Old HV20 comes back to life as a working prop!

Takumarr said:
Yes, it existed, and in previous cameras, even in 2001 and before that, in 1998, 422 digital camera is not a new phenomenon...
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lol. they would have never put 4:2:2 in a handheld tape camera from the mid-2000s made for commonfolk; unheard of and only a modern and more seen feature starting around 2015 with cameras (and many of those were still 8-bit, 422).
 
NorBro said:
lol. they would have never put 4:2:2 in a handheld tape camera from the mid-2000s made for commonfolk; unheard of and only a modern and more seen feature starting around 2015 with cameras (and many of those were still 8-bit, 422).
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As far as I know, 422 and 420 is a data recording method, there is an uncompressed output signal in many tape cameras because it is only one output, it could be or not in a consumer camera.
​​​​Of course, you may be right, it is not possible in an old home camera...
 
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Takumarr said:
As far as I know, 422 and 420 is a data recording method, there is an uncompressed output signal in many tape cameras because it is only one output, it could be or not in a consumer camera.
​​​​Of course, you may be right, it is not possible in an old home camera...
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Poking around in old archives, it seems that the consensus on the HDMI out from the HV20 live image was 4:2:2 8 bit.
 
If it's uncompressed like Takumarr said, it likely is 4:2:2. I tried to check in the manual yesterday but it didn't say anything (although it usually wouldn't back then for some cameras even if it was).

But I wonder how anyone would be able to confirm (if so) since external recorders would force a 4:2:2 result even if it's really not.

Or maybe there was an older recorder which recorded both, 4:2:0 and 4:2:2, and so if it detected and said 4:2:2 on the screen then you could trust it to know that the HDMI was really providing that, IDK.
 
I have to say that my information about 422 video is incomplete, somewhere they said that it is related to the performance of the sensor, and somewhere else I learned that it is related to the recording process and the compression that ignores part of the information... but it doesn't matter to me, Just knowing that 422 is of better quality is enough.
Also, the hdmi output, I know that most of the cameras have assigned the recording to an external recorder, that is, the camera does not record the signal. But as I said, I don't know anything more about it, because there is really no need...

But the problem is knowing what hdmi is, if it is only for display to the monitor, and it is a signal without coding, then it should always provide 422 and 4440....
 
With the older cameras there were plenty of compromises. I had forgotten more than I ever knew about the HV20 but looking back through this forum and others reminded me of some of the peculiarities: internal recording was 1440x1080, but the HDMI out was 1920 x 1080--however, with the camera set to 24p, the external recording remained at 60i so you had to do a reverse pulldown to restore it. Everything was a little more difficult back then! One of the cooler things about that camera though was that it had a full size HDMI output, even with its small form factor. I got a Nanoflash to use with the 5DMKII around 2009, but I don't remember ever using it with the HV20, as I never really needed to as that was more like a fun "handycam" for personal use than a work camera for me.

Even though the internal recording specs were not impressive by today's standards, it still made nice images. I stuck the camera in the background to capture this "burn" we did on Reno 911 in 2008. Not bad for a consumer camera! https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/he830vyh7v6vis4i9a81r/reno-2.mov?rlkey=e15gk5znbgg2y1vp7rc3tbft7&dl=0
 
The HV20 actually had a huge impact on my filming life. I posted this a few times over the years but here it is again.

I was pretty young, barely knew anything about cameras, and was completely blown away by this. I got the HV20 the next day.

It's funny how just a few seconds from random strangers online can have such inspiration on a person.

 
It's better to forget about these cameras because the harm is as good as the good, people wrote how they made a good movie with the xl2, but under what conditions? A $200 camera and a $700 recorder, and expensive cables, they either worked in the studio, or had access to a lot of equipment, is that useful to us? Having skills can do good work with limited tools. can be misleading, come on. Forget hv20.
If one day someone likes old pictures, there is always an old camera...

A Chinese proverb says: Many opinions cause doubts...
 
CharlesPapert said:
I thought you were all about shooting with an HVX? Now I'm confused.
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LOL, I know I thought he was making the case that because he could extract 422 via analog to hdmi that it made an out of date camera state of art. But then he flipped to make the opposite opinion against the camera. Good Lord.
 
Peter C. said:
LOL, I know I thought he was making the case that because he could extract 422 via analog to hdmi that it made an out of date camera state of art. But then he flipped to make the opposite opinion against the camera. Good Lord.
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Hello Mr. Peter, apparently you did not join our creative thread,
I must say that your words are not clear!!! :costumed-smiley-047​​​
 
Peter C. said:
LOL, I know I thought he was making the case that because he could extract 422 via analog to hdmi that it made an out of date camera state of art. But then he flipped to make the opposite opinion against the camera. Good Lord.
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Although I did not understand much of your writing, but you are not only creative in making tools and solutions, but it seems that you are also creative in the story, may God bless you...:):):)
 
Wow. Where are we going with all of this?!

Takumarr, I hope the takeaway you get from this is that my personal interest in older cameras was not to have them compete with new technology, but to use them to represent exactly what they were--a camera produced at a certain time in history, that represents the look of image capture at that moment. My 80's era tube cameras were used on the recently released feature "V/H/S/85" to simulate found footage from that era, and the filmmakers really enjoyed the process of working with the vintage cameras. They are quite literally .24K cameras--240 lines of gloriously smeary resolution. Digital cameras from the HVX era are a much more subtle paradigm--do they actually look vintage, is there a definable aesthetic there that makes it worth going through the trouble of modernizing their workflow, or could it be simulated with a modern camera and some solid knocking-down in post? I think you have to go back a little bit further, to the XL1/DVX100 era to really start to land on a look that justifies using the older cameras (on the higher end 2/3 cameras, the SDX900 and Sony DigiBetas, of which I have forgotten the model numbers on).
 
I agree with you to some extent. It's almost personal taste, and I don't talk about it, because nobody likes it... I grew up with television and programs, with ccd cameras, then digital changes to video came, which was welcomed by everyone, but the pictures from the old cameras It was more natural, I was wondering where to find the simple camera to I needed, I even got curious about sony dv cameras like pd170 and z5, the reason for my interest in old cameras is a bit complicated...

I'm interested in old cameras, and ccd sensors, great 48kh audio recording on plastic dv tape!
But maybe my life is not enough to check all this!
 
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You aren't the only one I've heard talk about CCD sensors vs CMOS. I'm a little hard pressed to view CCD's as looking more natural simply because the cameras were relatively hobbled in so many ways, particularly dynamic range. In particular I was never a fan of the 1/3" sensor size as I had already spent enough years trying to force 2/3" into looking more filmic, trying to eke out shallow focus however one could, and 1/3" just made that even harder. I look back at all the projects I shot on my XL1 and DVX100 and think how much better they would look on today's cameras. But of course, everyone can have their preferences.
 
CharlesPapert said:
You aren't the only one I've heard talk about CCD sensors vs CMOS. I'm a little hard pressed to view CCD's as looking more natural simply because the cameras were relatively hobbled in so many ways, particularly dynamic range. In particular I was never a fan of the 1/3" sensor size as I had already spent enough years trying to force 2/3" into looking more filmic, trying to eke out shallow focus however one could, and 1/3" just made that even harder. I look back at all the projects I shot on my XL1 and DVX100 and think how much better they would look on today's cameras. But of course, everyone can have their preferences.
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Yes, agree.
 
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