So what's todays HDV news?

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Re: So what's todays HDV news?

Doesn't software such as Cineform Aspect HD help create enough headroom as it converts HDV's MPEG stream into a 100Mbps AVI file? Doesn't this solve the problem of adding graphics, transitions (recompression) and so on?


I realize processing HDV (already compressed) this way MIGHT not be as ideal as capturing HD uncompressed (tapeless) or HD un-recompressed (from tape). Doesn't it really depends on the quality of the cameras built in encoder and the Cineform software? Maybe I'm misunderstanding the Cineform software.
 
Re: So what's todays HDV news?

I’m not sure what the Cineform software is actually doing, but you can’t get more out of it than you put in. I suspect that they are probably intelligently converting the MPEG2 stream to an AVI or other format so NLE’s can work with it the way they normally do.

There is another thread on this forum in the café discussing HDV and I posted the following: HDV is not HD in much the same way that DV is not 601, but that has not stopped millions of DV enthusiasts from producing some great stuff. What I find exciting is that people who use DV cameras have had enough of an effect on manufacturers that they are now designing professional equipment that resembles their prosumer products – not the other way around.”

I’m sure HDV will look great and be 24P and users of that format will do some interesting things with it. I hope the quality is good enough to be able to seamlessly intecut between full bandwidth HD and HDV.
 
Re: So what's todays HDV news?

[quote author=the_director link=board=nws;num=1089811837;start=0#13 date=08/18/04 at 21:12:24]Here is a little bit of insider info:

2 JVC 720p HDV 3-chip cameras will be introduced this Fall. The more expensive one may not be available until December. They will have excellent image quality, nearly on the same level as the Varicam. varicam records 960x720 pixels and is compressed 6.5:1. The JVC's will record 1280x720 pixels with 17:1 compression but a lot more efficient codec.[/quote]

I love posts like these. One of the nice things about reviewing cameras for a magazine and sitting in on meetings with manufacturers is you get to compare data from several sources and read between the lines.

Reality check: JVC won't commit to anything. They showed a mock-up of their large HDV camera at NAB and haven't showed it since. At WEVA Dave Walton (head guy at JVC US, and a real straight shooter) said a number of things that seemed to indicate it was not forthcoming. Other JVC people have said that they didn't know when it would be available, and then they didn't know if it would be $12K or double that.

Has anyone confirmed that TI or any other chip mfg. even has a 3 chip HDV CCD yet? I have never read of it's existence anywhere... which could be why JVC can't commit to a timeframe.

[quote author=the_director link=board=nws;num=1089811837;start=0#13 date=08/18/04 at 21:12:24]Sony will introduce their prosumer HDV camera early next year.[/quote]

Not according to Bob Ott (head guy at Sony USA). Yesterday he waffled on all the reasons why they are "waiting" including wanting NLE support first. At NAB they showed a mock-up under a plastic case. A mock-up is a non functioning slug. Once it goes to prototype you start the long development and testing period, so even then you're a good ways off. When pressed they wouldn't even commit to a calendar year let alone a month.

[quote author=the_director link=board=nws;num=1089811837;start=0#13 date=08/18/04 at 21:12:24]Canon XL2 CCD block is HDV ready. The pixel shift technology allows HD resolution. The new 20x zoom will be good enough for the new HDV camera.
[/quote]

You gotta love this. Pixel Shift... that's Latin for diminished quality, right?

Pixel Shift was a technology originally developed by Panasonic as a stop gap and wisely abanded... yet Canon claims "pixel shift" as though it was actually desirable... next they'll claim it grows hair back.
 
Re: So what's todays HDV news?

[quote author=Antoine_Fabi link=board=nws;num=1089811837;start=15#17 date=08/19/04 at 12:28:42]Panasonic has a big card in their play with DVCProHD...

making a small and affordable DVCProHD camcorder and deck is very easy for Panny with the technology they have right now (since more than a year)...

let's wait and see if they'll drop the card...[/quote]

There is supposed to be a new model that is $20K less, can do 1080i, but I don't believe it does 24p. In order to lower the price, they have to take something out...
 
Re: So what's todays HDV news?

Mitch,

yep, maybe they "have to" justify a price drop.
...but Panasonic "trademark" is 24p


...and i think they would sell tons of affordable DVCProHD smaller camcorders. They can't sell tons of Varicams, too pricey, and too big.
Just imagine how quickly they'd get their R&D payback...
Final Cut Pro 4.5 already support DVCProHD...

...so my guess...
It's very promising...and maybe sooner than we think...
 
Re: So what's todays HDV news?

I fully agree that 25mbps is not enough! 19mbps HDTV can look pretty terrible when there is fast motion. The motion artifacts are borderline acceptable because of the resolution and the huge improvement over NTSC, but the artifacts are easy to see and ugly.

