"Whatever you now find weird, ugly, uncomfortable and nasty about a new medium will surely become its signature. CD distortion, the jitteriness of digital video, the crap sound of 8-bit - all of these will be cherished and emulated as soon as they can be avoided. It’s the sound of failure: so much modern art is the sound of things going out of control, of a medium pushing to its limits and breaking apart. The distorted guitar sound is the sound of something too loud for the medium supposed to carry it. The blues singer with the cracked voice is the sound of an emotional cry too powerful for the throat that releases it. The excitement of grainy film, of bleached-out black and white, is the excitement of witnessing events too momentous for the medium assigned to record them." - Brian Eno
I was also looking into https://codeberg.org/fsphil/hacktv which generates a variety of different analog tv signals (meant to be broadcast using HackRF) - but yes, I want the opposite - an analog-receiver-emulator...? And one that would be "ok" with incorrect signals // fail like an analog TV would... :-)
And of course PAL and Hanover bars.
See also: Picture At Last!
See also: System Essentially Contrary to the American Method
I also ported it to JavaScript (linked from above page)
You mind reader you
I'll email you. sorry everyone, just two pal's pall'ing around xx
That said, I would not be surprised to see camcorders, DV or VHS or whatever, rise up as a Polaroid-like alternative to smartphone cameras! Old digital point and shoots are already popular that way.
I ended up reaching CFTO (CTV Toronto), and took the footage over to Channel 9 Court. What happened next took me by complete surprise.
The flagship station of a national network had no deck in the building that would play HDV mini DV tapes. I hadn’t brought my camcorder or my MBP either, so I couldn't quickly convert it into a format that they could use.
I ended up going home, and exporting via FCP and burning onto a DVD. It worked, I got to see the inside of a news station and I got $135 for it. The news broadcast later that day showed about 10 seconds of my footage, which by extrapolation, was the highest-ever hourly rate I’ve ever earned: ~$48,600/hour.
The lesson here was that DV and DV-adjacent workflows were difficult in a pro context even when they were mainstream in the consumer market.
The model (HDRCX405) is wonderful, 30x optical zoom a real value-add over smartphones, but also I just love the ergonomics in general, very easy to pick it up, and start a video within a second.
That said, Sony discontinued the low-end handicam line last year (this model went from $200 new to $800 used), which is really unfortunately, right as I hope this niche might gain momentum.
Then even we could have filter like: VHS Panasonic, VHS Sony...
This would be very interesting project.