the dvx-100 is capable of shooting 720p!

Re: the dvx-100 is capable of shooting 720p!

So, if the camera is capable of capturing this way, why can't it do so out of the box? It sounds like a speed regulator on a car - sure your car could go 140, but we'll only let you do 95... Is there a reason they have to compress it, or just turn compression off, instead of 'hacking' the dvx to do so?
It sounds strange that it has that ability, but is throttled back... ???
 
Re: the dvx-100 is capable of shooting 720p!

I agree, they should just have a link, like the firewire on the back switch a lever and it outputs the complete image.
 
Re: the dvx-100 is capable of shooting 720p!

Yes, there is a reason; they have to keep certain standards in dv compression, or they violate their agreement with the dv25 standards ( more on this at http://www.dvcollections.com/support_dvcompress.html )
as for firewire- the uncompressed files that thiat the panasonic creates are HUGE! Like 500 gb for 1 hour of uncompressed (considering my mathis right) Thats just for 24p. At the time they released the original 100, the probably didnt think it was conceivable that people would put up with such big files.
 
Re: the dvx-100 is capable of shooting 720p!

I wonder if their sculpter hd program is sophisticated enough to compress the raw images on the fly? Straight out of the cam?
 
Re: the dvx-100 is capable of shooting 720p!

Hmmm, this is one of those things that appears too good to be true. I'm going to remain skeptical until I see it in action. I'd really like to see what someone like Rich Lee or Disjecta could do with it. Who wouldn't?

But, let's assume for a moment that this product works as advertised. If for no other reason, it looks attractive for green screen work!

Some random thoughts:

o 500GB for an hour of video (which is really 86,400 uncompressed TIFF images). Lossless compression could probably shrink that down to 100GB. Not bad for offline storage. But you'd pretty much have to have a terabyte or more of RAID storage to do a project of any respectable size.

o Monitoring: a whole new set of procedures would have to be developed to see what kind of image you are getting, on set. I guess it takes a video village to raise a hidef child. ::)

o The higher resolution of the capture might reveal defects or imperfections in the lens. More post work to do to clean up.

o Panasonic's matrix processing firmware makes for a wonderful image. We completely lose that processing using this methodology. What kinds of tools would have to be developed to match the quality of Cinegamma processing?

o 720P is a very compelling feature at this price range. And the dynamic range is nothing to sneeze at. Again, will the net effect be better for film-out?

o Only some NLEs can handle this kind of data, so preprocessing is essential to convert streams of TIFF files to HD clips that FCP, Avid, or Premiere Pro can handle. Avid has an advantage here in that it has been used for online/offline editing for years now.

o I'd much rather have a 720P master from which to create standard def finished projects.

o One is still limited by the lens of the DVX100, so this isn't a do-everything HD rig. Still, I salivate at the thought of having a potentual tool like this in the arsenal.

o I think this hardware hack has more potentual to elevate us DVXers than the mini35 does.
 
Re: the dvx-100 is capable of shooting 720p!

[quote author=ruester link=board=Offtopic;num=1105758927;start=15#20 date=01/15/05 at 19:35:05]So, if the camera is capable of capturing this way, why can't it do so out of the box? It sounds like a speed regulator on a car - sure your car could go 140, but we'll only let you do 95... Is there a reason they have to compress it, or just turn compression off, instead of 'hacking' the dvx to do so?
It sounds strange that it has that ability, but is throttled back... ???[/quote]Other than all the other reasonse quoted above: They would have hard time selling the Varicam for 65,000.

Did you notice that the only manufacturer to offer exchangeable manual lens for their DV camera (Canon) is also the only manufacturer that doesn't have professional broadcast camera product line? Why do you think that is? They don't want to cut into their higher end product sales.
 
Re: the dvx-100 is capable of shooting 720p!

Good points speed bump. Ill be waitng to see what other dvx users do with this device. I dont think 720p would show too many imperfections on the native lens, but it would if someone had installed a homemade 35mm adapter. People using the gg adapter would see much more grain.I do agree about the file sizes though; one would have to a large hardrive and a great editor that could offline/online edit. More importantlt though, there has been no mention of what editors would work with this setup. I imagine fcp would work seeing how the hidef encoder they are using is the quicktime version.
I just want to see sample videos, so we know what kind of quality we are dealing with here.
 
Re: the dvx-100 is capable of shooting 720p!

Avid can definately handle offline/online editing, FCP *might* be able to, but I believe Premiere Pro cannot. I doubt that Vegas can either.

Monitoring will really be a trick too. It looks to me like the sample footage needs some serious color correction because the raw data doesn't have the Panny's firmware to do all the cleanup for you. I guess one would likely want to monitor in black and white, so you know what kind of contrast you are getting, then just worry about color in post. Otherwise, you've got to have a realtime color-corrector on set that could handle the inputs from the device.
 
Re: the dvx-100 is capable of shooting 720p!

Probably because the hardware guy got the chipset and software development kit for USB 2.0 for free or nearly so.

Apple licenses its Firewire technology, which means bucks.

BTW, my camera guy, who has FCP, says that offline/online editing is supposed to be supported. The problem is getting the raw clips into a format that FCP can edit. Since the problem of converting a series of TIFF files into editable video has been treated elsewhere in this forum, that appears to be an easy-to-overcome issue.
 
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