only hold 123 minutes, and as a result
operations like fast-forward or rewind may only work as expected
for 2/3 of the tape, after which the machine will slow the tape
down, expecting it to end. The operation will proceed at this
reduced speed while the machine is waiting for the tape to end
(any minute now!); this can take quite a while… Before using the
longer tape in older gear (600-series and 700-series VTRs, AJ-D200
and 210 cameras, and pre-NAB-1999 AJ-D230 VTRs), you might
want to check with your Panasonic rep, or at least do a dry run to
see how the older gear will behave with the longer tape.
DV: Comparisons / Reviews

Top of Page
Technical Details
>Comparisons/Reviews<
FAQ
Links
DV and Hi8
DV and Betacam SP
Guy Bonneau’s DV and M-JPEG compression discussion
The EBU’s DV25 and DV50 multigeneration tests with
Beta SP and ITU-R BT.601
Format comparisons:
Camera comparisons & reviews:

Side-by-side: Sony VX1000 and Canon XL-1
The Canon XL-1 reviewed by Bobby Love
DV Frequently Asked Questions

The answers to your DV-related questions should be here… but if
they aren’t, send me the questions so I can answer ’em! And if you
see a wrong answer, let me know: send me the right answer so the
next reader can get the straight dope instead of a bum steer…
Contact info is at the bottom of the page. Also see the Technical
Details and Comparisons/Reviews sections of this page (above).
Where a link for [pix] exists, a separate window will be launched,

so that you can continue to read the text in this page while the
images are loading. The pix pages’ menu banners have links to the
other available (on-site) pix pages, so that you can browse pix
completely separately from the main text pages. (Of course, if
you’re using an ancient browser that doesn’t understand
target=”new_window”, the separate browsingÂ won’t occur… and
if you’re on a slow link, and/or using lynx or NetHopper, skip the
graphics; you don’t really need them anyway!)
This work is my own, but has been generated from many sources.
I especially wish to thank Jan Crittenden at Panasonic, Earl
Jamgochian at Sony, and Jim Miller at JVC for their help in
answering a variety of tricky questions and in correcting assorted
technical details.
2 May ’99: There’s a lot of interesting new stu that was shown
at NAB (some of it is even shipping) and a lot of new information:
Final Cut Pro, IMC’s Incite, Matrox DigiSuite DTV, Canopus RexRT,
the DSR-500WS camcorder and DSR-2000 VTR, the updated story
on unlocked audio, 100 MBit/sec DV-basedÂ HDTV formats, the
DV chipsets from C-Cube, divio, and Zoran… but (a) I’m too busy to
add all of this right now, and (b) this ippin’ page is getting too big:
a redesign is needed. I hope to rework all the DV stu sometime;
whenever the work lets up and I have some free time.
I plan to give each major topic its own page to improve load times
and I’ll have to change the navigation structure to accommodate
this. If you have some helpful commentary or suggestions on this,
please let me know: the point is to make this information as easy
to peruse as possible. Email me at “adam at adamwilt dot com”
(but no, I won’t wire in a clickable mailto: link since that makes
things too easy for spammers and their web-bots. Don’t even ask).
Thanks!
Recent Updates
4 Feb Updated Ultra DMA info in NLE; a few new links…
18 Mar Digital8 added; links rearranged and consolidated.
2 May Unlocked audio updated; new links
23 June Tech Details updated for DVCPRO runtimes; links tweaked.
2 July Mac G3 SCSI update
Choose a category:
DV, DVCAM, DVCPRO – What is DV? What’s the di erence

between DV, DVCAM, and DVCPRO? Digital8? How good are
the DV formats compared to other formats? What are the DV
artifacts I keep hearing about?
Digital-S, DVCPRO50, DVCPROHD100, HD Digital-S – What
are Digital-S and DVCPRO50? Four codecs for HD?
4:2:2, 4:1:1, 4:2:0 – What are 4:2:2, 4:1:1, and 4:2:0 anyway?
Why does PAL DV use 4:2:0? Can I chroma-key with 4:1:1?
Can I use 4:1:1 DV sources for upconversion to HDTV?
1394/FireWire – What is 1394 and/or “FireWire”? Why are DV

and 1394 always discussed together? What does a 1394
connection do for me? Is 1394 that much better than Y/C or
component analog?
locked vs unlocked audio – What’s the di erence between
locked and unlocked audio? Will unlocked audio hurt me?
How do I deal with it? How do I intermix locked and unlocked
audio? Does unlocked audio explain why my audio loses sync
in Adobe Premiere?
linear editing – Can I use DV in linear editing? What sort of
linear editing gear can I get in DV? What sort of machine
control is there? How accurate is it? Is DV timecode the same
as SMPTE timecode?
non-linear editing – What’s non-linear editing? What’s
special about DV non-linear editing? Who makes non-linear
editing stu for DV? What gear is available? Can I build a PC-
or Mac-based NLE system myself? Where do I learn more
details about speci c NLE con gurations and products? How
much DV ts in a Gigabyte? Why is there a 2 Gig limit? How
can I avoid it? What are SCSI-1, SCSI-2, Ultra-SCSI, etc.? Wahat
about Ultra-DMA? What do I really need? Why doesn’t my
non-linear editor see timecode if it’s already on the tape?
“hard” codecs vs “soft” codecs – What’s a codec? What are
“hard” and “soft” codecs? Which codec is better?
transcoding to and from M-JPEG – Can I transcode between
DV and motion-JPEG? Which is better for editing: DV or M-
JPEG? What about MPEG-2 editing?
16:9 widescreen – What is 16:9 widescreen? Why should I
care about 16:9? How do you get 16:9 pictures?
frame mode, slow shutters, and “the lm look” – What is
this “frame mode” I hear so much about? How do I get “ lm
look” shooting with DV cameras? What do the slow shutter
speeds do for me?
those funny free-spinning lens controls – Why don’t
consumer DV cameras have “real” lenses with focus marks?
How do I work with these lenses?
Image stabilization – What’s EIS/DIS? What’s optical
stabilization? What about Steadicam/GlideCam? When do I
use what kind of image stabilization?
Didn’t nd what you wanted here? Try Technical Details,

Comparisons/Reviews, and links.
DV, DVCAM, DVCPRO
What is DV?DV is an international standard created by a

consortium of 10 companies for a consumer digital video format.
The companies involved were Matsushita Electric Industrial Corp
(Panasonic), Sony Corp, Victor Corporation of Japan (JVC), Philips
Electronics, N.V., Sanyo Electric Co. Ltd, Hitachi, Ltd., Sharp
Corporation,Â Thompson Multimedia, Mitsubishi Electric
Corporation, and Toshiba Corporation. Since then others have
joined up; there are now over 60 companies in the DVC
consortium.
DV, originally known as DVC (Digital Video Cassette), uses a 1/4

inch (6.35mm) metal evaporate tape to record very high quality
digital video. The video is sampled at the same rate as D-1, D-5, or
Digital Betacam video — 720 pixels per scanline — although the
color information is sampled at half the D-1 rate: 4:1:1 in 525-line
(NTSC), and 4:2:0 in 625-line (PAL) formats. (See below for a
discussion of color sampling.)
The sampled video is compressed using a Discrete Cosine

Transform (DCT), the same sort of compression used in motion-
JPEG. However, DV’s DCT allows for more local optimization (of
quantizing tables) within the frame than do JPEG compressors,
allowing for higher quality at the nominal 5:1 compression factor
than a JPEG frame would show. See Guy Bonneau’s discussion of
DV vs MJPEG compression for more details.
DV uses intraframe compression: Each compressed frame

depends entirely on itself, and not on any data from preceding or
following frames. However, it also uses adaptive inter eld
compression; if the compressor detects little di erence between
the two interlaced elds of a frame, it will compress them
together, freeing up some of the “bit budget” to allow for higher
overall quality. In theory, this means that static areas of images
will be more accurately represented than areas with a lot of
motion; in practice, this can sometimes be observed as a slight
degree of “blockiness” in the immediate vicinity of moving objects,
as discussed below.
DV video information is carried in a nominal 25 megabit per

second (Mbps) data stream. Once you add in audio, subcode
(including timecode), Insert and Track Information (ITI), and error

correction, the total data stream come to about 36 Mbps.
What’s the di erence between DV, DVCAM, and DVCPRO?
Not a lot! The basic video encoding algorithm is the same between
all three formats. The VTR sections of the US$20,000 DVCAM DXC-
D130 or DVCPRO AJ-D700 cameras will record no better an image
than the lowly DV format DCR-VX1000 at US$4,000 (please note: I
am not saying that the camera section and lens of the VX1000 are
the equals of the high-end pro and broadcast cameras: there are
signi cant quality di erences! But the video data recorded in all
three formats is essentially identical, though there may be minor
di erences in the actual codec implementations). A summary of
di erences (and similarities) is tabled in Technical Details.
The consumer-oriented DV uses 10 micron tracks in SP recording

mode. Newer camcorders o er an LP mode to increase recording
times, but the 6.7 micron tracks make tape interchange
problematic on DV machines, and prevents LP tapes from being
played in DVCAM or DVCPRO VTRs. Sony’s DVCAM professional
format increases the track pitch to 15 microns (at the loss of
recording time) to improve tape interchange and increase the
robustness and reliability of insert editing. Panasonic’s DVCPRO
increases track pitch and width to 18 microns, and uses a metal
particle tape for better durability. DVCPRO also adds a longitudinal
analog audio cue track and a control track to improve editing
performance and user-friendliness in linear editing operations.
Digital8?
Sony’s Digital8 uses DV compression atop the existing Video8/Hi8

technological base. Digital8 records on Video8 or Hi8 tapes, but
these run at twice their normal speed and thus hold half the time
listed on the label. Digital8 will also play back existing Video8 and
Hi8 tapes, even over 1394/i.link, allowing such tapes to be read
into NLEs (at least, those for which the lack of timecode is not an
issue — batch capture utilities are unlikely to work, since
Video8/Hi8 timecodes are not sent across the 1394 connection).
Digital8 is a camcorder-only format as of Spring 1999; no VTRs are

expected. It appears to be the 8mm division’s way of keeping its
customer base from defecting to DV. By leveraging the massive
investments of 15 years in 8mm analog camcorders and
transports, the unit cost of Digital8 gear is kept very low, roughly
half of what a comparable DV camcorder would cost, and its ability
to play back legacy analog tapes is worthwhile for those with large
libraries of 8mm.
All Digital8 camcorders can record from the analog inputs (at least
outside the EU), and all are equipped with i.link ports for digital
dubbing and NLE connections.
How good are the DV formats compared to other formats?
DV formats are typically reckoned to be equal to or slightly better

than Betacam SP and MII in terms of picture quality (however, DV
holds up better over repeated play cycles, where BetaSP shows
noticeable dropout). They are a notch below Digital-S and
DVCPRO50, which are themselves a (largely imperceptible) notch
below Digital Betacam, D-1, and D-5. They are quite a bit better
than 3/4″ U-matic, Hi8, and SVHS.
On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is just barely video and 10 is as good

as it gets, I would arrogantly rate assorted formats as follows:
D-5 (10-bit uncompressed digital) 10
D-1 (8-bit uncompressed digital) 9.9
Digital Betacam, Ampex DCT 9.7
Digital-S, DVCPRO50 9.6
DV, DVCAM, DVCPRO 9.2
MII, Betacam SP 9.1
D-3, D-2 (composite digital) 9
1″ Type C 8.9
3/4″ SP 6.5
3/4″, Hi8, SVHS 5
Video 8, Betamax 4
VHS 3
EIAJ Type 1, Fisher-Price Pixelvision 1
[Note that I place D-2 and D-3 uncompressed composite digital

formats lower than any of the component formats, even the analog
and compressed ones. While D-2 and D-3 are excellent first-
generation formats for composite analog playback and NTSC
broadcast, the compositing of color with luminance (which includes a
color bandwidth limitation even more severe than DV or BetaSP
employ) makes clean multigeneration and multi-layer image
compositing problematic at best (even such simple things as adding
titles).And, as we move into the 4:2:0 component DTV era, video will
no longer be subjected to the delivery-point lowest common
denominator of a single-wire composite feed: color-subcarrier
composite was an excellent analog compression technology in the
1950s, but DTV obsoletes it and renders even the DTV consumer
receiver essentially a component display.]
For a less biased discussion of DV quality, see the September 1998

SMPTE/EBU Task Force for Harmonized Standards for the
Exchange of Program Material as Bitstreams Final Report, Annex
C.
Also, Jim Feely of DV Magazine used the Tektronix Picture Quality

Analyzer, a “black box” that calculates before/after picture
di erences and evaluates them based on Sano Lab’s JND analysis
(a whole di erent topic — in short, analysis based on modeling of
the psychophysical characteristics of human vision), to evaluate a
variety of formats for the May 1999 issue.
What are the DV artifacts I keep hearing about?
DV artifacts [Pix: Artifacts] come in three avors: mosquito noise,

quilting, and motion blocking. Other picture defects [Pix: Defects]
encountered are dropouts and banding (a sign of tape damage or
head clogging).
The most noticeable spatial artifacts are feathering or mosquito

noise around (typically) diagonal ne detail. These are
compression-induced errors usually seen around sharp-edged ne
text, dense clusters of leaves, and the like; they show up as pixel
noise within 8 pixels of the ne detail or edge causing them. The
best place to look for them is in ne text superimposed on a non-
black background. White on blue seems to show it o best. The
magnitude of these errors and their location tends to be such that
if you monitor the tape using a composite video connection, the
artifacts will be masked by dot-crawl and other composite
artifacts.
A spatial quilting artifact can also be seen on certain diagonals —

typically long, straight edges about 20 degrees o of the
horizontal. These are minor discontinuities in the rendering of the
diagonal as it passes from one DCT block to the next; so minor
that they’re usually invisible. Watching such diagonals during slow
pans is often the only way to see the artifact.
Motion blocking occurs when the two elds in a frame (or portions
of the two elds) are too di erent for the DVC codec to compress
them together. “Bit budget” must be expended on compressing
them separately, and as a result some ne detail is lost, showing
up as a slight blockiness or coarseness of the image when
compared to the same scene with no motion. Motion blocking is
best observed in a lockdown shot of a static scene through which
objects are moving: in the immediate vicinity of the moving object
(say, a car driving through the scene), some loss of detail is seen.
This loss of detail travels with the object, always bounded by DCT
block boundaries.
Finally, banding or striping of the image occurs when one head of

the two on the scanner is clogged or otherwise unable to recover
data. The image will show 10 horizontal bands (12 in PAL
countries), with every other band showing a “live” picture and the
alternate bands showing a freeze frame of a previous image or of
no image at all (or, at least in the case of the JVC GR-DV1u, a black-
and-white checkerboard, which the frame bu ers appear to be
initialized with).Â Most often this is due to a head clog, and
cleaning the heads using a standard manufacturer’s head cleaning
tape is all that’s required. It can also be caused by tape damage, or
by a defective tape. If head cleaning and changing the tape used
don’t solve it, you may have a dead head or head preamp; service
will be required.
Digital-S, DVCPRO50, DVCPROHD100, and HD Digital-S
What are Digital-S and DVCPRO50?
JVC’s Digital-S (SMPTE desgnation D-9) and Panasonic’sÂ

