White Paper 034 Addendum 1: Menu settings for Sony HDCAM, HDW900

Alan Roberts

Abstract

Data for this section is taken from the handbooks of several Sony HDW900 cameras. This model developed from the earlier HDW700, which wasa 1035-line camcorder, operating at 59.94 or 60 Hz, interlaced. The later models are 1080-line and will also operate at various frame rates from 23.976 to 30 Hz progressive, and 50 to 60 Hz interlaced. They record a maximum data rate of about 144 Mb/s onto Betacam-like tape,the transport speed varies with frame rate so tape duration depends on frame rate.

The camera is based on the familiar form of the Beta camcorder and is used mostly for portable, single-camera work. It has many internal menus for setting the performance, such that it can then be used without external controls. It is not ideally suited to multi-camera operation, although it can be controlled remotely.

The menu settings result from several measurement and usage sessions, mostly attempting to get a good "film-look", and the settings reflect that. It is useful to think of the camera, when used in this way, to be mimicing a film camera and neg-scan telecine, with "best light" transfer to tape. It is always assumed that a grading operation should be used in post-production, the settings give the colourist the same range of options as with film. The laboratory tests were made using a BTS LDK9000 as a reference camera, of the type used in the Eureka1250-line system. The values for Gamma, Black Gamma and Knee allow about 2.5 stops of over-exposure and one of under-exposure relative to normal operation, although the knee has two points of inflexion which could conceivably cause colour contouring (although this has not been observed in practice). This setup approaches a film-look, provided that Detail correction is either off or set to a low level. Images are generally sharper than even for 35 mm film, this can be an issue for production, but can generally be dealt with by using filters or some post-production softening. For use in Sport or Light Entertainment, it would probably be beneficial to switch off the Black Gamma, and to increase Detail Level to zero (factory setting).

Many of the menu items have little or no effect on image quality. Those that do so are highlighted. The full set of menu items is given for completeness.

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