Re: filmscanners: what defines this quality?

[Isaac Crawford <isaac@visi.net>]

Johnny Deadman wrote:
> 
> on 6/19/01 11:56 PM, Dan Honemann at danh@selectsa.com wrote:
> 
> >> I seem to remember watching American Football for the first time in the UK
> >> some time back and thinking how fantastic the image quality was. I then
> >> found out that its shot on film. Is this still the case?
> >
> > It's funny, that.  The games themselves are shot on videotape, but the shows
> > that highlight the games are shot on high quality film.  It's so much better
> > to watch those highlights than it is the games!
> 
> You guys are WAY off. No sports or studio shows have been shot on film for
> (a lot) more than a decade in the UK. I last shot a TV show in film in 1995,
> and that was a documentary.
> 
> What you are seeing is probably the difference between PAL and NTSC video
> encoding, plus the transmission setup (satellite v. cable compression, v.
> RF), plus the lighting style, plus the quality of the originating equipment
> and the tape format it was shot on. You may also be drawing comparisons with
> footage which has been through a standards converter and stuff that hasn't.

        Actually, if you look at American football games, you will see crews
from NFL films shooting with a variety of Arriflex equipment. I've seen
them use the RS, S, M, and even a BL or two, and all of those are 16mm
cameras. Everything that is broadcast is shot on video of course (really
nice video BTW) but I believe that it is still archived on film. The
film crews are used for various NFL films productions, not for
broadcasting the games...

Isaac