New cams! 1080p60! Panasonic HDC-HS700 & HDC-TM700

Cranky said:
I think someone said (was it PDR?) that Blu-ray actually does allow for 1080p50/1080p60, but this info is buried \ in some super-duper secret document that is not available to mere mortals; http://www.blu-raydisc.com does not mention these modes, but the most recent files there are dated by 2007.
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Not me. It 's definitely not legal and not in the specs.

Also, 1080p60 is great news, but what about native 24p and 30p?
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That's my question too. I don't think their current consumer line up offers 24pN , but the new Canon's consumer line up does...

Curious about how the pro versions will look too, they already have 24pN, but I would imagine (hope) an even higher bitrate
 
This would seem to open a can of worms.

If we can not deliver in 1080p60 outside the internet, how much will it help?

I realize overcranking is nice, but without audio, I don't see overcranking as being a shooting mode that is used a lot other than for effect.

So why are we all excited about a format we can not really shoot in without converting to something else for delivery?

1080p60 seems inevitable sometime in the future as a broadcast standard, but it is not going to happen anytime soon in this economy.

Just wondering out loud.
 
Camera Expert said:
You wont find camcorders anywhere near as small as the TM700 with 1/3" chips. It's 1/4".
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The Canon HV10/20/30/40, HG10, DC50 have 1/2.7-inch sensor, albeit a single one, not three of them. The HF100/10/11 had 1/3.2-inch sensor. The Samsung SC-HMX20 had 1/1.8-inch sensor, yet was capable of 10x zoom, and was about the size and shape of current Canon's HF-S models.
 
CCInfo says that 1080p60 mode "uses the standard MPEG4 AVC/H.264 codec". Seems right. Existing BD players will not be able to play 1080p60 AVCHD/BD, and because of their low price I bet that many consumers already have BD players. Thus it is too late to extend AVCHD spec to include these modes. Heh, it was simpler for Canon with progressive HDV, as it is not used in consumer VCRs, so flexing the spec was not too painful.

Because of utter stupidity of Panasonic and Sony, and of their shortsightedness we will have multitude of AVC-based formats that are not exactly AVCHD nor BD (Canon VDSLRs anyone?) Then, sometime in 2 or 3 years, they will come with BD 2.0... sorry, they already have BD 2.0. They will come with BD 3.0 to include these formats, and leaving out owners of existing BD players.

Why could not they include 1080p60 in BD spec from the beginning, just as a stub, as a placeholder, as an option? Too sad.
 
Caesar said:
1/4" or 1/3"?
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HDC-TM700 HD Camcorder

Same sized sensors: 1/4.1-inch
The LCD is larger but still low res: 230 kpix, too low. Look at the HF-S2xx with 900 kpix LCD.
The lens is variable speed: F1.5(WIDE)/2.8(TELE). Just a bit better on wide end than existing one.
46mm filter is more customary for JVC than for Panasonic
Shutter speed still does not go slower than 1/50 (1/60) in manual video mode. Seems that it goes to 1/25 (1/30) for stills only, or in slow-shutter mode.

I'd prefer a high-res LCD instead of 1080p60.
 
Cranky said:
So much for AVCHD being a "standard", and how Panasonic or whoever else cannot deviate from it.
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AVCHD *is* a standard, and Panasonic didn't modify it. They added a second recording mode to the camera, just like they did with the GH1 (which uses AVCHD, and also MJPG). This unit uses AVCHD, and a separate/different mode of h.264 for the 1080 @ 50p/60p.

Most interesting that they've stepped outside the traditional broadcast models. But, then again, as a consumer camera, what does it really matter whether it's broadcastable or not? Does broadcast compliance matter all that much to someone using a $500 consumer camera? They're far more likely to distribute their content on the web, where broadcast standards are completely irrelevant.

Seems like a shifting paradigm is underway.

It will be very interesting to see how the Broadcast division responds to this. I wouldn't expect to see an "HMC50" any time soon. It seems pretty much inconceivable that the broadcast division of any major manufacturer would offer a unit that records in a non-standardized, non-broadcastable format. But I think I'll go ask...
 
dcloud said:
hmm kinda phases hmc40 out pretty quickly?
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Why? The consumer lineup has nothing to do with the professional lineup. The HMC40 is a professional/broadcast camera, so adding a nonstandard/non-broadcastable format to a consumer camera doesn't really have anything to do with what happens to the broadcast lineup.
 
