When JVC introduced the GR-HD1 in 2003, they decided "Europe isn't ready for HD yet" so they released a version of it in Europe called the GR-PD1, which had the same image sensor as the HD1 but only recorded standard-definition 720x576 video, not 1280x720, at 25 progressive frames per second (25p). But it still used the MPEG2 codec just like the 720p HDV model, except if you switched it into DV compatibility mode.
It is a common misconception that JVC developed ProHD as a proprietary extension to HDV. JVC has stressed that 24-frame/s video and LPCM audio have always been part of the HDV format, but at the time they were initially offered no other HDV camcorder had them. The company went to great lengths to promote the format as an appropriate solution for professional high definition video production. Source Wiki.
Indeed. JVC failed to capitalize on "Professional DV" when they left out film-like rates on the GY-DV500. With HDV, they learned the lesson and were promoting 24p for digital movies, and they were quite successful in this regard.
I knew a guy who broke a focus ring on a broadcast lens, and decided to fix it with Cyanoacrylate, but it was the thin spread type, and it flowed down inside the lens and locked several of the elements together, which completely destroyed the lens... So be very careful... If you do use CA glue, use the gap filling thick formula, and not the thin stuff...
Thanks for sharing this. Frustrating that the two HDV formats were not compatible. The industry has a history of shooting itself in the foot with format wars, especially when it comes to Sony and JVC. But in this case, the HDV format was only a stop gap before tapeless became a thing.
Yes the chromatic aberration performance was woeful for what is a professional lens. Did you experiment with manual/automatic/electronic exposure options? For the back focus adjustment I would try gluing a suitable nut on top of the broken thread and using a screw through that or find a brass threaded insert to glue in on the existing threads and use a smaller locking screw through that.
It was super popular at small city’s local cable TV channels, as a local advertising and NGO camera. Cheap, nobody noticed the difference on analog TV set-top box combo, and had a kinda compressed color and dynamic range, perfect for recording anything without light setup. Like coffee shops, hotel lobbies, train stations, etc.
With you on the Davinci/MPEG2 issues. I was editing some old miniDV footage a couple of months ago, and what a pain it was to get the footage into the timeline! You'd expect something as all-singing-all-dancing as Resolve would be able to handle any video format that you throw at it, especially something as commonplace as miniDV, but instead it involved lots of faffing around transcoding stuff with Handbrake. Sort it out Blackmagic!
Standard Definition miniDV should come across as DV-AVI files, and they do work. But it's HDV MPEG2 files that don't work. We need to ask them to add it.
It looks like that lens has a flange adjustment on that rear ring. Once you make the proper adjustment, the focus will work properly both on zoom in and out positions. Try to find the lens manual for flange explanation. Or maybe it's explained on the JVC camera manual. Note that you have a flange adjustment in the lens of your digibeta camera.
Could you put a wide cable tie around the ring and drill a hole for the locking screw ? It might look a bit messy but it's better than risking getting glue everywhere.
It seems that there's small flats outside of the screw hole in that cracked ring. So it would be possible to machine a small washer/bracket/dunnowhatyoushouldcallit that keeps the ring in one piece when locking screw is tightened with sane torque. I know, I know, pointless, as best fix is the one that got the propblem solved. edit: on the ribbon cable repair - I've pulled that stunt once. Years ago with a dremel and some sort of rubber bit. I've tried many times since and never had any luck. Maybe the cables are older than they used to be and/or I'm more clumsy than I used to be.
I was offered the same equipment about a decade ago, and had no qualms at not keeping it. It's not broadcast spec, it's just industrial equipment. Had no genlock input, RCA video connectors... As you discovered, it's an almost unique recording format (tape-wise). And the unusualness of 720p meant it almost always had to be converted. The camera is from before the days of people watching playback from a file on a drive. They used paired CCDs to achieve the resolution, the left side of the image has a separate sensor than the right, and if not aligned fantastically well, you can see a line running down the dead centre of the image and brightness/contrast differences either side of it. It was glaringly obvious in the camera I was offered. The Firewire ports are frequently wrecked. Firstly there's the obvious and repairable mechanical damage from the connectors getting knocked, and having lots of use. Secondly, the electronics get zapped when people connect them when running from an ungrounded switchmode power supply that floats at a few hundred volts (this eventually does damage). You can see sparks fly when you plug them together at times. People used to wreck the output stages of compact disc players doing the same thing - patching ungrounded and grounded gear's signal leads together after plugging them into the mains, and RCAs often contacted the pins together before the shield. Sometimes you *do* have to plug Firewire gear in while powered and running, as some (seriously stupid) computer equipment would never see a Firewire device as being there if you turned the power on after it was plugged in. And the same systems needing frequent unplugging/replugging to see devices that disappear. My simplistic solution to that problem was *BEFOREHAND* always ensuring that some grounded lead (such as an audio or monitor lead) was connected, and it has to be something that *is* grounded, or a shared common between the two equipment you're patching the Firewire lead between. The camera and VCR deck I was offered both had zapped Firewire electronics, leaving only analogue capture as an option. When parts *were* still available, as a whole board swap, it was around a $1000 repair. For what it's worth, to set back focus the best way, you really want to use something in the very far distance at infinity focus, with the iris wide open (use the high-speed shutter and gain to avoid over-blown video). Don't film through a window, the window glass can affect focus. If you just do it indoors you might find backfocus was always wrong when you went outside. While focus charts help (you can find PDFs on-line and get a print shop to make an A3 print of them), trees in the distance, football towers, streetlight poles, all work quite well. I'd try something like a hose-clamp completely around the lens barrel, spanning across the backfocus ring and an adjacent non-rotating ring on the lens.
