Crazy discussions at dv.com

brianluce said:
I think HD is for dreamers, SD is where the money is. I just don't get this whole HD craze.
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You can still shoot, edit etc in HD, then downconvert to SD for immediate use. But with HD rushes and master ready for any future use. May be valuable. But if a client comes to you and says "I will pay you money to shoot this as DVCPRO50, and it's fine on P2, I don't need a tape", you have a very valid point. :)
 
brianluce said:
I think HD is for dreamers, SD is where the money is. I just don't get this whole HD craze.
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The dreamers are the ones who will create the new programs of the future. To be stuck in an SD mentality is a deadend. Sure you can do a corporate show today and be paid tomorrow but what about the corporate shows today being created in HD? I have had this same back and forth will dozens of clients, friends and family. When HD came on the scene I was ready to jump in and get the first Sony HD offering. But reality set-in and fast-forward to 2006. Now you can buy a camera that you can use for SD while learning HD and pushing your own envelope to create HD material that will be valid for the next ? who knows how many years? So let the dreamers create the path for the rest of us. Lets hope they leave enough of a crumb trail to follow.
 
HVXguy said:
The dreamers are the ones who will create the new programs of the future. To be stuck in an SD mentality is a deadend..
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i guess i just don't get it. the world is overwhelming SD. most places on the planet are lucky to have betacam sp. digibeta is luxury. So why shoot in hd when barry green has demonstrated the dv50 image looks better than downconverted hd? futureproofing? man, the hd future seems a long way off to me. today and 5 years from today looks like SD. and that's why i think the hvx rocks. :kali:

the only good reason i can think of for hd is so you can say to clients "I'm shooting in high def now. so gimme another 20%. " or maybe for blow ups.
 
brianluce said:
i guess i just don't get it. the world is overwhelming SD. most places on the planet are lucky to have betacam sp. digibeta is luxury. So why shoot in hd when barry green has demonstrated the dv50 image looks better than downconverted hd? futureproofing? man, the hd future seems a long way off to me. today and 5 years from today looks like SD. and that's why i think the hvx rocks. :kali:

the only good reason i can think of for hd is so you can say to clients "I'm shooting in high def now. so gimme another 20%. " or maybe for blow ups.
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Good questions. There are plenty of High Def programs and content being shot to justify jumping in. Everyone I know either has a High-Def TV set or are looking at them. It's consumer demand that will push the HD future.
Plus the HD DVD war will start in a few months. 2009 is the switch to digital. 3 years.
Not everyone will have an HDTV sitting in their living room by 2009 but most TV shows and Broadcasts will be in HD by then. It's when everything else goes to HD not if. I remember pushing DVD to all my clients in 2001. Most, about 95% said I don't need that. I have not made a VHS dub in one year! It's all DVD now. It only took about 2 years to get 90% of my clients to DVD, and another 2 years to get that last 10%. So I hope to convert 50% of my clients to HD in 2 years and the other 50% a year after that. Once they see a WMV HD playing on our 52" DLP in the office they are hooked!!
 
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brianluce said:
i guess i just don't get it. the world is overwhelming SD. most places on the planet are lucky to have betacam sp. digibeta is luxury. So why shoot in hd when barry green has demonstrated the dv50 image looks better than downconverted hd?
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Question for you: Did Barry actually show that DV50 was better than downconverted HD? I didn't see the comparison, but "downconverted HD" can mean several things. On the HVX, if he downconverted HD on the P2 card to DV tape, then the "downconverted HD" means DV with its 4:1:1 color. If he downconverted HD in an NLE and he chose a different SD format (like DV50, AIC, uncompressed) I would think it would look pretty nice. I'd actually be surprised if HD->SD (uncompressed) looked WORSE than DV50. I have no doubt that HD->SD (DV25) looks worse than DV50.

From my own experiments in FCP of downconverting HD to various formats, most looked really good. However, DV25 looked noticeably fuzzy.

Personally, we just picked up an HD100 (nice cam) and plan on shooting everything in HD and downconverting for DVD (NOT DV) - I think the quality boost will be rather nice.
 
Is it me, or is all of this discussion about the engineering completely irrelevant when people actually using the camera stand up and say, "Wow, that thing is making great f'ing images for me!"

Specifications are important, but at the end of the day I think the most important, if somewhat subjective, quality is what we see on the screen.
 
DV50 definitely looks better than HD downconverted to DV. That's what the comparison showed.

If you're downconverting HD to DV50, it might be directly comparable; I didn't try that test.

