Press Release: HMC150, "the new DVX"

Robert M Wright said:
It would be very disappointing if AVCHD cameras don't provide a live feed from USB port, like DV and HDV cameras do from the firewire port.
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Disappointing or not, that's the way it is. None of them do. And XDCAM-HD and XDCAM-EX don't stream out the firewire port either (they can only output HDV over the firewire port). And AVC-Intra doesn't stream either. And I'll go so far as to presume that the new PDW700 XDCAM MPEG422 won't either. The protocols don't exist, the SMPTE standards don't exist, so they can't. (unless those protocols are actually out and I just don't know about it).
 
Attic6 said:
. . . Lets focus on the camera here not on somebodys work insurance...
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I hate to sound like a broken record "Attic6" but the media IS the work insurance and if the insurance has a problem because of the media itself . . then what you are calling the "insurance" is the life and death of the camera.
 
Anyone who got firestores for workflow reasons (on tape cams) would not be too upset about this since the SD card is doing the same thing, but obviously a few (like dimento) will miss the redundancy purposes. You sounds like a broken record, this is obviously not the camera for you. You should also go back to film still cameras ;)

Do portable component/hdmi recorders exist? I could see that happening if the demand was high, but then the video would be in different formats unless they were to use the exact same encoding process. That could also be of advantage if those ports export before encoding and you were able to record at a higher quality.
 
mcsmooth said:
. . . but obviously a few (like dimento) will miss the redundancy purposes. You sounds like a broken record, this is obviously not the camera for you. You should also go back to film still cameras ;) . . .
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Hehehehehe. Bate them and they will say it "broken record" :o)

There is hope on this solid-state P2 with those like me who are paranoid over the possible loss issue . . and although not totally assured at least a 100% more better than with just the card alone.

My son is a computer science major at a major university and still in school at almost 27 (whew the cost for all these degrees) and I posed the problem to him and he wrote me a program that when the P2 card is installed, and when his little application is run, it uses the copy command in windows to apply it to more than one drive, and thus, (although slowing down the copy process) the P2 card copies to two drives at the same time (well almost, they actually copy at slightly different speeds) and thus once copied the P2 card now has two different copies. It was slick. We also tried two different bus drives and the copy was faster (USB2 and IEEE1394) and the result was the same only the whole copy time was faster.

Thus, the worse of my fears may be history . . note I say may be :o)

EDIT: Panasonic has responded to my "technical request" on the subject of P2 redundancy and we have been in email exchange over that and then shortly ago Panasonic called and the technical guru I spoke with believes that the card design is the way I had indicated and accordinly the reason/cause for its' high cost BUT he wasn't 100% of the exact reason and researching this and respond with the result. I will then post the conclusion either here or a new thread since some don't feel that this whole solid state issue is part of the HMC150 news release, although this camera uses solid-stated media as it's recording medium.
 
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mcsmooth said:
...

Do portable component/hdmi recorders exist? I could see that happening if the demand was high, but then the video would be in different formats unless they were to use the exact same encoding process. That could also be of advantage if those ports export before encoding and you were able to record at a higher quality.
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At NAB I saw the Convergent Design Flash XDR CompactFlash Based HD Recorder. I think it's going to be around $5,000. I think it only records HD-SDI, but I'm not sure about that.

www.convergent-design.com


CineForm is also working on a "Direct To Disk" Recorder. Sadly, I forgot to ask David Newman about that when I recorded the Podcast of him.

http://www.cineform.com/products/WafianHR1.htm


I'm sure there's someone else I missed, but who they are....


Best Wishes,

Bob Diaz
 
Question about color space. Does anyone have experience keying in 4:2:0 colorspace? I know it's not 4:2:2, but any thoughts about weather this camera will provide any advantage over MiniDV due to the higher resolution? Does the hiegher res somewhat negate the Chroma blockiness (ie. smaller blocks)?

Thanks for all your comments!
 
Well... for standard-def DVD release, yes. Resizing HD down to SD does result in a boost in the apparent chroma resolution.

The rest of the question revolves around what country you were in; progressive 4:2:0 is better than PAL 4:2:0, but progressive 4:2:0 isn't really any better than NTSC 4:1:1, it's just different. Same problem, different shape, but overall about the same.