DVCPRO50 use two DVC codecs in parallel. The tape data rate is
doubled to 50 Mbps (video) and the compression work is split
between the two codecs. The result is a 4:2:2 image compressed
about 3.3:1. It’s visually lossless and utterly gorgeous.JVC’s Digital-S
uses the 1/2″ SVHS form factor for tapes and VTRs, although the
tape cassette itself is more robust and the transport is equipped
with sapphire guide roller anges and tape cleaner blades and a
new scanner design. One of the Digital-S players will also play back
analog SVHS tapes, allowing its use for editing existing libraries of
SVHS tapes as well as newer Digital-S footage. Head life (so far, in
on-air broadcast usage) is well in excess of 4000 hours; equipment
cost is very low (comparable to 25 Mbps DVCAM or DVCPRO); and
maintenance expenses are well below those of the Betacam decks
that Digital-S is typically displacing. So far only JVC is supporting
this format, which has resulted in a less-than-headlong rush by the
video community to embrace it. Watch it, though; it’s hot. If you’re
doing high-end EFP on a budget, this is the format to use.
Panasonic’s DVCPRO50 uses the same DVCPRO tapes and

transports as its 25 Mbps DVCPRO products (there is also a 93-
minute DVCPRO50 tape due out speci cally for the AJ-D950 VTR,
which Panasonic says should only be used in DVCPRO50 mode.
When using standard DVCPRO tapes, the maximum recording
time is about 61 minutes since the P123L cassette is being run
twice as fast).Â DVCPRO50 VTRs will also play back DVCPRO tapes.
The 900-series DVCPRO50 kit is real jack-of-all-trades stu . The AJ-

D900W camcorder (US$39,900) will record either DVCPRO or
DVCPRO50, in either 4:3 or true 16:9 modes. The AJ-D950 VTR
(US$26,500) records and play back either DVCPRO or DVCPRO50,

and additionally is switchable between 525/59.94 (NTSC) and
625/50 (PAL) formats. The only thing you give up is miniDV
cassette playback; even with the adaptor the 950 won’t read the
tiny tapes. Fortunately the AJ-D940 DVCPRO50 player, due out in
early 1999 for US$20,000 or so, will play back those miniDV tapes,
and is supposed to o er a wider range of slo-mo speeds in the
bargain. There’s also a more a ordable DVCPRO50 camera due
early in ’99, around US$29,000 or so.
Unlike Digital-S, second-sourcing is available from Philips, Hitachi,

and Ikegami.
The DVCPRO50 kit is also a lot more portable and lightweight than
Digital-S, so it’s the format of choice if you’re doing high-end EFP
with a somewhat bigger budget and you want to keep your
cameramen (and women) from wearing out as quickly!
Panasonic showed a mockup of a switchable DVCPRO/DVCPRO50

portapack ( eld VTR that doesn’t dock directly to a camera head)
at NAB ’98, as well as prototype DVCPRO-P (480-line 60 Hz
progressive scan) equipment using the 50 Mbps payload to handle
this interim SDTV format chosen by Fox and NBC for the start of
the DTV transitional era.
Four codecs for HD?
Both JVC and Panasonic showed mockups or prototypes of 100

Mbps DV-derived products at NAB ’98 for handling HDTV.Â Both
rms plan to gang four DV codecs together to get the 100 Mbps
datastream, while preserving the same equipment form factor and
operational methodologies used in the current 50 Mbps products.
Panasonic calls their stu DVCPROHD100, while JVC hasn’t yet
come up with all the necessary buzzwords.
It should be noted that both of these companies are well-placed to

serve the growing DTV market whatever image format a
broadcaster selects. Panasonic is selling a switchable 720p/1080i
HD-D5 VTR (not based on DV technology), the AJ-HD2700, which
has already become the studio standard VTR for the dawn of DTV.
JVC’s NAB ’98 display featured Digital-S variants of most popular
ATSC DTV formats — 480i, 480p/30, 480p/60, 720p, and 1080i —
either in prototype or in simulation. These two companies will be
pushing the edge of the DV envelope for quite some time to

come…
Sony’s HDCAM format uses compression technology “derived from

DV and with certain similarities”, but it is not on the main branch
of the DV family tree. Its data rate of 135 Mbps yields beautiful
images; it’s extremely rare to see a noticeable artifact in an
HDCAM picture.
4:2:2, 4:1:1, 4:2:0

What are 4:2:2, 4:1:1, and 4:2:0 anyway? [Pix: Sampling]These
are all shorthand notations for di erent sampling structures for
digital video. They are also used for CIF and QSIF and suchlike
MPEG frame sizes, but in the discussion that follows, I focus on the
numbers for SDTV (standard-de nition TV) digitized to the ITU-R
BT.601 standards: 13.5 MHz sample frequency and 720 pixels per
line.
The rst number refers to the 13.5 MHz sampling rate of the
luminance: “4” because (a) it’s nominally almost approximately sort
of four times the NTSC and/or PAL color subcarrier frequencies,
and (b) because if it’s “4” the other numbers can be integers
whereas if it were “1” the formats would be “1:0.5:0.5”,
“1:0.25:0.25”, and “1:0.5:0” respectively, and which would you
rather try to read o in a hurry? The 13.5 MHz sampling yields 720
pixels per scanline in both 525/59.94 and 625/50 systems (NTSC
and PAL/SECAM). This number applies to D-1, D-5, Digital Betacam,
BetaSX, Digital-S, and all the DV formats just the same.
The other two numbers refer to the sampling rates of the color
di erence signals R-Y and B-Y (or Cr and Cb in the digital domain)
In 4:2:2 systems (D-1, D-5, DigiBeta, BetaSX, Digital-S, DVCPRO50)

the color is sampled at half the rate of the luminance, with both
color-di erence samples co-sited (located at the same place) as
the alternate luminance samples. Thus you have 360 color
samples (in each of R-Y and B-Y) per scanline.
In 4:1:1 systems (NTSC DV & DVCAM, DVCPRO) the color data are
sampled half as frequently as in 4:2:2, resulting in 180 color
samples per scanline. The U and V samples are considered to be
co-sited with every fourth luminance sample. Yes, this sounds
horrible — but it’s still enough for a color bandwidth extending to
around 1.5 MHz, about the same color bandwidth as Betacam SP

(which, were it a digital format, would be characterized as a 3:1:1
format).
So where does 4:2:0 (PAL DV, DVD, main-pro le MPEG-2) t in? 4 x

Y, 2 x R-Y, and 0 x B-Y? Fortunately not! 4:2:0 is the non-intuitive
notation for half-luminance-rate sampling of color in both the
horizontal and vertical dimensions. Chroma is sampled 360 times
per line, but only on every other line. The theory here is that by
evenly subsampling chroma in both H and V dimensions, you get a
better image than the seemingly unbalanced 4:1:1, where the
vertical color resolution appears to be four times the horizontal
color resolution. Alas, it ain’t so: while 4:2:0 works well with PAL
and SECAM color encoding and broadcasting, interlace already
diminishes vertical resolution, and the heavy ltering needed to
properly process 4:2:0 images causes noticeable losses; as a
result, multigeneration work in 4:2:0 is much more subject to
visible degradation than multigeneration work in 4:1:1.
“Now how much would you pay? But wait, there’s more!” In US
implementations of 4:2:0, the color samples are supposed to be
vertically interleaved with luminance, whereas in European 4:2:0
they’re supposed to be co-sited. Practically speaking, this is a
headache for developers of codecs, encoders, and DVEs, but for
DV purposes it’s not especially exciting, since only European DV is
4:2:0.
Why does PAL DV use 4:2:0?
The best explanation I can come up with why PAL DV went with
4:2:0 is that both PAL and SECAM show reduced vertical color
resolution and better horizontal color resolution compared to
NTSC, so 4:2:0 seemed a closer match to the native display
systems in PAL/SECAM countries. As PAL DV was intended as a
consumer format for o -air recording or camcorder acquisition,
multigeneration losses in 4:2:0 were considered a less important
factor than the optimization of rst-generation performance. PAL
DVCAM also used 4:2:0.
When Panasonic developed DVCPRO, they opted for 4:1:1 even in

PAL versions, speci cally for the multigeneration advantage. Thus
PAL DVCPRO decks have the pleasure and responsibility of
handling both 4:1:1 DVCPRO playback and 4:2:0 DV playback; they
have extra hardware to digitally resample the 4:2:0 signal and

come up with a decently synthesized 4:1:1. Sometimes there is a
reason for the higher prices that the poor Europeans are saddled
with when it comes time to purchase gear…
Can I chroma-key with 4:1:1?
Yes indeed. Many early DVEs were 4:1:1 internally; plenty of digital
boxes out there still are (such as the Panasonic WJ-MX50 and Sony
FXE-series vision mixers, both of which chroma-key). As previously
mentioned, BetaSP could be considered a 3:1:1 format in terms of
component bandwidth, and BetaSP is used for chroma-key
applications all the time.
True, the chroma performance of 4:2:2 formats is superior to 4:1:1

formats, especially in multigeneration analog dubbing. Part of the
standard JVC sales pitch for Digital-S is the superiority of 4:2:2
(which is true), and the utter doom and degradation that awaits
you should you try to do anything — including chroma-key — with
a 4:1:1 format (which is, shall we say, a wee bit exaggerated). But
that doesn’t mean that you can’t do very satisfactory work in 4:1:1.
A Bentley may not be as fancy as a Rolls Royce, but it’ll still get you
there in style. If you’re used to the VW Beetle world of color-under
analog formats, DV’s Bentley should present few problems.
JVC has an excellent Digital-S demo tape showing multigeneration

performance comparisons of DV, Digital-S, and Digital Betacam;
watch it if you can. Just be sure you take the hype with a grain of
salt…
Can I use 4:1:1 DV sources for upconversion to HDTV?
All SDTV source material will su er when upconverted to HDTV,

compared with material originated in HD to begin with. 4:1:1
material is reported by some to be problematic in this aspect;
certainly a 4:2:2 original will be more forgiving and if upconversion
is your primary goal, you may want to look closely at Digital-S or
DVCPRO50.
Snell & Wilcox have run DV through upconversion and reports that
it look OK, especially if the excessive aperture correction (edge
enhancement) in most DV cameras is turned down.
Of more concern is that DV artifacts, especially mosquito noise,

may become annoyingly prominent when upconverted. However,
the jury is still out on this.
Also, all HD material (at least in the USA) is likely to be 16:9. The
way many DV cameras produce 16:9 by throwing away vertical
resolution is enough to send shudders up my spine for SDTV work;
for HD, it’ll be a complete disaster. Perhaps I should add a section
on shooting for HD upconversion; there are lots of issues…
1394/FireWire
You can make digital dubs between two camcorders or
VTRs using 1394 I/O, and the copy will be identical to
the original.
You can do cuts-only linear editing over 1394, with no
generation loss.
You can stick a 1394 board into your computer (PC or
Mac), and transfer DV to and from your hard disk. If
your system can support 3.6 MBytes/sec sustained data
rate — simple enough with many A/V rated SCSI-2
drives — the world of computer-based nonlinear
editing is open to you without paying the quality price
of heavy JPEG compression and its associated artifacts,
or the monetary price of buying heavy-duty NLE
hardware and banks of RAID-striped hard drives.
What is 1394 and/or “FireWire”?IEEE-1394 is a standard
communications protocol for high-speed, short-distance data
transfer. It has been developed from Apple Computer’s original
“FireWire” proposal (FireWire is a trademark of Apple Computer).
Sony calls their implementation of 1394 “i.Link”.
Why are DV and 1394 always discussed together?
They appear to have been developed together. The data stored on

DV tape appear to re ect the packet structure sent across a 1394
link to a frightening degree of exactness. Certainly the DV format
and 1394 High Performance Data Bus co-evolved, such that the
rst consumer DV camcorder in the USA (the Sony DCR-VX1000
and its single-chip brother the VX700) was also the rst 1394-
equipped consumer product available.
What does a 1394 connection do for me?
Plenty of good things:
Recently I edited a friend’s wedding, going from Hi8 camera

originals to a DV edit master. The 20-minute ceremony was
covered by two cameras; we sync-rolled the VTRs and mixed the
show in real time as if it were live. At the end, we weren’t sure we
liked it. So we dubbed it o via 1394 to another DV cassette,
inserted a fresh DV cassette, and had another bash at the edit.
This time, we liked it. We put the tape into the VX1000 and set up
the DHR-1000 VTR as the recorder, using the built-in editor to drop
the second attempt in frame-accurately atop the rst across the
1394 wire. No generation loss. And we still had the rst edit on the
backup tape, should we have changed our minds.
Is 1394 that much better than Y/C or component analog?
Yes. A 1394 dub is a digital copy. It’s identical to the original. That’s
really nice.
Yes, you can do almost the same thing with a SMPTE 259M SDI
(serial digital interface) transfer. But VTRs with SDI cost big money.
1394 is built into many low-end cameras and VTRs, and the
connecting cable — even at Sony prices — is only $50. And
transferring DV around as baseband video, even digitally, subjects
it to the small but de nite degradation of repeated
decompression/recompression
If a digitally-perfect copy is a 10, and a point-the-camera-at-the-

screen-and-pray transfer is a 1, here’s how DV picture quality
holds up over di erent transfer methods:
IEEE-1394 10
SDI 9.8
Analog Component (Y, R-Y, B-Y) 9
Y/C (“S-video”) 8
Analog Composite 5
Point camera at screen and pray 1
Locked vs unlocked audio
“The difference between theory and real life is that in theory,

there is no difference between theory and real life, but in real
life, there is a difference.”Â -DV Filmmaker Marshall Spight
What’s the di erence between locked and unlocked audio?
Locked audio is “audio done right”: the audio sample clock (the
digital time reference used in the sampling process) is precisely
locked to the video sample clock such that there is exactly the
same number of audio samples recorded per “audio frame” of
video (not all TV formats and sound sample rates have a neat
integer relationship between audio samples and frames, so an
“audio frame” is my term [similar to a “color frame”] for the
number of video frames it takes for audio and video to match up
in the same phase relationship).
For PAL, 625/50 video, locked audio provides exactly the same
number of samples per video frame with either 32 or 48kHz audio,
but for NTSC, 525/59.94 video, the 48kHz “audio frame” is 5 video
frames: locked audio will provide exactly the same number of
audio samples for every ve video frames, though not every frame
within that 5-frame sequence has an equal number of audio
samples. 32kHz locked “audio frames” cover a whopping 15 video
frames!.
[There is such a thing as an AES/EBU audio frame, but I’m not sure
it that’s the same thing I’m referring to. Comments/clari cations
welcomed!]
Unlocked audio: theory:
Unfortunately, such precisely-locked audio clocks are expensive.