Though I didn't show it on the RUclips video, I did check it outdoors with a tree, and back focus is set correctly. But it's not ideal having to glue it like this. A big problem with Firewire is that if the socket wears, it's quite possible to insert the plug back to front. Guess how I know that. And you can imagine the results.
Bonus geeky fact about these: the DV format actually supported four audio tracks (recorded at 32k; if you chose two tracks, you got the full 48k). When they went to HDV, the four tracks went bye bye, and you just had stereo
The JVC is basically an industrial/educational camera... I used to lecture in TV production in FE colleges. We simply wouldn't have had the budget to buy three or four new broadcast cameras; yet still had a requirement to teach and assess students the basics of using this sort of configuration - i.e. setting up back focus, using internal filters, zebra etc. - Both Sony and JVC (and Panasonic for that matter) had a 'history' of serving this sector of the market. - The EVW-300 (Hi8) or KY-17 (SVHS combo) spring to mind. This must have come to the market in the early '00s... Whilst the (relative) complexity had some advantages for teaching purposes; it really sat rather awkwardly in the market. - There was little expandability for example; which made it less useful. The colleges I know of decided to wait it out - and later iterations addressed many of these concerns. If you take a look at the more recent HM850 you'll see where they went with the form factor. Broadcast wise? - The HM750 from about 2012 rates as an EBU 'Tier 2J' broadcast camera and is about the first of 'the family' (AFAIK) to be considered suitable - though even that (strictly speaking) requires an external recorder as its native data rate is considered too low.
Twenty years ago, when broadcasters were serious about HD, the minimum for HD was 50 Mbps 4:2:2. HDV was not HD. 16-mm film was not HD. Nowadays it seems they don't care much. In the US OTA TV still uses MPEG-2, and at 5 Mbps it looks like garbage. A camcorder like this would do just fine. Even in the heyday of HD you were allowed to use non-HD for a portion of HD program. In the US, some HD programs have been fully shot in "non-HD", like Art Wolfe's TV series _Travels to the Edge_ for PBS shot with the Canon XL-H1. Casting off this camcorder merely as industrial/educational camera is unfair.
@@ConsumerDV Sadly I cannot post the link here; but I would suggest downloading the BBC's 'technical delivery standards' document, which is freely available, and pretty-much common to all UK broadcasters; and also the EBU R118 document which gives the technical requirements for broadcast cameras. We haven't actually been _allowed_ to originate on tape for many years... We are _obliged_ to originate with respect to the EBU R118 standards. Output is an MXF OP1a file, AVC Intra Class 100 compression for HD, and IMX at 50 Mb/s for SD - there being a UK-specific DPP AS-11 standard. - If you fail to comply with these standards, you won't be able sell your programme. - I've no idea what goes on in the US; but here in the UK you work to the standards or you don't work! Factually - and I can tell you this because I am a former College lecturer in TV production and was there at the time - when those cameras were sold in the UK, they were heavily pushed to the educational market. Some institutions did use them - there are some comments here from someone who attended Staffordshire University and used them there. Others institutions waited a few years until the card-based versions started to emerge. Their key selling point was their close operational similarity to full size ENG cameras at a relatively low cost... and of course they were a step up from the Hi8/SVHS industrial/educational machines which (a) preceded them and (b) were generally close to the end of their service life. But... 720p was never was never going to 'catch on' here simply because it wasn't much better subjectively than 625/PAL. I've worked in the broadcast industry for some 45 years now; my initial training was in ENG... and I've run my own production company since 1986 in parallel with teaching and working as a freelance cameraman. To the best of my knowledge, no broadcaster used those camera outside a training environment.
@@Matt_Quinn-Personal_Account Thanks, I was not sure whether the rules are strictly obeyed in the UK. In the US, flagship channels and programs used to require "true" HD equipment, while second tier broadcasters like Travel Channel happily accepted HDV, which would not be accepted in the UK even for HD 2J Tier. Here is a bit of 2007 news from the US: "JVC Professional Products Company announced an agreement with Scripps Television Station Group to provide ProHD cameras and accessories as part of Scripps’ plan to upgrade all of its television stations to HD. Under this agreement, Scripps will purchase more than 150 GY-HD250 ProHD camcorders, over 150 BR-HD50sProHD recorder/players, more than 300 DRHD10060G HD hard disk recorders and approximately 100 DTV monitors. This announcement follows the Fall 2006 purchase of JVC GY-HD250s by WXYZTV, the Scripps ABC-affiliate in Detroit, MI. WXYZ-TV upgraded its local news coverage to HD on October 4, 2006, and used the GY-HD250s for its HD coverage of the November election." The HD250 improved the HD200 by adding genlock and HD/SDI output, so maybe they used them as camera heads to stream uncompressed.
@@ConsumerDV ...Unless the material is of some exceptional event; tape is a non-starter these days. _There is_ some unofficial leeway with respect to what 'tier' of camera can be used; especially in local news where sometimes they seem to be shooting B roll with potatoes! - And with 'topical' content; but pretty much it is what it is. 2007; well, that was 17 years ago - quite a while now. I guess Scripps have moved on; but over here they're mostly associated with 'backwater' SD channels filled with end-to-end 'paranormal guff. I think they're on HD via streaming and satellite; but no great shakes. These cameras evolved into the HM700/800 series; the 700 had an uncompressed 1080 4:2:2 output via the SDI port; it's at this point notice started to be taken of them here... At first they recorded XDCamEX onto SxS cards via a 'piggyback' recorder; but there was a firmware update in late 2009 which facilitated this on the internal SDHC cards. - Again, it would mostly be Colleges and Universities that bought them - maybe some industrial/event use; but when they upgraded the connectivity, that really opened up the system. Trouble is... they stuck to 35Mbps; which was deemed unacceptable in EBU terms! In theory at least; you required and external recorder! It wasn't 'till we got to the 850 that there was a 50Mbps internal option - late to the party and probably the end of the line with the 890... which came out a decade or so ago!
