AVCHD: "I don't get no respect."

The acquisition codecs are quite a bit different.

DVCProHD is 4:2:2 and was shot a 720/24pN. It was intraframe footage.

To me, it would hold up better when compressed to SD that AVCHD at 4:2:0 and interframe long GOP.
 
David S. said:
The acquisition codecs are quite a bit different.

DVCProHD is 4:2:2 and was shot a 720/24pN. It was intraframe footage.

To me, it would hold up better when compressed to SD that AVCHD at 4:2:0 and interframe long GOP.
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I guess the solution is to convert the AVCHD 4:2:0 footage into an intermediate codec such as ProRes or Cineform that does 4:2:2 for CC and SD conversion?
 
David S. said:
We did. In fact, we tried every conversion in the HD intraframe arsenal.

Same result.
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Wow, now Im scared. I'll do some DVD encoding test myself then.

But I still don't understand, if the transcoding codec is a 4:2:2 it should hold up and maintain to whatever 4:2:2 quality can show.
 
David S. said:
In fact, we tried every conversion in the HD intraframe arsenal.
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Hmmm... I am thinking that Windows based software that can handle native AVCHD video without transcoding to another CODEC might do a better job. ( or Mac based software that can handle native AVCHD video like Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 4.1 )

I haven't down-rezzed anything from the HMC150 yet, but I've processed a fair bit of AVCHD video shot with a Canon HG21 consumer camera for DVD projects, and have been very happy with the results I am seeing. I use Sony Vegas Pro 8.1 ( now Sony Vegas Pro 9.0 ) to down-rez to DVD NTSC. ( both 16:9 and 4:3 )
 
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NEEL said:
Please, don't apologize. You touched a nerve and thats good. I bought the HMC because I was impressed with its picture quality after doing quite a lot of comparison. Now I have some serious doubts wheater my decision was right to buy the HMC.

Not technically wise, but as I am also working as a director, for my next project I need to hire a DOP. I think there is and will be a "psychological problem" with the HMC if its not regarded as a professional cam due to this strange kind of marketing...
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Well, I'm sure if he's a dedicated photographer, he'll see past the labels. If he doesn't, just shoot some footage right in front of him, load it into an NLE, and show him how far you can push it in CC. Anyone who sees that can no longer put up a fight... Maybe Geordi LaForge.

If he insists on making it a technical debate, you can point out the DVCPRO HD 8x8 macroblocks, over AVC's 4x4. The fact that AVC is full raster... and most importantly it's the same front end (sensors, lens, DSP, etc.) as the hvx200a and the hpx170. Not that I'm dissing DVCPRO HD, just saying in a psycho/tech debate this could be useful in convincing him if emomtion clouds the bottom line footage.

Also, tell him it's sold by the professional division. (An aside: I really hate the term prosumer. It is so often applied to low cost professional equipment. What it really means is a consumer product at a price and quality class that Could be used for Pro purposes. ) If he's still not into h.264, if you have the budget, get one of the convergent design devices. eh? 4:2:2 and 10-bit! how could he complain after that!

I had the money for the HPX170 and was all set to buy, but I liked the footage from the HMC150 better. Just my opinion, and I don't know why. and don't intend to intellectualize why. It just looked nicer, by a nominal margin, to my eye, and I didn't need any of the features that it's missing. I think if anyone does any kind of broadcast work, the HPX is a MUCH better choice. I don't, so...

My gigs are "INLAND EMPIRE" :) style settings and workflows, the broadcast features of the hvx and hpx are wasted on me. HOWEVER, if I thought, for one second, I would realistically find myself doing broadcast, I'd'a gone with the HPX. It's not THAT much more money, and also, if you're dealing with tech snobs, and that's part of the reality of your work, it may be a smarter choice just because of that.

I think that if I were a dedicated DP, though, and had all that extra sdhc media to burn, to literally be able to run the cam, and not turn it off, try a ton of different setups with less frequent offloads, that'd make my job a lot easier. It's like going back to DV with all of its freedoms. P2 is awesome, and their capacity and price are much better, BUT it still is more like a film magazine than good ol' sky's the limit hour long takes. In 1080p you'd need a 64gb card to come close to a 16gb sdhc card (SDHC still gets 30 min more in that scenario). Offloads take less time, and if you use a native NLE you can do some basic editing right on the set with a quad core laptop. Although the same could be said for P2, you'd just have less footage to work with.

One of the reasons I went with the HMC, too, however silly this may sound, was because of a lot of the noise complaints people we're making about the HPX170. I don't know if that's been fixed, or if there ever really was a problem; but there is HPX170 footage out there of outdoor footage with a ton of noise.

