HD Rating?

A

ANTshooter

Active member
Just out of curiousity, does anybody know the rating for the HMC150 relative to the requirements of Discovery, etc...?
 
As of now it's not rated or allowed to be used on a production they commission (AVCHD). That doesn't mean you can't produce a show with it then sell it to them independently, although that's very hard to do, expensive and risky. If you want a small handheld 1/3 inch camera for projects they commission get a Sony Z7, EX1, hvx200, hpx170. I'm not knocking the 150 but Disco is very partial to sony camera's (hand helds).
 
ChipG said:
If you want a small handheld 1/3 inch camera for projects they commission get a Sony Z7, EX1, hvx200, hpx170. I'm not knocking the 150 but Disco is very partial to sony camera's (hand helds).
Click to expand...

The EX1 is 1/2" which is why it's silver and not bronze like the other cams you mentioned.

From reading the producers guides for DiscoHD, it seems they highly value sharpness and resolution. That tips in Sony's favor from the handycams like the EX1 though the F900. Interestingly, the guide also talks about shooting in 60i more so than anything else.

They like it sharp! :)
 
Hi Perone, if you would compare Discovery against , Natgeo and The History Channel who would you say has a sharper or softer image with their broadcast ?
 
I was watching the show E:60 on ESPN HD last night. They had a piece on an MLB pitcher, and one of the cams they used for the interview was a Sony V1, which I believe has 1/4" cmos. Also CBS Sports is using EX1's to shoot pieces.

http://www.tomguilmette.com/wp/my-blog/archives/1004

The 150 is still a young camera, once FCP and Avid support native AVCHD editing, this cam will take off even more.
 
I would imagine the images to be pretty close for Discovery and NATGEO since they both use the EX-1 and EX-3 for there shows. They also use the FW900 for a lot of there stuff to, so if there is a difference in sharpness its prob just for the look of a particular show.
 
Everts said:
Hi Perone, if you would compare Discovery against , Natgeo and The History Channel who would you say has a sharper or softer image with their broadcast ?
Click to expand...

Disco used to require the sharpness for all sony camera's be turnned all the way down or off. The sharpness was later added in post to thier liking. The majority of those shows were shot in 60i, some new programs being shot in the Z7's are in 24p so I'm not sure if they still require the sharpness to be turned off or not. It's something that can be done in post leaving you more options for the final product.
 
A friend of mine has this big as* dish.
A long story short.
I thought that disco was pretty soft in comparison to History Channel and Natgeo looked eyeslicing sharp. Various programs .
Discovery latin looked even softer. We were planning to watch planet earth On disco latin for the second time and it was really soft that we just skipped it plus Sigourney Weaver didn't do it for me.
So my question is what are these guidelines based upon ?
Color /sharpness/ fileformat ease of use.
The end results seems to vary from country to country or from cable company to company.
 
I would imagine there may be other factors affecting the sharpness of the on screen image rather than the camera itself.
 
Not just the programs where softer but the commercials as well.
And ofcourse for natgeo the commercials seem to be sharper as well.
So my point is why do they require certain cameras if the end result looks totally different.
To me atleast any HDcamera with good manual and audio capabities would have to be enough to produce a 30 min doc or tvshow.
 
The problem with comparing Discovery, NatGeo, and History in terms of softness is that unless you have access to the originals, there is way too much between when a show enters their servers to when it gets to your TV's to make a fair assessment. Compression, recompression, and more recompression isn't doing the picture quality any favors. The difference between watching the news on my station over cable in HD and over the air is very noticeable. But watching it straight out of the studio control room before it ever gets compressed is night and day. Plus, Discovery, et al., really have no control over how a local cable or satellite operator recompreses a signal for use in their system.

Everyone's compression quality differs a little depending on their encoding hardware and software. I think that is why some channels like Discovery is so averse to certain cameras and formats... they know that by the time it gets to the end user there is already a certain built in PQ degradation, so you need to use as good a camera as possible to offset it.
 
If the HVX200/HPX170 both get Bronze ratings, and somewhere around this forum I've read that the HMC150 actually produces sharper images than the HVX, why isn't the HMC150 included in that list?

Is it the color sampling of DVCProHD?
 
No because HDV has worse color sampling and is listed Bronze.

Most likely it is because Discovery has yet to confront the AVCHD format. And the list is updated very slowly anyway.
 
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