Setting the back focus can be quite trying on the nerves... To do it correctly you need a back focus test card, and at least 15 to 20 metres of space between the card and the camera. That being said, you can usually get it close by zooming in on something somewhat far away and front focusing on it, and then zoom, all the way out and back focus on the wide shot. Then zoom back in and repeat until it is in focus close up and far away, the focus should properly track between the two points if the len is not damaged. I'm been doing back focus for years in the field, usually lots of fun... :)
Those cameras play in different leagues. The Sony has 3 3/4 inch sensors and records 4:2:2 10 bit intraframe whereas the JVC has 3 1/3 inch sensors and records 4:2:0 8 bit long gop (or intra in DV mode). Moreover, if I'm not mistaken, this first generation camera didn't have real HD sensors and used pixel shifting to achieve an HD image. The tape mechanism also seems sturdier in the Sony. All that being said, the JVC cost much, much less and was more lightweight. There was an optional hard disk recorder for the JVC that took advantage of the firewire connector to store files ready for editing without the need for capturing the tape in real time. Also, the (then owned by Sony) Vegas software* was compatible with all HDV variants and could render whithout recompression if there was only cuts between clips. * Maybe other software had it too, I don't remember.
I believe the JVC sensors are real 720p, but yes I agree, the Sony is a more professional piece of kit despite the lower resolution. I will provide shots from both of them in a few weeks.
@@video99couk Lower resolution and bigger sensor usually mean better S/N and wider dynamic range. The good thing about the 720/50p is that you don't have to deal with nasty deinterlacing.
@@video99couk _All_ mainstream UK HD broadcast is interlaced. - We're required to submit 1920 x 1080 as defined in EBU TECH 3299 System 2; 25 frames per second (50 fields) interlaced - 1080i/25, top field first; 4:2:2; colour space per ITU-R BT 709 - AVC Intra Class 100. - You'll find all the main broadcasters post a document entitled "Technical Delivery Standards" "As-11". UHD needs to be originated as progressive scan though.
I wonder if Panasonic DVCPRO-HD decks would play that format back, there is a DVCPRO-HD 720P/24. One client used it at one of their facilities for about a year or so. the DVCPRO-HD decks will let you know that it's 720P/24 and convert it to 1080i, if you want 720P you have to switch settings in the deck.
@@Matt_Quinn-Personal_Account I loved the hd side for green screen. SD was great - I captured component for one project. (On my channel - memorandum) (green screen - fresh prince of Egypt intro)
@@MePeterNicholls - what college were you at Peter? Was it the HNC/D you did? - They _can_ be very good cameras; but do require careful set-up and a degree of fineness in use. - Of course; teaching that fineness is part of it's purpose. - The form-factor didn't really start to 'come of age' until they introduced the HM700; by which time things were moving on.
@@Matt_Quinn-Personal_Account BA media film production. Staffs uni. I got quite good at setting them up but course was concentrating on production rather than being that technical. But most of us were pretty savvy
@@MePeterNicholls ...So Staffs took a batch of them then; didn't know that. Yeah; if you understand your lighting and know what everything does, they can be a very useful tool in that sort of context.
I've would have tried to find a 5mm Self-Tapping Threaded Inserts Sleeve and glue it with epoxy and then use a thumb screw that fits the inside thread.
Pinnacle? I usually use a simple program HDVSplit that already outputs video file including audio tracks. I use Vegas, it supports both DV and HDV files. Maybe you could install some plugins in Resolve to open the videos.
@@video99couk ScenalyzerLive has never failed me and it;s ana abandonware with latest release in 2006. Just a basic program with bare settings copying a video from tape with tape tansport support for DV-type devices, also works with analog to FireWire passthrough.
@@SFtheGreat I've done a quick search for ScenalyzerLive, but don't want to go willy-nilly downloading, do you have a specific place you get it from? Thanks in advance!
I know someone who has a similar JVC HDV model. He demonstrated it to me a couple of years ago. To be honest I wasn't very impressed by the picture quality compared to my Sony HDV camera. The form factor looks nice though. It looks like it would be a lot easier to carry around than a full size DVCAM/Betacam model.
Hey, I'm sorry to say that I have been sponsored by and used JVC camcorders since the early 80s and they, as a support company, have been amazing, right through all of their formats until the present day. Something I couldn't afford to do with Sony. I'm sad they're finally dropping the professional market. 😞Rob
I don't think many people would say that of Panasonic (who were related to JVC at the time). Panasonic support was very poor from what I've been told, which along with reliability issues resulted in the demise of MII and DVCPRO. But how closely tied were JVC and Panasonic? I don't know. In the domestic market, JVC got an unenviable reputation for poor reliability, probably the worst of all Japanese manufacturers. Was their professional equipment completely different to their domestic product line? If you had good results from JVC professional equipment, it was presumably very different to the domestic equipment. I think the deck in my professional D9 machine is broadly a domestic S-VHS machine though.
What do you do with the video recorders you get and fix? I have several important films, etc, that I made and mastered on D9. My edit recorder has been in store for 20 years and is not very well. I would love to be able to have digital copies of them from a decent machine. The one thing that even I couldn't understand is that JVC only put a CVBS monitor output on the camera! The only quality copy you can get is from one of the various edit recorders. Love your videos.
could you epoxy a square 5m washer/nut, those thin ones you get? over the original space. or maybe a jubilee strap you coud screw on and off; over the ring. Not pretty but might work.
The space is too narrow for a jubilee clip, and that would keep sliding out of place. If I were to glue a nut to the ring, it would still push the broken ring away from its location. It's a very flimsy design. I wonder how many of these had the same part break.