Since DV was designed as a consumer format, unlocked audio
was allowed as a cost-saving measure. In unlocked audio, the
audio clock is allowed some imprecision, such that there can be a
variation from the locked spec of up to +/- 25 audio samples
written to tape for every frame, instead of a precise and exact
number.
This economy measure is simply one of allowing the audio clock to

“hunt” a bit around the desired frequency; the phase-locked loop
(or other slaving method) used to keep the audio sampling in sync
with the video sampling can have a bit more slop in its lock-up,
with the audio sampling sometimes running a bit slower,
sometimes a bit faster, but always staying in sync over the long
run. The total amount of sync slippage allowed in unlocked

audio is +/- 1/3 frame — not enough to really worry about.
It’s the di erence between walking a dog on a short leather leash,

always forcing the dog to stay right by your side (locked audio),
and using a long, elastic leash or one of those “retractable
clothesline” leashes that allows the dog to run ahead a bit or lag
behind (unlocked audio). In either case both you and the dog will
get where you’re going at the same time, but along the way the
“unlocked” dog has a bit more freedom to deviate from your exact
walking pace.
Unlocked audio should not cause audio sync to drift away from
video over a long period of time. The audio clock is still linked to
the video clock; it’s just allowed a bit more oscillation about the
desired frequency (more wow & utter if you will) as it’s trying to
track the video clock. Like the dog on the springy leash, it can run
a bit ahead or a bit behind the video clock momentarily (up to 1/3
frame ahead or behind), but in the long run it’ll still be pacing the
video clock and on average will be right there in sync with it. I have
shot one-hour continuous takes of talking heads with a consumer
DV camcorder (DCR-VX1000) and experienced no drift at all
between audio and video.
DV cameras and VTRs generate unlocked audio, both in 32 kHz 12

bit and in 48 kHz 16 bit recordings. DVCAM and DVCPRO cameras
and VTRs generate locked audio in 48/16 audio format, and
DVCAM can also generated locked 32/12 audio.. 44.1kHz, discussed
below, is never locked; it has no neat integer relationship with
either 625/50 or 525/59.54 frame rates.
Some non-linear DV/1394 editors generate locked audio, some

output unlocked, and some allow the choice. DV gear is happy to
record locked audio via 1394, as is the DVCAM DSR-20 VTR. The
DVCAM DSR-30 VTR can also be made to record unlocked audio
with a bit of coaxing (see Tidbits).
Also, many non-linear editors output 16 bit 44.1 kHz audio (at least
on PC platforms), which both DV and DVCAM 1394-equipped
decks record without any problems. 44.1 kHz is part of the Blue
Book spec, so this is not too surprising.
(Many thanks to Earl Jamgochian at Sony for lling in and clarifying

many of the details in this section!)
Unlocked audio: real life:
While the theory sounds good, real life is sometimes a bit

di erent. Some manufacturers appear to take the word
“unlocked” literally; a completely separate clock seems to be used
for the digitization of audio, with no direct linkage or locking to the
video clock. The result is an audio timebase stability that’s
excellent (since no “hunting” around a target frequency is present),
but the possibility arises of a long-term drift between audio and
video, when processed independent of each other.This was revealed
at NAB ’99 by Randy Ubillos, lead engineer on Final Cut Pro, who
has found that while some cameras are pretty good, Canon
cameras grab 48kHz sound at around 48.009 kHz, which can result
in almost a second of video/audio slippage over the course of an
hour (or around one frame every two minutes). Sonys, by contrast,
seem to average 48.001 or 48.0005 kHz, resulting in perhaps a
couple of frames of slippage over the same time period. Clocking
rates for other cameras were not discussed.
In normal playback of the DV tape this isn’t seen, since on playback

the audio is played back based on its embedded clocking data, in
sync with the image. Both the audio and video slave to the data
samples in each packet; as these are commingled in the DV
datastream, the sound and picture will always play back in sync.
In most DV NLE systems to date (May ’99), it was also not a

problem, since captures were limited to under ten minutes due to
the 2 Gigabyte le size limit and the slippage seen in this short
time period was minimal.
Final Cut Pro, however, uses le referencing to span the 2 Gig limit,
allowing captures limited only by available disk space, and the
QuickTime media format used treats audio and video as separate
tracks, each with its own time reference. When capturing long
clips, the drift can become apparent; Final Cut can measure this
drift and recalculate the audio sample frequency so that
QuickTime playback will stay in sync.
As far as I can tell, the AVI le format used in some Windows-

based NLEs does not allow this sort of long-term slippage to occur,
but I may simply lack su cient data. I do know that various

QuickTime-based DV NLEs have shown certain oddball
audio/video sync problems that I have not seen or heard of in AVI-
based NLEs; this is not a QuickTime problem per se, merely an
artifact of QuickTime’s exible and elegant approach to multiple-
track media streams in that such problems can be made to occur.
Will unlocked audio hurt me? How do I deal with it?
When using analog audio I/O, the whole question of locked vs

unlocked is moot: it’s analog and there are no clocks to worry
about. Analog is always safe to use for dubbing or editing. As
discussed above, DV audio data are converted to analog in real
time as the data come o the tape, and audio slippage simply
doesn’t occur regardless of the accuracy of the sampling clock.
It should also be of no concern when taking the audio in via 1394

to a DV-based nonlinear editing system. When all the audio
samples are stored in a neat memory array, the software doesn’t
care if there was some timebase instability on the original
recording; when non-real-time rendering is occurring, a sample is
a sample is a sample.
However, some long-term slippage between audio and video can

occur in long clips, at least in QuickTime format, if the capture
application doesn’t compensate for any audio clock inaccuracy.
Fortunately, the problem is understood by those in the business
(at least at Apple and Digital Origin), and corrective measures are
taken at capture time: Final Cut Pro measures the actual number
of samples captured over time vs. the theoretical number,
calculates the actual e ective sampling rate, and uses that in
QuickTime le processing.
Unlocked is only a potential problem when doing real-time audio

and video editing with digital transfer of the audio between source
and recorder. “Digital” means conveyance of the audio using the
IEEE-1394 bus, AES/EBU digital audio outputs (on pro
DVCAM/DVCPRO VTRs), or SDI embedded audio (ditto).
As far as DV-based editing is concerned, when you make an edit in

the digital domain between two di erent DV datastreams using
unlocked audio, you might wind up with a few too many audio
samples or not quite enough, in which case you can get a click or
pop on the soundtrack during playback as the audio subsystem

either has to discard some extra data and resynchronize (an audio
bu er overrun), or as it winds up with too few bits of sound to
cover the time available (bu er underrun) and you get a
momentary dead spot or mute e ect (depending on the audio
circuitry used, the system may also mute when it’s resynchronizing
after discarding samples). In either case the audio glitch will occur
in a fraction of a second; it won’t result in several seconds of dead
audio or any prolonged audio noise. Reportedly, it’s also only a
problem at the out-points of insert edits, not at edit in-points
(unveri ed).
Interestingly enough the same problem may occur when cutting

between two locked audio streams without regard to
synchronization of the “audio frames”, though here the problem is
much smaller in scope since the variation in sample counts will
only be +/- 2 samples per video frame. Such errors are typically
inaudible, though they may still complicate things if the audio
track is then used in real-time digital audio mixing (see below), and
they’ll only occur in 525/59.94 video, never 625/50 due to 625’s 1:1
relationship between video frames and “audio frames”.
[It’s also worth noting that any hard cut between clips can result in
a pop or click if the instantaneous level of the audio at the cut
point is mismatched, causing impulse noise. This is true in locked
or unlocked audio; it can even occur when working in analog. This
is one reason that linear analog audiotape and lm fullcoat mag
tracks are often spliced at an angle instead of with a straight cut;
this mechanically performs a quick crossfade between the two
tracks instead of an abrupt transition.]
When all you are doing is editing one generation down from
camera originals to an edit master, and then making release
copies on an analog format such as BetaSP, SVHS, Hi8, VHS, or the
like, all you need to be concerned about is audible popping or
muting. The release copies will contain an analog track that
records what you hear; there are no hidden gremlins due to
asynchronous clocking, jitter, or other nasties that so complicate
digital audio.
However, when you take the digital audio datastream from a DV

tape and try to integrate it into a larger digital audio system, such
as AES/EBU routers, digital audio workstations (DAWs), and/or
multitrack digital audio recorders including the Alesis ADAT and

Tascam DA-88/98, the sloppy synchronization of unlocked audio
can cause glitches, artifacts, and distortion. If the receiving gear is
trying to derive its audio clock from the unlocked audio
datastream, the entire downstream audio chain can be rendered
unstable and disfunctional.
Furthermore, playback of unlocked audio including edit-point

glitches as discussed above into a DAW or other digital audio
system can cause a major commotion when the edit-point glitch is
played back. Ever had a really bad splice go through the gate on a
lm projector, or past the heads on an analog audiotape recorder?
A glitched unlocked audio edit is the digital equivalent of that
crummy splice, only worse!
Fortunately it’s fairly simple to avoid this. Either convert unlocked

audio to locked, or use analog audio connections between your
unlocked source and the digital audio chain you’re feeding (and if
your source tape has 44.1kHz/16 bit or 32kHz/12-bit sound, going
analog into the digital system means that you get a rate
conversion into 48kHz sound at however many bits are being used
courtesy of the A/D converter on the professional digital system; it
may actually sound better — and be easier — than hooking up
digital sample rate converters in the chain).
There are four known ways to convert unlocked audio to locked

audio:
1) The DSR-60/80/85 DVCAM VTRs will convert unlocked audio to

locked audio on playback. DVCPRO VTRs are also supposed to
relock DV audio on playback. This solved your problem at the
point of playback. If you need to make a tape with locked audio,
then…
2) Dub your DV tape to a DVCAM or DVCPRO tape using analog

audio connections between the source and the recorder. Hey
presto, locked audio! The video can be dubbed via SDI for minimal
if any losses. This is also the recommended route of your source
audio is not 48kHz since you want the dub to have 48kHz audio for
best compatibility.
3) Play back the DV tape in a high-end DVCAM or DVCPRO VTR,

and dub it to a DVCAM DSR-80 or DSR-85 using either the AES/EBU
digital audio or the SDI embedded audio options. The recorder will
reclock the data and write locked audio to tape (this may also work
with high-end DVCPRO machines, but I haven’t con rmed this).
4) Transfer your footage into a non-linear editor that allows

outputting locked audio, and use the NLE to write out locked
audio, even to a DV-format tape. Slow and cranky, but it works.
How do I intermix locked and unlocked audio?
It’s best not to intermix any variations of digital audio on the same
tape. While VTRs seem to cope with sudden changes in sampling
rate, bit depth, and locked/unlocked status, often you’ll get a brief
moment of silence at the transition between audio types as the
internal workings of the audio chain readjust themselves to the
new audio type. Some non-linear editors are very uppity about
audio changes; if you start digitizing a 48 kHz clip and the audio
changes to 32 kHz, you’ll get silence for the entire 32 kHz section
(or vice versa; once the capture card and software start grabbing
data at a certain rate, they’re too busy to try to change rates in
mid-stream. Furthermore, the meta-data stored with the clip can
only remember one audio format per clip). And if you try to
digitally feed such mixed-mode tapes’ audio into further digital
processing, major glitches can be expected.The best thing when
doing a linear edit is to use analog audio, or (if the only changes
you have are between locked and unlocked audio) use the digital
outputs from a high-end VTR as described above. For non-linear
editing, capture clips each containing only a single format of audio;
when you render the nished project, all the audio will be
converted to a common format.
Does unlocked audio explain why my audio loses sync in

