Press Release: HMC150, "the new DVX"

It's not just a matter of average bitrate. This is going to be a VBR encoder (unless I'm mistaken). Peak bitrate is also very important. There are other important factors too, like if they implement CABAC entropy encoding or opt for CAVLC instead, for example.
 
Barry_Green said:
Dr. D, there are really a few things at work here. First, do you need cameras that will match so you can do multicam stuff? . . .
Click to expand...

On our Avid system we need all three formats to be EXACTLY the same and if they are not then all three have to be fused to an Avid format which takes additional time . . BUT . . we're considering using Edius Broadcast for our mixed formats (although we've never tried it out yet and have had it for nearly 3 months - to date just done single camera 1080 x 1920 24p on Edius)


Barry_Green said:
. . . if you get hit by a tape dropout on a DV camcorder you might get a frame that has a little bit of sparkly corruption in a few places. That same dropout on HDV will cause an entire 15 frames to be forfeited. . .
Click to expand...

This would be a major major major issue with us. We get from 0 to 3 incidence of dropped frames 8 to 12 frames dropped per incidence. If we got 15/incidence on our broadcast we'd take some heat but we'd make it through it providing not often but if we got it on a wedding we'd have a wild cat to deal with. And "one time" commercial takes would be potential disasterous. This alone would be enough for us to completely drop HDV . . and is the principle reason we are considering a total tapeless flow.

Barry_Green said:
. . . Something else you'll want to look into is workflow. I don't know what you edit on, but editing and conforming MPEG-2 is a lot more processor intensive than what you're used to. If you're doing weddings with a lot of footage and a quick deadline, that might be a big consideration. . .
Click to expand...

We have dual xeon 3.0ghz processors with 800fsb and 2gb ram and I have to say with Avid the 1080 x 1920 P2 .mxf is absolutely cruching up the system which we beleive is Avid use of the GPU and thus are getting ready to do our next HD project of the same genre on Edius because we understand (from GV) that the HQ codec is CPU which has all kinds of computing power while the Avid GPU is killing the editing and hard drive space wherein to date the larges HD project we've worked with is 11 mins and the lock ups and master viewer strobing is making editing almost impossible and we believe this is a HOT machine and have two of them and they KICK SD stuff. This one 9 min output video we are working on has taken over 168 GB of render space (not media . . that's additional space) and at that rate to do one of our TV shows that are 3 camera for 25 mins would be something in the neighborhood of 500gb . . WHA???? How on earth?
 
When shooting live events (or for anything where a second take is impossible/impractical), it's a good idea to record redundantly (regardless of what media will primarily be used for ingestion into the computer, be it flash memory, tape or otherwise). A camera mountable hard drive recording device, in combination with tape, is one way to do that (very common). Hopefully, real low cost camera mountable flash memory recording devices will soon make those hard drive devices obsolete. Shooting critical moments of live events (like vows at a wedding) with at least two cameras from different angles is also an awfully good idea (cameras can fail, even if recording redundantly).
 
Robert M Wright said:
When shooting live events (or for anything where a second take is impossible/impractical), it's a good idea to record redundantly (regardless of what media will primarily be used for ingestion into the computer, be it flash memory, tape or otherwise). . . .
Click to expand...

As we would say here in Western Pennsyltucky . . whoops . . I mean Pennsylvania, "but of course." However, often the should is out weighed by the can't afford it. With our DVX100B's (3 at every wedding) we have been fortunate that dropped frames were outside the box or envelope of the WOW and thus all thus far has been A-OK. However, even those dropped frames seldom had "many" to have to deal with but more often were 1 to a few which just resulted in a "click" in the sound and very very seldom a jump action when there were a few . . but 15 frames would definately be noticable, let alone our Avid system would sound off an alarm of "clicks" that would have to be muted out as well as any voice/audio that was transpiring at the same time. Moreover, if these dropped frames were as frequent as we see them on regular miniDV, we could end up being off by as much as 1 to 3 seconds on occassion and on multicam . . can you imagine the old time "godzilla look" out of sync on a talk show today? Succide.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
BobDiaz said:
However, at lower rates, MPEG-4 shines over MPEG-2.
Click to expand...
A point I was recently pulled up over (correctly) is that with either of those codecs a given bitrate for a given system does not uniquely define quality. Different chips, different algorithms, will do better or worse jobs of coding the same material AT THE SAME BITRATE. Hardly surprisingly, more modern coders tend to do a far better job than older ones for a given bitrate, and the more you pay, generally the better the job they do too.

That's why bitrates for broadcast TV have come down substantially in the last ten years, though many would argue that the coder improvements should have been directed to better quality than more channels, but that's another story.

But the more mature a codec becomes, the harder improvements become, and that's the position MPEG2 is getting to now. It is truer to say that MPEG4 *HAS THE POTENTIAL* to shine over MPEG2, and that will no doubt be the case once MPEG4 coder technology has matured to the same extent MPEG2 technology has now. A figure of about twice the efficency *POTENTIALLY* has been suggested.

But that's not the case at the moment, and I don't want to get into any exact numbers game - too many variables. But for the same bitrate, AVC-HD will give better quality now than MPEG2, but it may take a number of years for it to mature to the extent that some reports suggest.

In the meantime, what it brings to the table is more at the consumer end of the market than the prosumer. The ability to use cheap solid state media (SD cards) and variable bitrate/quality recording, and the people it is initially targeted at are less likely to do much post production - hence processing power is far less an issue.
 
BobDiaz said:
If the highest data rate is 24 Mbps, there will be no question that the AVCHD CODEC will outperform the other MPEG-2 CODECs on the other HDV cameras. My fear is that the engineers at Panasonic will test the AVCHD CODEC and find that 18 Mbps is good enough, thus select that rate. However, the 24 Mbps is more of a "psychological specification", that gives the user a good feeling. It's unlikely that we really need it that high, but I still want it anyway.

