Barry_Green
Moderator
DOH! Gold star, you are correct!
Press Release: HMC150, "the new DVX"
- Thread starter Barry_Green
- Start date
Barry_Green
Moderator
Yes and no. Yes it's the same basic codec, in the same way that the codec in a $15,000 DSR570 was the same DV codec as the DV codec in a $299 Sharp Viewcam. But if you think that makes them in any way comparable, well, hell no.
Second, AVC-HD is a standardized format, but there are many profiles in it. 6mbps, 13mbps, and 17mbps have been used before. Panasonic's introducing a new 21/24mbps PH mode in the HMC150 which is very different than anyone else's implementation.
Wow, totally amazing. A sort of "rebuild" for AVCHD then? Does this mean that any editor that has AVCHD "will not" necessarily read this 21/24mbps or "will" ?
Never really looked much at Canon and Sony anything after having made the decision to go 100% Panasonic DVX100B's right after they came out and then later adding HVX200's to our profile in December 2006. It wasn't until we really started to adding lots of HD to our production line up that the workflow became more and more cumbersome on HD's and where it was going to be necessary to add another person in the field crew to handle media that we decided to begin looking around at "more compression" codec formats wherein we heard all this rant and rave about long GOP (which we had been 100% against) and then decided to run side by side test of our production profile vs two HDV formats in front of a gad of client/viewers and the result was only a few were even able to distinguish a difference in the final image and therein we totally changed formats on both our field HD production units to make the workload simplier and improve our archiving.
However, with this discussion on AVCHD we are definately interested as it appears that the compression will be similiar in file size to the HDV filesize (or at least more like it by comparison to the file size requirements of the HVX's) and thus like our now current HD Compact Flash (with tape back up at the same time) we'd like to at least look/see if there is a difference to the viewing public.
To qualify our notion here on AVCHD vs HDV, we really don't care what the specs are as long as the picture isn't noticably different. That is, we gave up on specs, what we want is simple workability, simple media acquisition & storage solutions, and simple editing & output solutions. The DVX100B's have given us that on the SD side and looks like we're going to stay there on SD now that we found we can use Pansonic tapes in all our camera assets and thus our interest to look/see if the AVCHD will be a marginal image improvement or vast.
A collegue said that the 150 is being made available to a select few in California for some extensive testing and reviews. Can anyone confirm this? If so and better yet, does anyone know one of these people? We'd love to buy some footage
)
Last edited:
Barry_Green
Moderator
If the editor claims AVC-HD compatibility, then it will work.
If the editor has half-@$$ed support (like Sony Vegas, which claims support for "Sony AVCHD camcorders") then I wouldn't bet on it.
Barry_Green
Moderator
There are some review units out. Reviews should be hitting soon.A collegue said that the 150 is being made available to a select few in California for some extensive testing and reviews. Can anyone confirm this? If so and better yet, does anyone know one of these people? We'd love to buy some footage
Shrigg, in that article the reviewer talked about "blocking" . . would that be the same sort of spots where there are square blocks of pixels of different colors and in groups covering about 3 to 5% of the screen in an isolated area?
My friend on a cable network in CA said that the material he saw from a 150 had this too and he was calling it "artifacting" or as we call it at our place "pixelating" for lack of a better understanding of what is actually going on. He said that he was told that it is caused by the cameras software doing a horizontal read and either gets behind or the read is corrupted by some action interrupting the read cycle and then to catch up and avoid dumping black or white spots on the screen the machine designers just pop in an extrapolation algorithym in the software that deduces a "something similiar" look rather than nothing there.
We had this on our first NLE system where the processor and GPU were getting behind and to avoid stopping the stream when writing to an image file, did what was described above and it took a while to find a solutiion wherein we eventually had to replace the unit with dual xeons and a 512mb video card instead of a dual core with 128mb vid card.
My friend on a cable network in CA said that the material he saw from a 150 had this too and he was calling it "artifacting" or as we call it at our place "pixelating" for lack of a better understanding of what is actually going on. He said that he was told that it is caused by the cameras software doing a horizontal read and either gets behind or the read is corrupted by some action interrupting the read cycle and then to catch up and avoid dumping black or white spots on the screen the machine designers just pop in an extrapolation algorithym in the software that deduces a "something similiar" look rather than nothing there.
We had this on our first NLE system where the processor and GPU were getting behind and to avoid stopping the stream when writing to an image file, did what was described above and it took a while to find a solutiion wherein we eventually had to replace the unit with dual xeons and a 512mb video card instead of a dual core with 128mb vid card.
BobDiaz
The Professor
It sounded a lot like HDV macroblocking to me. While it isn't encouraging to hear scathing early reactions, I am pretty skeptical of that post. Even if there ARE any macroblocking/codec lags in the pre-release models, I am confident in Panasonic's ability to correct it. You need to break a few eggs to make an omelette and remember they're pushing AVCHD harder than has ever been done before. I imagine that's why a few early models are out there now, to let people try to break the codec and give feedback with what causes problems, etc.
Last edited:
Certainly sounds like a strong possibility as you point out. "The Cable Guy"
) emailed late last night (got it this morning) and indicated that a network tech told him exactly the term you used in your post above "macroblocking." I would think that would definately be correctable through programming of the respective device firmware . . yes? Sort of like the early HVX200's needed a firmware update to read 16Gb and greater cards?
Mark Williams
Veteran
When I was looking at the Panasonic transcoder download site I noticed that the software does not support 720p just 1080i. Anyone have some thoughts on this as to whether 720p will be supported.
Hi Mark, I think this was actually answered earlier that one just downrez's in the NLE. Because we had an earlier version Avid software we had to do that same thing with our HVX200 cameras and P2 cards where we "wanted" to use 720 @ 24pN to get 42 mins out of the 16Gb cards but our software would only support 30p or 1080i
(BTW, your video samples look really nice and peaceful
) Nice music choices . . from SmartSound?There are other choices for trancoding that support 720p. Mac/FCP has Pro Res HQ, Windows/Edius has Canopus HQ. As an FCP editor I am considering a move to Edius because the Canopus HQ transcoded files are half the size of Pro Res HQ. I do wish that Panasonic offered a speedy transocder for OS X because DVCPRO HD could be nice to work in too. Transcoding in FCP's Log and Transfer is reportedly very slow and very processor-intensive which has me looking for alternatives.
Last edited:
Barry_Green
Moderator
I can't imagine why it wouldn't be. We're still four to six weeks away from the first 720p AVC-HD camcorder coming on the market at all, so there's no rush to get the tool supporting something that you can't buy anyway. I'd bet it'll be updated by the time the 150 ships.
The EDIUS transcoder supports 720p right now.
Barry_Green
Moderator
I'd love to see the effect that guy's talking about, because I like to consider myself a master of "breaking" long-GOP codecs, and what he's talking about is nearly IMPOSSIBLE on the 150. Maybe if you shot 1080/60i in the worst-possible circumstances, but those same circumstances will break XDCAM-EX (and I know because I've done it).
The 150 is extremely solid, and in 720/24p mode it's bulletproof.