Hey, you know what. Here's my confusion. AF100 comes out, we hear groans about 24Mbs. Then months later the HPX250 comes out with AVC-Intra 50-100, I assumed the later technology was better especially since it shot to P2 cards. I was thinking why couldn't they give the AF100 all those goodies? Yes the HPX250 had DVCpro etc. Anyway, it's alright, I think I have enough to move on.
FINALLY!! AF100 HACK Pledge
- Thread starter dtzfilms
- Start date
Cheers mate. Less impertinent, much better. Thing is, I didn't know that, one, and two I assumed AVC-Intra 50 was better than AVCHD 24Mbs because AVC-Intra came out in the later HPX250. Anyway, I'm fine, that's enough. I know very little compared to people here but I have peers who know nothing but directing so I'm still ahead.
dtzfilms, I'm not sure what agenda you're trying to push here. First, the HPX-250 came out nearly a year later, not months. The technology is not better because it is being shot on P2 cards. P2 cards held a definite speed advantage compared to SD/CF, around 80MBps, that is only now starting to narrow/disappear. Even so, P2 is robust and designed from the ground up for reliability as a professional recording media. You can record whatever you like to P2, but it doesn't make sense to record AVCHD to it given how reliably fast P2 can write data. That would be like, say, writing 35MBps HDV to an SxS card...
AVCHD, while an excellent codec in its own right, is primarily designed to give a trade-off between image quality and file size/bitrate. With the bitrate maxed out at 24Mbps, it can be reasonably relied on to write without failure to good SD cards of Class 4 or above, then kind that you can pop in to your local big box retailer and pick up if you're in an emergency.
So, again, enough with the not-so-subtle implication that Panasonic deliberately chose to "cripple" the AF-100 for some reason with their choice of AVCHD and SD recording media.
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simple explanation:
avchd is long gop. 24mbps avccam is equivalent or better than the xdcam 35mbps mpeg2. (dont confuse gh2's avchd to avccam's avchd implementation.)
avcintra 50 is Intra, 8 bit 4:2:0 1440x1080. it uses pixel squeezing. at best equivalent to DVCPRO 100.
avcintra 100 is intra, 10 bit, 4:2:2 1920x1080. nothing like it at 100mbps
avcultra long-g is long gop. bitrate is unknown yet but its 25 mbps upwards. its 10bit 4:2:2. (50mbps would make this perfect for everyone. bbc, discovery, complainers,etc.) professionals
avchd is long gop. 24mbps avccam is equivalent or better than the xdcam 35mbps mpeg2. (dont confuse gh2's avchd to avccam's avchd implementation.)
avcintra 50 is Intra, 8 bit 4:2:0 1440x1080. it uses pixel squeezing. at best equivalent to DVCPRO 100.
avcintra 100 is intra, 10 bit, 4:2:2 1920x1080. nothing like it at 100mbps
avcultra long-g is long gop. bitrate is unknown yet but its 25 mbps upwards. its 10bit 4:2:2. (50mbps would make this perfect for everyone. bbc, discovery, complainers,etc.) professionals
Perfect! Thank you, very much. Much appreciated.
AVC-Intra 50Mbps actually arrived with the HPX-300 (I think), back in 2009(?). However, like HDV, it records to 1440x1080, and a lot people bitched about that with the HDV format, hence my assumption that you would prefer the full raster AVCHD codec at 1920x1080 to the pixel-shifted 1440x1080 AVC-I 50 codec.
EDIT: dcloud, thanks for the breakdown.
Anyway, thank you. I guess we're here because we think the bitrate CAN be increased by a hack. Phew, went off track but now I fully understand. So AVCHD @50-100Mbs would be great if we can get someone on it. I'm off. Must post the project some place for engineers-hackers to place a bid.
Barry_Green
Moderator
That's not the way it was. AVC-Intra (including 50mbps) was out before AVCHD was.
AVC-Intra is designed to be used on P2 cards on top-end equipment. But there were complaints from the low-cost guys that they couldn't afford P2 equipment. So Panasonic co-invented AVCHD with Sony, as a format that could be recorded to commodity media (Sony initially went for mini-DVDs, Panasonic went straight to SDHC).
Why won't Panasonic just go to 50mbps on AVCHD? Because AVCHD is a standardized format that is used in camcorders, in blu-ray players, in televisions that have SD card slots, it's used all over the place. And its standard is fixed -- 24mbps for regular AVCHD. If they just arbitrarily changed the bitrate, or the color sampling, or the bit depth, then it would no longer be AVCHD. It would be "better", yes, but it also wouldn't be compatible and it wouldn't work (or perhaps wouldn't work) on all the other AVCHD stuff out there. So they won't do that, obviously.