I've tried to replicate that with the HMC150 with gain, with different settings, and lower light levels, and have yet to replicate the noise of much of the hpx "complaint" footage. (There is a very good chance those cams were just lemons. I'd bet money that the current shipping HPX170 and HMC150 look virtually the same on a good monitor. )

And honestly, I've tried my best to nail down 4:2:0's limitations in post versus 4:2:2 implemented in panny's respective codecs, and even under 800% magnification, I just can't find the difference. I will not be surprised if at some point I do hit a wall that 4:2:0 could not climb; but properly transcoded into an intermediate codec, so far I have yet to find that wall.

To David S.: That is curious about the DVD issues, since DVDs are 4:2:0 color space, I don't see why that would be an issue (unlike 4:1:1). Could you please keep us posted if you find anything else out?


happy shooting!
 
Retrospective said:
Wow, now Im scared. I'll do some DVD encoding test myself then.

But I still don't understand, if the transcoding codec is a 4:2:2 it should hold up and maintain to whatever 4:2:2 quality can show.
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Please reread what I've written.

I didn't say that the SD DVD encodes were bad.

I said that they weren't as good as footage derived as DVCProHD from our HPX170.

When we trying matching the footage, it didn't look like we wanted.
 
David S. said:
Please reread what I've written.

I didn't say that the SD DVD encodes were bad.

I said that they weren't as good as footage derived as DVCProHD from our HPX170.

When we trying matching the footage, it didn't look like we wanted.
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Ah ok, I understand.

Can you post a screenshot comparison between a still footage of HPX170 and HMC150 encoded in SD DVD?

Would like to see how good the HPX170.

Thanks!
 
arrestthisman said:
I think that if I were a dedicated DP, though, and had all that extra sdhc media to burn, to literally be able to run the cam, and not turn it off, try a ton of different setups with less frequent offloads, that'd make my job a lot easier. It's like going back to DV with all of its freedoms. P2 is awesome, and their capacity and price are much better, BUT it still is more like a film magazine than good ol' sky's the limit hour long takes.
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In "Video Shooter: Storytelling with DV, HD, and HDV Cameras" Barry Braverman opines that DV (and other digital formats) allowed anyone shooting lots of footage cheap, without extra thinking, producing lots of crap. He thinks that small film magazines and the sheer price of film stock force film DPs to shoot more conscientiously, to shoot less, to shoot only what is needed. In a way, expensive P2 cards are just like that, they force you to shoot in a more laconic style, thus making you... um... a better shooter? What do you think?
 
Cranky said:
In a way, expensive P2 cards are just like that, they force you to shoot in a more laconic style, thus making you... um... a better shooter? What do you think?
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I would assert that limited recording capacity stifles creativity -- meaning you become risk-averse and a lot less likely to play around with ideas.

If I've got limited capacity I'm infinitely more likely to stick to a story board. On the other hand, if I've got freedom, I'm more likely to try different ideas in multiple takes.
 
Kinda. I was the same with DSLR stills. First time, loads of shots, lots of crap but as time went on Id be more selective in the field to save selection and edit time later. Same with my footage now. Id rather do less sifting and editing later with clips
 
Cranky said:
In "Video Shooter: Storytelling with DV, HD, and HDV Cameras" Barry Braverman opines that DV (and other digital formats) allowed anyone shooting lots of footage cheap, without extra thinking, producing lots of crap. He thinks that small film magazines and the sheer price of film stock force film DPs to shoot more conscientiously, to shoot less, to shoot only what is needed. In a way, expensive P2 cards are just like that, they force you to shoot in a more laconic style, thus making you... um... a better shooter? What do you think?
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He's entitled to his opinion. But, honestly, just Sunday night, I was doing a shoot; we had a script, no storyboard, but knew what we wanted.

The guy was very good for a rookie, he'd only acted a couple of times before. It was tough for him because a lot of the scenes he was alone on screen. This meant his nuances in behavior had to be both realistic, but also interesting. That's not easy. He was doing fine, but thanks to SDHC cards, we'd do these long 25 minute takes. After doing the scenes over and over, eventually they became second nature, and by keeping the camera rolling and letting him just do his thing, 9 times out of 10 the last cut was the best. In addition to this, we would make lots of mistakes and often liked them, or tried something new. It was very nice, and coming from the DVX to the HVX (which I found to be a step backwards for a couple of reasons--that's another post) and now the HMC, boy do I appreciate the true video workflow. With the HVX there was so much futzing with offloading. On projects with experienced actors, or with a lot of money for high capacity cards, then there's no issue, but man this is a niche that I don't know if a lot of people appreciate.

For me the bottom line is that longer takes = being able to get usable and (can it be?!) GOOD performances from inexperienced actors.

