okay to shoot TV screen
 

I have a JVC GR-PD1 and need to shoot off a TV screen. Is there any danger to the camera doing this? I'll be shooting 25p.

Thanks.

..just to clarify, I mean: getting close-up shots of what is actually showing on a TV

There is no danger of harming your camera. The light coming off your television screen is many times less than the light coming off the sky.

The general rule is: if you wouldn't point your retinas at it, then think twice before pointing your video camera at it.

Whether you'll be able to get a clear image without phase effects--strobing, or a line scrolling down the screen--is another matter.

Your biggest problem will be syncing the TV with the camera, being that they operate at completely different refresh rates. I believe that the XL1s has a TV refresh button for this type of application.

You can try shutter adjustments to minimize the roll, but without something like Sony's "clearscan" or the XL1s equivalent, you may not be able to get rid of the roll entirely.

If you're simply shooting a closeup of a screen, life is not too difficult, but if you want to see an image on the TV in a longer shot with people in it, you'll have to do some color matching tricks. Say you light the scene with 3200 tungsten lights...the colors of whatever is on the TV will be way off. If you put up something white on the TV and white balance to that, the colors on your people in the scene will be way off. What I do in that situation is run a video cable from the camera to the TV and switch on my color bars. Then adjust the color of the TV until the bars look reasonably proper. This will cause the color on the TV to look weird, but the camera will like it.

Thanks for all those helpful responses. Yeah, I'm only going for shots were the TV picture fills the frame - it wouldn't be part of any other film... and yeah, I figured rolling would be a problem. To a certain extent I want it to look bad but if I can get rid of the rolling that would be good. I'll experiment with frame rate. I have 50p and 25p and then 25i which I suppose wouldn't help. Then of course shutter speed...

It was just that years ago I had a Panasonic VHS camera (1989) and I filmed off TV and totalled it. The worst thing was it was warned against in manual! There's nothing like that in this cam's manual (GR-PD1) but I just wanted to be sure there really is absolitely no such danger.

sorry, I meant to say 'it wouldn't be part of any other SCENE... '

I don't see how shooting a TV screen could damage a camera, even old tube cameras. I shot TV screen back in the tube camera days.

One thing that would help is if you could find an LCD monitor to use instead of the regular CRT screen. The LCD would not have the bad roll. Might be a good excuse to go out and buy a new TV, heheheh.

thanks for the LCD tip.

Yeah, it was interesting that happened with that old Panasonic VHS cam.

It literally said it in the manual and totalled the cam when i did it - stupid.