Nowadays we even have cellphones that record in 4k. Why do the TV stations still use that big cameras? (Professional video camera, aka television camera)
In: Technology
The cameras used in TV production are getting smaller. They’re about half the size they were ten years ago. A lot of productions even use things like DSLRs and action cameras now for certain shots. The big cameras though are used when you need high quality footage. They have advanced optical lenses and large sensors for capturing more light, and thus more detail. High quality glass lenses in particular are difficult to scale down. Especially zoom and telephoto models.
Phone cameras have small sensors and tiny lenses with a very limited range of iris stops. The raw photos they take aren’t very good, so a lot of digital voodoo is done in the background to clean them up. Which makes them look great on a small screen, but on larger screens like a TV, the difference between that and an ENG camera are very noticeable. They also don’t perform well in low light environments. Manual controls are very limited. There’s no zoom feature. Just digital zoom, which degrades image quality. You can’t get nice, clean, tight shots. You also can’t get nice stable shots without a gimble or steady cam. Those big camcorders you see camera guys with on their shoulders are evenly weighted for that kind of stuff.
Lastly, phones don’t support professional video codecs. So video is more compressed, again degrading image quality. Which is important when the image is getting compressed multiple times before reaching the consumer’s TV. Most TV stations record at high bit rates. Usually around 50mbit/s for 1080p, where as a smartphone might record at around 5mbits/s.
Latest Answers