analog vs. digital camcorder 📹

Even though we are living in an age  where technology is constantly evolving and most of the modern media that we  consume is available in a digital format, it’s fascinating to see that not only has  there been a steady interest in older or outdated technologies like vinyl recorders, film  photography, and vintage cameras but there’s also more recently been a huge revival and increase in  demand for types of things from I guess what you’d call the analog era - where information was stored  on di

scs, video cassette tapes, film - rather than directly on electronic devices and on SD cards  like they are today. I grew up in the 90s, so I still vaguely remember the time period where  analog devices were the only options that we had so my interest is rooted purely in nostalgia,  reminds me of my childhood and as I’ve gotten older it’s kind of interesting to have seen this  shift from like, more physical to digital format, and so I can’t help myself from comparing the  two. A couple of years

ago I made a detailed video where I was testing out an old Sony Handycam  Camcorder that uses Hi8 video cassette tapes, I’ll go ahead and link that video  if you’re interested, and while I do love this camcorder, it’s very bulky, it’s hard  to carry around, especially because I carry so many cameras with me on a regular basis, and I’m  very afraid of something happening to it because it was a hand-me-down from my dad. So I actually  got another Sony Handycam Camcorder that I was able to buy new,

this one is still being  manufactured (the other one is discontinued) and I use this pretty often. The size is great,  it’s very portable, it’s very easy to use, and it has a continuous recording time which  a lot of my other digital cameras don’t have. I thought why not put these two against each  other, film a few things, compare the footage, I’ll show you how I get the footage onto my  laptop, and I’m also going to share a little ending tutorial at the end if you’re interested  in kind of -

how I edit my camcorder footage. But first, the sponsor for this video is  Skillshare. I talk about Skillshare all the time - and if you’re not familiar with it,  it’s an online learning community dedicated to teaching inspiring and creative classes  for anyone who loves learning whether it’s a specific skill you’re trying to start up  or an existing interest that needs growth. There’s a ton of different topics and teachers  you can choose from, and I did want to mention this one class I took by

a YouTuber named Hallease  called Learn Adobe Premiere Pro and Edit a “How To” Video for Beginners. Hallease is a great  teacher, and this class covers all the basics if you’re just getting into using Adobe Premiere Pro  - that’s what I use for all my video editing and what I’ll be using for the editing tutorial later  on. I also just like to see the workflow of other YouTubers that I’m subscribed to and see if I can  apply some of their techniques and tips to my own editing. Definitely recomme

nd taking this class  or any other class by Hallease. The first 1,000 people to use the link in my description will  get a 1 month free trial of Skillshare so you can start exploring your creativity today. Got the vlogging camera, both camcorders, and my handsome assistant is helping me out  today. So let’s go out and film some stuff. Alright, so now that we’ve moved both recordings  onto my laptop (as I’ve shown) the digital camcorder files are on a mini SD card and so  that was transferred alm

ost immediately. The Hi8 camcorder takes a little bit more time  and equipment (I went over all of this in the dedicated video I mentioned before, but I’ll  relink all of the converter cables that I used in order to connect this to my computer). Basically,  once I was able to play the footage on my laptop, I screenrecorded that into a single file  that I’m able to edit into this video. So pulling up a side by side comparison  I’m gonna use a closeup of this flower. For Hi8 the aspect ratio is ty

pically 4:3,  because the standard TV format back in the day was full screen and not widescreen or 16:9 which  is probably what you’re watching this on - so it looks like it’s has these black borders on the  sides when watching on more modern electronic devices. The HD camcorder aspect ratio is 16:9  - so no black borders because it takes up the entirety of the screen. As you can also see  the video resolution of each of these is very different. With the HD camcorder video format at  1920x1080 a

nd the Hi8 camcorder video format at 640x480. Not only is this a screen recording  (I also stretched this footage to fit the widescreen), so that obviously results  in a loss in quality in comparison. Moving into the editing tutorial, since the  popularity of the analog aesthetic is so high, I thought about trying to edit the digital camcorder  footage to look more like analog camcorder footage. I don’t usually edit my digital footage  to the extent I’m about to show you, but I do use some of th

ese effects with my digital camcorder  from time to time. I know that this can be very controversial among the analog community, but this  is just for fun, some people don’t have access to analog equipment, and I always get questions  about alternative ways to get that “retro look” while editing, so let’s just get into it. In Adobe Premiere Pro, I’m going to have comparison view on so I can try and match the look  of this as much as possible. Also going to add an adjustment layer over the top of

HD footage  to make my edits - that way I’m not messing with the original file, all the changes will just  be made to this layer. Popping over to Effects, I’m typing in Lumetri Color,  add that to my adjustment layer, and we’re going to go through  this and make some adjustments. Starting with temperature,  bringing that down to like -35. Contrast I’m bringing that up  to 50. Highlights, let’s do 25. Whites, let’s also do 25. And blacks I  think we’ll do like 50. Under creative, faded film let’

s increase to 30. Sharpen -50,  Vibrance we’ll do -30. And I think saturation 75. Looking back at the Hi8 footage,  there’s kind of like a colorful fuzziness here at edges, so one way to  recreate that is using the Channel Blur effect. And I’m going to copy and paste this effect so  that we have two of them. Under blur dimensions, selecting horizontal for one of the effects  and the Vertical for the other. For the horizontal channel blur, I’m increasing the red  blurriness to 30. And the vertica

l channel blur, changing the blue blurriness to also 30.  The final effect to add is unsharp mask. And playing around with this, settling on 100 for  the amount, and the radius at 8. Kind of finishes off the look and adds a sharpness that you can  kind of see in the Hi8 footage. And I think I’m going to stop here. I feel like this close enough.  Though if you wanted add those like black borders on the sides, you could always just crop them  on the left and right. I think 12% is good. Eh - the co

lor and highlights are a little bit  off, so I'm just going to adjust that a tiny bit. And that's close enough for me. That is pretty much it for this video. Would  love to know your thoughts analog vs. digital, what you think about editing digital  footage to look more like analog footage. Thank you for watching. I hope you enjoyed  and I will see you in the next one. Bye!