- DV camera viewfinder
- Posted by Johan Stäck on October 23rd, 2004
Hello,
Right now I am working with a project with a number of DV camcorders
connected to a PC.
Comparing the live DV data on the computer screen with the picture in
the viewfinder and/or flip out LCD, I observe that the viewfinder/LCD
does not show all of the captured picture!
Why is this?
I can understand that in the old-time all-optical cameras it could be
difficult to show an accurate picture in the viewfinder, but in a DV
camcorder, it must be simple to show all of the picture.
Could it be that the manufacturer wants to compensate for the fact that
the DV picture, when shown on a household TV will not be displayed fully??
The cameras right now are all Sony. Maybe other brands behave differently?
/Johan S
- Posted by Richard Crowley on October 23rd, 2004
"Johan Stäck" wrote ...
I have mostly Sony camcorders and have not noticed any
"overscan" in the viewfinders, but your report is troubling.
Can you list model numbers so we can check our own units?
- Posted by Johan Stäck on October 23rd, 2004
Richard Crowley wrote:
TRV900
DCR-HC14E
both are PAL
The problem is not so easy to document (but *very* easy to observe in my
current setup), but I will try to take a digital photo of the LCD
display (once I get the camera back...)
/Johan
- Posted by Donald Link on October 24th, 2004
Unless you have a very high end camera video or digital you will
almost alway find the viewfinder does a lousy job of representing what
you are alway taking.
On Sat, 23 Oct 2004 11:38:03 +0200, Johan Stäck <johan@stack.se>
wrote:
- Posted by Ed Anson on October 24th, 2004
John Stäck wrote:
I have noticed the same thing with my Sony cameras (NTSC). My casual
observation seems to indicate that the viewfinders are displaying the
action safe area. But I haven't taken the time (yet) to verify that. If
that turns out to be true, I think it is a useful feature, because
that's how one should frame the image.
- Posted by Johan Stäck on October 24th, 2004
Ed Anson wrote:
It would be useful if your playback equipment is household TV sets,
since the viewfinder probably reflects what will be visible on the TV
screen.
My applications uses computer screens for playback, and therefore I
consider it (the cropped picture in the viewfinder) to be much more of a
bug that a feature.
(In these cases, the opinions are divided, I know that...)
If I can see the computer screen when adjusting the camera settings
there isn't a problem.
However, sometimes the camera is located far from the computer, and it
becomes difficult to set the camera properly by the viewfinder alone..
In my opinion, today camcorders are stuffed with useless features such
as the various picture effects.
One feature that *would* be useful is a simple setting named
"Cropped viewfinder on/off".
Maybe someday....
/Johan
- Posted by Jeffery S. Jones on October 24th, 2004
On Sun, 24 Oct 2004 11:55:01 +0200, Johan Stäck <johan@stack.se>
wrote:
I think that there is.
But it may not be accessible on your camcorder's menu. It might be
a manufacturer's setting, requiring a hack to access it. Any pro
camera of course should have such a setting.
--
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