High Definition and 24P Cinematography

32

The Sony HDW F500 VTR

32.1 An overview

I asked a colleague how he would describe the F500 and his reply was ‘big, heavy, clever and complicated’; that about sums it up. The clever bit is the most interesting, for it can be fitted with a number of converter boards that effectively make it, in the right circumstances, into a standards converter.

Those of you who are familiar with Digi Beta VTRs will find that, in the main, the F500 is familiar to you, though the menu is considerably more sophisticated, as it has to be able to control many more functions.

As this book is primarily about cinematography, i.e. picture acquisition, I will not go into the VTR in any great detail, although I think it useful to know its main features. I have also ...