If your back focus (flange focal length) is that far off from the indicated position (the f f sticker) then you have a big problem or that lens is not the correct type for that mount. I couldn't see which lens you have, but I'd guess that camera is a 1/3 inch sensor size which is normally a very different flange focal length, even if it used a B4 mount. You also need to be careful with the lens type, the green ring says it was HD compatible, pretty sure the green printing is the same. The older standard def. lenses were a lot more sloppy about how well they controlled the focus point.
The only thing I can think of for the lens is to send it off to Fuji for repair. I think you will find the lens from the Sony will fit fine on the JVC.
Being a professional machine I would have expected that portable deck to have a cast and machined base plate on the tape transport. That's a bit disappointing.
JVC was a founding member of HDV consortium, along with Sony, Canon and Sharp. A little known fact is that JVC was one of the leading developers of MPEG-2. For HDV, JVC chose 720p, Sony and Canon chose 1080i. Later, Sony and Canon added prog-scan film-like rates to HDV 1080, but if you wanted 50p/60p you had to get a JVC machine. ProHD is just marketing lingo for using a consumer-grade HD format - that is, HDV - in a shoulder-mount body. Some equated "ProHD" with 24p, but 24p had been in the HDV spec from the beginning.
These cameras had problems with their image sensors. Firstly, they got hot and there is a fan, secondly - unlike larger Sony cameras, the sensor itself was only glued to the prism, even though the design also has holes for mounting screws. As a result, I saw several such cameras with sensors detached or damaged. Not very pro equipment.
I'm wondering, since that flexicable was probably made by the same technologies as flexible PCBs... would it be feasible to just draw up the cable in KiCAD or something and send it off to be manufactured. That shouldn't be outrageously expensive. (probably less than 100 Euros for such a small part.)
Did you scrape the plastic away from wrong side of flat cable? It looked like it from here, so when cable is inserted the scraped away part is away from the contacts
The JVC camera is using a format that ain't robust enough to be call Broadcast. An HDCAM would be best even if not HDCAM SR. Those where full res, not thin raster like the HDV format. HDV is a predigtive frame mpeg2 transport stream 1440*1080i 4:2:0 format afterthought inplace of the full SD format 5:14:1:1 with no predictive frame thus easier to edit. I would go for an HDCAM or DiGITAl Betacam for SD anytime but recording the HD-SDI output on a prores or DNxHD file recorder on the back..
In the UK it was pushed at the educational market... and I guess the wedding/videography trade. The form-factor was good, and eventually led to them developing a credible ENG camera; but the format wasn't enough of a 'step up' from 625/PAL to be of great interest here.
Uhh... I might suggest something related to a Bondic liquid welder kit that Vat19 had advertised on RUclips. That would solve that issue you were having with the camcorder's lens.
just a bit of fun you have alot of the betacam format in your racks there are still alot around i get asked alot to take them of there hands i said yes to a betacam 510 as i did not have it is working ok now jammed up parts easy fix the studio i got the deck from said he having a hard time selling them as alot of people are selling up now and there's alot of gear just not getting used the video was dryed up and was just sitting not used computers do all the video work now
Let me give you the skinny on why JVC did what it did. If you liked Standard Definition, the DV25 format did a superb job of capturing stuff. Because everyone liked the small DV tapes, and had been shooting with them since the early 90s, they decided to go with an MPEG2 wrapper HD format that could even be sent down IEEE 1394 (FireWire). The upshot was 1080i HDV. The problem was that these early 1080i cameras had a lot of compression artifacts because the two fields per frame thing really worked to the detriment of capturing moving images, especially anything with wheels. So JVC said, "Hey, we'll come up with a progressive format in MPEG2, and voila! far less "judder" (the coinage from shudder mixed with jitter). So in some ways, the 720p was better than the 1080i.
I love looking at this old stuff from a nostalgia point of view, but my phone can take a better video. Try Black super glue. Its expensive but very strong.
A co-worker of mine (broadcast engineer) would call that JVC a wedding camera.
When JVC introduced the GR-HD1 in 2003, they decided "Europe isn't ready for HD yet" so they released a version of it in Europe called the GR-PD1, which had the same image sensor as the HD1 but only recorded standard-definition 720x576 video, not 1280x720, at 25 progressive frames per second (25p). But it still used the MPEG2 codec just like the 720p HDV model, except if you switched it into DV compatibility mode.
It is a common misconception that JVC developed ProHD as a proprietary extension to HDV. JVC has stressed that 24-frame/s video and LPCM audio have always been part of the HDV format, but at the time they were initially offered no other HDV camcorder had them. The company went to great lengths to promote the format as an appropriate solution for professional high definition video production.
Source Wiki.
Indeed. JVC failed to capitalize on "Professional DV" when they left out film-like rates on the GY-DV500. With HDV, they learned the lesson and were promoting 24p for digital movies, and they were quite successful in this regard.
I knew a guy who broke a focus ring on a broadcast lens, and decided to fix it with Cyanoacrylate, but it was the thin spread type, and it flowed down inside the lens and locked several of the elements together, which completely destroyed the lens... So be very careful... If you do use CA glue, use the gap filling thick formula, and not the thin stuff...
I was very, very careful for just that reason.
@@video99couk you also use a small amount of baking soda as a filler/kicker to set the CA glue very quickly...
Thanks for sharing this.
Frustrating that the two HDV formats were not compatible. The industry has a history of shooting itself in the foot with format wars, especially when it comes to Sony and JVC. But in this case, the HDV format was only a stop gap before tapeless became a thing.
Next time, glue a 5 mm aluminum nut above the old hole and clamp to broken ring sides, use the 5 mm bolt to prevent glue ingress.
