filmmaker1977
Carbonite Member
Lol
Pixel Count of CCDs for the last time maybe?
- Thread starter Barry_Green
- Start date
BobDiaz
The Professor
Yes, I write as if I were writing for a magazine. In other words, I try to put everything in to context where I can logically back it up.
After all, a 2/3" CCD is going to beat the HVX in terms of 1080 resolution, noise, and sensetivity. DUH!!! Maybe it's unecessary for me to say that.
If I use 1.4x to take into account the increase due to pixel offset, 960x720 = 1344 x 1008. Given the maximum recorded horizontal is 1280, no problem. The Canon doesn't resolve all 1080 lines, so the vertical isn't an issue either. I'm "Pansonic Correct" :happy: because if I just give a number without any additional context to the information, some people will not fully understand and take this the wrong way. It's the teacher/engineer in me that comes out. :evil:
Bob Diaz
In the end, there is one simple fact, the image looks great.
After all, a 2/3" CCD is going to beat the HVX in terms of 1080 resolution, noise, and sensetivity. DUH!!! Maybe it's unecessary for me to say that.
If I use 1.4x to take into account the increase due to pixel offset, 960x720 = 1344 x 1008. Given the maximum recorded horizontal is 1280, no problem. The Canon doesn't resolve all 1080 lines, so the vertical isn't an issue either. I'm "Pansonic Correct" :happy: because if I just give a number without any additional context to the information, some people will not fully understand and take this the wrong way. It's the teacher/engineer in me that comes out. :evil:
Bob Diaz
filmmaker1977
Carbonite Member
PAL is 1440 right? Is there problem then?BobDiaz said:
Shaw said:
I calculated the number of horizontal lines above. And the number of pixels the camera has horizontally. That does not change. It has nothing to do with vertical cropping since vertical stays the same. That Andromeda chart cannot be used to compare with 16:9 HD camera charts in terms of horizontal resolution because it is not a 16:9 chart. It is simply wrong. The only thing that can be compared is vertical resolution and you are comparing with using the andromeda/dvx in full frame then. With Anamorphic lens and not cropped. Cropped will be 3/4 of the vertical resolution.
If you shoot the camera 16:9 in order to compare with HD cameras, you will read a little more than 600 horizontal lines.
Darkline
Veteran
clearly the andromeda gives a higher res than the HVX. perplexing, but does this higer res/higher lattitude signal come out of the usb at 4:4:4 - or does the singal only look that good after being capture/tweaked by sculptor HD on a computer?
All Im worndering is that if you got a DVX mod and then fed this to a portable device that could record DVCPROHD (like a firestore ish thing) then this would give you a better image than a HVX, and for less £$. Providing firestore could make such a deivce. I suspect tho converting 4:4:4 to a DVCPROHD 4:2:2 singal is probably not as easy and portable as I'm thinking.....
I agree with the posts that the HVX does look good - but in all honestly I thought it would at least match the andromeda solution for sharpness given it has better CCD's, glass and 3 years more advanced internal gubbings.. Maybe I expect too much.
All Im worndering is that if you got a DVX mod and then fed this to a portable device that could record DVCPROHD (like a firestore ish thing) then this would give you a better image than a HVX, and for less £$. Providing firestore could make such a deivce. I suspect tho converting 4:4:4 to a DVCPROHD 4:2:2 singal is probably not as easy and portable as I'm thinking.....
I agree with the posts that the HVX does look good - but in all honestly I thought it would at least match the andromeda solution for sharpness given it has better CCD's, glass and 3 years more advanced internal gubbings.. Maybe I expect too much.
Andromeda streams regular uncompressed 770x492 rgb since that is what fits on 28mb/sec and what the DVX100 CCD outputs. Then, the pixel shifting of the ccds is used to extract more luma. That is a valid method of getting extra resolution. It could get up to 1.5x res if there is actually pixel shifting in x and y direction on the DVX100 ccd block.
