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Attn.: Jan C. – AJ-SPC700 Questions
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[Graeme Nattress] “Sure, if you bring it in over SDI and edit it totally uncompressed. But that’s a pain and it’s expensive. The 24pA Panasonic solution is just so much better.”
Thanks for that confirmation, Graeme!
So my quest for an “affordable” 2/3″ 3-CCD 24p-capable (and cost-effeciently editable) pro SD camcorder continues … sigh.
Let’s see: One can buy a 1/3″ 3-CCD effeciently-editable 24p prosumer SD camcorder for around $3K USD (DVX-100a), but a 2/3″ version costs at least $27K or more (?) including a VF, lens and a couple of P2 cards (AJ-SPX800). Nothing in-between.
And I’m just talking SD, not HD. Yikes.
All the best,
– Peter
Just a friendly reminder to all: Please consider filling-in your COW user profile information so we have a better idea who you are, where you’re from, and so forth. It’s the friendly thing to do. Thanks!
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Yep,
markets are very dualistic.
I’d take cheaper 2/3″ 1-ccd or 1/2″ 3-ccd with progressive scanning… -
I’m told that the “best” SD camera around is the SDX900. I’m very much looking forwards to seeing what the DVCpro50 mode looks like on the HVX….
Graeme
– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects for FCP
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[toke lahti] “I’d take cheaper 2/3″ 1-ccd … with progressive scanning.”
Yes, me too!!!
All the best,
– Peter
Just a friendly reminder to all: Please consider filling-in your COW user profile information so we have a better idea who you are, where you’re from, and so forth. It’s the friendly thing to do. Thanks!
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My experiece isn’t vast by any means, but as far as SD goes, I’ve dealt with the Sony DSR-250, 300, 500, all mini dv cameras, the SDX-900, and whatever that big beta studio camera that they shoot those MTV “host” shows is. And I think the SDX-900 with a good lens looks the best of any footage I’ve worked with.
jeremiah black
dual 2 gig G5
2.5 gigs of RAM
Decklink Extreme capture card -
[jeremiah black] “… And I think the SDX-900 with a good lens looks the best of any footage I’ve worked with.”
Yes, I’ve heard nothing but good things about the AJ-SDX-900, too. I believe the AJ-SPX800 performs very similarly to the 900, but records onto P2 instead of tape.
Unfortunately, for probably quite some time the closest I’ll get to using either of these cams will be by occasionally renting them — not owning them.
Meanwhile, I just got a bit of good news. My client — the one who has been the primary motivation for my investigating a better-quality video cam (compared to my Sony DSR-250) and who actually needs 24p and the optical characteristics of 2/3″ lenses & CCDs, genlock & TC I/O and so forth — informs me their editing system is an uncompressed SD FCP system.
So, at least in regards to this client (who accounts for a good percentage of my income), the Sony DSR-450WS with its funky 24p standard 2:3 pulldown feature may be OK. If I understand what Graeme & Jan have indicated in this thread, Sony’s dumb*ss method of handling 24p doesn’t result in quality loss in an uncompressed editing environment.
Of course, this bit of news doesn’t address the somewhat diminished usefulness of 24p tapes I might shoot with this Sony cam for _other_ clients, depending on their post path. Grrrr … 🙁
And looping back to the original subject of this thread: If the new $13K USD Panasonic AJ-SPC700 2/3″ SD P2 cam had 24p (advanced mode of course) built-in or available as an upgrade, I’d be happier. The AJ-SPC700 is much less expensive than the $18K Sony DSR-450WS, and I’d primarily record the AJ-SPC700’s output via Firewire to a Sony GV-D1000 “DV walkman” portable recorder. Alas, Panasonic wants folks to spend an additional $7,000 USD more to get 24p in the AJ-SPX800. So, grrrr, again. 8|
All the best,
– Peter
Just a friendly reminder to all: Please consider filling-in your COW user profile information so we have a better idea who you are, where you’re from, and so forth. It’s the friendly thing to do. Thanks!
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[Peter DeCrescenzo] “So, at least in regards to this client (who accounts for a good percentage of my income), the Sony DSR-450WS with its funky 24p standard 2:3 pulldown feature may be OK. If I understand what Graeme & Jan have indicated in this thread, Sony’s dumb*ss method of handling 24p doesn’t result in quality loss in an uncompressed editing environment”
To be fair, I wouldn’t call a 3:2 pulldown “dumbass”. It’s pretty much standard. Now, I’d call Sony’s totally faux 24p more on the Z1U “dumbass” as well as a few other names I can’t use on the boards. And I’d call Panasonic’s 24pA 2:3:3:2 pulldown “pretty damn cool”.
Also, Graeme and Jan are right. I never did it via SDI, but I did capture some DVX-100 footage uncompressed via analogue conponent outs. Then removing the pull down with an application like DvFilm Maker didn’t put the footage through the wash visually.
i wish I has some experience with the AJ-SPX800 or AJ-SPC700 to relate, but I’ve never even seen one.
Good luck with your client! I hope you get the green light to grab hold of cool new toys.
jeremiah black
dual 2 gig G5
2.5 gigs of RAM
Decklink Extreme capture card -
The other issue with normal 2:3 pulldown is that it won’t be flagged for automatic removal, so you’ll have to either have a more intelligent pulldown remover or just guess until you get it right. With 24pA the frames are flagged so it’s automatic.
Graeme
– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects for FCP
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3:2 pulldown is standard and looks good, but is designed for viewing, not removal. If you want to edit in a 23.98fps (24p) timeline, then you’ve got to remove the pulldown, for which, if it’s DV, you have to remove the pulldown frames, which means, in 3:2 doing a bit of reconstruction work, which implies a decompression and a recompression of those frames.
Advanced pulldown is such that you can extract the 24p frames without mucking around with fields, and hence they can be extracted as whole frames without decompression and recompression, hence better quality.
But….
The DV codec, like most codecs, works better with progressive video than interlaced video, so the 24p frames under advanced pulldown may be very slightly higher quality to begin with than frames from 3:2 pulldown where some get interlaced and spread around a bit.
As for the CF24 mode on the Sony Z1 – don’t get me started on a rant about how bad that looks. It’s awful. Sony should be very sorry about that and apologise.
Graeme
– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects for FCP
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[Graeme Nattress] “3:2 pulldown is standard and looks good, but is designed for viewing, not removal”
Very true. I only really HAD to do it once under the deadline gun on a job. I had a 720×480 DV timeline and I had to mix in a little 720×486 SD b-roll. When I dropped it in the timeline, obviously I got a render bar, but it rendered like juddery garbage because the timeline was 720×480 not 486. So, I needed to remove the 6 extra scanlines on the SD footage, but the SD footage had a 3:2 pulldown. Couldn’t do it cleanly and without judder (because of the two interlaced frames), so I had to remove the pulldown, then crop the 6 scanlines in AE, then re-introduce the pulldown, and then take it form there. So I captured it as 10 bit uncompressed (it was beta Sp footage), and did it, and it came out great.
There was some other time I had to remove a 3:2 pulldown before, but I don’t remeber it as well. It was something about mixing with animation that was created at 23.98.
Ummm, I guess I’m rambling, but yeah. 3:2 pulldown- great for viewing. Don’t remove unless you must.
Graeme,
Interesting idea about 24pA looking better than regular 24p. I’d like to try a side by side test on 24pA vs the 3:2 pulldown.
jeremiah black
dual 2 gig G5
2.5 gigs of RAM
Decklink Extreme capture card
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