Try using a thin strip of brass, drill a hole in it to allow access to the hole, and put it over and farther across the top and glue it down.
Yes the chromatic aberration performance was woeful for what is a professional lens. Did you experiment with manual/automatic/electronic exposure options?
For the back focus adjustment I would try gluing a suitable nut on top of the broken thread and using a screw through that or find a brass threaded insert to glue in on the existing threads and use a smaller locking screw through that.
Yes I was using manual exposure at that point. If I selected auto, it stopped down far too much and took out the brightness of the scene.
It was super popular at small city’s local cable TV channels, as a local advertising and NGO camera. Cheap, nobody noticed the difference on analog TV set-top box combo, and had a kinda compressed color and dynamic range, perfect for recording anything without light setup. Like coffee shops, hotel lobbies, train stations, etc.
With you on the Davinci/MPEG2 issues. I was editing some old miniDV footage a couple of months ago, and what a pain it was to get the footage into the timeline! You'd expect something as all-singing-all-dancing as Resolve would be able to handle any video format that you throw at it, especially something as commonplace as miniDV, but instead it involved lots of faffing around transcoding stuff with Handbrake. Sort it out Blackmagic!
Standard Definition miniDV should come across as DV-AVI files, and they do work. But it's HDV MPEG2 files that don't work. We need to ask them to add it.
It looks like that lens has a flange adjustment on that rear ring. Once you make the proper adjustment, the focus will work properly both on zoom in and out positions. Try to find the lens manual for flange explanation. Or maybe it's explained on the JVC camera manual. Note that you have a flange adjustment in the lens of your digibeta camera.
Could you put a wide cable tie around the ring and drill a hole for the locking screw ?
It might look a bit messy but it's better than risking getting glue everywhere.
It seems that there's small flats outside of the screw hole in that cracked ring. So it would be possible to machine a small washer/bracket/dunnowhatyoushouldcallit that keeps the ring in one piece when locking screw is tightened with sane torque. I know, I know, pointless, as best fix is the one that got the propblem solved.
edit: on the ribbon cable repair - I've pulled that stunt once. Years ago with a dremel and some sort of rubber bit. I've tried many times since and never had any luck. Maybe the cables are older than they used to be and/or I'm more clumsy than I used to be.
I was offered the same equipment about a decade ago, and had no qualms at not keeping it. It's not broadcast spec, it's just industrial equipment. Had no genlock input, RCA video connectors...
As you discovered, it's an almost unique recording format (tape-wise). And the unusualness of 720p meant it almost always had to be converted. The camera is from before the days of people watching playback from a file on a drive.
They used paired CCDs to achieve the resolution, the left side of the image has a separate sensor than the right, and if not aligned fantastically well, you can see a line running down the dead centre of the image and brightness/contrast differences either side of it. It was glaringly obvious in the camera I was offered.
The Firewire ports are frequently wrecked. Firstly there's the obvious and repairable mechanical damage from the connectors getting knocked, and having lots of use. Secondly, the electronics get zapped when people connect them when running from an ungrounded switchmode power supply that floats at a few hundred volts (this eventually does damage). You can see sparks fly when you plug them together at times.
People used to wreck the output stages of compact disc players doing the same thing - patching ungrounded and grounded gear's signal leads together after plugging them into the mains, and RCAs often contacted the pins together before the shield.
Sometimes you *do* have to plug Firewire gear in while powered and running, as some (seriously stupid) computer equipment would never see a Firewire device as being there if you turned the power on after it was plugged in. And the same systems needing frequent unplugging/replugging to see devices that disappear. My simplistic solution to that problem was *BEFOREHAND* always ensuring that some grounded lead (such as an audio or monitor lead) was connected, and it has to be something that *is* grounded, or a shared common between the two equipment you're patching the Firewire lead between.
The camera and VCR deck I was offered both had zapped Firewire electronics, leaving only analogue capture as an option. When parts *were* still available, as a whole board swap, it was around a $1000 repair.
For what it's worth, to set back focus the best way, you really want to use something in the very far distance at infinity focus, with the iris wide open (use the high-speed shutter and gain to avoid over-blown video). Don't film through a window, the window glass can affect focus. If you just do it indoors you might find backfocus was always wrong when you went outside. While focus charts help (you can find PDFs on-line and get a print shop to make an A3 print of them), trees in the distance, football towers, streetlight poles, all work quite well. I'd try something like a hose-clamp completely around the lens barrel, spanning across the backfocus ring and an adjacent non-rotating ring on the lens.
Though I didn't show it on the RUclips video, I did check it outdoors with a tree, and back focus is set correctly. But it's not ideal having to glue it like this. A big problem with Firewire is that if the socket wears, it's quite possible to insert the plug back to front. Guess how I know that. And you can imagine the results.
@@video99couk can you think of a way to make a tight friction band to go around it? That might be your best bet for a non-fixed back-focus.
Bonus geeky fact about these: the DV format actually supported four audio tracks (recorded at 32k; if you chose two tracks, you got the full 48k). When they went to HDV, the four tracks went bye bye, and you just had stereo
So the four audio channels is only for standard definition DV, not HDV mode? Oh dear.
Yes!!! I have a Sony DSR PDX10 and noticed those audio settings. Very interesting stuff. I suppose it’s only a visible setting on DVCAM operations
The JVC is basically an industrial/educational camera... I used to lecture in TV production in FE colleges. We simply wouldn't have had the budget to buy three or four new broadcast cameras; yet still had a requirement to teach and assess students the basics of using this sort of configuration - i.e. setting up back focus, using internal filters, zebra etc. - Both Sony and JVC (and Panasonic for that matter) had a 'history' of serving this sector of the market. - The EVW-300 (Hi8) or KY-17 (SVHS combo) spring to mind.