I see the same horizontal resolution in HVX and Andromeda. 600 horizontal 16:9 lines. You see 800lines because that's 4:3 lines and the chart covers the entire ccd horizontally in 4:3 mode but only a part of it in HVX and other 16:9 camera charts. It is surprising that Andromeda actually makes people believe the camera can do 800lines in 16:9 (800*16/9=1422 pixels). They are showing a 4:3 chart so they are only claiming (800*4/3=1066 pixels). This is not as good as JVC or Canon or Sony and practically the same with the HVX.
The vertical resolution is also compomised, since the full height of the ccd cannot be used without a heavy, expensive, DOF adapter incompatible, non needed in HD cameras, 16:9 anamorphic converter. If you want to do a fair comparison, crop the ccd to 16:9. If you see 700lines now that will be 525 after the crop. So this would be a 600 horizontal and 525 vertical lines 16:9 solution. Now you can really compare this to the other 16:9 cameras.
Comparing horizontal lines from a 16:9 chart to a 4:3 chart is like comparing oranges to monkeys.
I see the same horizontal resolution in HVX and Andromeda. 600 horizontal 16:9 lines. You see 800lines because that's 4:3 lines and the chart covers the entire ccd horizontally in 4:3 mode but only a part of it in HVX and other 16:9 camera charts. It is surprising that Andromeda actually makes people believe the camera can do 800lines in 16:9 (800*16/9=1422 pixels). They are showing a 4:3 chart so they are only claiming (800*4/3=1066 pixels). This is not as good as JVC or Canon or Sony and practically the same with the HVX.
The vertical resolution is also compomised, since the full height of the ccd cannot be used without a heavy, expensive, DOF adapter incompatible, non needed in HD cameras, 16:9 anamorphic converter. If you want to do a fair comparison, crop the ccd to 16:9. If you see 700lines now that will be 525 after the crop. So this would be a 600 horizontal and 525 vertical lines 16:9 solution. Now you can really compare this to the other 16:9 cameras.
Comparing horizontal lines from a 16:9 chart to a 4:3 chart is like comparing oranges to monkeys.
Darkline said:
Then you would have spent $3500 for DVX, $3000 for andromeda. And you would be recording DVCPROHD in an external solution with lots of extra compromises. Why do that when you can get the same with the new camera today for the same money?
The point of Andromeda is that uncompressed is better than than any compressed format.
Darkline
Veteran
well, like most people on here I already have a DVX, so the mod is significantly cheaper than buying a HVX.
Point taken about the res charts, maybe it is misleading. However there is still the advantage of a claimed 9.5 stops of lattitude from the andromeda - which in all honestly is more imporant to me than res. All in all that would be a reason to go for the andromeda if it could record DVCPRO HD. same res as HVX, 2.5 stops better lattitude and for me about $3000 cheaper.
Of course in its current state the laptop solution is not practical so it's all theoretical anyway.
Point taken about the res charts, maybe it is misleading. However there is still the advantage of a claimed 9.5 stops of lattitude from the andromeda - which in all honestly is more imporant to me than res. All in all that would be a reason to go for the andromeda if it could record DVCPRO HD. same res as HVX, 2.5 stops better lattitude and for me about $3000 cheaper.
Of course in its current state the laptop solution is not practical so it's all theoretical anyway.
The latitude advantage is even greater. The Andromeda will hold its resolution at all image intensities. In compressed formats, the darker the part of the image is, the less resolution and the more blocking it has. Shadows cannot be pushed much and gamma adjustments in post suffer from that. Get it bright and right the first time if you are using a compressed format
Also, noise will look a lot better since it will not be blocks but very fine since it is not compressed in any way. Compressed formats usually think noise is not important and compress it into blocks. In large gain settings it could make a huge difference. With uncompressed formats you can actually denoise very effectively without artifacts since noise detail is always there and that could save a take.
The greatest advantage of Andromeda is the color quality. Uncompressed color is a huge thing by itself. Compressed formats compress chroma a lot more than luma and make color correction harder and extreme adjustments impossible without artifacts.
I don't think it is fair to compare an uncompressed format to a compressed format, regardless of cost. If you need heavy post and compositing, compressed formats are not even in the same league.
About the cost. You can sell the DVX for more than $0 Going HVX would be the same cost if you can get $2400 for your dvx. You will also have to rent or borrow another camera for 1 week till the Andromeda guys do the job.