Adobe Premiere?
Sorry, no! Adobe Premiere 4.2 and earlier versions have a

historical problem with synchronous audio playback from the
timeline. As discussed above, unlocked audio doesn’t drift over the
long term. Premiere audio can drift regardless of whether the
source was locked or unlocked. This particular problem is
variously attributed to the di erence between 30 Hz and the 29.97
Hz that NTSC runs at; the inability of an AVI or QuickTime le to
maintain synchronous audio; the weakness of the Windows VFW
subsystem at really keeping things in sync, and the phases of the
moon (if anyone knows what’s really going on, this author would
appreciate being appropriately enlightened).
Reportedly Premiere 5.1 xes audio sync problems. Certainly I’ve

had no problems with Premiere 5.1 on Windows editing clips up to
9:30 in length (the 2 Gig limit of my AVI-based system), nor have I
heard of any such problems in discussions with other people.
Linear editing
Can I use DV in linear editing?Certainly! Much of the fuss that’s
made over DV formats is in regard to non-linear editing, but it
works ne for linear editing as well.Â DV gear interoperates with
Hi8, SVHS, Betacam, MII, D-5, and other formats using composite,
Y/C, component analog, and serial digital I/O (see Technical Details
for which VTRs o er what I/Os). It works ne with the editors and
SEGs and DVEs and terminal gear you’re used to using.
What sort of linear editing gear can I get in DV? What sort of
machine control is there? How accurate is it?
Low end: The Sony and Canon camcorders as well as the DHR-
1000 and DSR-30 VTRsÂ are all remote-controllable using the
Sony Control-L (LANC) protocol. The Panasonic camcorders (some
of them at least) have 5-pin Panasonic (“Control-M”) ports. All work
ne as edit sources.
The JVC DV camcorders o er “J-LIP” ports for remote control and

editing. I haven’t seen any editors that support J-LIP protocol
directly (but see “mid-range” below).
The DHR-1000 and DSR-30 VTRs have built-in 10-event cuts-only

editors as well as separate audio and video insert-edit capabilities,
allowing them to be used as the controller in bare-bones cuts-only
LANC editing. These decks, while rated at +/- 5 frames accuracy,
appear to be frame accurate better than 90% of the time. In-points
on the DHR-1000 appear to be frame accurate all the time and
there’s no reason to expect that the DSR-30 is any di erent. Out-
points may occasionally be o by a frame or two.
If you don’t want to use the built-in controllers on these decks,

there are a variety of standalone edit controllers that talk LANC
and/or control-M. Among these are Videonics AB-1 Edit Suit and
Video Toolkit, all notable as being control-agnostic systems:
depending on the cables used and the setups performed, these

will control any mixture of RS-232, RS-422, LANC, and control-M
VTRs (great for interformat editing). In my experience TAO
Editizer’s accuracyÂ is typically +/- 1 frame, with the actual in-point
on the DHR-1000 being frame accurate but with the feeder decks
being o by perhaps a frame about 20% of the time — not bad,
given that these decks don’t capstan-bump and Editizer doesn’t
varispeed ’em in preroll. (Note that these editors typically only
support assemble editing on LANC or control-M recorders;
historically, that’s all that LANC/control-M machines have been
capable of in their Video8, Hi8, and SVHS incarnations.)
Mid-range: you can integrate low-end gear with high-end editing

systems by using protocol converters, so that the lowly camcorder
or VTR appears to be a standard, RS-422 protocol edit source.
Note however that for the most part these protocol converters
allow the low-end decks to serve as edit feeders only, not
recorders.
LANC: Sony provides the IF-FXE2 LANC Interface Box, while TAO
o ers the L-Port 422 LANC to RS-422 converter.
Control-M: TAO is coming out with an improved L-Port 422 that

also talks control-M (Panasonic 5-pin).
J-LIP: JVC o ers the SA-K38U Control Interface, designed to allow

the BR-DV10u dockable DV recorder to be controlled by an editor
using either the RS-422 or JVC 12-pin interfaces. It probably works
with the consumer DV camcorders as well, although I haven’t
veri ed this.
With all of these, the accuracy is likely to be in the +/- 1 to +/- 5

frame range depending on the edit controller used and the
ballistics of the other decks involved.
High-end: The DSR-60/80/85 DVCAM and AJ-D6XX/7XX series

DVCPRO VTRs use industry-standard RS-422 serial protocols for
assemble and insert editing. They are frame-accurate, no-
nonsense machines you’d use in editing just like BetaSP, MII,
DigiBeta, or D-5 VTRs.
Is DV timecode the same as SMPTE timecode?
No, technically speaking; yes, for most practical purposes (!).
There’s a great deal of confusion about timecode. There are two

di erent aspects of timecode that people mix up: how is it
recorded on tape, and how is it used in editing. The rst aspect is
where “SMPTE” vs “RCTC” (Hi8) vs “DV TC” vs “Frame Code” (series 7
U-Matics) vs “CTL Time Code” (JVC SVHS) matters; it’s largely a
concern for historical reasons. The second aspect is what really
matters: how does your editor see timecode. Nowadays, for the
most part, how it’s recorded on tape is irrelevant for this
discussion.
Back in the dark, early days of linear editing with analog formats
(the 1970s!), frame accuracy was not possible. Some clever folks
came up with the idea of recording a unique code on every frame,
so that edit controllers could repeatably reference an exact frame
on tape. That developed into two timecode recording formats —
LTC and VITC — that were formally standardized by the SMPTE
and EBU, and adopted by manufacturers worldwide. The
SMPTE/EBU timecode standards de ne where the timecode is
recorded on tape, what amplitude the signal is, the encoding of
the digital data, and so on. The standard also describes the time
format of the timecode (HH:MM:SS:FF, two digits each of hours,
minutes, seconds, and frames), and the format of “user bits”, a
separate set of hexadecimal digits the actual usage of which was
left up to the individual.
LTC (“litsee”) is Linear Time Code, a 1 volt square wave laid down
either on a linear audio channel or on a dedicated timecode track.
It is comparatively simple to build LTC into a VTR or to retro t it to
a VTR without timecode, as it’s technically simple and requires no
mucking about with the video signal itself. However, it’s di cult to
read during some o -speed tape motions (as when shuttling or
scanning the tape) and impossible to read when the tape is
paused.
VITC (“vitsee”) is Vertical Interval Time Code, is a series of black and

white pulses encoded into one line of the vertical interval of the
video signal itself. VITC can be read even during pause mode (as
long as the VITC line in the the video signal is readable) but it
requires the rotating video heads to scan the tape, which isn’t
always possible during high-speed searches or shuttles. It’s also
more complex to implement, since you need to switch it into the

video signal.
Back when proprietary multipin control cables were used to

control VTRs, it was important to know that “SMPTE timecode” was
used, since you had to use an external box to extract the timecode
from the the LTC track or the VITC line, and adherence to the
standard way of recording the timecode on tape was necessary to
guarantee recovery of the signal.
In the past decade or so, however, most editing systems and most
VTRs have been moving to standardized serial control protocols,
such as RS-422 or LANC (actually, RS-422 is a wiring and signal
spec, not a protocol per se, but most of the “RS-422” gear out there
speaks the same language derived roughly from the original Sony
BVU-800 control protocol, with minor variations between di erent
machines). In such systems, timecode data ow across the same
wires as the control data; it’s up to the VTR to read timecode
however it’s written on the tape and turn it into a simple serial
communications byte stream.
Furthermore, the SMPTE-spec timecodes aren’t ideally suited to

newer generation tape formats with slow tape motions, such as
Video8, Hi8, and DV. LTC needs a fast-moving tape for proper data
recording and recovery, and these formats just don’t move the
tape fast enough. Also, these formats already have digital data
sectors on tape; why convert digital timecode to analog
waveforms when you can record it as digital data to begin with?
Thus we have professional Hi8 with “Hi8 Timecode (but not really
SMPTE timecode)” and consumer Hi8 with RCTC: “Rewriteable
Consumer TimeCode”. These are recorded as digital data in the
subcode section of a Hi8 track. But an edit controller doesn’t care;
when it asks for timecode, it gets back something of the form
“HH:MM:SS:FF”, never you mind how it was recorded on tape!
Likewise, the DV formats do digital magic to store timecode, but
when an edit controller asks for it, it gets the same data over the
wire that it would from a Hi8 VTR — or a 1″ Type C VTR, or Digital
Betacam, or 3/4″, or whatever.
Adding to the confusion is the “SMPTE TC” option for the EVO-9800
and 9850 Hi8 decks: This board takes the digital Hi8 TC or RCTC
data and formats it into a 1 volt square wave signal as if it were
coming o of an analog LTC timecode track. This allows the

9800/9850 to be used with edit controllers that don’t understand
serial timecode, but do their own recovery of it from the SMPTE
LTC signal.
Are we having fun yet? The modern-day DVCAM DSR-60/80/85 and

DVCPRO AJ-D6XX/7XX decks have this option built-in, allowing
these VTRs to be used with editors that are expecting a noisy,
distorted analog timecode and don’t want nice, clean, serialized
timecode data handed to them on a silver platter… really, though, I
shouldn’t be so snippy: while it sounds goofy from a technical
standpoint, it provides backwards compatibility with a large
installed base of very expensive editors, as well as a whole host of
ancillary equipment that generates or takes in the SMPTE LTC
signal. There are still occasions where having that LTC signal
available on a BNC connector can be helpful, or downright
necessary.
The bottom line is this: don’t worry about whether or not the
timecode recorded on tape is SMPTE or not. What matters is
whether or not you have timecode, period (and DV does have
timecode). Any modern-day edit controller should be able to use
the timecode available over a serial protocol connection. For those
that don’t, or if you need SMPTE LTC I/O for other equipment (i.e.,
for a chase-lock audio synchronizer, an under-monitor display, or
for jam-syncing of timecode from a common reference), there are
DVCAM and DVCPRO decks that o er “SMPTE timecode” I/O ports.
Non-linear editing
What’s non-linear editing?Non-linear editing (NLE) is editing
using random-access video storage, so that you don’t have to wait
for tape to shuttle to see a scene at the other end of the reel.
Nowadays, this almost always means computer-based editing
where you’ve transferred the video from tape to hard disk, and
you assemble a show by arranging the clips along a timeline on
the computer screen. When you’re done, you output to tape,
which happens either immediately (if you’ve spent a lot of money
on gear) or after a rendering operation (if you’ve spent less
money).
The “big names” in NLE are Avid (Media Composers of various

avors, models, qualities, and capabilities), Accom (formerly Scitex,
formerly Imix) with its “sphere” products (descended from the
VideoCube and TurboCube), Quantel (Harry, Henry, Harriet,

EditBox, etc.), Media 100, D-Vision (turned into Discreet Logic Edit,
and now is called Discreet edit*), and half a dozen more up-and-
coming, hanging-in-there, and/or where-are-they-now companies.
These typically supply turn-key systems in the $15,000 to $150,000
range, even though some are built using open platforms such as
MacOS, Windows NT, Truevision Targa cards, and the like. Sony
and Panasonic each have two DV-native NLEs.
On the PC and Mac, at Prices For The Rest Of Us, the familiar
names are Adobe Premiere, ULead Media Studio, Speed Razor,
MotoDV, Video Action, and the like. These are software packages
that work with (and are often bundled with) a variety of plug-in
cards, including DPS Spark Plus, Pinnacle DV300 and DV200,
Canopus DVRex and DVRaptor, ProMax FireMAX, and so on.
What’s special about DV non-linear editing?
DV is compressed just enough to be able to stream into and out of

current-day PCs and Macs, and the availability of inexpensive 1394
I/O cards and fast SCSI-2 hard disks means that high quality video
storage and manipulation on desktop computers is now possible
for the rst time without having to spend a king’s ransom on
specialized RAID arrays and proprietary codecs.
DV can be stored and manipulated in native form, without

transcoding to JPEG, MPEG, Wavelets, or the like. The same high
quality seen on DV tape is maintained in the computer.
You can put together a DV editing system with 90 minutes of

online storage for under $4000, and have a workable system that
produces broadcast-quality output. If you already have an
appropriate PC or Mac, you can get into DV editing for under
$1200 (a 1394 card with editing software and a 9 Gig A/V hard
disk). Of course, you can spend a lot more, adding onscreen, full-
resolution scrubbing; more storage; better machine control and
the like. But the high video quality is there from the start, even in
the sub-$5000 system. This is a watershed moment in the
evolution of a ordable desktop editing.
Who makes non-linear editing stu for DV? What gear is

available?
The answer to these is changing almost on a daily basis. These are

exciting times.
Low end: A variety of “soft codec” systems are available for PCs
and Macs, starting around US$500 for the board and editing
software. Among these are the Pinnacle/Miro DV300 and DV200
(PC or Mac), and the Promax FireMax (Mac). These systems only
accept and output DV using an IEEE-1394 connection, although if
you have other formats and a DV VTR, you can rst re-record the
video on the DV VTR and then bring it into the system (the DVCAM
DSR-20 allows real-time composite or Y/C transcoding to DV
without rst recording the image on tape). By the same token, you
can output to analog video using the DV VTR as a digital-to-analog
converter.
In mid-November 1998, Sony introduced a standalone DV/analog

transcoder box, the DVMC-DA1, which goes for under $400 at
ProMax.Â With this box, real-time transcoding of DV to/from
analog (composite or Y/C) can be added to a “soft codec” system,
making such systems more viable for use with analog sources, and
bringing them closer to “hard codec” systems (below) in
convenience.
In May/ June of 1999, the DA1 was discontinued; a new model

(DVMC-MS1?) is expected to be released at around US$600. In the
latter half of 1999, ProMax is expected to have a 1394 to Y/C / YUV
/ SDI(601) transcoder box of their own design for around US$1500,
as well.
The editing software supplied is Adobe Premiere, ULead Media

Studio Pro, Speed Razor, Final Cut Pro, or something similar.
Often, a separate DV capture/output utility is also provided.
Mid range: “Hard codec” board sets with editing software run
around US$3000. The Canopus DVRex is a PC-based example.
These typically allow the use of other formats with real-time
transcoding to and from DV; DV is the native format used on-disk.
“Hard codec” systems also typically allow better performance
during “scrubbing” and other manual editing tasks but are not
necessarily any faster at rendering the nished show.
The software supplied may be Premiere, Media Studio Pro, or —

for the DVMaster Pro — InSync’s Speed Razor DV. A separate
capture/playback application can also be used.
(I discuss “soft” and “hard” codecs later in this FAQ.)
High end: FAST Multimedia’s “blue.” system provides “any format

in, any format out” editing for US$60,000 or so. The captured video
stays in its native form on disk (DV, M-JPEG, BetaSX, DigiBeta, ITU-
R-601, etc.; analog formats are transcoded to a digital format
when captured) and is only transcoded when necessary to do
e ects between streams in di erent formats or when outputting
to a di erent format. blue. is supposed to ship some time in 1999.
“blue.” has its own capture and editing application, developed with
the experience gained from FAST’s Video Machine line of products
and incorporating user feedback. It’s quite impressive, but
perhaps a bit more expensive than readers of this FAQ are willing
to put up with.
Both Sony and Panasonic have Windows-based, turnkey systems

for DVCAM (ES-3, using the blue. software; ES-7)Â and DVCPRO
(DV Edit, NewsByte) respectively, that exploit the added features of
these higher-end DV formats such as 4x transfer and editing
metadata (in DVCAM, “ClipLink” good/no-good shot markers and
clip picons provided by high-end DVCAM camcorders; in DVCPRO
similar data are stored as “Picture Link” information). Prices start
around US$25,000 (no real-time 3D e ects, no 4x transfer) and go
up from there.
There are also realtime transcoders coming on the market (such

as Truevision’s Madras and Como’s DVbox, or the Sony DVMC
discussed above, or the expected ProMac box) that transcode DV
into other digital and analog formats for use with Avid, D-Vision,
and similar high-end editors, typically using M-JPEG (motion JPEG)
formats on-disk.
Avid showed a DV-native editor under Windows NT at NAB ’98; it’s

