I see.

Undoubtedly you've watched engineers try to get three cameras to match each other (or maybe you've done it yourself). Sometimes it seems like they'll never manage it. And sometimes they don't. The point is that even if you try to set up a camera right from the start the setups aren't always the same. If you multiply that margin of error by 20 or 30 steps then of course the signal's going to be off by the time it gets to someone's home.

My guess is that if you've got an analog signal and you've got the analog tools to adjust that signal before you digitize it then by all means adjust it. DV is only 8 bits per channel and it'd be better to capture an adjusted analog signal than to have to adjust it digitally later. To my eye, too much digital adjustment makes things look grainy. Better to get the best signal you can going in.

Of course if it's DV25 to start with then you just leave it alone. And if you've already matched a set of analog cameras at shoot time then you'd want to be awful carefull about tweaking them again at digitization time.

I suspect that someone here on the forum is going to point out a scope tool that meters the DV input from the 1394 port. That tool would not be Vegas though.

Rob Mack