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Barry_Green

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I was talking with Tim Tokita, the General Manager of Product Engineering for JVC today, about the HD100. I asked him about a delivery date for the US, and he repeated "August." So no specific date yet, but at least August beats the "September" quote we've been hearing from resellers.

A few other things -- he said that the analog output is full color resolution, prior to color decimation. Should mean that for studio applications where you have the hardware and ability to capture 720/60p footage uncompressed, you should get excellent color keys.

Also, about "motion blur" -- you don't see the effect in the viewfinder! Or on the monitor! If you put on the "motion blur" filter, you're effectively shooting without knowing what you're getting -- you'd have to stop and rewind the tape and play it back to see what it looks like.

Also, to forever put to rest anybody's hopes -- there is not, and will not, and never will be, 60p (or 50p) out the firewire port of the HD100. Not possible, not gonna happen.

Also, I asked about the modification for HD-SDI that replaces the tape drive. He said it would be a different camera model with *very* limited applicability. It would be only for locked-down studio situations, basically. No ability to record whatsoever; it would be strictly for a live camera.

He also confirmed that the US version would have the 25p frame rate. So all HD100-series cameras in all worldwide territories shoot 720p at 24, 25, and 30fps. They also all shoot 480/60p and 576/50p. However, they do not share PAL/NTSC. US cameras shoot standard-def in NTSC; European/Australian cameras shoot standard-def in PAL. There is no PAL/NTSC switchability.

He also mentioned that there may be an announcement about a PAL/NTSC switchable version of the HD100 made in a few months. It would be a more expensive camera, but it would be the same basic camera but with PAL and NTSC capability in both.

Let's see... what else... oh -- he said the 19 megabit data rate leaves the PCM audio tracks untouched. So some day, in some future product (but NOT the HD100 or BR50 deck!) they could make a 720p HDV camera that included uncompressed audio. Repeat, this will not now nor ever apply to the HD100, but some future product could.

Oh, and get this -- the HD7000U, the 2/3" shoulder-mount cam, will also support 1080i. But it will *not* be HDV 1080i. They are not going to make it compatible with Sony HDV. It will have 720p HDV compatibility, but not 1080i HDV. He didn't say specifically why; might be some licensing thing. But they want to do 1080 anyway. So they'll come up with their own format. And, while they're at it, he said they will use 1920x1080 (not 1440x1080)! And maybe they'll use a higher bitrate. And maybe they'll use a higher profile level in MPEG -- as in, specifically, they may use 4:2:2. And HDV/1080i doesn't support progressive, but their version will.

So it looks like the already-fragmented HDV format is about to be splintered again (June 2006 at last rumor date) but hey, if you're gonna splinter, what a way to splinter! 3-CMOS 2/3" camera shooting 1920x1080 at 4:2:2 at both interlaced and progressive frame rates...

Some footage from the US version should be sent to Jarred tomorrow.
 
thats not bad.. thats messing with the Sony900 territory.. and the HD-SDI model is very interesting... if they can work 1920x1080 4:4:4 over firewire They are onto something special... specially since the viper/900 has created a few solutions for portable recording from HD-SDI.
 
The HD-SDI model would be 720/60p 4:4:4 over HD-SDI, not firewire.

The 1920x1080 would be 4:2:0 or maybe 4:2:2, to tape. They didn't say whether that would be over firewire or not. And it would be MPEG-2 compression, but he didn't specify what bitrate, just that basically "hey, while we're at it, we could up the bitrate too... might as well..." That sort of thing.
 
Speaking of color keys off the HD100, what's out there that will capture analog component 720P? It doesn't look like the Kona cards fit the bill. Is it still a 4:2:2 signal?
 
It's not x:x:x anything. It's analog, right off the heads, before chroma decimation. So, theoretically it should be the equivalent of 4:4:4. But again, x:x:x is a digital notation, and the signal hasn't been digitized. And, even if it does show full color, there's still the question of how well the analog signal holds up through the process and how high-quality the electronics are that are piping the signal through. So it needs to be tested, but it sure sounds promising.