Bob Diaz
Click to expand...

I might be wrong but just by doing a quick search, it looks like the heighest is 22Mbps.
it said that you will be able to record 22Mbps of 1920 footage for 180 minutes long on a 32GB card.
 
yeah....I might of mistaken..

but I found several post on the Japanese website that's similer to the DVXUSER and it said that. (there's a Berry Green in Japanan too haha)
so it might of been the HMC155...sorry
 
I don't want to say confiremed. but I've read several post on people talking about it.

it's not from an offical Panasonic website or anything. it's just like DVXUSER and people are talking about the HMC just like we do in here.
And yeah, I've read peaple saying it's 22Mbps

this is the website ( it's all in Japanese....)
http://www2.ezbbs.net/39/sumi653/
 
22 Mbps ?????

22 Mbps ?????

Using the translated pages I could find, here's the information I found:
Recently, Panasonic announced two professional-grade digital cameras AVCHD AG-HMC155 and AG-HMC75 corresponding models for the United States listed AG-HMC150 and AG-HMC70 price yet to be announced.
...
Panasonic AG-HMC155 (Panasonic AG-HMC150) is a hand-held digital video camera, using three 1 / 3 in. progressive scan CCD (PROGRESSIVE CCD) 3 photosensitive element CCD system, and equipped with Leica 28 mm wide-angle lens, 12 3X zoom with a focal length of 35 mm converted 38.5 ~ 462 mm, with optical zoom function.
松下AG-HMC155 ( 松下AG-HMC150 )也采用了AVCHD高 清标准，支持分辨率1080i(60i/50i)，1080p(30p/25p/24p)，720p(60p/50p/30p/25p/24p)等，采用 SD/SDHC存储视频录像，拥有3.5英寸屏幕，XLR声音输入，HDMI输出，组件输出(Ｄ端子)，合成输出，模拟语音(RCA)输出，USB 2.0等接口。​
Panasonic AG-HMC155 (Panasonic AG-HMC150) AVCHD high-definition standard used to support the resolution 1080 i (60i/50i), 1080p (30p/25p/24p), 720p (60p/50p/30p/25p/24p), using SD / SDHC memory video, with 3.5-inch screen, voice input XLR, HDMI output, component output (D terminations), synthesis output, analog voice (RCA) output, USB 2.0 interface.
Click to expand...
http://209.85.135.104/translate_c?h...asonic-avchd-dv-ag-hmc155-hmc75-hmc150-hmc70/



Here's an interesting page with photos:
http://translate.google.com/transla...channel=s&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&sa=N
The key words "mock up" appear, so we may not see a working model at NAB.



Possible source to 22 Mbps ? From a Forum message...

HDV moves from strong AVCHD 22Mbps high profile, in 180 minutes included 32GB SDHC card, the CCD F8
これだけで欲しい人はゴマンといると思いますよ。​
This is the only person I want and I think on Goma.
(笑)​
(Laughs)
これでSDカードスロットが2つあって片方のスロットでバックアップ収録できるなんて事になったら​
The SD card slot, there are two slots one thing I can be a backup when recorded
Z7Jも真っ青と言った所でしょうか?(笑)​
Z7J also said ashen place? (Laughs)
SD(テレビの方式)カメラも含めてハンドヘルド機で180分収録できるカメラは世界初ですね。​
SD cameras (television system), including handhelds can be recorded in 180 minutes is the world's first camera.
Click to expand...
http://translate.google.com/transla...channel=s&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&sa=N
2: 2008/03/28 (Friday) 21:45:08 ID: AA ysdd0gNE [sage]
AG-HMC155はAG-DVX100の後継機(AVCHD版)​
AG-AG-DVX100 is the successor HMC155 (AVCHD)
感度F8 CCD搭載、AVCHD　22Mbps 1920記録対応、最高画質で32GB SDHCカードで180分収録可能​
F8 CCD sensitivity with the corresponding record AVCHD 22Mbps 1920, the highest quality 32-minute recording 180 GB SDHC cards available
レンズはライカディコマー　広角28mm(35mm換算)​
RAIKADIKOMA is 28 mm wide-angle lens (35mm equivalent)
Click to expand...
http://translate.google.com/transla...channel=s&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&sa=N



To me the information is interesting, but we can't be sure of how accurate it will be. It's a bit like all of our guessing as to the unknown specifications to the HMC150...


Bob Diaz
 
At 4495 . . how you say . . audios amigos :eek:)

Off the subject for a sec, I was searching the Panasonic website for some accessories for a second (thermodyne case) and it never ceases to amaze me that how a company as HUGE as Panasonic or Sony or Canon or JVC are that on their websites they have hardly zillions of products like say a Best Buy but on their website they offer a product that sells for over $300 and it says "Image Not Available" . . . AND . . . they are in the IMAGE business. It's like going to a car dealer and when asking about a particular car they would say, "Sorry we don't have one in stock, nor do we have any brochures or pictures, nor do we have any pictures online but do you want to buy one?" DuH!!! Let's see . . . howe about - - NO! What's it take to get a photographer to shoot a picture or send a product to one to shoot a picture? WoW! No wonder people like NewEgg grow from the corner miniMart of electronics to BestBuy +++ overnight. Pictures . . . online people buy from what they see and read . . they don't get to hold it so the sale is based on a picture !!! Geez!
 
At 4495 . . how you say . . audios amigos :eek:)
Click to expand...

The web page also GUESSED that the maximum bit rate would be 20 Mbps. So their information on the price isn't a given either.


Bob Diaz
 
Does anyone know if the specification for AVCHD include a specification for peak bitrate? I sure hope the peak isn't capped at 24mbps.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top