shipping in 1999.
Can I build a PC- or Mac-based NLE system myself?
Yes. If you don’t mind opening the computer case and ddling with
the innards, you can buy one of the low-end or mid-range board
sets and do it yourself. But be warned, it’s not a trivial task. All of
these systems are very new, and most still have some bugs and
incompatibilities. Also, DV systems pushed the limits of what you
could do with early-to-mid-1997 PCs and Macs. Now, in the spring
of 1999, most of the machines being shipped have the
horsepower to handle DV (new blue Mac G3s, some Compaqs, and
some Sony VAIOs even have 1394 built in), but it’s still asking a lot
from the computer to move DV data around at 3.6 MBytes/second
without a glitch or hiccup. Careful attention to detail and
optimization of system con gurations and drivers are often
required. Also be prepared to download the latest drivers from the
Internet; often you’ll need new video card drivers as well as newer
drivers for the brand-new 1394 board you have just purchased.
Part of the joy of an “open systems” approach to building an

editing system is that the list of possible con icts and
incompatibilities between di erent components of the system is
huge and mutable. Scan the vendors’ websites for lists of known
good and/or known incompatible combinations of chipsets, hard
disks, SCSI controller, and the like. If you’re still in doubt, ask your
local VAR (Value Added Reseller, the fellow you’re going to buy the
stu from) about whether the stu you’re considering will all work
together, or call the vendors directly and ask ’em if their board will
work with your computer. One good tactic, if you’re starting from
scratch, is to settle on the DV card and software rst, then buy a
computer and the other components known to work with it.
Better yet, if you’re a video producer and not especially

interested in ddling with the innards of PCs and Macs, have
your VAR build a system to your speci cations. Let them ght
IRQ limitations and driver-incompatibility hassles — and be willing
to pay for it. If time is money for you, think about how much time
it would take to resolve these hassles yourself (it took me the
better part of three days to get my DPS Spark installed, working,
and stable enough for my satisfaction, since Windows decided to
reshu e interrupts every time I rebooted, and I had an old Matrox
Millenium driver that hogged the PCI bus. During that time I was
only half as productive as normal: what’s 1.5 days of your time
worth?).
If you’re Mac-based or at least platform-agnostic, I recommend

checking out the turnkey FireMAX systems from ProMax in
Southern California. Their systems work with a minimum of
hassles and their prices are very aggressive. Good customer
support, too. Alone in the DV NLE world, FireMAX o ers a low-res

“o ine” capture mode that ts over 1/2 hour of video in a gig, with
automated batch recapture of full-resolution clips for your nal
“online” assembly; and full support for four-channel audio. The
FireMAX “C” board is one of only two DV systems certi ed by
Adobe as Premiere 5.1 compatible as of December 1998 (the other
is Radius MotoDV). You can even order a custom-con gured
JLCooper control panel with jog-shuttle wheel and 20 dedicated
Premiere function keys, for the traditionalist button-masher in all
of us. Bloody amazing! [Disclaimer: I don’t work for ProMax, nor do
I get any sort of pro t from recommending their stu . I don’t even
own a FireMAX system… yet! Nor should I dissuade you from using
other VARs or vendors, and/or getting a PC-based system.]
On the other hand, if you’re a certi able lunatic like me, just have
at it! Just realize that it’s still a “Plug and Pray” world inside that
PC’s case, and no, it’s not an evil conspiracy against you when it
doesn’t work the rst time. That’s just the state of the art on the
bleeding edge of desktop video technology…
How much DV ts in a Gigabyte?
1 Gigabyte of storage is about 4 minutes 45 seconds of DV video. 2

Gigs is about 9 minutes 30 seconds.
The rule of thumb I use when estimating the storage I’ll need for a
project is 4.5 minutes per gig. Thus a 9 Gig drive works out to
about 40 minutes of storage. An array of four such drives yields
2.7 hours. Not bad for about US$1200 (USA retail prices, March
1999). And nowadays 9 Gig dirves are small; you can get UDMA
16.8 Gig disks for almost the same price…
Why is there a 2 Gig limit? How can I avoid it?
Two things lead up to the dreaded 2 Gig limit: the operating

system and the le format.
Operating Systems such as Windows have maximum sizes they

allow for a “logical drive”. For example, Windows 95 running the
FAT16 le system (or Windows 3.1, or MS-DOS) can’t access any
more than 2 Gigabytes on a drive. That’s why you wind up
partitioning that nice 9 Gig Drive into ve “logical drives”, four 2
Gigs and one stubby little 468 Meg drive (“9 Gigs” is speci ed for 1
billion [1000 x 1000 x 1000] bytes per Gig, whereas the logical
drive sizes seen under Windows use 1024 x 1024 x 1024 bytes per
Gig — about a 7% di erence in the resultant numbers).
If you have Windows95 OSR 2 or Windows98, you can format the

drive with a FAT32 le system and avoid this limit (I don’t know
o hand what the new limit is). With WindowsNT, you can use
NTFS.
MacOS Systems 7.5 and higher also have much larger maximum
partition sizes than 2 Gigs; 4 Gigs starting with OS 7.5, and 2
Terabytes (!) starting with OS 7.5.2.
The le format used for the stored video can also have the 2 Gig
limit. On PC systems, the most common format is AVI (Audio/Video
Interleave), which is limited to 2 Gigs. QuickTime les (Mac or PC)
are also limited to a 2 Gig maximum le size at present, even if the
disks the les are stored on can be bigger.
There are tricks to get around these limits. Some involve using
specialized codecs that use indirection (the AVI or QuickTime le
stores pointers to other les instead of raw data, similar to a
Premiere “reference movie”); the Canopus DVRex and DVRaptor
manage to address 4 Gigs of data in an AVI le through some such
sleight-of-hand, while the FAST DVMaster uses a proprietary, non-
AVI format for storage with no 2 Gig limit anywhere in sight. Final
Cut Pro uses QuickTime reference les for seamless capture and
playback without concern for the 2 Gig limit.
Right now, Panasonic’s DV Edit and NewsByte editors don’t have

any 2 GByte limitation. I don’t know about Sony’s ES-3 and ES-7.
What are SCSI-1, SCSI-2, Ultra-SCSI, etc.? What do I really need?
These are all peripheral buses for connecting hard drives (among
other things) to computers.
SCSI-1 is the “original” SCSI. It’s an 8-bit bus with a maximum 5

MB/sec transfer rate. As DV requires 3.6 MB/sec sustained, SCSI-1
is generally too close to the edge for reliable DV transfers.
Remember, that 5 MB/sec rate assumes no hiccups, and your
computer has more to do than just wait around to dump DV data
to/from the SCSI bus.
SCSI-2, also known as “fast SCSI” or “fast narrow SCSI”, doubles the
data rate to 10 MB/sec. This is usually acceptable performance for
DV capture and playback
Fast-Wide SCSI uses a 16-bit data path for 20 MB/sec peak

transfer rates (for this, you need to use the 68-pin cable, not the
50-pin Centronics or DB25 cable for slower avors of SCSI).
Likewise, Ultra SCSI or SCSI-3 yields 20 MB/sec through faster
data clocking. Fast-Wide or Ultra SCSI drives are ne for DV
editing.
Wide Ultra SCSI (Fast Wide 20) combines the 20 MHz transfer
rates with a 16-bit bus for 40 MB/sec, really quite a bit faster than
needed for DV. There are even faster variants of SCSI, but these
are exotic and expensive and are de nitely overkill.
Oh, yes: make sure that your hard drives are capable of the
performance you need; just because a drive plugs into an Ultra-
SCSI cable doesn’t mean it can provide the sustained throughput
needed for DV capture and playback. “A/V-rated” drives are a good
bet; in general, check for 7200 rpm or faster rotation rates, plenty
(512kB or more) of on-board read/write cache, and an advertised
A/V capability. Faster never hurts: remember that time the
computer sits around waiting to push data onto or read data o of
the drive is time it isn’t spending feeding data to/from the 1394 I/O
card, updating the computer screen, reading the VTR’s current
position, or controlling the VTR.
What about Ultra-DMA?
Ultra-DMA, also knows as UDMA, Ultra ATA, or Fast ATA-2 , is a

further enhancement of the EIDE disk-drive interface, available on
the newer G3 Macs and on some PCs (Intel 440TX, LX, BX, and later
chipsets; VIA/AMD VPX, VP2/97, AMD-640 chipsets; Promise
Ultra33 (FastTrack) controller. Win95 and WinNT require an
upgrade to exploit UDMA; Win98 supports it fully). UDMA drives
tend to be a lot cheaper that SCSI-3 drives, and are often capable
of stutter-free capture and playback of DV data. UDMA allows
best-case transfer rates of 33.3 MB/sec, compared with the 16.6
MB/sec best-case transfer rate under EIDE without UDMA (of
course, this is only one of the bottlenecks in real-time DV work,
which is why a fast raw transfer rate alone is not a su cient
indicator of DV suitability).
The early “blue” G3 Macs captured and played back DV without

problems on UDMA drives, but not SCSI — the PCI chipsets used
(as of February 1999) appear to cause problems even with fast
SCSI-3 drives. Apple released an update for the SCSI controller
code in June 1999 that is supposed to solve these problems.
UDMA drives are backwards-compatible with IDE/EIDE controllers;

you can drop a UDMA drive into an older computer and it will
work. However, to get the level of performance needed for real-
time DV work, you may need to have a UDMA-compatible
controller with BIOS and OS support — though I routinely play 9
minute clips from a Maxtor UDMA drive on a plain old EIDE
controller with no dropped frames.
Why doesn’t my non-linear editor see timecode if it’s already

on the tape?
Unfortunately, some current DV NLEs do not capture timecode

into the clips stored on disk. This is not a hardware problem, it’s a
problem with the capture programs used by these editors. As the
market matures, expect the software to gain this capability (and if
it doesn’t, ask your NLE vendor why not).
The 2.00 and later software releases for DPS Spark (PC) do capture
timecode, as does Pinnacle/Miro version 1.6 software. The
Canopus plug-ins for Premiere 5.1 (PC) capture timecode, though
the stand-alone Canopus tools do not. Timecode capture is
present in ProMax’s FireMAX (Mac) and Apple’s Final Cut Pro (Mac,
of course!).
“Hard” codecs vs “soft” codecs

Display DV video on the computer screen.
Render transitions, titles, and e ects.
Capture from or output to non-DV VTRs.
Buy a system, and pay for it!
What’s a codec?
A codec is a compresser/decompresser, a bit of software or

hardware that takes raw video and compresses it, and can take
the compressed video and decompress it back to raw
video.Codecs exist for all kinds of compressed video, including DV,
motion-JPEG, MPEG, Indeo, Cinepak, Sorensen, wavelet, fractal,
RealVideo, vXtreme, and many others. (Indeo, Cinepak, Sorensen,
RealVideo, and vXtreme are trademarks of their respective

trademark holders.)
What are “hard” and “soft” codecs?
Hard codecs are hardware codecs, such as the Sony DVBK-1 or

“DVGear” chip. You supply power and raw video at one end, and
get compressed video out the other end in real time. Flip a switch
and pump in compressed video, and raw, uncompressed video
comes out.
Soft codecs are software modules that do the same thing, such as
the “DVSoft” codec that comes with the DPS Spark card. Unless
your computer is very powerful, though, and/or the codec is
extremely simple (and the DV codecs aren’t that simple), it will take
longer than real time to compress or decompress the video
stream, at least if you want the CPU to do anything else at the
same time.
Which codec is better?
That depends on what you’re looking for, and what you want to
spend. In the world of nonlinear DV editing as of early 1998, here’s
how things break down:
One thing to keep in mind is that “hard” vs “soft” doesn’t

matter when it comes to picture quality: both give excellent if
not identical results. Be aware, though, that minor codec
di erences can cause accumulated errors over multiple
compression/decompression cycles [Pix: multigen with di erent
codecs]. For example, the Sony soft codec used with the version
1.0 release of the DV300 causes a considerable Y/C delay over ten
generations, whereas the Adaptec DVsoft codec shows no such
problem or a slight leftward chroma drift, depending on the
testing done; the Radius codec seems to cause no drift either way.
Not all DV codecs are designed the same way, as discussed by
codec expert Guy Bonneau.
When capturing from or or outputting to DV VTRs using a 1394

connection, it doesn’t matter what kind of codec you have. A DV-
based editor stores the same data on disk that travels across the
1394 wire; no compression or decompression occurs. Thus when
you’re doing capture or playback across a 1394 connection, all
you’re doing is a real-time data transfer; the codec isn’t even in

the loop.
The codec comes into play when you need to:
It’s here that the di erences become apparent.Displaying DV

video on the computer screen: A hard codec frees up the
computer’s CPU to do things like shu e video-overlay data
around, whereas the soft codec takes CPU resources to
decompress the DV video for computer display. Thus, all else
being equal, the hard codec systems will o er larger real-time
video windows on the computer display, and will allow better real-
time jogging, shuttling, and scrubbing.
Hard codec systems such as the FAST DVMaster and Canopus

DVRex display decently-sized (up to 360×240 or more) onscreen
windows with real-time, 30fps scrubbing; the actual window size is
only limited by the speed of the graphics card and its overlay
capability. By contrast, soft codec systems such as DPS Spark and
Pinnacle/Miro DV300 o er near-real-time scrubbing only in tiny,
120×80 windows; if the windows get much larger the frame rate
drops o dramatically because the soft codec is taking too much
of the CPU’s time to allow for timely updates to the screen (though
with the proper video card under Windows NT, DV300’s software
allows much improved performance in this operation). Final Cut
Pro running on a 300 MHz G3 Mac can scrub almost full-screen DV
to the Mac monitor and out the FireWire port using the soft codec
alone, with little stuttering or frame dropping. As processors
speed up, so do the soft codecs.
Hard codecs also allow scrubbing to the video (not computer)

monitor with no extra equipment: DV data are pumped into the
codec as the timeline is traversed, and the codec outputs the raw
video and audio to a TV monitor.
Soft codecs require that a 1394-equipped VTR such as a DHR-1000,