And DV50 is absolutely 4:2:2 on the HVX, I've shown more than enough pictures to justify that.
 
harddrive said:
In principle the future is solid state acquisition, and the question is how far away the future is for the majority?
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Yes. In fact even sony admit this in their XDCAM white paper. And XDCAM can now record the proxy files to Memory Stick. P2 might be a catalyst for other companies, or perhaps already is. Infinity appears to offer a much cheaper solution and also gives the choice between solid state and other media. Panasonics case for P2's expense was one of reliability. However Grass Valley it would seem disagrees with this. Not that I would go out and trust my footage to Iomega storage just yet ;)

If a large organisation was to commit to such as a P2 solution, then it is conceivable that the ownership of the P2 stores would go with producers
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For ENG the cameraman will need to carry one around I would imagine. I'll ask some of the P2 ENG guys about it. I do know that many of the P2 ENG people wouldn't give away their cameras for love nor money. But they are part of larger organisations, and their cameras are recording SD to the largest P2 card sizes with 5 cards plugged into their cameras. So they have quite a hefty amount of record time there.
 
The 540 chroma lines are enough for 4:2:2 on 480 formats and extremely close to 576 (practically 4:2:2) on 576 formats. There are 540 instead of 720 in 720p which is 4:1.5:1.5 (540/720=3/4 of 2 which is 1.5) and 540 instead of 1080 in 1080p which is 4:2:0.

I think 1080p to SD should look better than dv50. Higher compression ratio but 640 instead of 360lines and downsampled luma should produce a big advantage. And of course DV50 4:2:2 is certainly miles ahead dv with 4:1:1 and we don't even need to test that:)
 
As harddrive pointed out, for one thing the camera has had a lot of 'spin' put on it by Panasonic. Not just harmless marketing spin, but misinformation has gone out there about the camera and its capabilities.
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No no no. Misinformation ? Come on. Everyone knew from day one that the faux website was a harmless marketing gimmick. Harmless fun. If you or anyone took that seriously then I have Ocean Front property in Arizona for you

The only spin I have seen is:

"A High Def 'DVX' that shoots 24p with tapeless aquisition!"

And it appears they delivered as promised

dunno 'bout you guys, but a small portable camera for 5 or 6 grand that can do dvcpro50 seems like a pretty good deal
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This is exactly what I think. Were talking about a 6000 camera; not a Varicam, not the Dalsa... Those are Porches and you guys are complaining over a Honda.

jeffyjones
Is it me, or is all of this discussion about the engineering completely irrelevant when people actually using the camera stand up and say, "Wow, that thing is making great f'ing images for me!"

Specifications are important, but at the end of the day I think the most important, if somewhat subjective, quality is what we see on the screen.
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Yes yes yes yes. My word someone get's it !

-

Simon

Your Reel looks very impressive. I'd like to see what you could do with the HVX. What is it ? DO you or do you not plan on using one and why ?
 
This is exactly what I think. Were talking about a 6000 camera; not a Varicam, not the Dalsa... Those are Porches and you guys are complaining over a Honda.
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Hmm. That is very true, and for what its worth the camera IS good for a $6000 device. But adverts such as the one with the HVX on top of ads asking for people with Varicam like cameras, or for people to go on big shoots suggest that Panny were trying to play on a different image. As someone else mentioned, it might have been that the marketing department got out of hand with the way the camera was promoted. The blog site I don't really know too much about as I never really bothered to read it apart from when everyone first started to complain about it.


Your Reel looks very impressive. I'd like to see what you could do with the HVX. What is it ? DO you or do you not plan on using one and why ?
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Thanks John :)

Would I buy one? No. Would I hire one? Maybe. There are one or two situations where the hire of one might be justified. But there would still be the problem of editing the footage, and my trust of the P2 workflow. The project I have in mind would involve obtaining some very rare footage of people who would never normally agree to be on camera. And the location access would be such that a larger camera would probably be impractical. But my mistrust of harddrives means that I would be reluctant unless the device I was offloading to was nuclear bomb proof! :)
 
Yes, pretty much purely the solid stae. And that viewfinder.

I have no doubt I could make something that looks really good with the camera. But the workflow kills it for me.
 
I understand where you're coming from Simon, really, even though I love the idea of solid state media, I do, but then we're back to a chicken egg thing aren't we? We can't have the benefit of recording such high quality images at such a low price without solid state recording. So the very thing you dislike, is what makes what you do like possible....

It's sort of like being AGAINST alcohol while at the same time being FOR bedding sorority girls... You can't really have one without the other....

This doesn't actually mean anything by the way, I just like throwing it out there...
 
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