24 Inch Monitor + $300 Camcorder = Dissapointment?

[harley45]

I'm thinking about buying a bigger monitor to watch the tapes my wife shoots of me at matches and in practice on I like the 24" versions but will my camcorder provide enough quality for a decent image like my current 19" does, or will it get blurry and grainy?

Thanks

[shred]

I'm thinking about buying a bigger monitor to watch the tapes my wife shoots of me at matches and in practice on I like the 24" versions but will my camcorder provide enough quality for a decent image like my current 19" does, or will it get blurry and grainy?

Thanks

A digital camcorder (MiniDV, Digital8, MiniDVD) will make video around DVD quality, plus or minus some. An analog camcorder will make much worse video-- think standard TV quality, but a lot of people look at standard TV and VHS tapes on 50" TVs.

[George]

Standard definition video from a camcorder is 640x480 pixels in resolution or less (interlace scanned though).

When you map this type of video onto a computer display by playing a standard definition DVD on your computer, the pixels are stretched to fit the screen.

Example: When you view a DVD on a 1280x1024 monitor (typical 15-17 inch display resolution), you are spreading each pixel from the video across two pixels on the monitor. This will NOT look sharp compared to playing the video on a regular TV where the pixel resolution of the screen is 640x480 also (or close to it anyway).

No matter the size of a TV monitor as opposed to a computer monitor, the pixel pitch is typically going to be the same no matter the size, this means that a standard definition DVD played onto a 19", 24", 30", or even 50" TV monitor will look about the same as far as sharpness goes as long as the pixel pitch of the display is just about the same as the image mapped onto it.

In other words, standard definition video displayed on regular TV monitors will look the same on any size TV monitor when viewed from the proper distance for that size TV monitor.

The rule of thumb for viewing distance of TV material is to take the screen width in inches (not the diagonal like most displays are measured in) and multiply by 3 for the minimum viewing distance and by 7 for the mmaximum viewing distance for that image size.

Example: 19" TV tube is roughly 15" wide. x3 is 45" and x7 is 105". A tube this size should be viewed between these distances for optimum image qualiity to your eye. Too close and the pixels are too large and can be seen too easily. Too far and the pixels are too crowded and text information can be hard to define.