DSR-20, DSR-30, or 1394 camcorder be used as an “o board”
codec/transcoder, or the SonyÂ DVMC-DA1 standalone DV/analog
transcoder box, to see video on a TV monitor. The soft codec can
also decompress the DV for display on the computer monitor.
While this works (as in ProMax’s FireMAX editor, or using Adaptec’s
DVSoft codec on the PC in Premiere), remember that if at the
same time the soft codec is stealing CPU cycles to render things on
the computer screen, the ability of the CPU to dump data across
the 1394 wire can be compromised, and frame rates can su er,
leading to juddery, stuttering video output, though as processors
get faster this is less of an issue.
Rendering transitions, titles, and e ects: here the di erence

between hard and soft codec systems is less pronounced. To add
an e ect (say, a dissolve or wipe between two clips), the system
has to take the two source frames, decompress them, perform the
mix, and recompress the resulting frame. The soft codec takes
CPU power to run, but the CPU has nothing else to do while
waiting for the frames, so it might as well be involved. The hard
codec runs in real time, but the CPU, once it has set up the data
transfers, has to sit and wait for the output anyway. In early 1998,
various vendors claim a 25% speed advantage of hard codecs over
soft codecs, or a 30% advantage of soft codecs over hard codecs,
or whatever… Too much depends on other factors, like the speed
of the computer’s CPU, bus and bus interface chipset, to decisively
say that one codec will be faster than the other in e ects
rendering. However, as CPUs and buses speed up over time, the
soft codecs (which, unlike their hard counterparts, aren’t limited to
running at real-time rates) are likely to take the lead in speed for
rendering operations.
[Side note: we’re discussing “single-stream” operations here: there

is one video stream in the system and one codec; so to do a dual-
stream e ect requires that the available bandwidth and codec be
shared between the two source streams of video and the output.
Rendering an e ect is inherently a non-real-time operation in such
systems, no matter whether the codec is hard or soft. To date
(unless FAST blue. o ers it) the only native DV “dual-stream”
systems which allow real-time e ects rendering are the rather

pricey Sony ES-3 and ES-7 and Panasonic NewsByte and DVEdit
systems. This requires three codecs: two to decompress the two
source streams used as inputs to the e ect, and one to
recompress the output back to disk. Currently this is cost-
prohibitive and pushes beyond the limits of what can be done on
a ordable desktop computers without adding expensive
dedicated disk controllers and the like, which defeats DV NLE’s
sweet spot: a ordable high-quality video on a ordable
computers. Dual-stream capability is seen on some higher-end
editing systems, mostly using M-JPEG codecs.]
Capturing from or outputting to non-DV VTRs: hard codec

systems come with breakout boxes that include analog
(composite, Y/C, and sometimes component YUV) connections as
well as 1394 connections. You can connect up any VTR format with
analog I/O to the box and capture it in real-time or output to it in
real-time. This makes it easy, for example, to bring legacy Hi8 or
Betacam footage into the editor to intercut with newer DV
material. You don’t even need to have a DV VTR or camcorder
around to use the system, as it has its own hard codec onboard.
Soft codec systems supply a 1394 board for connection to a VTR,

but o er no other inputs or outputs. For outputs, any 1394-
equipped camcorder or VTR can be used to transcode to analog
(composite or Y/C), so you can record the output of your NLE to
Hi8, SVHS, BetaSP, or the like in real-time by using a DV VTR or
camcorder as a transcoder (of course, you must have your DV
machine present to act as the transcoder as there is no non-1394
output available).
However, to bring non-DV material into your soft codec based

system, you may rst have to dub the material to a DV tape: aside
for the DSR-20 none of the 1394-equipped VTRs will transcode
from analog inputs to DV “live” without rst recording the material
to tape. So it can still be done, but it’s a two-step process: dub to
DV, then capture (or buy a DSR-20 for live transcoding).
In mid-November 1998, Sony introduced a standalone DV/analog

transcoder box, the DVMC-DA1. With this box, “live” real-time
transcoding of DV to/from analog (composite or Y/C) can be added
to a “soft codec” system, making such systems more viable for use
with analog sources, and bringing them closer to “hard codec”
systems in convenience. These $400 boxes are in short supply in

the USA, but ProMax has them or can get them.Â [Note: the DA1
appears to be discontinued as of June 1999. A more expensive
Sony model is in the o ng, and ProMax is expected to release a
US$1500(?) 1394 to SDI/YUV/Y/C transcoder of their own design in
the latter half of the year.]
Buying a system, and paying for it: hard codec systems are not
cheap; they run around US$3000 at the present time. You can’t
just buy them on a whim, and even if you know you’re going to use
it, it might be di cult to conjure $3000 out of thin air to pay for it (I
haven’t met anyone getting rich by making video!).
Soft codec systems cost around US$700, which is considerably

more a ordable for most folks in this market. They’re a much
better choice if you are cash-poor or aren’t sure that DV NLE is for
you.
My recommendation? If your time is valuable (you edit video for a

living), and looking at tiny onscreen windows is more than just a
minor annoyance, you’ll be happier in the long run with a hard
codec system (you’ll be much happier with a realtime, dual-stream
system, but these get rater expensive). It’s just a bit less tiresome
to work with, and faster when you want to import non-DV
material. It’s also more convenient when sitting there with a client
looking over your shoulder, since the onscreen previews are
bigger and faster. You don’t need to have your camera or DV VTR
present to play back to the TV monitor, and if you’re a small shop
with limited resources and a busy schedule, this can justify the
cost of the hard codec: your camera can be out shooting the next
show while you edit the current one, and the money you save by
not having to buy a VTR as an o board codec will pay for the hard
codec system.
On the other hand, the part-time videomaker, the short-of-cash,

and the casual “prosumer”Â might well be better o with the soft
codec systems. $700 is certainly a lot more a ordable than $3000,
and if you decide that DV editing isn’t for you, you’re out less
money. If you spend most of your time doing something other
than editing, then the interactive speed advantages of the hard
codec may not matter much compared to the higher cost.
What am I using? A soft codec based DPS Spark. But then, my main
job is software engineering, not video editing; the payback period
for the more expensive product was too far out there (and in the
mean time, hard codec prices are likely to drop). Besides, I’m used
to looking at tiny pix: I used to cut double-system sound, A/B roll
shows on Super8 lm…
Transcoding to and from M-JPEG

Can I transcode between DV and motion-JPEG?
You can. Depending on the amount of JPEG compression used,

you might not even see a di erence.It seems to be generally
accepted that JPEG compression at 3:1 is roughly equivalent in
quality to DV’s 5:1 compression. It’s also worth remembering that
DV and JPEG are both DCT (Discrete Cosine Transform) codecs;
they tend to have similar artifacts and e ects on pictures. (DV gets
its additional compressive e ciency through block-level
optimization of quantizing tables, whereas JPEG uses a xed
quantizing table for an entire image).
Thus, one might venture to guess that whether one is compressing

via 5:1 DV or 3:1 JPEG, similar amounts of damage are done to the
image, and that transcoding between these two compression
schemes might cause less degradation than the initial compression
caused.
Indeed, at NAB ’96 Panasonic had hidden away in a corner a most

interesting demonstration. A D-5 (uncompressed ITU-R-601) signal
was fed to a component digital switcher on input #1. It was also
taken, compressed via the DVCPRO codec, decompressed, and fed
to input #2. The processed signal was further fed through a
Tektronix ProFile DDR using JPEG at around 2.5-3:1 compression,
and played back to input #3. That signal was again fed through a
DVCPRO compression/decompression chain, and brought up on
input #4.
A wipe pattern was set up, and by pressing buttons one could see
a split-screen of any two signals on the switcher. Remember, this
was a digital component switcher, and the monitor was one of
those gorgeous Panasonic digital monitors where the image data
stay digital all the way to the modulating grid (really, these are
amazing monitors; if you haven’t seen one, you don’t know how
good video can look).
The original D-5 image was deep, quiescent, lucent: as good as

525/59.94 images get. The rst DVCPRO-processed image showed
the usual sorts of DV artifacts we’ve all come to know and love, but
it was still pretty darn good; you had to look closely to see any
degradation.
But that was it: the further stages of processing showed no

noticeable di erence. The initial DV compression had already
thrown away the troublesome transients and di cult details. What
survived the initial DV codec was a DCT-friendly image that
su ered very little from further compression in the ProFile, and
the ProFile-processed image ran through the nal DVCPRO codec
with ease.
I’m not saying the images were identical; there were probably
minor truncations and losses occurring in the ProFile’s JPEG codec
and in the nal DVCPRO codec. However, these were very minor
and visually imperceptible. Because the entire signal path was
digital, the image stayed in registration throughout; there was no
shifting of 8×8 DCT block boundaries nor were there level shifts
and noise introductions as could occur in analog connections,
both of which could degrade further compression. Moreover, the
compression on the ProFile was very mild; it was at least as good,
visually speaking, as the DVCPRO compression.
So, it can be done. Bear in mind that the level of JPEG compression
used is a big determinant of whether you can transcode
successfully. If you’re using low JPEG compressions ofÂ 3:1, 2:1, or
less, and transcode in the digital domain (through a serial digital
connection or software conversion, rather than via an analog
connection to a JPEG codec), you will see very, very little
degradation of the image. If you dump your DV data into the JPEG
world via an analog connection, or if you use higher compression
rates, you will see a progressively higher amount of degradation.
Even so, there’s always the risk of some loss. As a fellow said at
SIGGRAPH ’86, “Dealing with oating-point numbers is like
shoveling sand: when you pick up a handful, you get a little dirt,
and some sand trickles out…” and the same can be said about
moving between di erent codecs.
Which is better for editing: DV or M-JPEG?
Ahh, now that’s the question! And with systems like

Macrosystem’sCasablanca , Matrox’s DigiSuiteLE, or Pinnacle‘s
ReelTime that work in M-JPEG but o er 1394 I/O, what’s going on?
DV is good because if you’ve shot in DV and stay in DV on disk,

there’s no transcoding required. DV is ideally suited to desktop
editing because the data rates are viable on not-too-exotic SCSI-2
or ultra-SCSI disks and controllers; you can assemble a perfectly
usable DV editing system for under US$4000 and produce
excellent, broadcast-quality work (well, technically, at least; despite
what the manufacturers would have you believe, no format or
software guarantees to make you a creative genius).
If you’re shooting DV, why not stay in DV all the way? The sweet
spot for this format (to borrow Panasonic’s DVCPRO slogan) is
“faster, better, cheaper”, and you can’t get comparable M-JPEG
quality for DV prices, DV data rates, and DV storage requirements.
On the other hand, DV’s xed data rate means that 25

Mbits/second is what you get: you can’t use a DV codec to grab
hours of low-res “o ine” quality to disk for a rough edit.
M-JPEG is a mature technology used in most high-end (Avid,

Accom, Discreet, etc.) editing systems. It o ers the ability to
capture at di erent rates, so you can save on disk space for the
o ine work and redigitize the rough cut for the online clean-up. At
the lesser compression levels it o ers potentially higher quality; if
you’re doing a lot of multi-pass or multi-layer e ects work, you’ll
wind up with fewer cascaded compression artifacts with a high-
end M-JPEG system.
Whether the di erence is a visible one by the time your program

hits a VHS cassette or an over-the-air analog transmission is
arguable, but it is an issue to be aware of, especially if you need to
protect as much quality as possible for DVD or future DTV usage.
M-JPEG will cost you more for the same level of quality, requiring
faster disks or RAID arrays, and more of ’em.
Systems like Casablanca, DigiSuite, or ReelTime are M-JPEG at the

core, but o er a 1394 connection so that you can pipe your DV
data in and digitally transcode it to M-JPEG. As I discuss above, this
need not visually degrade the image, assuming the underlying
data rate is high enough that low compression levels can be used.
It’s de nitely going to be better than an analog connection
between your DV source and the M-JPEG data on-disk; these
systems may seem odd, but they make sense from a technical
standpoint.
So which one is better? It depends on your needs, your target

distribution methods, and your budget.
What about MPEG-2 editing?
Editing systems using “Studio Pro le” MPEG-2, otherwise known as

4:2:2P@ML MPEG-2, are starting to appear. This is basically the
same compression scheme used in BetacamSX, a avor of MPEG-2
using 1- or 2-frame GoPs (groups of pictures). I have no experience
(yet) with such systems — nor does just about anyone else in
August of 1998 — so it’s hard to really review them in any detail.
Pinnacle has shown the DC1000 at NAB ’99; both are MPEG-2
editors, so we should soon start to see some real-world reports on
their performance.)
For what it’s worth, some in the industry as of August 1998 are
predicting that before too long there will be only two avors of
compression used in editing: DV and MPEG-2. Both formats are
“native” capture formats (DV, DVCAM, DVCPRO for DV, and
BetacamSX for MPEG-2) and MPEG-2 is the distribution format for
American DTV, whereas M-JPEG introduces aÂ compression step
that’s neither native to an acquisition format nor used for
distribution. The European Broadcasting Union, in Annex C of the
SMPTE/EBU Task Force for Harmonized Standards for the
Exchange of Program Material as Bitstreams Final Report, backs
this up by recommending that DV family and MPEG-2 4:2:2P@ML
family compression schemes be used in future networked
televison production. We’ll see…
16:9 widescreen
What is 16:9 widescreen?16:9 is the widescreen format that the
USA has standardized on for future DTV services. It has also been
used in the NHK 1125-line analog HDTV standard and the Eureka
1250-line HDTV standard, as well as variety of enhanced SDTV
(standard-de nition TV) services in Europe and Japan. The screen
is 16 units wide by 9 units high, so the “aspect ratio” is called 16:9
because it’s easier to remember than 1.78:1 (approximately) which

is the “normalized” number.
Currently, most SDTV in the world is 4:3, or 12:9, or 1.33:1.
Why should I care about 16:9?
As the world slowly and painfully switches over to digital

broadcasting, it looks to be a 16:9 world we’re all moving into.
Although it’s likely to take ten years or more before 16:9 receivers
outnumber 4:3 receivers worldwide, and there will always be a
huge legacy of 4:3 SDTV programs in the vaults, “premium”
programming in the future will almost certainly be 16:9 material,
in both “standard de nition” and “high de nition” forms.
4:3 program material won’t be obsoleted by any means, but many

forward-looking producers are composing and shooting for 16:9 to
maintain as high a value as possible for all future distribution
possibilities. Some are actually shooting 16:9, while others are
practicing “shoot and protect” in 4:3, just by making sure that the
material can be cropped to 16:9 without losing any important
content from the top or bottom of the image.
How do you get 16:9 pictures?
You can use the 16:9 switch on your camera (if it has one, and if it
does 16:9 “the right way”). Or, you can shoot and protect a 16:9
picture on 4:3. Or, you can use an anamorphic lens.
Many cameras have a 16:9 switch, which when activated results in

either a “letterboxed” image and/or an anamorphically-stretched
image. But beware; there’s a right way and a wrong way to do this.
The “right way” is to use a 16:9 CCD. When in 4:3 mode, the
camera ignores the “side panels” of the CCD, and reads a 4:3
image from the center portion of the chip. When in 16:9 mode, the
entire chip is used. In either case, the same number of scanlines is
used: 480 (525/59.94 DV) or 576 (625/50 DV). You can tell when a
camera is capturing 16:9 the “right way” because when you throw
the switch, whether the resultant image is letterboxed in the
nder or squashed, a wider angle of view horizontally is shown,
whereas the same vertical angle of view is present.
The “wrong way” is for the camera to simply chop o the top and
bottom scanlines of the image to get the widescreen picture.
When you throw the switch on these cameras, the horizontal angle
of view doesn’t change, but the image is cropped at the top and
bottom compared to the 4:3 image (it may then be digitally
stretched to ll the screen, but only 75% of the actual original
scanlines are being used).
[There are some Philips switchable cameras that do clever tricks

with subdivided pixels on the CCDs; when you ip into 16:9 mode,
the image’s angle of view will get wider horizontally and tighter
vertically. So to really be sure, use the change — or lack thereof —
in the horizontal angle of view to see if your camera is doing 16:9
“the right way”.]
The “wrong way” is wrong because the resultant image only uses
360 lines (525/59.94) or 432 lines (625/50) of the CCD instead of
the entire 480 or 576. When this is displayed anamorphically on
your monitor, the camera has digitally rescaled the lines to t the
entire raster, but 1/4 of the vertical resolution has been
irretrievably lost. This is not too terrible for SDTV playback (still, it
isn’t great), but it’s asking for disaster if the image is upconverted
to HDTV.
The bad news is that most inexpensive DV cameras (including the