Regardless, you'll be better off than miniDV because miniDV was 160x480 in chroma res, and this system will be 960x540 in chroma. Way higher chroma res. Yet if you downconvert to DVD, you should have the equiv. of 4:4:4.
 
Barry_Green said:
. . . Regardless, you'll be better off than miniDV because miniDV was 160x480 in chroma res, and this system will be 960x540 in chroma. Way higher chroma res. Yet if you downconvert to DVD, you should have the equiv. of 4:4:4.
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This 4:4:4 is waaaaay better right? What I mean is that it is not just a little bit better color width but a lot?

And . . . how would this compare to the HDV codec?
 
HDV is 4:2:0. AVC-HD is 4:2:0. For color sampling, they are equivalent. But, as always, AVC-HD is better (it's better than HDV in every possible way). HDV 1080i uses the dreadful interlaced chroma sampling scheme, whereas AVC-HD provides for native 1080/24P recording with proper progressive chroma sampling.

Plus, HDV is limited to 1440x1080, meaning a maximum of 720x540 chroma samples; AVC-HD is capable (in best-quality mode) of 1920x1080, yielding 960x540 chroma samples.

As for downconverting for SD release, either system will yield effectively 4:4:4 on a standard-def frame size. But, keep in mind, that's only useful up until the point you render it out to DVD, at which point it gets decimated back to 4:2:0.
 
Barry_Green said:
HDV is 4:2:0. AVC-HD is 4:2:0. For color sampling, they are equivalent. . . . As for downconverting for SD release, either system will yield effectively 4:4:4 on a standard-def frame size. But, keep in mind, that's only useful up until the point you render it out to DVD, at which point it gets decimated back to 4:2:0.
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So if I read this right then HDV and AVCHD will be pretty much the same when down converted to SD for DVD?

Then lastly, how does the HDV and AVCHD compare to the P2 .mxf format? What I mean is I know that the the HVX format is 4:2:2 but is it THAT much better?

And I do appreciate your tending with me on this ignorance of mine but I am trying to determine how to configure our business for the near term future :o)
 
The color sampling will be the same, not the quality of HD.

If you go into the articles section of the forum, Jarred Land has a great piece on understanding color sampling.
 
Barry, thanks for the reply. Intuitively it seemed like keying with a HD rez image would yield a better SD image.

I can't wait to see how well they implement the AVCHD codec. The Quicktime AVC encoded files I've made really seem to hold up well under fades and high motion, so I've got high hopes for the HMC-150. Now if only Sony Vegas gets on board with compatibility with it!
 
drdimento said:
So if I read this right then HDV and AVCHD will be pretty much the same when down converted to SD for DVD?

Then lastly, how does the HDV and AVCHD compare to the P2 .mxf format? What I mean is I know that the the HVX format is 4:2:2 but is it THAT much better?

And I do appreciate your tending with me on this ignorance of mine but I am trying to determine how to configure our business for the near term future :o)
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When you downsize from any of the high def formats, to SD, there just isn't much practical difference. I think it's real common for folks not to realize that when they are shooting in HD for something that will be downsized and delivered on a DVD, most the differences seen at full HD resolutions simply will not be perceivable in the finished product.
 
drdimento said:
when down converted to SD for DVD?
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Correct. And a great SD camcorder will look just as good too.

Then lastly, how does the HDV and AVCHD compare to the P2 .mxf format? What I mean is I know that the the HVX format is 4:2:2 but is it THAT much better?
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There is no comparison. One is a professional format accepted by all major networks as an unlimited acquisition, mastering and delivery format, and the other were both initially launched for the consumer market. Totally different design goals and implementations. Doesn't mean you can't make superb-looking footage in all three, but they're fundamentally different.
 
kurtmo said:
Intuitively it seemed like keying with a HD rez image would yield a better SD image.
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That is correct, depending on when you do the downconvert. If you downconvert into 4:4:4 and then key, it can be great. If you downconvert to DV and then key, it's awful.