Again, though, it would be of extremely limited applicability for most users, as you'd need some way to capture a live analog 720/60p signal, and that means a studio desktop computer with a RAID of 8 hard disks or more, etc.
 
I didn't quite think that x:x:x sample question through. What I was wondering is if there is anything currently out there that will capture/convert that analog 720/60p signal to your studio system. Wouldn't it be loverly to get very clean keys?
 
Barry_Green said:
The HD-SDI model would be 720/60p 4:4:4 over HD-SDI, not firewire.
Click to expand...

ha ha of course, thats what i meant, in fact i dont even know where the hell firewire came from. I musta been thinking about something else while i was typing.

4:4:4 over HD-SDI, thats the gold. Although its a real pain in the ass getting into the system, for effects shots etc. the trouble would be worth it.
 
Okay, more updates (copied from a post I made on DVInfo):

So, get this -- I shot some footage on the HD100 in 24p mode, but I only have a borrowed HD1 here to play it on. I figured I'd be totally out of luck. And, true to form, the HD1 cannot play back the 24p footage. However...

I was viewing the footage on my XBR960 HDTV set, which has firewire ports on it and the ability to control a camera through firewire. So even though the HD1 couldn't play back the clip, the TV set could! The HD1's display said "cannot decode" etc., but the TV still displayed it. So the HD1 is able to transport the sequence, just not decode it itself.

That's probably good news for those who own HD1s, or even the CH1 deck (or whatever it's called) -- even though those products can't play 24P HDV, they probably can be used to digitize 24P HDV.

EDIT: okay, it gets better. I just used the HD1 to capture 24p clips. For software I used the original Pixela HD Capture utility that was bundled free with the HD1. It captured fine, and IINM, it removed pulldown out of the file! I'm not 100% sure on that last part, but I do know this: the clip, when imported to Vegas, reports "23.976 fps". I don't know if the capture program removed the pulldown, or if Vegas 5 just "knows" how to reverse pulldown out of a 60P MPEG-2 24fps transport stream, but either way I am very pleased by that. We've been hearing reports that it'll be a few months before editing programs are integrated with 24p, and I can tell you that right now you can use Vegas 5.0 (note: that's not even 6.0, the HDV update, I'm using 5.0) with the JVC HD Capture Utility and capture 24p HDV files from a JVC HD1 (and presumably from the HD100 as well, of course!)
 
Footage is being uploaded now. I'll give Jarred the links so he can make it available for download.

These are raw .m2t transport streams taken directly from the tape, and not modified in any way whatsoever. They were transferred from the tape to the hard disk, and uploaded to the web. No recompression, no editing, no color correction, nothing in any way modified from what the camera originally recorded. As such, they're large, large files.

I've also extracted some .PNG files from the timeline; those are lossless compression stills that will show exactly what the camera recorded -- no JPG recompression artifacts.

Clips and pics include black stretch and black compress, chroma level maxxed out or normal, 18db gain, 12db gain, and 0db gain, 24p and 30p, motion smoothing on and off. Also some dead pixels and a whole lot of dropout. I used a brand-new fresh MQ tape in the HD100, and I used the JVC head cleaner in the HD1 before capturing the footage, so what dropouts there are, there are -- don't know how I could have minimized 'em more, except to say that I wouldn't get an HD100 without the FireStore.

It'll take a while to upload these clips, and then Jarred will have to download 'em. But these are the first clips from a US-spec HD100, which was identified to me as "a production model". They're nothing special, just panning around the WEVA convention floor or on their pre-lit camera-test diorama, and I was having to fend off other interested camera-seekers while doing it, but hey, at least it's something...
 
You sir, are my hero. I look forward to the clips. Finally some 24p footage from the HD100. What app will I need to play them on my PC?
 
