Panasonic Announces MPEG-4 Support in P2

BobDiaz

BobDiaz

The Professor
For details, please see the links below:


http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6327203.html?display=Breaking+News


http://www.kensei-news.com/cetc/publish/broadcast/article_37376.shtml


The key thing to remember is that users will have a choice. As for users of the HDV format, they have NO choice and are stuck with MPEG-2.

There's no word in the articles if the HVX-200 will be upgraded to allow for this additional format or not. (I'm not at NAB, so I can't ask them.) Don't expect to see this until April 2007 anyway. The HVX's firmware can be upgraded.

Assume that the HVX-200 will be supported; if we compare MPEG-2 at 25Mb/second to MPEG-4 at the exact same data rate, the MPEG-4 footage looks better. This is because MPEG-4 does a better job of dealing with compression than MPEG-2. I've always wondered why HDV wasn't updated to take advantage of the improvements in compression.


This should be very interesting, because those who want maximum quality will be shooting at the maximum data rate, but those who need more time, they will be shooting MPEG-4. This will lead to endles decussions about the differences between the image quality...


Bob Diaz
 
Where does this fit in with the HVX200 as opposed to the new Panny camera family announced? A free upgrade from Panasonic to all previous owners?

And what about DVD application? Won't you still have to downconvert from Mpeg4 to mpeg2 anyway? These are real questions, I want to know how that works.
 
i don't see from reading these articles how one can hope/expect that the HVX will be upgradeable for MPEG4 encoding. it would be nice but until there is announcement from Panny i'll remain skeptical.

but it is exciting news overall for the P2 recording media. i'm currently having fantasies of a 2/3" inch removable lens camera that records in DVCPro, MPEG4 and D5 compression formats. oh man that would be hot!
 
Same quality at a lower bitrate = fit more footage on P2. Also H264 will be a more universal codec. Not sure of the ramifications for editing, though. Does H264 use GOPs?
 
The Sarlacc said:
Whats the advantage? Is this better then what is currently storing to P2 when shooting HD?
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You know what? I'm not really sure to tell you the truth. The only advantage I could see is a smaller, yet still just as robust, file. If that's correct.
 
I don't want to go too far beyond what I know and say something wrong.

The advantage is that with MPEG-4, the bit rate is reduced by 1/2, thus the recording time is doubled and the quality is about the same. This will turn out to be an interesting test for users to verify this. Even if there is some sort of difference, we still have a choice.

As for the HVX-200: We know that the firmware in the camera can be upgraded. BUT, maybe the camera's micro can't run the camera and do the compression at the same time and it lacks the proper hardware to convert. This is a big unknown.

My guess is that by tonight, tonight as in LV time, those at the show will be able to shead some more light on this.

One thing I find interesting is that the press releases had no comments about hte 16GB P2 cards. I don't want to read too much into this, because users at the show will be able to say more than I can...


Bob Diaz
 
I doubt it VERY MUCH that the current HVX can be upgraded to encode 1080i in real time to H264 in a decent quality. That would need either a LOT of processing power by a general purpose CPU or dedicated circuits.

My opinion: H264 will NOT happen with the HVX. NO WAY. An hardware upgraded model maybe.
 
I can easily see an add-on device like the Cineporter giving Mpeg-4 functionality, because it could have a hardware chipset for encoding purposes built in. But to do it internally with the HVX, it would be totally software encoding-- I don't know the power of the HVX's processor, but I seriously doubt it is anywhere near powerful enough to do this in real-time.

I could invision, however, a way for the HVX to encode DVCPROHD to Mpeg-4 from one P2 card to another, after having been captured. In that case, time would not be as much of an issue. That would be handy-- record to P2 in DVCPROHD, and dump to card #2 in Mpeg-4. Once finished, you would format card #1 and keep shooting...
 
scarfie said:
Same quality at a lower bitrate = fit more footage on P2. Also H264 will be a more universal codec. Not sure of the ramifications for editing, though. Does H264 use GOPs?
Click to expand...

Yes it does, and it is computationally expensive. Thus, it's essentially uneditable (as any GOP-based codec).

And people shouldn't make the mistake of assuming that MPEG-4 uses a "more advanced" or inherently better codec than MPEG-2, because it usually doesn't. MPEG-4 isn't even just a codec; it's an entire file structure. MPEG-4 files can contain 3-D models (based on VRML), hyperlinks, documents, MIDI, and even text to be synthesized into speech and matched up with a rendered "talking head." And they can contain video encoded with different codecs.

Another problem with GOP-based codecs in any camera is that their quality suffers for lack of multiple passes. If you're encoding MPEG-2 for a DVD, you can make as many passes over the footage as you want, to optimize bitrate and other encoding parameters second by second. But cameras have to encode on the fly, so you're not going to get the quality you've seen delivered by the same codec at the same bitrate on discs or H.264 movie trailers you downloaded from the Apple site. You're going to get the quick and dirty best effort by a camera processor stressed to the max.

I don't see much of a point.
 
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BobDiaz said:
http://www.kensei-news.com/cetc/publish/broadcast/article_37376.shtml
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"...an provide high quality for news at half the bandwidth compared to DVCPRO HD."

As we know, anaything is good enough for news...


BobDiaz said:
The key thing to remember is that users will have a choice.
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I love the freedom of choise that I have as a user of HVX200E.
Right now I have the choise to make my own 720p25/50 codecs to FCP, since Apple and Panasonic have refused to make them. They had a full year after the model was announced at nab2005. They didn't do it.

I don't believe intra-avc will have the double efficiency of dv-codec.
They are practically same with mpeg2-I-frame-only in efficiency.
Avc has only adaptive macroblocks to enhance efficiency in I-frames.
Although avc-high-profiles do have many attempting combinations like 10b or 12b colors or 4:2:2 or 4:4:4 colors.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC

GVT went already to wavelet compression with jpeg2000 and Red will have their own wavelet, so I don't really see intra-AVC very attractive somewhere in 2009 when all necessary parts might have support for it.
 
I don't see much of a point.
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Except for Toke's mention of news gathering.

MPEG-4 isn't even just a codec; it's an entire file structure. MPEG-4 files can contain 3-D models (based on VRML), hyperlinks, documents, MIDI, and even text to be synthesized into speech and matched up with a rendered "talking head." And they can contain video encoded with different codecs.
Click to expand...

Cool...didn't realize it could do all that. My take is that it is an optimal delivery codec but not so much so as far as aquisition and post.
 
Not sure if any of you have tried using H264 to encode media in Quicktime, but it is extremely slow going compared to many other codecs. It would be quite a feat if the HVX200 could encode realtime to H264, given how long it takes a dual processor G5. Not saying it's impossible, since I'm not an engineer, but I'm not getting my hopes up either.
 
editatjoes said:
Not sure if any of you have tried using H264 to encode media in Quicktime, but it is extremely slow going compared to many other codecs. It would be quite a feat if the HVX200 could encode realtime to H264, given how long it takes a dual processor G5. Not saying it's impossible, since I'm not an engineer, but I'm not getting my hopes up either.
Click to expand...

The HVX would need a hardware MPEG encoder to do this anyways. It doesn't have one. I don't see any way that it would be possible for the HVX to record MPEG4.
 
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