VX1000 and XL-1) do 16:9 the wrong way. 16:9 chips are still very
costly and the yields are low; in late ’98 Sony’s DXC-D30WS 16:9-
capable DSP camera (which, docked with the DSR-1 DVCAM deck,
becomes the DXC-D130WS camcorder) was only available in short
supply, and the Sony sales force was encouraged to steer folks to
the non-widescreen D30 model unless they really needed
widescreen, because the supplies were so limited. Even then, the
WS model commands a US$3000 premium over its 4:3-only
sibling. The Panasonic AG-D900W, which is switchable between 4:3
and true 16:9 as well as between DVCPRO and DVCPRO50, is a
good choice — but at US$39,000 it’s not readily a ordable the way
a US$3,900 XL-1 is… At NAB ’99 the US$15000 DSR-500Ws single-
piece DVCAM camcorder was released, it’s excellent and I’ll post a
review of it sometime soon. It’s the current entry-level true 16:9
camera in the DV formats.
An anamorphic lens is the way lm folks have done widescreen

for years, though the video systems to use this (aside from the
late, lamented Panacam) are few and far between. A cylindrical

element squashes the image laterally, so that you get the tall,
skinny pictures like images in a fun-house mirror. This squashing
allows the 16:9 image to t in the 4:3 frame. Century Precision
Optics has an anamorphic adapter to t the VX1000 and DSR-200
camcorders, as does Optex (distributed in the USA by ZGC). Both
allow you to use the wider half of the zoom range, and both run
about US$800.
In the lm theatre, or in the print lab, another anamorphic lens

unsquashes the image to yield the original widescreen image. In
video, you’d have to use a DVE or an NLE plug-in lter to unsquash
the image, or you’d embed the appropriate codes into the data
stream or video image (the codes di er in speci cation between
di erent broadcast standards) to tell the receiver that the image
should be displayed as widescreen.
So what’s a poor DV shooter to do, if he or she can’t a ord a true

16:9 camera like the AJ-D900W or DSR-500WS, and can’t nd an
anamorphic lens? Shoot and protect 16:9 on 4:3. Use the entire,
non-widescreen 4:3 image, but protect your future revenue
streams by ensuring that all important visual information is
contained vertically in the center or upper 3/4 of the screen. That
way you have the full resolution 4:3 image for use today, and you
can always upconvert to HDTV later in the 4:3 aspect ratio or the
16:9 aspect ratio if you can accept the reduced vertical resolution.
Should you need to repurpose the material into a 16:9 SDTV
format later, you can letterbox it in post by setting up a vertical
shutter wipe, putting black bands at the top and bottom of the
screen just like on MTV. You’re no worse o than with 16:9
material shot “the wrong way”, but you have the freedom and
exibility of a full-resolution 4:3 image that’s compatible with
today’s broadcast and non-broadcast standards.
Frame mode, slow shutters, and “the lm look”

What is this “frame mode” I hear so much about?Several
cameras, including the Panasonic AJ-EZ1 and AJ-D210 and the
Canon XL-1, have a “frame mode” or “movie mode” switch that
appears to change the way the CCD is read out into bu er
memory from interlaced to progressive scanning. This gives a 30
fps “ lm look” frame-based image instead of the 60 fps eld-based
image we normally see on TV.
A still frame taken from fast pan of a scene shot in frame mode
with the XL-1 shows no interlace artifacts when viewed in
Premiere; each 720×480 frame shows up as an intact frame-based
image in which both the even and odd elds appear to have been
captured at exactly the same time (of course, the data stream
written to tape still interleaves the even and odd elds for proper
interlaced TV display; it’s just that both elds appear to have been
clocked into the transport-and-hold registers of the CCD
simultaneously instead of in even-odd alternation). When shown
on TV, frame mode images have had their temporal resolution
reduced by half to 30 fps, fairly close to lm’s 24 fps. For the
625/50 XL-1s sold in PAL countries, the 25fps video frame rate will
make for an even closer match.
This is very exciting, especially for anyone wanting to originate on

DV and transfer to lm for release. The noninterlaced frame-based
images should yield a much better lm transfer. And for those
wanting the “ lm look” on tape, this is a good start. Better yet, use
a PAL camera in frame mode: the resulting 25 fps images transfer
to lm very, very nicely…
How do I get “ lm look” shooting with DV cameras?
Buy a used Arri ex 16BL or CP GSMO, stencil “Canon XL-1 DV

camcorder” on the side, and shoot lm!
Seriously, though, the most important way to get a lmlike look is

to shoot lm style. Light scenes, don’t just go with whatever light is
there. Use lockdowns or dolly shots, not zooms. Pan and tilt
sparingly to avoid motion judder (i.e., if you’re using the XL-1’s
frame mode, you shouldn’t compose any shot to call attention to
the 30 fps mode). If you’re using a camera that allows it (VX1000,
most pro cameras), back down the “detail” or “sharpness” control.
Reduce chroma slightly. Lock the exposure; don’t let it drift. Use
wide apertures, selective focus, and “layered” lighting to separate
subjects from the background. Pay attention to sound quality. In
post, stick mostly to fades, cuts, and dissolves; avoid gimmicky
wipes and DVE moves.
Beyond that, you can use “frame mode” on the XL-1, Panasonic AJ-
EZ1, or AJ-D210; try 15 or 30 fps on the VX1000. On the Sony it’s
not the same as frame mode and has other problems, but it may
pass as lm for some purposes.
On higher-end cameras (DSR-300, DSR-130, AJ-D700, and the like),

you may have setup les to adjust gamma, clipping, sharpness,
color rendition, and white compression; these can be exploited to
give the camera a more lmlike transfer characteristic.
Take the aperture correction (edge enhancement or sharpness

setting), if available, and turn it down or o . This also makes a
huge di erence both in lm transfer and in HDTV upconversion.
Try out the Ti en Pro-Mist lters. I like the Black Pro-Mist #1 or

lower (fractional numbers). Jan Crittenden at Panasonic prefers
the Warm Pro-Mist 1/2. These knock o a bit of high-frequency
detail and add a bit of halation around highlights. Bonus: by
fuzzing the light around bright, sharp transitions, these lters have
the added e ect of reducing hard-to-compress high-contrast
edges, resulting in fewer “mosquito noise” artifacts.
In post, there are a variety of lters or processes available to

adjust the gamma; or to simulate 3-2 pulldown, gate weave, dust
and scratches, lm fogging, and so on.
There are also proprietary processes such as “Filmlook” that, for a

price, make the video look so lm-like that real lm looks like
video by comparison.
Of course, if you really wanted lm, why didn’t you shoot lm?Â
What do the slow shutter speeds do for me?
The slow shutter speeds (those below 60 fps) found on many DV

cameras use the digital frame bu er of the camera in conjunction
with a variable clock on the CCDs to accumulate more than a
eld’s worth of light on the face of the chip before transferring the
image to the bu er and thence to tape. This can do two things for
you: more light integration, and slower frame update rates.
More light integration means that you can get usable images in
lower light than you might expect. I’ve shot sea turtles by
moonlight at midnight at 1/4 sec shutter speed; the images update
slowly but are certainly recognizable, whereas the same scene at
60 fps looked like I had left the lens cap on.
You can also use the long shutter times as a poor man’s “clear
scan” for recording computer monitors without icker. As you
increase the integration time on the CCD, the computer monitor
goes through more complete cycles before the image is
transferred, reducing recorded icker; many computer images
have little motion so the slow update rate may not even be
noticed. Be aware, however, that at least some cameras (the Sony
VX1000 among them) appear to go into a strange eld-doubling
mode at shutter speeds below 60; vertical resolution is cut in half
(while two clearly-interlaced elds are recorded on tape, as can be
seen in a NLE, the eld-mode ag is set in the DV datastream so
that eld-doubling is performed by the DV codec during playback
to eliminate inter eld icker) so ne detail will be impaired. You’ll
need to judge this tradeo on a case-by-case basis.
Slower frame update rates are good for two things: a poor man’s
“ lm look” at 30 fps or 15 fps, and special e ects at slower rates.
You can capture a strobing, strangely disturbing image at the
lower rates… use it sparingly, of course; no sense in annoying the
viewers.
Those funny free-spinning lens controls

Why don’t consumer DV cameras have “real” lenses with focus
marks?
“Real” lenses use helical grooves to rack focus; the resistance you
feel when you focus such a lens is the natural friction of the
rotating barrels sliding through the lightly-greased grooves.That
smooth friction, alas, plays havoc with autofocus systems which all
consumer cameras must have, so goes the conventional wisdom;
strong and battery-draining motors are needed to spin such
barrels, and they can’t obtain the fast focus response that’s so
useful in optimizing autofocus algorithms.
Thus the autofocus lenses nowadays use lighter, more easily

positioned internal focusing elements (which are also
advantageous from an optical standpoint) with lighter, faster,
more thrifty focus servos.
The “focus ring” you manhandle isn’t actually connected to the

focusing mechanism. It’s a free-spinning ring with an optical or
electromagnetic sensor attached: when you spin the ring, a series
of pulses is sent to the focus controller. The faster the pulse train,
the faster the controller changes focus.
However, it’s not perfectly linear. If you turn the ring too slowly,
nothing at all will happen since the controller discards all pulses
below a certain rate as random noise. If you spin it 1/4 turn very
quickly, you’ll get more of a focus shift that if you turn it 1/4 turn at
a more moderate rate.
As a result of all of this, there’s no way for the focus ring to have
focus marks — nor is it possible for you to measure such marks
yourself and be able to repeat them.
The same argument applies to the zoom controls on some lenses,

such as the 16:1 on the Canon XL-1.
How do I work with these lenses?
Carefully, with patience and understanding. You can’t set marks, or

focus by scale. Slow, ne adjustments may do nothing. But with
practice and perhaps some adjustment of operating style, most
people can use if not necessarily love these lenses.
On the XL-1, you’ll get better zoom control and smoother

operations if you stick to the zoom rocker on the handgrip than if
you use the zoom ring on the lens. Some folks are taping over the
zoom ring entirely and only using the rocker.
Don’t like it? Buy a real camera with a real lens, like the DSR-300
(US$10,000 and up, with lens) or the AJ-D210 (US$7,000 or so).
Hey, it’s only money…
Image Stabilization
What’s EIS/DIS?
Electronic Image Stabilization and Digital Image Stabilization are

completely electronic means for correcting image shake. As the
shaky image hits the CCD chip, these systems reposition the active
area of the chip (the location on the chip that the image is read
from) to compensate for it, by re-addressing the area of the chip
that they’re reading from. If you’ve seen Rocky & Bullwinkle (a US
cartoon involving a moose and a squirrel), think of Bullwinkle
running back and forth with the bucket of water to catch Rocky
after Rocky jumps from the high diving board (of course,
Bullwinkle winds up in the water, but that’s another story).The
EIS/DIS controllers look for motion vectors in the image (typically a
widespread displacement of the entire image) and then decide
how to “reposition” the image area of the chip under the image to
catch it in the same place. The actual repositioning is done in one
of two ways: one is to enlarge (zoom) the image digitally, so that
the full raster of the chip isn’t used. The controller can then “pan
and scan” within the full chip raster to catch the image as it moves
about. The other is to use an oversize CCD, so that there are
unused borders that the active area can be moved around in
without rst zooming the image.
The zoom-style pan ‘n’ scanner can be detected quite simply: if the
image zooms in a bit when EIS/DIS is turned on, then a zoom-style
pan ‘n’ scanner is being used. Unfortunately, such methods reduce
resolution, often unacceptably.
All EIS/DIS systems su er from several problems. One is that,

because the actual image is moving across the face of the chip,
image shakes induce motion blur. Even though the position of an
image may be perfectly stabilized, you can often notice a transient
blurring of the image along the direction of the shake. Sometimes
it’s quite noticeable. To get around this, many EIS/DIS systems
close down the shutter a bit to reduce blur. This reduces light
gathering capability. You can’t have everything, you know.
Another problem is that the motion-vector approach to

stabilization can be easily fooled. If the area of the image being
scanned doesn’t have any contrasty detail that the processor can
lock onto, the stabilization can hunt, oscillate, or bounce. This
looks like a mini-earthquake on the tape, and it can occur at the
most annoying times.
Also, the stabilization can work too well. Often when one starts a
slow pan or tilt with EIS/DIS engaged, the system will see the start
of the move as a shake, and compensate for it! Eventually, of
course, the stabilizer “runs out of chip” and resets, and the image
abruptly recenters itself.
The big advantage of EIS/DIS is that it’s cheap.
What’s optical stabilization?
Optical stabilization such as “SteadyShot” is descended from Juan

