If the production is being shot on film it will be shot on 16mm, Super 16mm or 35mm film stock. 35mm film stock is the best quality and is used for feature films, TV commercials and pop promotions. Until a few years ago, 16mm was the normal format for television productions, but this is increasingly giving way to Super 16mm with the advent of widescreen.
There are in existence quite a bewildering array of videotape formats and sizes. Most current formats are digital with the exception of Betacam SP. For simplicity, I have listed them in historical order. Some of the early formats require the use of specialist facility houses to transfer library material.
- 2" Quadruplex videotape (composite). This was invented by Ampex in 1956 and was the standard tape used for broadcasting throughout the world for over twenty years. Nowadays 2" VT would only be encountered by the PA when working with archive material. Most large broadcasting organisations retain a machine for replaying archive tapes and there are specialist facility houses which undertake transfers of Quad tape to modern formats.
A 2" machine will not give a recognisable picture until it has run up to speed, which takes ten seconds, and one cannot see any sort of picture when spooling fast. If 2" material is to be incorporated into an on-line linear edit, it must first be transferred to a modern format since today’s editing systems cannot control 2" VTRs.
- 1" Videotape (composite). 1" videotape replaced 2" throughout the broadcast industry but has now been superseded by digital formats. 1" videotape allows for still frame and slow speed replay together with a picture of sorts when spooling. Most 1" machines have timecode.
2" and 1" videotapes are wound on open spools but all other videotape is contained in cassettes.
High Band U-Matic (composite). High Band U-Matic spearheaded the change from film to tape for news gathering in the UK. Marginally regarded as broadcast quality it has now been superseded for broadcast purposes. It may be found in lower budget corporate productions.- Low Band U-Matic (composite). Never regarded as broadcast quality in the UK, the cassettes are identical to High Band cassettes. High Band and Low Band formats are not interchangeable although cassettes of either format can be played back in the machines of the other format for viewing purposes only. Either way round, the picture is in black and white. Some U-Matic machines, however, are switchable between High Band and Low Band.
Betacam and Betacam SP (component). Betacam SP is a vastly improved development of the original Sony Betacam format, and has become a worldwide medium for single-camera acquisition. Depending which system, NTSC, PAL, etc., is in use, cassettes holding up to 36 minutes of material can be contained in a recorder mounted directly on the back of the camera itself. While Betacam cassettes can be replayed in Betacam SP machinery, Betacam SP cassettes can only be replayed in the older Betacam VTRs if these have been specially modified.
Betacam SP is a very high quality analogue component format but is not particularly robust and can suffer from dropout. Timecode is standard on all Betacam and Betacam SP machines.
- M2 (component). Introduced as a rival format to Betacam, it never found quite the same popularity as Betacam SP and although some major television companies in the UK adopted it as a replacement for 1", it is now more likely to be encountered in professional, rather than broadcast, environments. Timecode is standard on M2 machines.
- Super VHS. S-VHS achieves a compromise between composite (using one wire) and component (three wires) by using two wires, one to carry the luminance (black and white) part of the picture, and the other to carry the chrominance (colour) part of the picture. Although it may be found in low-budget corporate productions, its main use is as a high-end domestic format. Some machines have timecode.
- Hi–8 (8 mm wide). A technically similar system to S-VHS, using different width tape. Hi–8 would be used in similar situations to S-VHS. Some machines have timecode.
- Video–8 (8 mm wide) (composite). Mainly found as a domestic camcorder format.
- Betamax (composite). Obsolete domestic video format.
- VHS (composite). Domestic video format used worldwide. Also used extensively in television for viewing purposes.