ABSTRACT
There are some who say there is no point in shooting High Definition (HD) when the finished product is only ever going to be shown on current television – I disagree. Just as a film originated on 35 mm film looks better on either PAL or NTSC than one originated on 16 mm or Digi Beta, the same is true for HD, as it is a picture of very similar quality to 35 mm. This is known as retaining the quality headroom. As HDCAM tape recorded in the 24P format was always intended to be the international exchange format we can, hopefully, expect a gradual increase in picture quality for prestige programming. It is possible to play a 24P HDCAM tape out of, say, a Sony HDW F500 video tape recorder (VTR) or similar, where the output is already converted to the PAL or NTSC formats. Even using this simplistic down-conversion the headroom is retained and clearly visible. I was present when a Sony HDW 900 was demonstrated to one of the more sceptical line producers I frequently work with. To my delight he rapidly became a fan of the system but right at the end of the demonstration asked if it were possible to see a full HD resolution monitor next to a standard PAL monitor with the picture down-converted via the HDW F500. As luck would have it there was just such a capability set up in another room for an entirely different purpose. We ran a single tape, the contents of which he had by now seen as a played-out HD image on a 24-inch HD monitor as well as the same film written to both 1:1.85 format and 1:2.4 format projected film. After staring at two 14-inch monitors right next to each other, one a full HD monitor fed from the High Definition Serial Digital Interface (HDSDI) socket on the HDW F500 and the other a high-resolution PAL 625-line monitor fed from the PAL down-converted output on the same VTR, his reaction after seeing every frame was “well the PAL looks just like 35 mm with lines!” I rest my case.