Even one generation of loss in HDV would be disastrous. And sure, you can work in uncompressed, but that would be somewhere around 420megaBYTES a second in 720/60p I believe. This is not an option for anyone except people who could afford to work in DVCProHD in the first place. I've heard HDV looks very good, but I really doubt twice the frame rate and three times the resolution at the same bit rate as DV can hold up. For consumers, HDV sounds great, but so far only prosumer and higher level HDV cameras have been announced. We need a better format!

Memory cards are honestly starting to sound very promising. If they allow for variable bit rate recording and, most importantly, variable frame rate recording WITHOUT throwing away data, I'd be willing to pay a premium.

I'm not saying HDV won't look better than DV. By all accounts, it will. It has much more resolution and uses a better compressor. Still, "better than DV" is not enough for the whole next generation of cameras, especially when generational compression will be such an issue.

I don't think DVCproHD tapes will come down in price enough to be a prosumer format. It's really too bad that the same DV tapes used 15 years ago (or however long it's been) will be powering the entire next generation of cameras. Cameras have improved so much, isn't it only fair that they get to use better tape to take advantage of their improvements?
 
Re: So what's todays HDV news?

AspectHD or connectHD is the flying choice for HDV editing right now. It converts the mpeg2ts stream into a visually lossless editing format at 6-10Mbytes/s. 2 to 2 1/2 times the rate of DV. Their codec also works with true HD with frame all supported frame rates. To keep it simple it is one hell of a codec. Within Premiere Pro AspectHD will allow 5 or more RT streams on a 3 GHz P4 with dual channel ram. Sweet.
Editing HDV from my HD10 has been the most amazing experience of my editing career.
 
Re: So what's todays HDV news?

[quote author=the_director link=board=nws;num=1089811837;start=0#13 date=08/18/04 at 21:12:24]Here is a little bit of insider info:

2 JVC 720p HDV 3-chip cameras will be introduced this Fall. The more expensive one may not be available until December. They will have excellent image quality, nearly on the same level as the Varicam. varicam records 960x720 pixels and is compressed 6.5:1. The JVC's will record 1280x720 pixels with 17:1 compression but a lot more efficient codec.

Sony will introduce their prosumer HDV camera early next year.

Canon XL2 CCD block is HDV ready. The pixel shift technology allows HD resolution. The new 20x zoom will be good enough for the new HDV camera.
[/quote]

Here's some more info:

New HDV camera introductions. David Newman, technical guru at CineForm, met with the JVC HDV guru that was in charge of HD10 design at one point. CineForm/Premiere makes superb software for HDV. David knows in advance about new products as JVC needs them to develop software, etc. If you go to dvinfo.net HD10 forum, there is couple weeks old thread on 16:9 - 4:3 aspect ratio. At the end of the thread David gives some strong hints on quality of new HDV models that will supposedly be coming out sooner than everyone thinks. There was a thread at camcorder info, aby a reputable guy that reps JVC and does training for them, about a new model coming out before the $20K camera, that will be less expensive. This thread is quite old.

If you go to creativecow HDV forum there is a recent thread about people writing to some new top Sony marketing man who gives them back written answers indicating that Sony HDV will be out early 2005, probably at CES.

The CCD block in the Canon does provide HD resolution. Panasonic is using the shift technology in their consumer cameras and with the pixel shift you get about 2-3x the resolution of a single CCD, or aligned CCDs. That's why the still function on these cameras has couple megapixel resolution, on sub megapixel chips.

Why are not the HDV cameras introduced as yet? Is the codec really bad?

The codec is about 2x as efficient as the DV codec. If Varicam has excellent image at 6.5 compressin, this codec can have excellent image at 17x compression (720p). It laso offers higher resolution than Varicam, which only records 960x720 pixels.

Proper MPEG2 compression is however slow and power hungry. Nanotechnology will allow high speeds and low power consumption. Nanotechnology processors are just entering the market. As soon as Sony, NTT, Sharp, etc. develop these processors, HDV will be here with excellent image quality.

Another problem is easy blowing of highlights on these dense chips and this type of cameras. New CCD technology helps this problem. Sony is already using this technology on their larger CCD chips.

New software by CineForm etc. cleans color compression and other HDV artifacts.

The new HDV cameras should be excellent. HD10 was a premature product, introduced before the technology was ripe. In addition it was crippled in its functions for reasons we can only guess and only JVC knows.

Realize that Varicam records 6.5 compressed 60p at 100 Mbps. To get 24p, you discard 60% of the frames. So if you'd record 24p at 40 Mbps you get the same image quality. So 720p at 19 Mbps and 2x as efficient codec, when processed right, should provide excellent image.

Of course it is a bad approach to use such slow bit rate in the 3rd millenium, but this is what they are offering, so we are stuck with it.

