1 00:00:00,140 --> 00:00:00,900 Hello! 2 00:00:00,900 --> 00:00:04,580 And welcome to another Technology Connections 2 video! 3 00:00:04,580 --> 00:00:08,090 If you're new to the channel, this is the channel where I talk about stuff and don't 4 00:00:08,090 --> 00:00:09,720 prepare for anything. 5 00:00:09,720 --> 00:00:13,950 And in today's episode, which is the first one in a long while by the way, I thought 6 00:00:13,950 --> 00:00:20,300 I would answer a question that a lot of viewers have asked, and that is "How am I able to 7 00:00:20,300 --> 00:00:23,839 film CRTs and have them look normal?" 8 00:00:23,839 --> 00:00:28,789 Now, if you're surprised at why this would be a question, I'll show you. 9 00:00:28,789 --> 00:00:33,829 So when you normally film a CRT with something like a smartphone (and if you suffer from 10 00:00:33,829 --> 00:00:38,940 photosensitive epilepsy you may want to look away for about 20 seconds) normally the result 11 00:00:38,940 --> 00:00:40,489 is something like this. 12 00:00:40,489 --> 00:00:46,750 Now, the reason why this is happening is that a CRT screen is drawn very, very quickly, 13 00:00:46,750 --> 00:00:51,039 and when your shutter speed is too fast, you're only seeing fractions of the screen illuminated 14 00:00:51,039 --> 00:00:52,130 at one time. 15 00:00:52,130 --> 00:00:57,350 So, to get a result such as this, you need to do something a little bit different. 16 00:00:57,350 --> 00:00:58,899 And what is it that you need to do differently? 17 00:00:58,900 --> 00:01:04,160 Well, that is to set the shutter speed to either 1/60 or 1/30 of a second. 18 00:01:04,580 --> 00:01:08,280 ♫ regrettably smooth jazz ♫ 19 00:01:08,760 --> 00:01:11,220 No, OK, of course I'm gonna talk a little 20 00:01:11,229 --> 00:01:12,479 bit more than that. 21 00:01:12,479 --> 00:01:17,240 So this also depends on if we're talking about an NTSC television or a PAL television, but 22 00:01:17,240 --> 00:01:20,950 basically you need to match the framerate of the CRT. 23 00:01:20,950 --> 00:01:28,520 So first of all you need to have a camera that you can manually set the aperture and 24 00:01:28,520 --> 00:01:33,400 the shutter speed, and of course normally, almost all the time, I'm using my camera in 25 00:01:33,400 --> 00:01:34,400 manual mode. 26 00:01:34,400 --> 00:01:39,450 So whenever I need to film a CRT, I usually film it at a 60th of a second. 27 00:01:39,450 --> 00:01:45,960 Now, the reason why I wanted to make this video today is because that proved to actually 28 00:01:45,960 --> 00:01:47,030 be kind of a problem. 29 00:01:47,030 --> 00:01:52,430 Now originally I started filming things at 1/60 of a second because it makes the lines 30 00:01:52,430 --> 00:01:53,990 on the screen more pronounced. 31 00:01:53,990 --> 00:01:59,960 So if we go to the black and white CRT, in this shot I'm filming it at 1/30 of a second, 32 00:01:59,960 --> 00:02:05,450 which means that both fields--so both halves of the frame are visible--and the lines are 33 00:02:05,450 --> 00:02:06,450 hard to see. 34 00:02:06,450 --> 00:02:12,011 And if I film it at 1/60 of a second, now you can see only one of those fields so the 35 00:02:12,011 --> 00:02:14,540 lines become much more pronounced. 36 00:02:14,540 --> 00:02:18,750 Now of course, what I hadn't thought about was the fact that I'm showing you the closed captioning 37 00:02:18,750 --> 00:02:23,230 data on line 21 and it does not repeat between fields. 38 00:02:23,230 --> 00:02:25,200 It's only on line 21. 39 00:02:25,200 --> 00:02:30,810 So, oftentimes I'd be filming the TV and you couldn't even see it. 40 00:02:30,810 --> 00:02:35,190 And it was hard for me to tell because the screen on my camera is so small. 41 00:02:35,190 --> 00:02:38,569 I couldn't really see what was going on. 42 00:02:38,569 --> 00:02:43,280 So with a 1/30 of a second shutter you would always be able to see it, but you'd see more 43 00:02:43,280 --> 00:02:45,959 lines which made it harder to see. 44 00:02:45,959 --> 00:02:52,470 With 1/60 of a second, you would see the lines more sharply but those captioning bars may 45 00:02:52,470 --> 00:02:53,800 actually not be visible. 46 00:02:53,800 --> 00:03:01,420 And what's really interesting here is that the camera and the TV are not actually synchronized 47 00:03:01,420 --> 00:03:02,580 perfectly. 48 00:03:02,580 --> 00:03:09,780 If you recall, NTSC television is actually 29.97 frames per second, it's not 30 frames 49 00:03:09,780 --> 00:03:10,810 per second. 