Hollywood TV Production has been digital since 1980's <- is this true?

[Drew]

I find this shocking. I know that there is no obligation to the truth on the web, but thats what this web site below claims. Can someone confirm or deny this?

http://kenrockwell.com/tech/noise.htm

[jupiter8]

I work in TV...not sure what he means by "digital"-that can be a pretty meaningless term. Digital cameras? Digital switching? Digital tape? I do know digital editing wasn't used until the mid-90s...when I was at ABC we didn't use digital tape formats until '94 or so and then it was a bit of an experiment...

[Vidiot]

The article makes a lot of sweeping generalizations, without a lot of specifics.

We've had digital VTRs in Hollywood since about 1987, when the D1 component digital VTR was introduced. A cheaper composite digital format, D2, was introduced about three years later. But it wasn't until Digital Betacam came out in 1993 tht digital video recording really became widespread. At least with this format, you could have an all-in-one pro camcorder that recorded everything digitally.

But the vast majority of 1980s TV shows recorded everything analog, usually on either 1" C videotape or Betacam (or Beta SP) cassettes. As I recall, The Golden Girls was one of the very first network shows to shoot on Betacam, starting ariound 1985 (shooting at the Sunset/Gower Studios in Hollywood). Hollywood is generally slow to adapt to technological changes, mainly because they have too much money invested in the tried-and-true.

Even pro audio was mostly analog (24 track) until the mid-to-late 1980s, when it gradually started drifting towards the PCM-3348 and similar digital audio machines. I don't remember DAT becoming widespread until around 1987 at the earliest, but even then, analog was much more entrenched for audio production and post (despite the success of CD during this period).

HD was analog for years until the late 1990s, when Panasonic introduced the D5 digital HD VTR. Even then, it took another year or two to figure out how to do 24p video; all the early HD was 1080i (or the earlier analog 1125-line standard, HiVision).

[RDK]

As I recall, The Golden Girls was one of the very first network shows to shoot on Betacam, starting ariound 1985 (shooting at the Sunset/Gower Studios in Hollywood).

Just a minor correction: while GG may have shot at Sunset/Gower in '85, when I worked for the show in '87-89 we were most definitely at Ren-Mar on Cahuenga.

[Drew]

Thanks everyone for the information. I was looking at some of the other articles on that site comparing digital SLR cameras. A lot of the points seem to be in direct conflict with what I've read elsewhere.

[Dan C]

Thanks everyone for the information. I was looking at some of the other articles on that site comparing digital SLR cameras. A lot of the points seem to be in direct conflict with what I've read elsewhere.

Don't want to hijack the thread, but if you're interested here's an interesting (and sort of painful :D ) story on the early days of professional digital photography. Luckily we didn't adopt digital until around 1998, with the vastly improved DC520 Kodak/Canon monster. It's still impossible to imagine using those beasts today, but back then it was pretty gee wiz stuff.

http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=7-6463-7191

dan c

[Dan C]

The article makes a lot of sweeping generalizations, without a lot of specifics.

We've had digital VTRs in Hollywood since about 1987, when the D1 component digital VTR was introduced. A cheaper composite digital format, D2, was introduced about three years later. But it wasn't until Digital Betacam came out in 1993 tht digital video recording really became widespread. At least with this format, you could have an all-in-one pro camcorder that recorded everything digitally.

But the vast majority of 1980s TV shows recorded everything analog, usually on either 1" C videotape or Betacam (or Beta SP) cassettes. As I recall, The Golden Girls was one of the very first network shows to shoot on Betacam, starting ariound 1985 (shooting at the Sunset/Gower Studios in Hollywood). Hollywood is generally slow to adapt to technological changes, mainly because they have too much money invested in the tried-and-true.

Even pro audio was mostly analog (24 track) until the mid-to-late 1980s, when it gradually started drifting towards the PCM-3348 and similar digital audio machines. I don't remember DAT becoming widespread until around 1987 at the earliest, but even then, analog was much more entrenched for audio production and post (despite the success of CD during this period).

HD was analog for years until the late 1990s, when Panasonic introduced the D5 digital HD VTR. Even then, it took another year or two to figure out how to do 24p video; all the early HD was 1080i (or the earlier analog 1125-line standard, HiVision).

Just curious, was Golden Girls shot on Beta? Was it still a traditional 3-camera set up going to a switcher or was each camera running tape?

dan c

[Kustom 250]

Thanks everyone for the information. I was looking at some of the other articles on that site comparing digital SLR cameras. A lot of the points seem to be in direct conflict with what I've read elsewhere.


Ken's known for his sometimes "interesting" take on stuff. Like any internet expert take his words with a grain of salt.