WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

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Hello!

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And welcome to another 
Technology Connections 2 video!

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If you're new to the channel, this is the
channel where I talk about stuff and don't

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prepare for anything.

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And in today's episode, which is the first
one in a long while by the way, I thought

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I would answer a question that a lot of viewers
have asked, and that is "How am I able to

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film CRTs and have them look normal?"

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Now, if you're surprised at why this would
be a question, I'll show you.

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So when you normally film a CRT with something
like a smartphone (and if you suffer from

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photosensitive epilepsy you may want to look
away for about 20 seconds) normally the result

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is something like this.

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Now, the reason why this is happening is that
a CRT screen is drawn very, very quickly,

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and when your shutter speed is too fast, you're
only seeing fractions of the screen illuminated

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at one time.

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So, to get a result such as this, you need
to do something a little bit different.

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And what is it that you need to do differently?

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Well, that is to set the shutter speed to
either 1/60 or 1/30 of a second.

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♫ regrettably smooth jazz ♫

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No, OK, of course I'm gonna talk a little

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bit more than that.

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So this also depends on if we're talking about
an NTSC television or a PAL television, but

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basically you need to match the framerate
of the CRT.

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So first of all you need to have a camera
that you can manually set the aperture and

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the shutter speed, and of course normally,
almost all the time, I'm using my camera in

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manual mode.

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So whenever I need to film a CRT, I usually
film it at a 60th of a second.

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Now, the reason why I wanted to make this
video today is because that proved to actually

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be kind of a problem.

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Now originally I started filming things at
1/60 of a second because it makes the lines

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on the screen more pronounced.

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So if we go to the black and white CRT, in
this shot I'm filming it at 1/30 of a second,

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which means that both fields--so both halves
of the frame are visible--and the lines are

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hard to see.

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And if I film it at 1/60 of a second, now
you can see only one of those fields so the

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lines become much more pronounced.

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Now of course, what I hadn't thought about
was the fact that I'm showing you the closed captioning

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data on line 21 and it does not repeat between
fields.

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It's only on line 21.

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So, oftentimes I'd be filming the TV and you
couldn't even see it.

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And it was hard for me to tell because the
screen on my camera is so small.

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I couldn't really see what was going on.

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So with a 1/30 of a second shutter you would
always be able to see it, but you'd see more

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lines which made it harder to see.

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With 1/60 of a second, you would see the lines
more sharply but those captioning bars may

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actually not be visible.

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And what's really interesting here is that
the camera and the TV are not actually synchronized

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perfectly.

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If you recall, NTSC television is actually
29.97 frames per second, it's not 30 frames

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per second.

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The reason for that has to do with the color
signal and fudging required for audio doo-dads,

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I'll put a card to my video explaining that
(kind of).

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And what happens is, they're actually not
quite in sync and in this footage here you

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can see a slightly diagonal line, kinda like
a disturbance in The Force almost, moving

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up the screen, slowly.

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And that is where the camera is now seeing
the other field.

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So as it makes its way to the top, suddenly
that caption data is either gonna go away

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or reappear, and it's probably gonna be one
or the other because I'm recording this voiceover

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before I do any looking through the footage.

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Now another thing to keep in mind is that
you may have to shoot things at 1/30 of a

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second because some sources are actually only
using the odd or even fields, so one example

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of this would be the NES or, I think the PlayStation
1 also only uses one of the fields depending

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on the game.

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So if you have the shutter set to 1/60 of
a second, that line that you see creeping

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up here--that would go between being able
to see the screen, and not being able to see

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the screen.

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Another thing that you have to keep in mind
is, because cameras have a rolling shutter,

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the direction of that shutter may make the
screen kind of all wonky, now in my case I'm

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fortunate because the direction of my camera's
rolling shutter is top to bottom, which is

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the same direction that a CRT scans, but if
for example the direction were going sideways

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across the frame, you might get some weird
artifacts, depending on how things go.

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And if you have the camera upside down, so
it's scanning in the opposite direction, even

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though you have the shutter speeds matched
you might have chunks of the screen that are

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missing and maybe some other things moving
around, so there is some stuff to think about.

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But for the most part, to film a CRT all you
gotta do is set your shutter speed to 1/30

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of a second or 1/60 of a second.

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Now, what I'm unsure of is, in countries that
use PAL or other, uh, other systems that are

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50 Hz (like SECAM?)

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I'm not sure how common it is for cameras
to have a 1/50 of a second or 1/25 of a second

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but I would imagine if your camera can shoot
at 25 frames per second and 50 frames per

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second it's gonna have those shutter speeds.

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I just can't say for sure and I haven't done
the experimentation with my camera to see

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if that's an option, but anyway.

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That's all this video is.

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If you ever need to film a CRT, get yourself
a camera, get yourself a camera you can set

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the shutter speed manually on, and you may
even be able to do it with your phone if you

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dig into the settings, and you'll be good
to go!

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Thanks so much for watching!

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I'll see you next time, probably on the main
channel, but ya never know when stuff comes

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up here because basically when I think about
it...

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I think about it.

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Have a good one.

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One interesting quirk I discovered when I
was putting the PS3 away was that even though

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this screen is up, the DVD playing in the
background is still sending the vertical blanking

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interval information with the captioning to
the decoder, and the decoder is happy to just

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slap that on top of this menu screen.

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So... that's interesting.