Now if only Sony Vegas gets on board with compatibility with it!
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Sony seems to be using Vegas as a tool in their war against other manufacturers. I wouldn't recommend Vegas to anyone who wants to use anything other than a Sony camera. AVC-HD was developed jointly by Sony and Panasonic, and Canon and Samsung and Sharp and everyone else (except JVC) have all joined in, but Sony still continues to support Sony camcorders and gives limited or half-hearted support to Panasonic and Canon; in fact they've gone so far as to "break" implementations that used to work before. So -- if you want to stick with Vegas, good luck. I'm much more confident in solutions from EDIUS (which supports every format first, best, and natively) and I'm certain that when Adobe releases their support, it'll work across the board with no nasty "surprises" like Vegas seems to keep introducing.
 
I'm going to use 640 x 480 for the resolution for SD in order to keep the numbers simple (HD Square Pixels --> SD Square Pixels). Assume that we master and edit in HD, the down convert to SD...


HD 720p --> SD (Wide screen): In both the horizontal and the vertical direction, 2 HD Pixels become 1 SD Pixel. 1280 / 2 = 640 and 720 / 2 = 360. With 2 pixels in the horizontal direction and 2 pixels in the vertical direction, we have 4 HD pixels becoming 1 SD pixel.

HD 720p --> SD (Cropped): In both the horizontal direction and the vertical direction, 1.5 HD pixels become 1 SD pixel. 1280 / 1.5 x 0.75 (crop edges) = 640 and 720 / 1.5 = 480. With 1.5 pixels in the horizontal and 1.5 pixels in the vertical, we have 2.25 HD pixels becoming 1 SD pixel.


HD 1080p --> SD (Wide screen): In both the horizontal and the vertical direction, 3 HD Pixels become 1 SD Pixel. 1920 / 3 = 640 and 1080 / 3 = 360. With 3 pixels in the horizontal direction and 3 pixels in the vertical direction, we have 9 HD pixels becoming 1 SD pixel.

HD 1080p --> SD (Cropped): In both the horizontal direction and the vertical direction, 2.25 HD pixels become 1 SD pixel. 1920 / 2.25 x 0.75 (crop edges) = 640 and 1080 / 2.25 = 480. With 2.25 pixels in the horizontal and 2.25 pixels in the vertical, we have about 5 HD pixels becoming 1 SD pixel.



For Wide Screen Mode, my guess is that there won't be any real difference between 1080p and 720p. As for Cropped Mode, on paper 1080p shows a slight edge when one considers the 4:2:0 color, but I'm not sure it this would really show any major difference in the final result.


Bob Diaz
 
How about SD "anamorphic"?
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Oh, so you want to make it more complex??? :crybaby: :Drogar-BigGrin(DBG)

Well, let's stick with the 640x480 pixel count for SD. I know it's wrong, but it makes it easier to see what the numbers are doing... OK, so if we take 640x480 and stretch it out to a 16:9 wide screen, it's no longer square pixels, but I want to keep all the numbers on the same lever for an Apple to Apple comparison.

HD 720p --> SD (Anamorphic): In the horizontal 1280 HD pixels become 640 SD pixels, thus 2 HD pixels become 1 SD pixel. In the vertical 720 HD pixels become 480 SD pixels, thus 3 HD pixels become 2 SD pixels. That comes to 2 x 1.5 = 3 HD pixels become 1 SD pixel.

HD 1080p --> SD (Anamorphic): In the horizontal 1920 HD pixels become 640 SD pixels, thus 3 HD pixels become 1 SD pixel. In the vertical 1080 HD pixels become 480 SD pixels, thus 2.25 HD pixels become 1 SD pixel. That comes to 3 x 2.25 = 6.75 HD pixels become 1 SD pixel.


The bottom line is still the same, any time you master and edit in HD, then drop down to SD, you are coming in with a very high quality master and edit. The end result should be very good. Notice I'm pushing the idea of editing in HD. It's always best to stay in the HD mode until the end, where you dump the end result to SD.

If I'm shooting a wedding, mastering in 720/60p would be a good idea, because slow motion and freeze frame would work so well. I'm not sure if there would be any real difference in image quality between 1080p and 720p when th end result is SD.

Green screen or blue screen shots might have some difference. Any errors due to 4:2:0 color would show more reduction going from 1080p --> SD compared to 720p --> SD. However, the difference may only be slight. This is an area I've never tested, so I can't be sure.


Bob Diaz
 
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