Is HMC broadcast quality and Questions

[damienthedevil]

1. I am wondering whether I can use the HMC for a TV Broadcast Cooking programme. I had rented 2 HVX202EN for the first four episodes ( 2 Camera set-up). I am now thinking of purchasing 3 HMC for the balance 8 episodes. Am i making the right Choice? I can't afford the HPX170 as P2 cards are too expensive while SDHC cards are cost effective. The final format for the cooking programme is Digital Betacam PAL.

2. Can I output the HMC video rushes via HDMI ( I have both the BMD HD extreme and BMD Intensity card in my edit suites ). Will my quality be better than via USB or SDHC card reader.

2. Can I use my existing DVX batteries for the HMC150?

Pls kindly advise and thank you

Damien

[Mike Harvey]

1) The term "broadcast quality" is subjective. I personally would consider it more than adequate for broadcast... but it really depends on who's broadcasting it. If the final product is DigiBeta, it shouldn't be an issue... but I would double check to make sure whomever is buying the show that AVCHD\AVCCam is an acceptable shooting format.

2) The HDMI is supposed to bypass the compression and be uncompressed straight off the chips. So if you're going straight from the camera to the Black Magic card and bypassing recording to SDHC all together, then yes, it WILL look better, as it will be less compressed and have a better colorspace. However, a chain is only as strong as the weakest link. If you plan on recording to the SDHC card and then outputting via HDMI, then it will only look as good as the AVCHD format you recorded on the card (which is still pretty darn good).

3) No, the HMC uses a new type of battery, so the DVX batteries are not compatible. However, the remote zoom control port uses the same proprietary control as the DVX, HVX, and HPX, so an zoom controls you have for those cameras will work with the HMC.

Hope that helps.

[Hidef1080]

I was kinda wondering the same thing but more about AVCHD or AVCCAM.
I remembering reading the HD requirements for I believe National Geographic or The History channel and it was broken down by formats like you could not have more than X% of HDV footage or 100% DVCPRO HD was okay but you could not use SD.... Or something along those lines.


I wonder how well received higher bitrate AVCHD footage would be with major channels...

[trez]

In Poland, where I live, most HD tv stations use 8-10mbps bandwidth (they don't mention it, of course). This is what they call 'HD' here ;) I'm sure they would not accept AVCHD footage, though - the quality is not up to their standards. LOL.

[gint12b]

Keep in mind that this is from wikipedia so take it for what it's worth

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-definition_television#Types_of_media

"HDTV signals and colorimetry are defined by Rec (http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rec._709). 709. MPEG-2 (http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPEG-2) is most commonly used as the compression codec (http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codec) for digital HDTV broadcasts. Although MPEG-2 supports up to 4:2:2 (http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4:2:2)YCbCr (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YCbCr) chroma subsampling and 10-bit quantization, HD broadcasts use 4:2:0 (http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4:2:0) and 8-bit quantization to save bandwidth. Some broadcasters also plan to use H.264/MPEG-4 (http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC) AVC, such as the BBC (http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC) which is trialing such a system via satellite broadcast, which will save considerable bandwidth compared to MPEG-2 systems. Some German broadcasters already use H.264/MPEG-4 AVC together with DVB-S2 (http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVB-S2) (Pro (http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro_7) 7, Sat.1 (http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sat.1) and Premiere (http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premiere_(pay_television_network))). Although MPEG-2 is more widely used at present, it seems likely that in the future all European HDTV may be H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, and Norway, which is currently in the progress of implementing digital (http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_television) television broadcasts, is using H.264/MPEG-4 AVC for present SD Digital as well as for future HDTV on terrestrial broadcasts. In parts of Sweden the standard is already in use for HDTV terrestrial broadcasting, reaching about 25-30% of the population. Brasil was the first country in the American continent to begin broadcasting H.264 AVC video and HE-AAC audio as the main program (or multi) compression and the same H.264 AVC in LDTV 240p using AAC-LC as audio for mobile DTV devices, not only mobile phones."

Also, keep in mind that the PH mode has 24Mbps! You can only broadcast over the air HD at 19.38 Mbps in the US. Moreover, Apple HD downloads from iTunes is only 4Mbps and XBox 360 downloads are 6.8... (read this article for references: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=959)

Here is another great article on the comparisons between broadcast bitrates: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=962&tag=rbxccnbzd1
(Scroll down to the bottom of the article for a comparison chart)


I think if you talk to any broadcasting network, it all comes down to one thing: QUALITY CONTENT!!!

[Bucknfl]

Hey gint12b if you don't mind tell us a little bit about your combat photography work your doing in Iraq.

[gint12b]

I don't want to get too far off topic on this thread but I am currently in charge of a 40 man Joint Combat Camera team in Iraq. You can check out our work here:

http://www.dvidshub.net/units/JCCCI

The reason I have been following this forum so close is that I'm trying to convince my unit to switch over to the HMC-150. We have tested 5 HVX-200's here in Iraq and they have held up perfectly. They are just a little too big and bulky for the mission and the data is almost impossible to push through the low bandwidth over here. The HMC-150 fixes both those problems being lightweight with a low but high quality bitrate!

[Bucknfl]

Very interesting. Thanks for the update and we appreciate all the work you guys are doing over there.