Cranky said:
The Canon HV10/20/30/40, HG10, DC50 have 1/2.7-inch sensor, albeit a single one, not three of them. The HF100/10/11 had 1/3.2-inch sensor. The Samsung SC-HMX20 had 1/1.8-inch sensor, yet was capable of 10x zoom, and was about the size and shape of current Canon's HF-S models.
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Theirs nothing wrong with what I said. Theirs isn't a camcorder anywhere near as small with 1/3" chips. Like you said, all of the camcorders that you mention has 1 chip.
 
Barry_Green said:
AVCHD *is* a standard, and Panasonic didn't modify it. They added a second recording mode to the camera, just like they did with the GH1 (which uses AVCHD, and also MJPG). This unit uses AVCHD, and a separate/different mode of h.264 for the 1080 @ 50p/60p.

Most interesting that they've stepped outside the traditional broadcast models. But, then again, as a consumer camera, what does it really matter whether it's broadcastable or not? Does broadcast compliance matter all that much to someone using a $500 consumer camera? They're far more likely to distribute their content on the web, where broadcast standards are completely irrelevant.

Seems like a shifting paradigm is underway.
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For those wondering why this is significant, Barry says it right here and uses the exact phrasing to put it into perspective: Panasonic is officially stepping OUT of their own boundaries to deliver something new to the consumer.

If this is the bottom-of-the-barrel receiving significant upgrades, I can only imagine what the top-of-the-line has coming to it. Let's hope something great.

On another note, let us also hope that the GH update will include 1080/60P and various other improvements.
 
Barry_Green said:
AVCHD *is* a standard, and Panasonic didn't modify it. They added a second recording mode to the camera, just like they did with the GH1 (which uses AVCHD, and also MJPG). This unit uses AVCHD, and a separate/different mode of h.264 for the 1080 @ 50p/60p.
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Yep, I already found this out from reading the UK page, which has detailed info on the camera. As someone else noted, Panasonic bought Sanyo, which had 1080p60 exactly in this bare AVC-file form. On the other hand, if BD creators cared to include 1080p60 into the spec, we would not have two wrappers/containers in this camera now, and we would not have the 5D/7D writing to bare AVC file. They spent like 3 or 4 years licking out BD spec, and yet haven't made it broad enough.

Barry_Green said:
Most interesting that they've stepped outside the traditional broadcast models. But, then again, as a consumer camera, what does it really matter whether it's broadcastable or not? Does broadcast compliance matter all that much to someone using a $500 consumer camera? They're far more likely to distribute their content on the web, where broadcast standards are completely irrelevant.

Seems like a shifting paradigm is underway.
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What about "future-proofing"? It is not possible to broadcast 1080p60 now, but it is possible to save it on disk as file, and to derive 720p60 or 1080i60 for current broadcast standards. It is the chicken and the egg problem, and someone should start the process of switching to full HD progressive production and broadcast. Yes, no, maybe?
 
Barry_Green said:
But, then again, as a consumer camera, what does it really matter whether it's broadcastable or not? Does broadcast compliance matter all that much to someone using a $500 consumer camera? They're far more likely to distribute their content on the web, where broadcast standards are completely irrelevant.
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I've always found it odd for some people to stick so stringently to broadcast standards in their workflow when they intend to deliver via the web. Even when it can compromise the quality.
 
shaocaholica said:
I've always found it odd for some people to stick so stringently to broadcast standards in their workflow when they intend to deliver via the web. Even when it can compromise the quality.
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With 2-4 Mbit/s there is absolutely no point in 1080p60 for the Web. Even at 30fps 1080p does not look better than 720p. Maybe satellite broadcasters will be able to make sense of 60p, but I doubt it, as their only goal seems to be to increase number of channels by reducing bitrate. At best, they deliver 10 Mbit/s, which will not be enough for 60p. With everyone, including BBC, reducing bitrates to 10 Mbit/s or less I am really concerned about future of 1080p60. Maybe 3D Blu-ray?
 
