Class on 21 August 2023

Dr. Sunil Kumar Das

Introduction to Video Camera
What is a Video Camera?
 A camera that captures moving images and converts them into electrical signals so
that they can be saved on a storage device, such as videotape or a hard drive, or
viewed on a monitor.
 A camera equipped to record or transmit images and, often, accompanying sound.

Camcorder
 Today, tape cassettes are history, and all video cameras are digital camcorders that
record onto flash memory cards, hard drives or SSDs.
 In addition, every modern Smartphone is also a Camcorder.

Parts of the Camera

 The first is the lens, which selects a certain field of view and produces a small optical
image of it.
 The second part is the camera itself, with its imaging, or pickup, device that converts
the optical image as delivered by the lens into electrical signals.
 The third is the viewfinder, which shows a small video image of what the lens is
seeing.
 Some cameras have a small fold-out screen that does not require you to look through
an eyepiece to see the camera picture.

PARTS OF CAMERA
The main parts of a television (video) camera are the lens, the camera itself with
the imaging device, and the viewfinder

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Basic Camera Functions
 All television cameras, whether digital or analog, big or small, work on the same
basic principle:
the conversion of an optical image into electrical signals that are reconverted by
a television set into visible screen images.
• Specifically, the light that is reflected off an object is gathered by a lens and focussed
on the imaging (pickup) device.
• The imaging device is the principal camera element that transduces (converts) the
light into electric energy-the video (picture) signal.
• That signal is then amplified and processed so that it can be re-converted into visible
screen images.

The light reflected off the object is gathered by the lens and focussed on the beam
splitter, which splits the white light of the image into red, green, and blue light beams.
These beams are directed toward their respective CCDs, which transform the RGB
light into electrical RGB signals; these are amplified and processed and then
reconverted into video pictures by the view finder.

Step-by-Step : The Elements and Processes Involved

• We can examine step-by-step the elements and processes involved in the
transformation of light images into colour television images.
• Specifically, we look at
(1) Beam Splitter and
(2) the Imaging Device.

The Beam Splitter

 The Beam Splitter consists of various prisms and/or filters that separate the white
light that passes through the camera lens into three light primaries-Red, Green, and
Blue, usually referred to as RGB.

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 • These three primaries, RGB, are then electronically “mixed” into the many colours
you see on the television screen.
• Because all these prisms and filters are contained in a small block, the Beam Splitter
is often called the Prism Block.

The beam splitter splits the incoming white light (representing the picture as seen by the
lens) into RGB (red, green and blue) light beams and directs them to their respective
CCDs.

The RGB Beam Splitter

The prism block consists of prisms and filters that split the incoming white light into the
three additive colours-Red, Green, and Blue-and direct these into their corresponding
CCDs.

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The Imaging Device
• Once the white light that enters through the lens has been divided into the three
primary colours, each light beam must be translated into electrical signals.
• The principal electronic component that converts light into electricity is called the
Imaging Device.
• This Imaging, or Pickup, Device consists of a small (about, or less than, the size of a
postage stamp with a small window) solid-state device normally called a chip or,
more technical, a Charge-coupled Device (CCD).

Charge-Coupled Device
• The CCD contains hundreds of thousands of image-sensing elements, called pixels (a
word made up of pix, for picture, and els for elements), that are arranged in horizontal
and vertical rows.

 The CCD holds many rows of thousands pixels, each of which transforms light that
enters through the little chip window into an electric charge.

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Pixels
 Pixels function very much like tiles that make-up complete Mosaic Image.

• A certain amount of such concrete elements are obviously needed to produce a

recognizable image.
• If there are relatively few mosaic tiles, the object may be recognizable, but the picture
will not contain much detail.
• The more and the smaller the tiles in the mosaic, the more detail the picture will have.
• The same is true for CCDs: The more pixels the imaging chip contains, the higher the
resolution of the video image.
• Each pixel is a discrete image element that transforms its colour and brightness
information into a specific electric charge.

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