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DV25 vs. DVCPRO25 – in P2 land, any difference?
Sorry to regress back to Standard Def land, but I’m trying to teach a workshop about the HVX-200 camera, and I want to be clear on all of the different shooting formats.
I thought the only difference between DV, DVCAM, and DVCPRO(25) was the way they were written to tape – track pitch, etc… but the DV25 signal was exactly the same.
SO – If recording to P2 media – is there any actual difference between DV mode and DVCPRO (480) mode? The manual is no help…
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4 Replies
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The main difference is the track pitch on the rotary sprocket compression ratio. It’s kind of hard to explain so I’ll just leave it at that.
Sorry, I couldn’t resist. I’ve been logging footage all day and I’m in a very silly mood.
I’ve been confused by why the camera has the two options. You might try to call or email Jan Crittenden Livingston with Panasonic directly. Or just make a post that says something bad about Panasonic like “Sony kicks Panasonic’s Butt.” She’ll normally read those threads. 🙂
I’m in a very silly mood and I’m using the little fake smile way too much 🙂 🙂
Look, it’s me having lunch :(BigMac)
-Russ
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DV and DVCAM are identical other than speed of the tape and whether or not they use locked audio; DVCAM is always “locked”, DV is not necessarily but some systems (like the DVX100/HVX200 and the JVC DV500) use locked audio anyways.
DVCPRO in NTSC is bitstream identical (compression and audio) to DV, but is recorded on an entirely different type of tape.
In PAL territories DVCPRO is quite different; it uses 4:1:1 color sampling and PAL DV uses 4:2:0.
On P2 there’s two differences to be aware of; first is that neither DV nor DVCPRO on P2 support the 4-channel 12-bit audio mode; if you’re recording to P2 you’re recording 16-bit 48KHz audio at all times, and you can record four channels of 16-bit 48KHz even in DV mode.
The second difference is that there are some flags inserted in the data stream that identify the data stream as DVCPRO. If you have one of the earliest DVCPRO decks, you’ll find that they’re not firewire compatible with consumer DV devices; they only recognize DVCPRO data streams. The HVX has the appropriate flags inserted in the data stream that would allow you to firewire directly to one of those decks.
But as far as recorded video and audio data on a P2 card, it only really makes a difference for PAL users; DVCPRO and DV on a US HVX200 are going to be largely identical, differing only in that flag in the timecode stream. DVCPRO and DV are very different (still comparable, but different) in PAL territories.
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Operating in Pal to me DVC Pro25 is better than DV. Little better, but better.
Rainer
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Thanks, Barry.
I had never heard that PAL DVCPRO25 was 4:1:1 – interesting – thanks!
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