This must have come to the market in the early '00s... Whilst the (relative) complexity had some advantages for teaching purposes; it really sat rather awkwardly in the market. - There was little expandability for example; which made it less useful. The colleges I know of decided to wait it out - and later iterations addressed many of these concerns. If you take a look at the more recent HM850 you'll see where they went with the form factor.
Broadcast wise? - The HM750 from about 2012 rates as an EBU 'Tier 2J' broadcast camera and is about the first of 'the family' (AFAIK) to be considered suitable - though even that (strictly speaking) requires an external recorder as its native data rate is considered too low.
Twenty years ago, when broadcasters were serious about HD, the minimum for HD was 50 Mbps 4:2:2. HDV was not HD. 16-mm film was not HD. Nowadays it seems they don't care much. In the US OTA TV still uses MPEG-2, and at 5 Mbps it looks like garbage. A camcorder like this would do just fine. Even in the heyday of HD you were allowed to use non-HD for a portion of HD program. In the US, some HD programs have been fully shot in "non-HD", like Art Wolfe's TV series _Travels to the Edge_ for PBS shot with the Canon XL-H1. Casting off this camcorder merely as industrial/educational camera is unfair.
@@ConsumerDV Sadly I cannot post the link here; but I would suggest downloading the BBC's 'technical delivery standards' document, which is freely available, and pretty-much common to all UK broadcasters; and also the EBU R118 document which gives the technical requirements for broadcast cameras.
We haven't actually been _allowed_ to originate on tape for many years... We are _obliged_ to originate with respect to the EBU R118 standards. Output is an MXF OP1a file, AVC Intra Class 100 compression for HD, and IMX at 50 Mb/s for SD - there being a UK-specific DPP AS-11 standard. - If you fail to comply with these standards, you won't be able sell your programme. - I've no idea what goes on in the US; but here in the UK you work to the standards or you don't work!
Factually - and I can tell you this because I am a former College lecturer in TV production and was there at the time - when those cameras were sold in the UK, they were heavily pushed to the educational market. Some institutions did use them - there are some comments here from someone who attended Staffordshire University and used them there. Others institutions waited a few years until the card-based versions started to emerge. Their key selling point was their close operational similarity to full size ENG cameras at a relatively low cost... and of course they were a step up from the Hi8/SVHS industrial/educational machines which (a) preceded them and (b) were generally close to the end of their service life. But... 720p was never was never going to 'catch on' here simply because it wasn't much better subjectively than 625/PAL.
I've worked in the broadcast industry for some 45 years now; my initial training was in ENG... and I've run my own production company since 1986 in parallel with teaching and working as a freelance cameraman. To the best of my knowledge, no broadcaster used those camera outside a training environment.
@@Matt_Quinn-Personal_Account Thanks, I was not sure whether the rules are strictly obeyed in the UK. In the US, flagship channels and programs used to require "true" HD equipment, while second tier broadcasters like Travel Channel happily accepted HDV, which would not be accepted in the UK even for HD 2J Tier. Here is a bit of 2007 news from the US: "JVC Professional Products Company announced an agreement with Scripps Television Station Group to provide ProHD cameras and accessories as part of Scripps’ plan to upgrade all of its television stations to HD. Under this agreement, Scripps will purchase more than 150 GY-HD250 ProHD camcorders, over 150 BR-HD50sProHD recorder/players, more than 300 DRHD10060G HD hard disk recorders and approximately 100 DTV monitors. This announcement follows the Fall 2006 purchase of JVC GY-HD250s by WXYZTV, the Scripps ABC-affiliate in Detroit, MI. WXYZ-TV upgraded its local news coverage to HD on October 4, 2006, and used the GY-HD250s for its HD coverage of the November election." The HD250 improved the HD200 by adding genlock and HD/SDI output, so maybe they used them as camera heads to stream uncompressed.
@@ConsumerDV ...Unless the material is of some exceptional event; tape is a non-starter these days. _There is_ some unofficial leeway with respect to what 'tier' of camera can be used; especially in local news where sometimes they seem to be shooting B roll with potatoes! - And with 'topical' content; but pretty much it is what it is. 2007; well, that was 17 years ago - quite a while now. I guess Scripps have moved on; but over here they're mostly associated with 'backwater' SD channels filled with end-to-end 'paranormal guff. I think they're on HD via streaming and satellite; but no great shakes.
These cameras evolved into the HM700/800 series; the 700 had an uncompressed 1080 4:2:2 output via the SDI port; it's at this point notice started to be taken of them here... At first they recorded XDCamEX onto SxS cards via a 'piggyback' recorder; but there was a firmware update in late 2009 which facilitated this on the internal SDHC cards. - Again, it would mostly be Colleges and Universities that bought them - maybe some industrial/event use; but when they upgraded the connectivity, that really opened up the system.
Trouble is... they stuck to 35Mbps; which was deemed unacceptable in EBU terms! In theory at least; you required and external recorder! It wasn't 'till we got to the 850 that there was a 50Mbps internal option - late to the party and probably the end of the line with the 890... which came out a decade or so ago!
Setting the back focus can be quite trying on the nerves... To do it correctly you need a back focus test card, and at least 15 to 20 metres of space between the card and the camera.
