Sound Person's Guide to Video

Chapter 5

ENG and Betacam SP

Do you remember what TV news programmes were like in the mid-1980s and earlier? If your recollection is that they were pretty similar to what we have today, then perhaps the slow, steady march of technology has fooled your memory cells ever so slightly. Think hard and you’ll recall that the newscasters spent a lot more time on camera than they do now. These days it’s hard to catch a glimpse of the latest hairstyles and ties between film reports from the far-flung corners of the globe. In fact, ‘film’ is the wrong word to use because it was in the old days of TV news – not really so long ago – that 16 mm film was the news gatherers’ medium, of necessity rather than of choice. Film cameras have the advantage of being ...