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Shooting multiple TV's w/o seeing scan?


A Hain

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Hi Guys,

 

I have a project coming up where I need to shoot a number of Television in the same shot.

 

Shooting on digital... probably RED and was wondering if anyone knew how to or if it would even be a problem to shoot a bunch of TV's without having that scan thing happen.

 

I'm going to run tests pretty soon, but was hoping to get some advice first. ...And no I dont want to green screen what's on the tv's.

 

Thanks!!

 

A

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oh interesting... i hadnt heard about shooting at a higher frame rate... how does that help?

I think what he means is, if you're shooting at 24fps, 30fps NTSC will produce strobing artefacts. If the camera is synced to the TV video rate, (ie shooting at 30fps) this can eliminate the problem, but it requires special equipment to sync the camera to the video.

If you want to have more than one TV screen in shot, you will also need a frame store/synchronizer for each one (assuming you need each one to show a different picture)

 

Of course if you shoot with anything other than 24fps, synced live sound is not possible.

 

It is also possible to convert the 30fps video to 24fps, which allows you to shoot sync-sound, but that requires very special (and expensive) equipment

 

The good news is, all this only applies to old-fashioned CRT TVs.

LCDs do not strobe at any frame rate, they behave exactly like an X-Ray on a doctor's light box: they have no frame rate as such.

Plasmas vary somewhat, although they don't produce as much strobing as a CRT.

 

However, given complete lack of strobing, the lower pricc, lighter weight and generally better durability of LCDs I would strongly recommend you use those.

 

If you specifically need to have a CRT TV for the purposes of the script, you would be better off removing the guts from an old written-off CRT TV, and fitting an LCD panel inside it.

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Thanks Guys,

 

After researching the points you've both made, I think I'm going to gut old TV's and put 4:3 LCD's inside... Wish me luck...

 

Best!

If you're on a strict budget, check out computer Flea Markets and the like. You can often pick up older large-screen 4:3 LCD monitors with minor blemishes, for next to nothing. Defects which would be irritating at the normal PC screen distance will probably not be noticeable if it's just a TV screen in the shot.

All you need to do then is round up some laptops that have DVD playback, or you can even run the TV pictures from a flash drive. (Or, you can use full-sized PCs; at the same sort of computer market you can most likely pick second-hand ones that will do the job, also for next to nothing).

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