That being said, you can usually get it close by zooming in on something somewhat far away and front focusing on it, and then zoom, all the way out and back focus on the wide shot. Then zoom back in and repeat until it is in focus close up and far away, the focus should properly track between the two points if the len is not damaged. I'm been doing back focus for years in the field, usually lots of fun... :)
Those cameras play in different leagues. The Sony has 3 3/4 inch sensors and records 4:2:2 10 bit intraframe whereas the JVC has 3 1/3 inch sensors and records 4:2:0 8 bit long gop (or intra in DV mode). Moreover, if I'm not mistaken, this first generation camera didn't have real HD sensors and used pixel shifting to achieve an HD image. The tape mechanism also seems sturdier in the Sony. All that being said, the JVC cost much, much less and was more lightweight. There was an optional hard disk recorder for the JVC that took advantage of the firewire connector to store files ready for editing without the need for capturing the tape in real time. Also, the (then owned by Sony) Vegas software* was compatible with all HDV variants and could render whithout recompression if there was only cuts between clips. * Maybe other software had it too, I don't remember.
I believe the JVC sensors are real 720p, but yes I agree, the Sony is a more professional piece of kit despite the lower resolution. I will provide shots from both of them in a few weeks.
@@video99couk Lower resolution and bigger sensor usually mean better S/N and wider dynamic range. The good thing about the 720/50p is that you don't have to deal with nasty deinterlacing.
@@UHF43 But for some broadcast case uses back in the day, interlacing was required. Isn't Sky HD still interlaced at broadcast?
@@video99couk _All_ mainstream UK HD broadcast is interlaced. - We're required to submit 1920 x 1080 as defined in EBU TECH 3299 System 2; 25 frames per second (50 fields) interlaced - 1080i/25, top field first; 4:2:2; colour space per ITU-R BT 709 - AVC Intra Class 100. - You'll find all the main broadcasters post a document entitled "Technical Delivery Standards" "As-11".
UHD needs to be originated as progressive scan though.
@@Matt_Quinn-Personal_Account In Germany they choosed 720p50 for HD. So for them it was native format for decade.
I wonder if Panasonic DVCPRO-HD decks would play that format back, there is a DVCPRO-HD 720P/24. One client used it at one of their facilities for about a year or so. the DVCPRO-HD decks will let you know that it's 720P/24 and convert it to 1080i, if you want 720P you have to switch settings in the deck.
Fairly sure it won't, but I will try one in my DVCPRO-HD machine.
Your wish is my command: ruclips.net/user/shortsEk4j8TYwIHo
We had these cans at film school. Loved em.
...That was one of their key target markets. I was lecturing at the time, and they were pushed quite enthusiastically by JVC to us.
@@Matt_Quinn-Personal_Account I loved the hd side for green screen. SD was great - I captured component for one project. (On my channel - memorandum) (green screen - fresh prince of Egypt intro)
@@MePeterNicholls - what college were you at Peter? Was it the HNC/D you did? - They _can_ be very good cameras; but do require careful set-up and a degree of fineness in use. - Of course; teaching that fineness is part of it's purpose. - The form-factor didn't really start to 'come of age' until they introduced the HM700; by which time things were moving on.
@@Matt_Quinn-Personal_Account BA media film production. Staffs uni. I got quite good at setting them up but course was concentrating on production rather than being that technical. But most of us were pretty savvy
@@MePeterNicholls ...So Staffs took a batch of them then; didn't know that. Yeah; if you understand your lighting and know what everything does, they can be a very useful tool in that sort of context.
I've would have tried to find a 5mm Self-Tapping Threaded Inserts Sleeve and glue it with epoxy and then use a thumb screw that fits the inside thread.
Pinnacle? I usually use a simple program HDVSplit that already outputs video file including audio tracks. I use Vegas, it supports both DV and HDV files. Maybe you could install some plugins in Resolve to open the videos.
Older versions of Pinnacle studio have a high "get the job done" factor for video capture. I do occasionally use winDV for DV capture too.
@@video99couk ScenalyzerLive has never failed me and it;s ana abandonware with latest release in 2006. Just a basic program with bare settings copying a video from tape with tape tansport support for DV-type devices, also works with analog to FireWire passthrough.
@@SFtheGreat I've done a quick search for ScenalyzerLive, but don't want to go willy-nilly downloading, do you have a specific place you get it from? Thanks in advance!
For the focus ring, would a large jubilee clip with a hole drilled in it be a solution, or 2 thin cable ties (either side of the lock screw)?
I know someone who has a similar JVC HDV model. He demonstrated it to me a couple of years ago. To be honest I wasn't very impressed by the picture quality compared to my Sony HDV camera. The form factor looks nice though. It looks like it would be a lot easier to carry around than a full size DVCAM/Betacam model.
Hey, I'm sorry to say that I have been sponsored by and used JVC camcorders since the early 80s and they, as a support company, have been amazing, right through all of their formats until the present day. Something I couldn't afford to do with Sony. I'm sad they're finally dropping the professional market. 😞Rob
I don't think many people would say that of Panasonic (who were related to JVC at the time). Panasonic support was very poor from what I've been told, which along with reliability issues resulted in the demise of MII and DVCPRO. But how closely tied were JVC and Panasonic? I don't know. In the domestic market, JVC got an unenviable reputation for poor reliability, probably the worst of all Japanese manufacturers. Was their professional equipment completely different to their domestic product line? If you had good results from JVC professional equipment, it was presumably very different to the domestic equipment. I think the deck in my professional D9 machine is broadly a domestic S-VHS machine though.
What do you do with the video recorders you get and fix? I have several important films, etc, that I made and mastered on D9. My edit recorder has been in store for 20 years and is not very well.
I would love to be able to have digital copies of them from a decent machine. The one thing that even I couldn't understand is that JVC only put a CVBS monitor output on the camera! The only quality copy you can get is from one of the various edit recorders.
Love your videos.
What about 2 pieces of copper wire , from a cable , impregnated with bi component glue , next to the thread hole , so it has more structural strenght?
could you epoxy a square 5m washer/nut, those thin ones you get? over the original space. or maybe a jubilee strap you coud screw on and off; over the ring. Not pretty but might work.
