Paging Barry Green

taormina

taormina

Hates to Rent
Trying to settle an argument here...

IS HDV considered to be HD?

I think not since it has a smaller frame size. All input would be helpful.
 
Considered by who? Not being facetious or flippant, but that is an important thing to ask. For example, the BBC doesn't consider HDV to be HD, nor do they consider Super16 film to be HD. A lot of S16 shooters will disagree, so it really depends on who you're asking. If you're doing a show that you're trying to get funded by the BBC, you don't want to shoot it on HDV.

In general, HD is a broadcast standard, not a recording format. There are many recording formats that record HD signals. HDV is a way to record HD. Yes its 1440x1080 frame size is smaller than 1920x1080, but ... so is HDCAM and so is DVCPRO-HD and so is XDCAM-HD. All are considered HD by their manufacturers, and HDCAM and DVCPRO-HD are accepted for unlimited acquisition, editing, mastering and delivery by both BBC and Discovery HD.

HDV is the lowest-quality way to record HD (well, except for what the GH1 does) but it's still a way to record HD video... the smaller frame size is not enough to disqualify it from that, because HDCAM uses the same frame size.

So -- it really depends on who you're asking. HDV is used as "HD" by cable networks all the time, so -- for some it is acceptable, for others it isn't, depends on who you're asking.
 
Not that I ever loved HDV, but I was stuck with it once (FX1). I could post some stuff. It outputs 1920x1080 and if you get the image to tape not needing to be fixed it works for cheap. As for tape I miss the stuff when it comes to backups. I've relogged tape lots of times into FCP for clients years later.

Just to add, we sold that show shot on the FX1 to a network in Canada, and it still plays a few times a year.
 
But 720p is HD and HDV is higher resolution than that, so even through it doesn't hit 1080p, I'd still think it would be considered HD. But then again, HD is such a gray area. Just because a camera can output 1080p doesn't mean the image quality is up to HD standards. Which is a good question, is there a technical cutoff industry standard on HD and actual camera resolution?
 
Brandon Freeman said:
But an 18mbps signal on an SD card is? That's all the DV videocassette is at this point, a card.

Note that I am NOT defending tape as a medium! I hate that stuff... :D
Click to expand...

DV and most forms of HDV all run at 25mbps.
But you see now we are into codecs. 25mbps of MPEG2 in HD can't be compared to 18mbps of MPEG4 in HD.

A the NBC Station I work at, we get a "Raw" network feed from NBC in New York that is 24mbps of MPEG4. Compressed with the best encoders money can buy. Then we decode it (with the best decoders money can buy) to a 1.5Gbps HD-SDI uncompressed video to pass it through our control room ... and then we encode it to a 14mbps HD MPEG2 stream and a 4mbps SD MPEG2 stream for broadcast out to viewers at home. And it's all "Broadcast Quality".

- Mikko
 
I'm still trying to find the reference I read this on once but 480p was considered HD because it was better then SD.
 
mikkowilson said:
DV and most forms of HDV all run at 25mbps.
But you see now we are into codecs. 25mbps of MPEG2 in HD can't be compared to 18mbps of MPEG4 in HD.

A the NBC Station I work at, we get a "Raw" network feed from NBC in New York that is 24mbps of MPEG4. Compressed with the best encoders money can buy. Then we decode it (with the best decoders money can buy) to a 1.5Gbps HD-SDI uncompressed video to pass it through our control room ... and then we encode it to a 14mbps HD MPEG2 stream and a 4mbps SD MPEG2 stream for broadcast out to viewers at home. And it's all "Broadcast Quality".

- Mikko
Click to expand...

Ahhhhhh, "Broadcast Quality".... now there is phrase that is clearly defined and without any ambiguities!! Shaaaaaa! :2vrolijk_08:



To save on pedantic geek-gasm responses.... That is a joke!
 
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Is a DVD not considered SD just because it may be encoded at 6 mbits/s mpeg2? Of course not.

SD is SD and HD is HD regardless of how it was compressed or recorded.

HDV got a bad reputation because when it came out people couldn't fathom recording with a highly compressed format. It was also plagued by not so great cameras while the higher end cameras stuck with formats such as HDCAM and DVCPROHD. This sort of forced HDV into the low end catagory. If you take a HDCAM tape and dump it through HD-SDI onto a HDV tape it is still the same content and usually will look the same.

Like Barry pointed out HDV also got a bad reputation because of a lot of misconception about the whole 1440 vs 1920 pixel thing. HDV was widely known to only use 1440x1080 pixels but not that many knew HDCAM also used 1440x1080 pixels. HDCAM also used 3:1:1 color which is in between 4:2:2 and 4:1:1 color. HDCAM to me has always been the DV of HD yet it was considered the high end because at the time it was the best they could do on tape.

DVCPROHD only uses 1280x1080 pixels. Yes that is correct for the 60i markets. It actually has a slightly lower resolution then HDV. DVCPROHD also only uses 960x720 pixels for it's 720p modes. Again lower resolution then 720p HDV but yet still considered "HD" by pros.

So the only thing at the time that made HDV a lesser format compared to the big boys was using mpeg2 at 25 mbits instead of 100 mbits or 144 mbits compression. Everything else is equal. Of course the 4:2:0 color thing didn't help much either but today more people are starting to realize that 4:2:0 is not the evil many once thought it was.
 
Let's just go shoot some movies please instead of arguing semantics. It's a ridiculous question. HDV is an HD format, period. It's not a universally accepted codec, but the resolution that it records in is clearly HD.
 
Huy Vu said:
Let's just go shoot some movies please instead of arguing semantics. It's a ridiculous question. HDV is an HD format, period. It's not a universally accepted codec, but the resolution that it records in is clearly HD.
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+1 Yup, it is clearly better than any sd footage I have ever seen. AT least when talking about the xha1. Which is hdv, @1440. I just change it on the output to square pixels, and up rez it to 1920x1080. And sometimes down rez it to1280x720. Im yet to see the image difference between 1440 and 1920. I Honestly can't see the difference, but maybe the best pixel peepers can. In the end the avg viewer hasn't the slightest clue what the difference is, except that it looks "better" than what their used to seeing.
 
jscottprice said:
1.5Gbps signal?
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Yup, that's what HD-SDI is. 1.49Gbps of 10 bit 4:2:2 video. Lotsa data.

SD-SDI is much less at a mere 270Mbps.

Makes you realize how amazing compression is. (Even DV, which pokes along at 25Mbps; a 5:1 compression ratio over uncompressed digital video [SDI].)

- Mikko
 
mikkowilson said:
Yup, that's what HD-SDI is. 1.49Gbps of 10 bit 4:2:2 video. Lotsa data.

SD-SDI is much less at a mere 270Mbps.

Makes you realize how amazing compression is. (Even DV, which pokes along at 25Mbps; a 5:1 compression ratio over uncompressed digital video [SDI].)

- Mikko
Click to expand...

I knew it was a heavy signal, but I had no idea it was that heavy. No wonder when I was recently on a TV set, one of the technicians was protesting running anything through HD-SDI - it had to travel some 800 feet from the floor to the control room, and the signal was, I guess, bottlenecking.
 
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