50 00:03:10,810 --> 00:03:15,010 The reason for that has to do with the color signal and fudging required for audio doo-dads, 51 00:03:15,010 --> 00:03:19,040 I'll put a card to my video explaining that (kind of). 52 00:03:19,040 --> 00:03:24,150 And what happens is, they're actually not quite in sync and in this footage here you 53 00:03:24,150 --> 00:03:30,830 can see a slightly diagonal line, kinda like a disturbance in The Force almost, moving 54 00:03:30,830 --> 00:03:33,939 up the screen, slowly. 55 00:03:33,939 --> 00:03:38,930 And that is where the camera is now seeing the other field. 56 00:03:38,930 --> 00:03:44,680 So as it makes its way to the top, suddenly that caption data is either gonna go away 57 00:03:44,680 --> 00:03:49,390 or reappear, and it's probably gonna be one or the other because I'm recording this voiceover 58 00:03:49,390 --> 00:03:52,580 before I do any looking through the footage. 59 00:03:52,580 --> 00:03:56,930 Now another thing to keep in mind is that you may have to shoot things at 1/30 of a 60 00:03:56,930 --> 00:04:03,760 second because some sources are actually only using the odd or even fields, so one example 61 00:04:03,760 --> 00:04:09,819 of this would be the NES or, I think the PlayStation 1 also only uses one of the fields depending 62 00:04:09,819 --> 00:04:10,989 on the game. 63 00:04:10,989 --> 00:04:15,480 So if you have the shutter set to 1/60 of a second, that line that you see creeping 64 00:04:15,480 --> 00:04:20,430 up here--that would go between being able to see the screen, and not being able to see 65 00:04:20,430 --> 00:04:21,690 the screen. 66 00:04:21,690 --> 00:04:26,030 Another thing that you have to keep in mind is, because cameras have a rolling shutter, 67 00:04:26,030 --> 00:04:31,730 the direction of that shutter may make the screen kind of all wonky, now in my case I'm 68 00:04:31,730 --> 00:04:35,700 fortunate because the direction of my camera's rolling shutter is top to bottom, which is 69 00:04:35,700 --> 00:04:42,090 the same direction that a CRT scans, but if for example the direction were going sideways 70 00:04:42,090 --> 00:04:47,160 across the frame, you might get some weird artifacts, depending on how things go. 71 00:04:47,160 --> 00:04:51,870 And if you have the camera upside down, so it's scanning in the opposite direction, even 72 00:04:51,870 --> 00:04:55,680 though you have the shutter speeds matched you might have chunks of the screen that are 73 00:04:55,680 --> 00:05:00,910 missing and maybe some other things moving around, so there is some stuff to think about. 74 00:05:00,910 --> 00:05:05,930 But for the most part, to film a CRT all you gotta do is set your shutter speed to 1/30 75 00:05:05,930 --> 00:05:08,470 of a second or 1/60 of a second. 76 00:05:08,470 --> 00:05:15,500 Now, what I'm unsure of is, in countries that use PAL or other, uh, other systems that are 77 00:05:15,500 --> 00:05:17,200 50 Hz (like SECAM?) 78 00:05:17,210 --> 00:05:22,930 I'm not sure how common it is for cameras to have a 1/50 of a second or 1/25 of a second 79 00:05:22,930 --> 00:05:28,240 but I would imagine if your camera can shoot at 25 frames per second and 50 frames per 80 00:05:28,240 --> 00:05:30,570 second it's gonna have those shutter speeds. 81 00:05:30,570 --> 00:05:35,980 I just can't say for sure and I haven't done the experimentation with my camera to see 82 00:05:35,980 --> 00:05:38,240 if that's an option, but anyway. 83 00:05:38,240 --> 00:05:39,510 That's all this video is. 84 00:05:39,510 --> 00:05:44,140 If you ever need to film a CRT, get yourself a camera, get yourself a camera you can set 85 00:05:44,140 --> 00:05:47,151 the shutter speed manually on, and you may even be able to do it with your phone if you 86 00:05:47,151 --> 00:05:50,800 dig into the settings, and you'll be good to go! 87 00:05:50,800 --> 00:05:51,970 Thanks so much for watching! 88 00:05:51,970 --> 00:05:55,660 I'll see you next time, probably on the main channel, but ya never know when stuff comes 89 00:05:55,660 --> 00:05:58,500 up here because basically when I think about it... 90 00:05:58,500 --> 00:05:59,560 I think about it. 91 00:05:59,560 --> 00:06:00,840 Have a good one. 92 00:06:02,020 --> 00:06:06,090 One interesting quirk I discovered when I was putting the PS3 away was that even though 93 00:06:06,090 --> 00:06:10,770 this screen is up, the DVD playing in the background is still sending the vertical blanking 94 00:06:10,770 --> 00:06:15,880 interval information with the captioning to the decoder, and the decoder is happy to just 95 00:06:15,880 --> 00:06:18,380 slap that on top of this menu screen. 96 00:06:18,380 --> 00:06:20,460 So... that's interesting.