Btw, we are in PAL land. So, at this time, we don't have a PAL Andromeda option. It hasn't been announced and it should be almost impossible to make due to extra bandwidth requirements. Same applied to Andromeda for HD cameras. Not possible using their technology at this time. Andromeda would not work that well even in pixel shifted cameras like the Canon XL SD ones since there are a lot less pixels. I think the product fits DVX perfectly and it will focus on that for a while.
We also cannot get an HVX in PAL land. Europe has to wait
Also, noise will look a lot better since it will not be blocks but very fine since it is not compressed in any way. Compressed formats usually think noise is not important and compress it into blocks. In large gain settings it could make a huge difference. With uncompressed formats you can actually denoise very effectively without artifacts since noise detail is always there and that could save a take.
The greatest advantage of Andromeda is the color quality. Uncompressed color is a huge thing by itself. Compressed formats compress chroma a lot more than luma and make color correction harder and extreme adjustments impossible without artifacts.
I don't think it is fair to compare an uncompressed format to a compressed format, regardless of cost. If you need heavy post and compositing, compressed formats are not even in the same league.
About the cost. You can sell the DVX for more than $0
Going HVX would be the same cost if you can get $2400 for your dvx. You will also have to rent or borrow another camera for 1 week till the Andromeda guys do the job.Btw, we are in PAL land. So, at this time, we don't have a PAL Andromeda option. It hasn't been announced and it should be almost impossible to make due to extra bandwidth requirements. Same applied to Andromeda for HD cameras. Not possible using their technology at this time. Andromeda would not work that well even in pixel shifted cameras like the Canon XL SD ones since there are a lot less pixels. I think the product fits DVX perfectly and it will focus on that for a while.
We also cannot get an HVX in PAL land. Europe has to wait
Darkline
Veteran
Very true. Ive been keying off DV for years and sometimes it isnt fun! but that is possible at all at 4:2:0 is a mircale.
Give it 5 years and maybe all our modest PC's will be able to handle uncompressed and storage wont be an issue. Right now tho DVCPROHD is a good compromise for my setup.
I know this is going off topic, but I can understand how using pixel shift with andromeda gets a HD image from the DVX; but gaining more lattitude... i dont quite get it. Not unless you were to say "well if it output DVCPHOHD rather than uncompressed you would lose those extra stops of lattitue'. That I could understand, however Varicam also records to DVCPROHD and that codec isnt limited to recording a 7 stop lattitude. DVCPROHD even on varicam is 8 bit so I dont understand the argument that you lose lattitude because of the 8 bit system.
Is it just the simple case that the DSP in the andromeda is better than the one in the DVX? less information is thrown away?
Give it 5 years and maybe all our modest PC's will be able to handle uncompressed and storage wont be an issue. Right now tho DVCPROHD is a good compromise for my setup.
I know this is going off topic, but I can understand how using pixel shift with andromeda gets a HD image from the DVX; but gaining more lattitude... i dont quite get it. Not unless you were to say "well if it output DVCPHOHD rather than uncompressed you would lose those extra stops of lattitue'. That I could understand, however Varicam also records to DVCPROHD and that codec isnt limited to recording a 7 stop lattitude. DVCPROHD even on varicam is 8 bit so I dont understand the argument that you lose lattitude because of the 8 bit system.
Is it just the simple case that the DSP in the andromeda is better than the one in the DVX? less information is thrown away?
A little more info on latitude. Camera sensors have a given dynamic range and a signal to noise ratio. In uncompressed formats it is simple, you just get enough light to the sensor and make the most of the system. In compressed formats there is extra noise added to the signal. Noise from the compression method/format. From my tests, formats today vary from 20 to 40-45 dbs of S/N. That typically stands a lot higher than the noise of the sensor. Actually, in compressed formats we never really see the noise of the sensor. We see its artifacts enriched with the format noise and at a much higher level
In real life situations your limit is not dynamic range. It is signal noise. If what you see in the shadows is full of noise and format artifacts, it's not much use. Uncompressed formats are much better because they don't have this drawback. Your limit is the CCD noise alone.