They could make their own nonstandard format, yes -- but then it would be nonstandard. So the question is: will their customers accept nonstandard formats in the pursuit of ultimate quality, or not? Maybe, maybe not. The hackers and hotrodders won't care, of course, but the broadcast infrastructure needs this equipment to just-plain-work, as do the non-hacking consumers. There's millions of people out there who use AVCHD camcorders and plug the cards into their PS3's or Viera TVs and just play the footage, or who want to use iMovie or FCP X or Vegas or EDIUS or Avid, and those things all work with standard formats. Will they work with nonstandard formats? Some will, some may not. That's a risk. There are customers who are happy with risk (again, the hotrodders and hackers) and there are customers who have no interest in risk (pro shooters, and consumers, and broadcasters).
When Panasonic or Sony introduce new formats, they have to go to all the NLE manufacturers and beg for support. Sometimes they get it, sometimes they don't. Sony Vegas still doesn't support DVCPRO-HD or DVCPRO50, for example. Avid only barely introduced native AVCHD support, four full years after the first AVCHD camcorder was released. So telling the manufacturers to go nonstandard, is not likely going to be well received by them.
So back to the original question - where do they go from here? AVCHD is what it is, and nobody is showing much interest in going outside of spec. Panasonic has announced AVC-Ultra LongG, which seems like their pathway forward into a better-than-AVCHD codec. Will it be P2-only? Maybe. Why? (or, as so many lower-cost customers would ask, WHY!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!!!!1111?!?!?!) Because who really wants that better-than-AVCHD performance? The consumer? No, they're happy with what they've got, AVCHD is pretty dang good. So it's the pros who want the better formats... and it's the pros who (should) appreciate the reliability and efficiencies of the P2 card, so hence they put their best codecs on their best media.
Can we convince them that there are a raft of pros who appreciate better quality at lower cost? I've been lobbying for four years now to get them to see that light. And maybe, just maybe, AVC-Ultra LongG will be recordable to SDHC or SDXC cards. Then you'd have a 10-bit 4:2:2 codec on commodity media, which would be a massive change from today. But right now it's not at that point.
Because AVC-Intra is inherently a 10-bit system, and the AF100 (and AC160 and AC130 and HMC150 and HMC40 and HMC80) are inherently 8-bit camcorders. The hardware doesn't exist inside them to do 10-bit. So why put a 10-bit codec on them? Makes no sense.
Will the future generations be 10-bit? Maybe, we'll see, but the HPX250 is a lot bigger body than the AF100, at a higher price point. They've only just now gotten the AVC-Intra chipset down in size to the point where they can build a handheld camera with it. Look at the HPG20, it has the AVC-Intra chipset in it and it's bigger than the AF100!
I know lots of folks will complain six ways from Sunday about why we don't have a tiny palmcorder with 10-bit 4:4:4 recording to SSDs, and that the manufacturers are "greedy" and engaging in "trickle down" behavior with nefarious motives. In the end it comes down to which world you want to live in - the one where you work with what exists and go out and do your job and pocket your paycheck, or the world in which you fantasize about what should exist and complain that it doesn't yet. I happen to believe that the major manufacturers are profit-generating enterprises who are selling what sells, and are advancing the products as fast as they can while still being able to stay in business.
Bottom line -- if you think about it reasonably and logically, there are reasons why the manufacturers do what they do, and it's not all about "ooh, let's screw over the indie and keep him in the dark ages as long as we possibly can."
Brian@202020
Veteran
I want my Long GOP recordings 50mbps and up and my I-Frame recordings at 100mbps and up across the board regardless of camera used. The AF100 at 50mbps would fall in that range.
A September 12, 2011, post on AbelCine's CineTechnica blog says the upper end is 50 Mbps, which is what I remember from the announcements at the time. Since it's a Panasonic format, they can do whatever they want with it -- maybe even increase the maximum to 60 to 75 Mbps to support 1080p60 (or, heaven forbid, even higher frame rates).
Part of the difference too is that the GH2 hacks unlocked extra, technical, recording capabilities that are able to be encoded in the AVCHD stream, but are not officially supported in the spec. So not only is the bitrate higher, but the hacks unlock more complicated encoding options (B-frames, Intra-frame, ect.) From what I can tell, the GH2 hacks have allowed a pseudo-AVC-Intra type of recording process (so essentially full AVC-Intra in how the frames are recorded, but still only 8-bit 4:2:0 information instead of 10-bit 4:2:2 information).
