Broadcast Cameras/ Camcorders - A Brief History
The progress of recent professional video technology has come on leaps and bounds since the late 70's, when the celebrated U-Matic and Betacam formats were transformed into portable devices allowing ENG recordings and instant playback evaluation of the shot footage. The CCD camera did not exist until the mid 80's and cameras typically used Saticon and Newvicon tubes, which suffered from alignment issues and lag, and they had to be replaced when they eventually went "soft". On the consumer front, VHS and Betamax were competing for market share. As editing or duplicating analogue video was a "lossey" process, the highest quality formats provided the best chance of maintaining and delivering acceptable images.
In-Accurate Control Track Editing
Editing with U-Matic and Betacam was accurate due to the ability to lay a timecode on the tape, but this was not the case for VHS and Betamax as they had no space for a timecode track; editing was CTL (Control Track) based with plus or minus 2 frames accuracy (which became less accurate every time you previewed the edit).
The mid 80's saw eventually Betamax lose the consumer battle with VHS. The VHS format was improved by the higher quality S-VHS format and 8mm, and most notably by the Hi-8 format which also competed for market share.
During this period, the medium which categorised whether a format was broadcast or professional quality was obvious. The vast majority of industrial and professional broadcasters agreed that the Betacam format was the medium of choice. Although the manufacturers now produced VHS and S-VHS industrial editing equipment, the loss process always determined that the format would remain suitable for non-broadcast applications, and the format was generally only used as an offline tool. By the late 80's you could edit the VHS format accurately with VITC (Vertical Interval Time Code) editing controllers and produce an EDL (Edit Decision List) on a floppy disc for the online edit, which was generally Betacam based.
The Digital Era Dawns
The late 80's and early 90's saw the first computer based "offline" systems arrive. The benefit was the ability of the computer to ingest low resolution VHS comparable quality video and allow digital multi pass lossless and accurate editing in a non-linear fashion, and produce an EDL for the online edit. As the technology improved, the computer was capable of ingesting higher quality footage, which matched the quality of the Betacam SP Standard and computerised offline and online systems began to dominate the editing process, due to their lower cost and flexibility of the non-linear process when compared to conventional multi-deck analogue editing.
Digital Tape Format
The mid 90's saw the manufacturers produce digital tape based formats with Digital Betacam, D9 and DVCPRO competing for the broadcast market and DVCAM and DV the corporate arena. The new digital tape formats momentarily slowed the advance of the computer, as the computer ingested only analogue footage at that time. But it wasn't long before the whole process was in the digital domain.
The range of digital recording formats now extends to DV, DVCAM, DigiBeta q,DVCPRO, HDV, HDCAM, P2 and XDCAM - to name a few - with both tape based and solid-state tapeless solutions available. The lower cost of some of these formats and more cost effective editing solutions have enabled millions of amateur videographers to achieve their creative ambitions, making them capable of producing "broadcastable" material. The historical gap between the professional and amateur markets has changed and continues to advance at an unparalleled pace.