HMC-150 sensor resolution

S

studio1972

Well-known member
Hi folks,

I've been struggling to find any info on the resolution of the CCDs in the camera. I have a 151E which I assume is the same, but the manual says nothing and I cannot find any info online. All I have found is that it should be the same as the 200a which is apparently higher res then the 200 which is 540 x 960 so I guess it might be 720 x 1280? Does anybody actually know?

For what it's worth I am delighted with the IQ which is the reason I bought the camera (along with the SD card recording), but it would be nice to know what's inside it.

Many thanks,

Stuart
 
The 200a does not have a higher resolution than the 200... just vastly improved CCDs. The HVX200a, HPX170, and HMC150, all have a resolution of 960x540. The green chip is slightly offset both vertically and horizontally to give it an effective resolution of 1920x1080.
 
If the HMC150 and HPX170/HVX200a have the same sensors, then why does avchd give you the full 1920x1080 & 1280x720 and DVCProHD give you 1280x1080 & 960x720?

Codec difference? Compression?
 
Carlos Corral said:
If the HMC150 and HPX170/HVX200a have the same sensors, then why does avchd give you the full 1920x1080 & 1280x720 and DVCProHD give you 1280x1080 & 960x720?

Codec difference? Compression?
Click to expand...

Exactly... DVCProHD only allows 1280 and 960, regardless of the size or resolution the chips may have.

Arrestthisman... I stand corrected.
 
arrestthisman said:
I think the resolution is an effective 1440 x 810. or 1.1mpixels.
Click to expand...

He said sensor resolution, which is 960x540. Effective resolution after pixel shifting is much higher, as you have stated. Though I thought it was 1920x1080 after shifting not 1440x810, which would only account for the shift in one direction and not both horizontally and vertically.
 
FYI, we don't know the sensor resolution, as Panasonic hasn't published that. Any claims that each individual chip still 960x540 are speculation. I happen to think it's probably accurate speculation, but I'm just pointing out that as far as I know there's been no confirmation about that from the factory.
 
While there's no indication from Panasonic what the native resolution of the image sensor is, the current guess is it's the same 960x540 that is found on the HVX-200.

The Effective Resolution isn't so easy to come by, because it all depends on how it's calculated.

Panasonic 1.5x:
(960 x 1.5) by (540 x 1.5) = 1440 x 810

My Own Feelings 1.4x:
(960 x 1.4) by (540 x 1.4) = 1344 x 756

Ultra Conservative 1.333333...x:
(960 x 1.333...) by (540 x 1.333...) = 1280 x 720

My feelings are that the factor given by Panasonic, 1.5x, is a bit too high. Tests with the Canon H1 and the HMC-200 should yield roughly equal horizontal resolution, but they don't. The Canon is a bit sharper. Now one could say it's the lens, but I would not expect the difference to be that much.

The 1.4x factor seems to fit the test results when we look at a resolution chart shot at 1080p and 720p. It also seems to fit the test data for comparing the resolutions of the H1 to the HVX-200. Also, 1.4 (1.414...) is the square root of 2; which fits with the offset pixels doubling the number of image sensor points.

The Ultra Conservative number of 1.333..., has to be too low, because it can not explain why the 1080p shot shows an improvement over the 720p shot.


No matter what it is, the simple fact of the matter is that the HMC-150 does produce excellent 720p images. Thus, it has to be greater than or equal to 1280x 720.

There is an increase in sharpness at 1080p, but not by much.


Bob Diaz
 
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