Cranky said:
With 2-4 Mbit/s there is absolutely no point in 1080p60 for the Web. Even at 30fps 1080p does not look better than 720p. Maybe satellite broadcasters will be able to make sense of 60p, but I doubt it, as their only goal seems to be to increase number of channels by reducing bitrate. At best, they deliver 10 Mbit/s, which will not be enough for 60p. With everyone, including BBC, reducing bitrates to 10 Mbit/s or less I am really concerned about future of 1080p60. Maybe 3D Blu-ray?
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A heck of a lot depends on what you are going to do with the footage in post, between shooting it and delivering it.

For example, if all you are going to do is take 1080i60 straight from a cam and re-encode for broadcast (4:2:0 MPEG-2 at less than 20Mbps), there isn't a whole bunch of difference if the 1080i60 out of the cam was recorded at 4:2:2 with 100Mbps AVC-I or at 4:2:0 with 21Mbps AVCHD (all else, like imaging block, lens, etc. being equal). Now, if you're going to do a bunch of stuff, like CC, adjust gamma, cross-fades, maybe crop and/or resize frames, etc., it can make a whale of a difference. The more you oversample in acquisition (whether it's higher res luma sampling and/or higher res color sampling, or more bits of precision - as well as better compression that maintains a higher level of image fidelity, coming from the imaging head) the more leeway you have in post.
 
> The more you oversample in acquisition ...
> the more leeway you have in post.

True for analog, but may be not exactly true for digital. You can see weird effects when scaling, like moire. I think that 720p 4:2:2 is more useful than 1080p 4:2:0, especially if delivering for the Web, where you will resize to 720-line or less. Heh, DVCPROHD still makes a lot of sense.
 
Joe Calabrese said:
Since when does the consumer need 1080p60. Sony's Cinealtas (the most overpriced cameras on the market) don't even do that!
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Actually a few CineAltas do 1080 50p and 60p. You need an additional add-on board... The Sony 5800 HDCAM SR VTR also has an add-on board as well.

http://pro.sony.com/bbsc/ssr/cat-broadcastcameras/cat-cinealta/product-HKSR103/

That board works with the F23 and F35.

http://pro.sony.com/bbsc/ssr/cat-videorecorders/cat-rechdcamsr/product-HKSR5803HQ/

That board works only with the HDCAM SR 5800/1 VTR.
 
Cranky said:
> The more you oversample in acquisition ...
> the more leeway you have in post.

True for analog, but may be not exactly true for digital. You can see weird effects when scaling, like moire. I think that 720p 4:2:2 is more useful than 1080p 4:2:0, especially if delivering for the Web, where you will resize to 720-line or less. Heh, DVCPROHD still makes a lot of sense.
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Imaging sure isn't simple. At some point, you are scaling, whether it's inside the camera or in post. Whether or not you record 720 line or 1080 lines (luma), you still have the same number of photosites, sampling the light, on the imaging chips to start with. (NLEs tend to be awful at scaling. There are much better ways to scale than simply scaling with any NLE, at least that I know of.)

Whether 720p 4:2:2 or 1080p 4:2:0 is more useful, depends a heck of a lot on your purpose, but also depends on what the imaging block is capable of. For example, I'd likely much rather use 720p 4:2:2 out of an HMC150 (if it were possible) than 1080p 4:2:0, for almost any purpose. With the HMC40 it might be a different story (depending on purpose).
 
1080 60p... wow, great news.

This might end up being my B-cam to that new Canon 50 mbps mpeg2 camera that is supposed to be coming later this year.

Any word on these Pany cams being able to do 24p?
 
One of the reasons I've been in no real hurry to replace my HV20, is the lack of 60p recording ability in a palm size camcorder (the other being 24p getting recorded in 60i streams). I'd really prefer it if they had put 720p60 recording ability in this new cam, but if the quality of 1080p60 at 28Mbps turns out to be decent, I'll take a hard look at getting one (after the price settles down) - looking forward to hearing what people have to say, and seeing some samples (straight from the cam - not YouTube stuff), once these cams start getting out there in the hands of real-world shooters.
 
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