Interesting about the drop outs - we've used a panisonic professional grade DV tape (not HDV) and haven't had a drop out yet. We've got a camera guy out in the field today mucking about with the camera so I'll see what he comes back with.
 
Windows Media Player played 'em fine here, at full frame rate.

Again, they're lousy clips -- trade-show floor stuff, so don't get your hopes up too high. And they aren't always in focus or proper exposure -- it's hectic trying to grab trade-show shots when there are other people gritting their teeth and waiting for you to get off the camera! :)
 
Just to see something in 24p from that camera will be nice. What Gamma settings did you use(if any) Standard, Cinelike, or Filmout?
 
Found out something else -- HDV Rack totally supports 24P HDV! Plugged the HD1 into HDV Rack, and even though the HD1 can't display 24P HDV footage, HDV Rack can see it and capture it, and it writes out Vegas-compatible 23.976P HDV .m2t files! I am *much* happier using HDV Rack to capture, rather than that little Pixela utility.

For gamma -- well, heck, it's been a while now and it's all fading... fading... but, I believe they had two matrix functions, normal and cine-like. The cine-like was just awful. It's like they totally suck all the color out of the shot -- exactly the opposite of what Panasonic's CineMatrix does. On the DVX, CineMatrix boosts color across the board, making rich saturated colors. The HD100 does the opposite, making the normal pale washed-out palette almost monochrome. I don't understand that.

The gamma, however, was pretty nice. They had standard gamma and they had another option that was very cool, and then they had a lame one. Don't remember exactly which was which. (forgive me, but you gotta understand the circumstances -- you're trying to grab what you can, squeezing out as much time as you can get while there's a whole bunch of people wanting to take the camera away from you...) Not exactly a scientific testing lab, it's sort of "guerilla testing".

As far as color level, you'll see once Jarred posts the pictures. The standard palette is really rather blah and muted, but you don't have to stick with the standard -- there's a chroma gain function that really saturates color and really punches it up -- by the time I was done maxxing that out, it looked a lot more like 5285 Ektachrome 100D reversal film stock!

As far as image manipulation, the HD100 has far more controls than the DVX or XL2 or Z1. It's really very, very complex as to what you can do to the image. This is not a beginner's camera -- the menu system looks a lot more like an SDX900 than it does an HD1, that's for sure!

For the most part, what you'll see is standard gamma, standard color, standard everything. The only things I really showed were the max. black compress vs. max. black stretch, the max. color gain vs. normal (not minimum, just normal), and 18dB vs. 12dB vs 0dB of gain. And 24p vs. 30p, and motion smoothing on vs. off (hint: USE OFF!) Motion smoothing in no way, under any imaginable circumstances, approaches or imitates the look of 60i. Not at all. All it does is make your footage look like it has a blurry double-image.

At least from the limited shooting I did, that's all I could see that it was good for. Unfortunately, most of the motion-smoothing stuff I shot is plagued with dropouts so it's really hard to tell what's going on, because it keeps hiccuping and freezing. Once we got past the first three minutes of tape, the dropouts seemed to stop and it's a lot easier to view that footage.
 
That explain the lackluster gamma of the first footage. Did you notice if saturating the color affected noise or latitude? I realize it was a quick test, so we may have to wait for better answers.

Any general comments on latitude vs DVX100a?

Viva la Vegas...
 
No comments comparing one against the other, no. I thought about bringing my DVX along to shoot the same general scenes, just so there would be a basis for comparison, but then I figured they'd probably have some strict "no videotaping" rules unless you have a press badge (and I didn't). Then I thought -- hey, I could go bum a DVX out of the Panasonic booth, but they didn't have any batteries, and that would be a little too "ghetto" to try to pull anyway, so -- no, no comparisons yet. This footage isn't worthy of doing a comparison on anyway -- it's just point 'n' shoot stuff. I'd want to perform any comparison tests in a controlled environment to keep the variables to a minimum.
 
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