[BC] sliding focus

[Jason R.]

What am I actually seeing?

  I tried out the RCA analog/digital converter box.
Got more channels of mexican programming, and quite a lot of silent weather 
maps.  Lots and lots active channels with nothing on them.  Just their 
names.  I guess it all goes live Feb '09.

  Saw 3 active channels where the slide zoom was horridly distracting. 
Zooming in or out... as the zoom factor changes, the picture goes 
increasingly out of focus until the error correction somewhere grabs things 
and 'snaps' it into hard focus, while the zoom continues 
incresing/decreasing.

  Camera, board, processing, A/D conversion... what is it?  It's very 
distracting once you notice it.
Would be better off with a soft focus all the way along.

( I don't know the focal lengths, fame ratios, etc. but I can tell you a 
full body screen shot, zoomed in to the face-neck-shoulders size shot would 
show that horrid effect 6 or 7 times along the way )

  I think I've seen that effect on the Sony Handicam type cameras, but it 
always seemed limited to the operators viewscreen, not the feed back to the 
mixer.

I have no idea what camera these stations were actually using.

What's actually up... and what's the fix?
Jason R.