How much should the HDV cameras cost? The cost will probably soon be somilar to DV, at least potentially. The HDV cameras already use megapixel chips for still function and the lenses are now sharp enough to handle HD. The transport is the same. The electronics will change on the most part. With today's technology it would take a year for the manufacturing costs to equal today's DV camera costs. It does not mean that we will see these low costs in the marketplace.

Canon already said that they will not make any new DV cameras. CES is in January. Canon may have HDV model(s) there too.
 
Re: So what's todays HDV news?

[quote author=Jarred Land link=board=nws;num=1089811837;start=0#14 date=08/18/04 at 22:00:28]yes. JVC is holding a private party this week to introduce the new JVC models up here. [/quote]

So Jarred, Any News?
 
Re: So what's todays HDV news?

Hey guys i know HDV gets a lot of stick, but lets not forget that in the right hands and with some talent you can do this.........


(i saw this and was amazed great stuff, and blow up to 35mm may be even more amazing)

This is called "The House" and is done by Kevin C. W. Wong

link to DVinfo, whaddya you guys/gals think?


http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=30705
 
Re: So what's todays HDV news?

I was really not impressed. Ill chalk it up to it being the bad internet compressed trailer for the bad color and noise but the actual footage itself was very random. Music wasnt original and picking out a particular plot was just not happening. I love seeing clips but maybe just a little audio here and there might allow me to actually enjoy the early footage. Otherwise it just looks like royalty footage i could watch on a cd. Give us sum story or plot line. All this does is remind me of times when my little cousin would find objects to film that would seem "unobtainable" for just a regular joe movie maker so when played back it looks as if it were a major production.
 
Re: So what's todays HDV news?

dude the Music was by a Radiohead a very well known mainstream band in the UK.

What ever your views in the end HDV is the way forward, @ the mo HDV is very premature, give it time and 720P will win in the long run.

I just hope that Panasonic should end there prosumer SD range and start thinking of giving us prosumer HD
 
Re: So what's todays HDV news?

I think he meant that the music wasn't original in that it wasn't original music for the movie but a Radiohead song. I still haven't made up my mind on Radiohead but I like them and well known songs aren't uncommon at the end of trailers.

The footage was well lit and shot, but the color was all very washed out, probably to get around the HD10 being a single CCD camera. Anyhow, I think these guys worked around the HD10's limitations pretty well, but I still wouldn't buy one as it's not versitile at all.

Let's hope HDV doesn't win and a better format comes along. Pann promises memory cards! Maybe these will have a higher bitrate than 25mbps and will record true 24p native footage (no pulldown.)
 
Re: So what's todays HDV news?

actually Panny is working hard on solid state camcorders INCLUDING a dvx sytle HD camcorder that records to memory cards only (gotta wait till 2007 though!)

i'm just waiting for the Sony's 3CCD HDV (DSR-PD150 style), OH man when that comes out, i swear THAT will kick start another revolution as did miniDV,

----yea there will be heated discusions and comparisions made against the "big boys" toys ie the "real" HD cams but in the end people will find that the picture is "good enough" and frankly i'm counting the days till it comes out....

is it likely to happen------YES beacuse:
(a) They (Canon, Sharp, JVC, Sony) have agreed on the HDV specs.
(b) They have now quite a growing list of companyies (software mainly) ready to support the HDV, from Adobe to Vegas.
(c) Sony's "balsacam" (to get peoples attention).

Making a DSP to work with HD bandwidth and realtime compression all pakaged into a camcorder aint no easy task,

but if Moores law's anything to go by..............
 
Re: So what's todays HDV news?

It all depends. Keep in mind that Sony has introduced lots of failed formats before. I think HDV looks very interesting, but it's up to the consumer to see if they want it. If they don't want it, doesn't matter how neat the technology is, it'll still flop. The jury's most definitely still out on whether there'll be widespread adoption of HD in the USA, and it's not even on the radar in Europe.
 
Re: So what's todays HDV news?

Apple seems to love Panasonic (24pA support, Varicam over Firewire.) So if Panasonic is gusty enough to introduce a new format, I think at least Final Cut Pro would support it immediately. I REALLY hope they do something better than HDV. I'd wait until 2007 for solid state HDTV 24p with a higher bitrate and no pulldown.

And please! A bigger CCD! We LOVE dynamic range and depth of field!!!! Even at the cost of a little color accuracy! I swear!
 
Re: So what's todays HDV news?

You can get all your asking for from Panasonic and apple right now the price tag is in excess of $65,000.00. Personally I'm satisfied with the picture of DVX100 at its price range, I hope that keep that standard of price/picture in a low end HD camera
 
Re: So what's todays HDV news?

Talked to a Panasonic rep that hinted at a new D5 codec based Professional HD camera. This would give Panasonic a leg up over the quality of HDCAM because it records at a true 1920x1080 pixels. Not 1440x960 of HDCAM.
 
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