The space is too narrow for a jubilee clip, and that would keep sliding out of place. If I were to glue a nut to the ring, it would still push the broken ring away from its location. It's a very flimsy design. I wonder how many of these had the same part break.
If your back focus (flange focal length) is that far off from the indicated position (the f f sticker) then you have a big problem or that lens is not the correct type for that mount. I couldn't see which lens you have, but I'd guess that camera is a 1/3 inch sensor size which is normally a very different flange focal length, even if it used a B4 mount. You also need to be careful with the lens type, the green ring says it was HD compatible, pretty sure the green printing is the same. The older standard def. lenses were a lot more sloppy about how well they controlled the focus point.
It's not off the F.f sticker, it's right in the middle of it. But it was way off because it wasn't possible to lock down.
That's one of the lenses JVC supplied with this 'family' of cameras as standard. - They are 1/3".
The only thing I can think of for the lens is to send it off to Fuji for repair. I think you will find the lens from the Sony will fit fine on the JVC.
The Sony is 2/3 the JVC 1/3 so, sadly, no. - There is an adaptor, but it's stupidly expensive.
@@Matt_Quinn-Personal_Account I did forget to account for that possibility of a different CCD size.
Have you tried HDVSplit software?
Being a professional machine I would have expected that portable deck to have a cast and machined base plate on the tape transport. That's a bit disappointing.
JVC was a founding member of HDV consortium, along with Sony, Canon and Sharp. A little known fact is that JVC was one of the leading developers of MPEG-2. For HDV, JVC chose 720p, Sony and Canon chose 1080i. Later, Sony and Canon added prog-scan film-like rates to HDV 1080, but if you wanted 50p/60p you had to get a JVC machine. ProHD is just marketing lingo for using a consumer-grade HD format - that is, HDV - in a shoulder-mount body. Some equated "ProHD" with 24p, but 24p had been in the HDV spec from the beginning.
I have a camera JVC GY hd-100E with an adapter for v mount batteries
Interesting video about a format I did not know existed. I suspect the budget microphone isn't as directional as its design would suggest.
That may be true. I don't suppose it's as good as the Sony, but for the price and for what I will use it for, it's astounding value for money.
These cameras had problems with their image sensors. Firstly, they got hot and there is a fan, secondly - unlike larger Sony cameras, the sensor itself was only glued to the prism, even though the design also has holes for mounting screws. As a result, I saw several such cameras with sensors detached or damaged. Not very pro equipment.
The fan plus head motor adds up to quite a lot of noise.
I'm wondering, since that flexicable was probably made by the same technologies as flexible PCBs... would it be feasible to just draw up the cable in KiCAD or something and send it off to be manufactured. That shouldn't be outrageously expensive. (probably less than 100 Euros for such a small part.)
Maybe, but I think it's a complicated shape. I can't really get to the head drum end without a major strip down.
would a flexible pcb from say jlcpcb work to replace the cable?
Perhaps, but getting to the top end of the cable is non trivial.
Could the cable coating be dissolved with heat or something like acetone?
Acetone might be a little too successful.
Did you scrape the plastic away from wrong side of flat cable? It looked like it from here, so when cable is inserted the scraped away part is away from the contacts
No, it's taken from the side of the metal contacts in the socket. But the socket is in a sorry state too.
Nice work on the flex cable. (It would be the video drum though. Ugh.)
Shame the machine does'nt work.
Well it doesn't work yet. I'm not finished with it.
@@video99couk Good luck. I hope you can fix it. 👍
digitaal betacam @@frankowalker4662
The JVC camera is using a format that ain't robust enough to be call Broadcast. An HDCAM would be best even if not HDCAM SR. Those where full res, not thin raster like the HDV format.
HDV is a predigtive frame mpeg2 transport stream 1440*1080i 4:2:0 format afterthought inplace of the full SD format 5:1 4:1:1 with no predictive frame thus easier to edit.
I would go for an HDCAM or DiGITAl Betacam for SD anytime but recording the HD-SDI output on a prores or DNxHD file recorder on the back..
Too much compression. Maybe it was a camera for tv reports ?
In the UK it was pushed at the educational market... and I guess the wedding/videography trade. The form-factor was good, and eventually led to them developing a credible ENG camera; but the format wasn't enough of a 'step up' from 625/PAL to be of great interest here.
Uhh... I might suggest something related to a Bondic liquid welder kit that Vat19 had advertised on RUclips. That would solve that issue you were having with the camcorder's lens.
just a bit of fun you have alot of the betacam format in your racks there are still alot around i get asked alot to take them of there hands
i said yes to a betacam 510 as i did not have it is working ok now jammed up parts easy fix
the studio i got the deck from said he having a hard time selling them as alot of people are selling up now and there's alot of gear just not getting
used the video was dryed up and was just sitting not used computers do all the video work now
Let me give you the skinny on why JVC did what it did. If you liked Standard Definition, the DV25 format did a superb job of capturing stuff. Because everyone liked the small DV tapes, and had been shooting with them since the early 90s, they decided to go with an MPEG2 wrapper HD format that could even be sent down IEEE 1394 (FireWire). The upshot was 1080i HDV. The problem was that these early 1080i cameras had a lot of compression artifacts because the two fields per frame thing really worked to the detriment of capturing moving images, especially anything with wheels. So JVC said, "Hey, we'll come up with a progressive format in MPEG2, and voila! far less "judder" (the coinage from shudder mixed with jitter). So in some ways, the 720p was better than the 1080i.
I love looking at this old stuff from a nostalgia point of view, but my phone can take a better video.
Try Black super glue. Its expensive but very strong.
Video99 shows us more of his relic junk 🗑️👎
...And still, he earns a decent living with it; so puts it to legitimate purpose. -You seem to have a problem David, and showing signs of ill-health.