So for me the freedom is good, but for a production where "time is money," I could totally see long recording times (and a DP accustomed to them) being a liability.

FYI, for anyone out there using FCP. FCP7 allows you to transcode to Pro ResHQ! For those of us who are compositing/effects/filter happy, this is a wonderful thing!

Just to bring back to topic (and because it's on my mind), although I don't know how much use this thread has by now: I was on another thread and was reading a RED fanboy, who said we all have RED to thank for forcing the other manufacturers to cater to digital cinema.....

Now, I'm not a genius, but was RED even a company in 2002 when the DVX100 came out? And I'm not sure but I think the F900 was out before that.

Now to some extent I do agree that RED may have accelerated things, but I don't know... RED ones are still basically in Beta. I wonder what EPIC and Scarlet will be when they come out.

If panasonic released a product they have on the drawing board for 2 years from now with bugs and all, I don't think we'd be too happy. It seems that RED has a policy of releasing unfinished products, which is fine for those who are into the bleeding edge; but it's apples to oranges to compare RED's products to manufacturers who ship totally working products. An f23 AFAIK is a fully functioning piece of equipment that doesn't require ice packs, and workarounds.

I think there's a place for both, but I wouldn't be surprised if Panny was working on a Pro version of the GH1 maybe with PH mode, live HDMI, audio? who knows? But not many people here would be happy if it had constant overheating issues, and a 1.5 minute boot up time with random shutdowns... even if it was out a year before anyone else had anything like it out on the market. If course, there probably is a segment of people who would prefer to have it sooner than later at any cost, but I suspect it's the minority.

Anyway, that's my latest perspective on the issue.
 
I agree.

RED is like a hobby or project. I listen to the RED Centre podcast not because I own one but because I am interested in it all.

Listening to the guys on there talk about "RED have just fixed this issue where you go to play back your footage and you only get a green display" and "if your RED crashes it can take 4 minutes to reboot and start filming" doesnt instill confidence in a product costing tens of thousands.

It might well be cheaper than Genesis and other high end things but the dicking around that you seem to need to do means its still very much a work in progress some 2 years down the line.
 
Rikki said:
Kinda. I was the same with DSLR stills. First time, loads of shots, lots of crap but as time went on Id be more selective in the field to save selection and edit time later. Same with my footage now. Id rather do less sifting and editing later with clips
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Very true.


I came from 35mm and 6 7 so when digital became “good enough and cheap enough” may people feared that taking time to make sure you had the shot right would go out the window in favor of cheap and easy digital shooting styles and that may have happened for a minute but most good photographers still took great photos with dslr's.


It's the operator not the camera.
 
Dear arrestthisman, Thanks for the post! I am finally ready to move from my beloved Sony VX2100 to HD. I have used the VX2100 for video production for over 10 years! I am in the Personal History business and just recently found the need to move to HD. Perhaps I am an example of the targeted market that Barry Green described in an earlier post.

The subject of my videos is most often grandma in her living room. Grandma doesn't do well in front of a lot of production lights, so an HD camcorder that does exceptional in low light is a must. I have overcome the poor audio on my VX2100 with a Fostex field recorder, but would love to get a camcorder with good XLR audio. My clients, the son or daughter of Grandma, are starting to ask for HD. I have researched HD camcorders for MONTHS now and I think the HMC150 sounds like the perfect choice for me.

I do have one concern... will AVCCAM (a.k.a. AVCHD) be well supported in the industry 10 years from now? Or will it go to the graveyard of abandoned formats, where 8-Track tape went? (Yes, I'm that old!)
 
vikkyd said:
I do have one concern... will AVCCAM (a.k.a. AVCHD) be well supported in the industry 10 years from now? Or will it go to the graveyard of abandoned formats, where 8-Track tape went? (Yes, I'm that old!)
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Is Lotus 1-2-3 format still supported now? Sure, there are converters and direct drivers. A file is a file. No tapes, no decks, no worries.
 
AVCHD is intended by the industry bigwigs to be "the new DV". So take that for what it's worth. Panasonic and Sony jointly developed the format, and Canon and JVC and Sanyo and Samsung and Sharp have all joined in. But, who knows how long any format will last? DV's had a pretty good run, it's been about 15 years now!
 
Thanks for the quick replies. I do hope that AVCHD proves to be as resilient as DV. I'm on my way to purchase a new HMC150 -- woo hoo! And Barry, your HMC150 book will be purchased right along with it. Now I just need to hobble along a little while longer with my Pentium D Duo Core, EDIUS Neo 2 (comes with HMC150 now) and Avid Liquid until I can afford to purchase Final Cut and Mac Pro! Gotta keep Grandma happy and her kids paying me the (not so big) bucks...
 
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