de la Cierva’s 1962 Dynalens design, a servo-controlled uid prism
used to steer the image before it hits the CCDs (in the ’60s, of
course, it steered images onto lm or onto tubes!). In the late ’80’s
and early ’90’s, Canon and Sony updated this technology for use in
consumer gear, and it worked so well that Canon now o ers a
SteadyShot attachment for some of their pro/broadcast lenses.
The uid prism is constructed of a pair of glass plates surrounded

by a bellows and lled with uid so that the entire assembly has a
refractive index comparable to a glass prism. The angle of the
prism is changed by tilting the plates; one plate can be rotated
vertically, moving the image up or down, and the other rotates
horizontally, steering the picture right or left.
Rotation rate sensors detect shake frequencies and tilt the front
and back plates appropriately. Position sensors are also used so
that in the absence of motion the prism naturally centers. The
position sensors also detect when the prism is about to hit its limit
stops, and reduce the corrections applied so that shake gradually
enters the image instead of banging in as the prism hits its limits.
Optical stabilization of this sort is expensive, tricky to manufacture

and calibrate, and must be tuned to the lens. Adding a wide-angle
or telephoto adapter to a SteadyShot lens screws up SteadyShot;
the processor doesn’t know about the changed angle of view (all it
knows is the current zoom setting) and thus over- or under-
compensates for shake.
But for all that it works brilliantly: because the image is stabilized
on the face of the CCDs, there is no motion blur; because rate
sensors are used, the system isn’t fooled by motion in the scene or
by lack of detail; because a physical system has to move to
reposition the image, there are no instantaneous image bounces
or resets as can happen with EIS/DIS.
[It’s interesting to note that on the XL-1, Canon added image

motion-vector detection to the rate gyros on their optical
stabilizer. As a result, the system seems to “stick” on slow pans
and tilts just like an EIS/DIS system, although the recovery is more
uid and less jarring. On the other hand, it really does a superb
job on handheld lockdowns.]
What about Steadicam/GlideCam?
These mechanical stabilizers work by setting up the camera so

that it has large rotational moments of inertia, but little reason to
want to rotate: the camera is mounted on an arm or pole that’s
gimballed at its center of gravity or just above it. The gimbal
mount is either handheld, or attached to an arm, often articulated
and countersprung, mounted on a body bracket or vest. One
steers the camera by light touches near the gimbal; otherwise it
just tends to oat along in whatever attitude it’s already at. The
trick is in getting it into an attitude that makes nice pictures,
stopping it there, and then not disturbing it.
These systems work very well, but require a lot of practice for best
results. It’s very easy to oversteer the camera, and o -level
horizons are a trademark of suboptimal Steadicam skills. The
handheld systems can also be surprisingly fatiguing to use for
extended periods.
I nd that the Steadicam JR is also a bit wobbly; its plastic arms

aren’t especially rigid and the whole thing tends to vibrate a bit.
Fortunately, the wiggles that get through the JR are neatly
compensated for by SteadyShot in the VX1000, resulting in
buttery-smooth moving camera shots (complete with o -level
horizons!).
When do I use what kind of image stabilization?
Try it; see if it works; if it helps, then use it.
I tend to leave SteadyShot on the VX1000 on most of the time. I’ll

turn it o when using the wide-angle adapter, or when using the
camera on a tripod and needing to conserve power.
If I’m planning to do any signi cant camera motion during a shot,

and I don’t have a wheelchair, dolly, car, airplane, or helicopter
available (there’s never a helicopter around when you need one…),
I’ll use the Steadicam. Depending on the roughness of the ride in
the aforementioned conveyances, and space allowing, I’ll use
Steadicam there, too.
And don’t forget that other, less glamorous form of stabilization:

the tripod. Tripods work really, really well. Try one sometime, you’ll
like what it does for your image!
Top of Page
Technical Details
DV: Tips, Tricks, and Links

Comparisons/Reviews
FAQ
For more DV Tips on DV, DVCam and DVCPro tape compatibility,

color bars, recording unlocked audio, Betacam UVW, Character
Generators, and more See Adam’s article Video Tidbits.
Cameras:
Sony VX-1000 Video University’s VX-1000 Page.
Canon XL1 Video University’s XL1 page
John Beale’s stunningly excellent Sony DCR-TRV900 site:Â Using

the Sony DCR-TRV900 Camcorder
Copyright (c) 1998, 1999 by Adam J. Wilt. You are granted a

nonexclusive right to duplicate, print, link to, frame, or otherwise
repurpose this material, as long as all authorship, ownership and
copyright information is preserved.
Adam Adam Wilt’s

Adam Wilt’s Top
Wilt’s Film and Video
Engineering of
Home Video Tidbits
Services Page
Page Services
Contact Adam via email

WARNING: YOU CAN’T JUST HIT “SEND”; IT WON’T WORK!Â IT’S
NOT ALL FILLED IN AUTOMATICALLY! My email is “adam at
adamwilt dot com“, but you’ll have to type the “adam” yourself.
This is necessary to avoid having spammer’s webcrawlers snu e
my address and send me unwanted junk.Last updated 23 June
1999.
20 THOUGHTS ON “DV FORMATS: EVERYTHING YOU

NEED TO KNOW”
John Fellers January 2,
2012 at 10:48 pm
Update:
D2, USING the digital interface port can go

through many generations without hardly any
loss. I DP’d a video, that Sony used, showing
Read-Write on a D2. The great editor, Steve,

from Video-IT was the rst to show this great
feature. We showed how 10th generation was
like the 1st, using the digital ports on the D2.
Ken Remley June 16, 2012
at 8:06 am
I have a DVD that I was told can’t be used for a
PSA because it’s not in the beta or DVCpro
format. Can this DVD be converted to either
of the above required formats? If so, where
can I look to nd someone who can convert
my DVD. The DVD topic is local Senior Games
which is a non- pro t organization. Any help
would be appreciated.
Ken R
Hal June 18, 2012 at 6:47
am
Ken,
Your DVD probably can be converted to a

format the station requires. I would call a local
video producer or two. Do a Google search for
video producer Sacramento or whatever town
you live in.
Hal
pastor horne June 27, 2012
at 5:41 pm
sirs, at our church we have a DSR 200,sony dv
camera
we are trying to use it to stream our services

on the internet, from a laptop .
what do we need to do?
Michel Bourreau January
22, 2013 at 4:54 pm

Hello Adam,
very good Article, thank you very much for

that.
Best regards
Michel
Ken A Starcher April 6, 2013
at 7:40 am
I want to dub DV tapes to hard disk in the
original DV format. Is there a free or low cost
capture program that will do this without
transcoding? Or other suggestion?
btw I’ve enjoyed your articles.
Hal April 6, 2013 at 8:04
am
I would just bring the clips into your hard
drive using an older version of Sony Vegas
Movie Studio. An older version will be much
cheaper and you don’t need HD capabilities. It
won’t be DV, but who cares. The video will
play just ne.
Don macP April 15, 2013 at
1:15 pm
Hi, I hope someone out there can help!
I have 30+ mini DV tapes and my Canon

MV750i that most of them were recorded on
is broken beyond repair.
I bought another Canon model (MD101) as a

source to play them.
There is some audio drop out on some of the

recordings. After extensive research it
appears that the problem lies with the fact
that some recordings were on Long play.
My question is simple, how can I play these

tapes?
Hal April 15, 2013 at 1:54
pm
Those audio drop outs could be caused by a
dirty head or maybe the tapes are damaged.
The DV format is dying so I would transfer
these videos to your computer and perhaps
to a second hard drive (all hard drives fail
eventually). “Sony Vegas Movie Studio” has a
good transfer program built into it. And your
could edit the tapes and make a DVD from
them. All with Sony Vegas.
Don macP April 15, 2013 at
2:43 pm
Thanks for the prompt reply!
I am in the process of transferring my tapes to

computer. I have previously played some of
the tapes and burned them to DVD- they all
played okay on my original machine at that
time.
The same mini DV’s now have audio drop out

on my new machine. Some forums suggest
this is due to the fact they were recorded in
long play mode, and that only the original
machine will playback a tape recorded on it.
Any thoughts or comments?
Hal April 15, 2013 at 2:50
pm
Long Play could be the problem. You might
send the tapes to a company that works with
old tape. They transfer very old obsolete
formats and things like that. Search for
transfer obsolete tape formats. I know there’s
one near Boston, but don’t recall the name.
Maybe if your brought them the old camera
and tapes they could do something.
Serge Desaulniers June 3,
2013 at 11:06 am
Hi everyone,
I have a quick question: Is it possible to

damage a tape if it is being read in a machine
that does not support that standard? In this
particular case, we played a Mini-DV PAL
cassette in a NTSC player (actually a DVCPro
player with a Mini-DV adaptor).
I have not seen the result myself, but now,

apparently, when the cassette is being played
in a genuine Mini-DV PAL player, it shows
horizontal lines that are akin to
synchronization lines…
To me, the idea that a tape could be damage

this way sounds crazy, but…
Comments welcomed!
Thanks in advance,
Serge
Hal June 3, 2013 at 11:15
am
The tape could be damaged by the deck or

the adapter, but it’s probably not because the
machine is a di erent standard. You need to
view it in the proper standard machine. I
would try cleaning the heads in the machine.
Sometimes a problem like this is solved by
playing the tape in the same machine that
recorded it (typically a camera)and at the
same time copying the tape to a new tape in a
clean machine.
Serge Desaulniers June 4,
2013 at 9:44 am
Hi Hal,
Thank you for your very fast response. We

played the cassette in another PAL player and
the tape is ne. It seems that the previous
player had a problem (unknown at this time)…
Thanks a million!
Serge
Robert Morton October 30,
2013 at 12:58 pm
I have a Sony DCR-VX2000 video camera. How
do I get the chroma e ect to work when
shooting on green background? It works nd
when shooting on blue background.
Hal Post author October 31,
2013 at 7:58 am
Hi Robert,
Chroma Key is something that is done in post

production. Most editing programs support it.
Sony Vegas Movie Studio, for instance, will do
it very well. All DV cameras can do it. Here’s an
article about it that explains it pretty well:
https://www.videouniversity.com/articles/chroma-
key-basics-for-dv-guerrillas-part-1/
As you will learn the lighting of your green

screen is the key. You can use a green screen
or a blue screen and get the same e ect, but
green is a little better for video.
Hal
Eric October 9, 2015 at
10:24 am
I have a plethra of DV tapes that I need to
capture on fcp7, However I I didn’t shoot all
the tapes. All the tapes were shot on an XL2
with di erent Frame rates 24p 30 and 60i
No manual is showing me how to check the

frame rates in camera. Is it much of a concern
when I go to set up my capture presets to
static frame rate? Or is there a way to display
in camera the correct fps in real time?
Hal Post author October 9,
2015 at 10:33 am
I believe the camera will sense the frame rate
and play it back at the proper rate. I would do
some testing by transferring clips that were
recorded at the di erent frame rates.
Moss January 23, 2018 at
2:02 pm
I have a MiniDV Panasonic NV-GS400. Widows
10 and Panasonic refuse to allow or provide a
driver so I get rewire recognition but the box
wants the driver.
Really don’t want to junk the camera.
I’ve tried to nd an XP machine with rewire

but even then would need the driver.
Any idea’s on where I could get a copy of the

driver…
Enjoy your regular posts.
Moss
Hal Post author February 9,
2018 at 6:54 am
Mini DV is an obsolete format. It will only
become more obsolete.
Keep looking for the right driver, but you may

need to abandon the search. Good luck.
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10/7/2018 DV Formats: Everything You Need To Know - VideoUniversity

DV FORMATS: EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO

You won’t nd a better videotape format in terms of

I rst experienced DV in October of 1995, when I saw a Sony DCR-

[Last updated 2 July (Mac G3 SCSI).]

Technical Comparisons Frequently Pix Links

Details / Reviews Asked

The DV formats tabulated:

Format speci cations and current equipment capabilities

DV DVCAM DVCPRO Digital8

tape type ME (Metal ME (Metal MP (Metal Particle) ME, MP (uses

Evaporate) Evaporate) Video8, Hi8

DV DVCAM DVCPRO Digital8

track pitch 15 microns 18 microns ???

track width microns on some 18 microns ???

larger than miniDV Video8, Hi8

(4.6/6.9 hrs std: 123 min./184 60 min.

123 min. (AJ-

184 min. (AJ-

compression 5:1 DVC- 5:1 DVC-format 5:1 DVC-format 5:1 DVC-

format DCT, DCT, intra-frame; DCT, intra-frame; format DCT,

intra-frame; 25 Mbps video 25 Mbps video data intra-frame;

25 Mbps video data rate rate 25 Mbps

DV DVCAM DVCPRO Digital8

720×480, 4:1:1 720×480, 4:1:1 720×480, 4:1:1 720×480,

(NTSC) (NTSC) (NTSC) 4:1:1 (NTSC)

sampling 720×576, 4:2:0 720×576, 4:2:0 720×576, 4:1:1 720×576,

one analog audio will accept 2

IEEE-1394 DSR-V10, DSR-20,

DV DVCAM DVCPRO Digital8

SMPTE 259M no DSR- AJ-D750/650/640 no

SDI (serial 60/80/85/2000 VTRs with adapter

digital VTRs with adapter

4X digital I/O no DSR-85 VTR NewsByte NLE with no

LANC & IEEE-1394

tape, playback will still be attempted as if the tape were a

**DVCPRO std. cassette run times:

The “standard” standard cassette holds 123 minutes of tape, but

DV: Comparisons / Reviews

Camera comparisons & reviews:

DV Frequently Asked Questions

Where a link for [pix] exists, a separate window will be launched,

4 Feb Updated Ultra DMA info in NLE; a few new links…

18 Mar Digital8 added; links rearranged and consolidated.

2 May Unlocked audio updated; new links

23 June Tech Details updated for DVCPRO runtimes; links tweaked.

2 July Mac G3 SCSI update

DV, DVCAM, DVCPRO – What is DV? What’s the di erence

1394/FireWire – What is 1394 and/or “FireWire”? Why are DV

Didn’t nd what you wanted here? Try Technical Details,

DV, DVCAM, DVCPRO

What is DV?DV is an international standard created by a

DV, originally known as DVC (Digital Video Cassette), uses a 1/4

The sampled video is compressed using a Discrete Cosine

DV uses intraframe compression: Each compressed frame

DV video information is carried in a nominal 25 megabit per

(including timecode), Insert and Track Information (ITI), and error

What’s the di erence between DV, DVCAM, and DVCPRO?

The consumer-oriented DV uses 10 micron tracks in SP recording