Linux Tools for Serious Photographers

[Len Ovens]

On Tue, August 7, 2012 2:37 am, Ralf Mardorf wrote:

> For audio we can buy some professional gear and use it with some
> semi-pro and consumer gear, just for fun.
> For video some might be able to do a similar mix for video gear, but at
> least I suspect that those people must work semi-pro or they simply must
> be rich.
>
> However, quality seems to increase and prices seem to decrease.
>
> Interesting, but also frustrating, since I have got no hope to get a
> "home video studio" ever in my life, even not with muuuuuuuuch lower
> quality.

You set me thinking. In the early 80s I worked in video at a TV station.
Our studio cameras were $150000USD. about the price of a house at the
time. The new technology (more digital circuitry but still plumbicon
tubes) was only 80k. For reference The cost of a row house/townhouse is
now over 400k. A lot of video studios use stuff in the 20K range any more.
The prices have come down. But the starting point was high. (BTW I was
just talking camera, recording at the time was tape. 1 inch open reel in
house, 3/4inch umatic on the road) Beta or VHS was still consumer stuff.
The quality just wasn't there. We were still using 2inch machines in on
air (4 of them).

Most amateur video uses a still camera in video mode. The video goes
direct to chip. editing takes place later. I don't find SW to handle 3 or
more input streams and do on the fly switching. (I think we used closer to
7 or 8 streams... though our switchers had more.. they had access to every
stream in the building) Video streams don't have to be synced and timed
any more, frame store can fix that.

Audio was a whole separate chain.

-- 
Len Ovens
www.OvenWerks.net