It's entirely up in the air (in the AF-100 can be hacked in the first place of course) as to whether or not the same encoding engine is found on the AF-100 to allow this. The GH2 patches that really turned heads for that cameras are the ones that involved the more complicated encoding processes, not simply the higher bitrates.
It's entirely up in the air (in the AF-100 can be hacked in the first place of course) as to whether or not the same encoding engine is found on the AF-100 to allow this. The GH2 patches that really turned heads for that cameras are the ones that involved the more complicated encoding processes, not simply the higher bitrates.
Brian@202020
Veteran
I agree with 99% of what you said but this quote above. The NanoFlash records a nonstandard version of XDCAM, which can be considered a risk, and it's supported by many pro shooters including you. It's also supported by many broadcasters including the BBC. So this may be the exception, but who's to say there can't be another.
Cheers, Barry. Very enlightening for me. Makes Panasonic look less insidious. All in all I guess they stand to lose nothing then if someone is able to bump us up to a reliable AVCHD 50Mbs or 100Mbs as an acquisition format. Okay does that sound like I know what I'm talking about?? LOL! I sure hope the pathway to 100Mbs exists. I mean why would a camera not be future proof?
On another note, I've posted the project on a site for freelance electronic engineers and the like.
It's currently pending approval. I called it an improvement project, not a hack, just in case.
Once the project gets approved, we'll start receiving bids at which point I'll pass the top candidates
onto you guys who can speak all that yabbadabbadoo stuff. I swear, sometimes I have to wiki just
to comprehend some of the conversations here. OLMFP, SSRDN, IDKWTF... Wha? huh? lol.
From what I've been told, there were folks Driftwood et al, who also participated. Does anyone know their handles on personal view?
PM or email me, if you have to, cheers.
PS
Bidding is open for 30 days after approval.
Cheers.
On another note, I've posted the project on a site for freelance electronic engineers and the like.
It's currently pending approval. I called it an improvement project, not a hack, just in case.
Once the project gets approved, we'll start receiving bids at which point I'll pass the top candidates
onto you guys who can speak all that yabbadabbadoo stuff. I swear, sometimes I have to wiki just
to comprehend some of the conversations here. OLMFP, SSRDN, IDKWTF... Wha? huh? lol.
From what I've been told, there were folks Driftwood et al, who also participated. Does anyone know their handles on personal view?
PM or email me, if you have to, cheers.
PS
Bidding is open for 30 days after approval.
Cheers.
I went back to re-read this and need one final thing cleared up.
Okay, let me see if I get this right. What's wrong with making 50Mbs available if only as an acquisition format on the AF100? Does that make sense or am I confusing myself? What I mean is that I understand compatibility and what not but what if that higher bit rate helps me capture better footage, but it's only for ingesting into an NLE? Isn't that what is meant by acquisition format? You could have the standard 24Mbs and the 50Mbs. I mean when I shot weddings in Hawaii, even if the client asked for standard def we still shot HD and delivered in SD because, I was told, we'd capture a better image. Dunno, that's what the wizened pros told me. I mean right now I shot stuff with my GH2 at 176Mbs, yes it's non-standard but the footage is amazing when you shoot it up on the web because I guess Youtube and Vimeo have more to play with? I don't know at all. So I guess, while I know more, bear with me, I'm still confused. I mean this isn't going to make me tell a better story or anything but there's no harm in knowing. Cheers.
Zachary Halberd
Member
This whole thread has been a great joy to read. Shooters always have been geeks at their core, so it's fascinating to see everyone discussing the possibilities and limitations of their tools. I think this topic resonates with many digital filmmakers today. How to achieve the best possible image with the gear you can afford. The democratization of cinematography (and filmmaking in general). It's interesting times indeed for shooters.
Anyone up for a beer to discuss this topic properly? I'm in Brooklyn.
Anyone up for a beer to discuss this topic properly? I'm in Brooklyn.
There's no need for Panasonic to concoct a "nonstandard" format in order to step outside their self-imposed AVCHD box. They can make use of any of the internationally standardized H.264 video formats in addition to AVCHD. In doing so, they wouldn't be marketing anything consumers haven't already bought into - they'd simply be following the well-established practices of video camera makers like Canon, Nikon, and... Panasonic:
http://www.camcorderinfo.com/conten...-Camcorder-Review-37681/Specs-and-Ratings.htm
ekoe
Member
You have lpowell following and contributing to this thread. He has developed some of the finest and most reliable patches.
But they've already announced AVC-Ultra Long-G, which at least on paper satisfies the request for on-board support for 10-bit 4:2:2 at 25-50 Mbps. It seems like a no-brainer.