ccu's for dv cameras Idea!!

[Andrew McMillan]

Alright would this work. Say I have 2 pd dsr 170's and 2 dsr 300's out shooting a concert and going into a data video SE-500. Could I put proc amps betwen the cameras and the switcher to corect color differences between cameras. All the cameramen would have to do is get the exposure right. White Balance would be a preset and then the proc amps make sure all the colors good.

What do you guys think, would there be any qualitiy problems.

[Mark Holland]

I've done that a few times before. It worked out great for me!

[Andrew McMillan]

really! cool.

I was just wondering if there is any quality drop at all?

I know hue control is basically phaze, so that wouldn't be super duper helpful in color correcting cameras color. To bad they don't make one with WB color temp, now that would be killer.

[Bill Davis]

I'm not saying this is a poor idea at all, just pointing out some practical issues.

You can try to real-time correct the cameras all you want, but in my experience, concerts (assuming you're talking pop or rock and not symphony) are one style of shooting where I almost always would prefer to do all the color correction in post.

For many reasons, but here are a few.

Concert stage lighting is nearly always a mess. Camera A from the FOH position might show the lead singer in a tight spotlight of white but also lit with a wash of RED from stage right overhead par cans and side fill, and a wash of BLUE from the Stage LEFT lighting array.

A handheld camera shooting the keyboard player (with NO benefit from a spotlight) sees what? If that camera is shooting from from Stage Right, most everything will look really RED with a blue backlight - cause that's the light on that scene FROM THAT ANGLE.

Similarly a camera set shallow audience state LEFT is shooting at mostly blue with a red backlight. (Plus whatever spill is coming from the follow spot!)

Now obviously your DSR-300 is gonna handle these radical light differences a good bit differently from PD-170s - and how can it NOT since we're talking DIFFERENT CCDs and different electronics?

So then the handheld guy moves across backstage behind the drummer to start shooting from Stage left rather than stage right and the WHOLE DAMN color balance hitting his or her lens is gonna shift. PLUS, about when the hapless CCD shader gets the knobs re-adjusted - you can BET a lighting cue will come up and the whole stage will go golden yellow. (insert cussword here)

My point is that concert lighting is typically a MESS for video production. The smartest thing you can do is try to use the same cameras everywhere - but I acknowledge that this often prohibitively expensive or otherwise impractical. So the fallback position is to do your best to expose your cameras properly FOR THEIR INDIVIDUAL LIGHT GATHERING CAPBILITIES VERSES THE SHOTS THEYRE PICKING UP RIGHT NOW - and leave the color matching stuff for post.

Because, in my experience, in stage lighting, things are going to change so much that trying to follow two different kinds of cameras reacting to constantly changing conditions will drive you bonkers pretty quickly.

Just my 2 cents.

[Andrew McMillan]

alright. the only thing is, is that everything is switched live. So that would be a little harder in post. Luckly the 170's 300's match up rather nicley in auto, but for most things we have to manualy white balance to keep it from shifting and thats were it really hits the fan. I am not talking about tweeking constantly, just getting the colors right and the exposiure right.

[Ervin Farkas]

If you have the option, use the SE-800 instead, it has integrated proc amps separate on each input.

[Andrew McMillan]

well so does the se-500 kind of. You have to go into the menue and it takes for ever. and sense the menue covers the screen you can't it's to see what your doing. Oh yeah you can't switch either to compare cameras.