what does loss of quality look like on a tape

I am not quite sure what you mean. I depends on the situation and the tape. Digibeta will have virtually no visual loss. VHS has a lot.

I guess you mean DV though. Gltiches and dropout are obviously very bad, but can be greatly reduced with clean heads, good tapestock and using DVCAM or DVCPRO if possible. You will loose some quality in recording to DV because the codec uses 5:1 compression. However, the actual visual difference of the camera output and tape output is quite small. IMO the DV codec is not the limiting factor in making your footage look good - it is the camera and the operator.

DV introduces "blocky" compression artifacts to the shot like a jpeg still image. These can be had to spot on motion video, but are evident on freeze frames. Fine detail suffers worst, stuff like trees, hair etc can look a quite blocky especially on a big screen.
 
mmm said:
I am not quite sure what you mean. I depends on the situation and the tape. Digibeta will have virtually no visual loss. VHS has a lot.

I guess you mean DV though. Gltiches and dropout are obviously very bad, but can be greatly reduced with clean heads, good tapestock and using DVCAM or DVCPRO if possible. You will loose some quality in recording to DV because the codec uses 5:1 compression. However, the actual visual difference of the camera output and tape output is quite small. IMO the DV codec is not the limiting factor in making your footage look good - it is the camera and the operator.

DV introduces "blocky" compression artifacts to the shot like a jpeg still image. These can be had to spot on motion video, but are evident on freeze frames. Fine detail suffers worst, stuff like trees, hair etc can look a quite blocky especially on a big screen.
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yes i understand that but it seems to me there would be some other type of deffect if you reuse a tape......lets say that you dont have ne glitches , but you have reused the tape like 4 times.......is there ne difference from when you first used the tape to when you use the tape the 4th time......maybe the sound isnt as clear or the picture isnt as clear or something...idonno
 
With a digital recording format, the signal will be indentical. The problem with reusing tape is it can lead to more dropout.

A DV signal is a "set quality"- as long as the data is properly recorded (ie no breakup or glitches) the signal is always the same. This is how you can copy a DV tape a million times and the quality is still the same - it is data stored as "0s" and "1s" not an anolgue signal.

Does that make sense?
 
Dropouts/glitches? Some are hardly noticeable, but they can be pretty terrible. I have seen different equipment tends to have its own "dropout style."

Basically, avoid it, because it is horrible.
 
Dropouts can come in varying strength. The weakest ones, the "sparklies", will corrupt a few pixels here and a few pixels there. The nasty ones, the "venetian blind" dropouts, will cause your whole picture to break up into 9 horizontal bands, where 4 or 5 will be frozen solid and the rest of the image keeps moving.

DV also employs error correction to mask dropouts, so you may be getting more dropouts than you know. Of course, a properly masked dropout is probably irrelevant, so that may not be of much concern.
 
Barry_Green said:
Dropouts can come in varying strength. The weakest ones, the "sparklies", will corrupt a few pixels here and a few pixels there. The nasty ones, the "venetian blind" dropouts, will cause your whole picture to break up into 9 horizontal bands, where 4 or 5 will be frozen solid and the rest of the image keeps moving.

DV also employs error correction to mask dropouts, so you may be getting more dropouts than you know. Of course, a properly masked dropout is probably irrelevant, so that may not be of much concern.
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When you say the weakest ones.......what do those look like maybe can you post a picture somehow....im just trying to see what they look like
 
Sparklies also only (usually) affect a single frame. Sparklies aren't the end of the world; most of the time, you can either cut the frame, or, if you really need to, clone the pixels from another good frame.

But then, sometimes, even the pros don't bother. I've seen them on actual TV shows.
 
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