In real life situations your limit is not dynamic range. It is signal noise. If what you see in the shadows is full of noise and format artifacts, it's not much use. Uncompressed formats are much better because they don't have this drawback. Your limit is the CCD noise alone.
BobDiaz
The Professor
filmmaker1977 said:
The conversion number 1.4 is NOT a hard limit. Think of it as a point on a curve.
At 1.3x, the lines are very clear.
At 1.4x, there is a bit of fuzzyness, but you can see the lines.
At 1.5x, the fuzzyness is stronger, but you can still make out the lines.
At 1.6x, now we are getting very fuzzy and the lines are getting harder to make out.
As you move into more lines, the image is still there, but becomes more fuzzy and harder to make out. I use 1.4x as a consertive number, some use 1.5x. Both conversions are correct, it's just a matter of how far to you wish to push the resolution and accept fuzzy lines.
Bob Diaz
BobDiaz
The Professor
mmm said:Bob, I think that is one of the sizes Jan said the CCD was not.
Personally I think is below that. I only want to know because Panasonic won't tell us! If they just said it, I wouldn't give a damn.
It could well be that the CCD has a few more pixels than that, like 966x726, where the extra pixels are not recorded, but help with the overall image creation. Some of the image routines may need extra pixels outside the recorded frame to make corrections to the recorded pixels.
When I zoom into a still image fron a greenscreen clip recorded in the 720 mode, there is no way I can see the CCD being any less than 960x720 and still produce a clean edge.
Steve Mullen believes the native resolution is 960x576.
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showpost.php?p=427708&postcount=2
I do not agree with Steve's number, because 576 does not convert to 1080 cleanly (8 pixels --> 15 pixels) and the 720 greenscreen edge should suck with only 576 pixels, but this is all speculation anyway.
There is a funny glitch that appears in a 1080 greenscreen clip at 2 pixels, 4 pixels, 2, 4, 2, 4, ... As far as I can tell, a native horizontal resolution of 720 or 1280 would NOT cause this pattern, but 960 may be able to generate this pattern. I'm still trying to figure this one out.
My best guess with what I've seen and calculated, tells me that it's around 960x720 OR 960x810. Even if someone guessed correctly, I would never expect Jan or anyone from Panasonic to ever say, "You guessed the secret number!!!"
Bob Diaz
MarcusX
Well-known member
BobDiaz said:My best guess with what I've seen and calculated, tells me that it's around 960x720 OR 960x810. Even if someone guessed correctly, I would never expect Jan or anyone from Panasonic to ever say, "You guessed the secret number!!!"
Bob Diaz
Hey, maybe its a secret contest! The first guy guessing the right pixel count wins a trip to japan and gets this shirt:
Barry_Green
Moderator
Yeah, but regardless of the number of pixels, you still got a 1080p HD camera!
Emanuel
Cross-Examiner
Thank you The Professor! Only 2 months and you earn already the right nick. But it wasn´t necessary. It just would be enough the first post/thread at last December:BobDiaz said:It could well be that the CCD has a few more pixels than that, like 966x726, where the extra pixels are not recorded, but help with the overall image creation. Some of the image routines may need extra pixels outside the recorded frame to make corrections to the recorded pixels.
When I zoom into a still image fron a greenscreen clip recorded in the 720 mode, there is no way I can see the CCD being any less than 960x720 and still produce a clean edge.
Steve Mullen believes the native resolution is 960x576.
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showpost.php?p=427708&postcount=2
I do not agree with Steve's number, because 576 does not convert to 1080 cleanly (8 pixels --> 15 pixels) and the 720 greenscreen edge should suck with only 576 pixels, but this is all speculation anyway.
There is a funny glitch that appears in a 1080 greenscreen clip at 2 pixels, 4 pixels, 2, 4, 2, 4, ... As far as I can tell, a native horizontal resolution of 720 or 1280 would NOT cause this pattern, but 960 may be able to generate this pattern. I'm still trying to figure this one out.
My best guess with what I've seen and calculated, tells me that it's around 960x720 OR 960x810. Even if someone guessed correctly, I would never expect Jan or anyone from Panasonic to ever say, "You guessed the secret number!!!"
Bob Diaz
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=40741