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Just heard Jan speak on DV guys abot the HVX-200
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[Graeme Nattress] “I’m sure that there will be new codecs in the future, but now is not the time. We have all the places of the DVCProHD workflow in place, and it would be daft to change that for this camera. I know it would make the quality better to distribute the bits better, but it would also then make this camera an islan”
Exactly my point Graeme, I couldn’t agree more.
Too bad I wasn’t as concise as you in expressing it.
🙂Luis Caffesse
Studio 3 Productions, Inc.
Austin, Texas -
I think Graeme is right on, and we would all do well to remember that we’re talking about a camera that’s going to cost $6,000. I tried to mention this in my earlier post, but I guess I didn’t do too good a job.
Suddenly it’s like we’ve all (myself included) become greedy madmen, and are upset that the camera won’t also unfold into a four-door luxury sedan.
jeremiah black
dual 2 gig G5
2.5 gigs of RAM
Decklink Extreme capture card -
[toke lahti] “I’m just wondering what’s your typical camera original format?
1920×1080 4:4:4 output seems a bit overkill if your original is hdcam(chroma 480×1080) or varicam(chroma 480×720).toke,
Camera formats vary wildly. If it’s DV, i take to 4:2:2 10 bit uncompressed. HDV gets taken to 4:2:2, 10 bit unconpressed, 1080i. HDCAM and film scans get taken to 4:4:4, 10 bit, uncompressed.
If it seems like an overkill, all I can say is that I notice a differnce, and better to err on the side of more, rather than less. You are right that it’s the lack of compression that’s more important than the increased color space.
Also, I do alot of heavey, heavy color correction and effects, so I’m sure it makes more of a differnce, than if someone was just doing straight cuts.
jeremiah black
dual 2 gig G5
2.5 gigs of RAM
Decklink Extreme capture card -
[Graeme Nattress] “Look at all the bother we’ve had with the introduction of the new HDV codec, and now JVC threw a spanner in the works with their 24p mode that nobody is supporting yet (save 3rd party vendors like LumiereHD) because they, the NLE people, have only just got normal HDV “working”. “
Well, “working” is also a relative term. Because when you’re talking about ProHD/HDV, you’re actually talking about three relatively incompatible formats.
It turns out that the JVC implementation of HDV, and the Sony implementation of HDV, are excluding support for the other at the firewire level. What this means is, if you’re a JVC shooter, and someone hires you to shoot some HDV for them, and you deliver them a tape, and they happen to have Sony gear — the tape you hand them is useless. They will not be able to digitize it.
Sony offers HDV cameras and decks that say HDV on them, but if you put a JVC HDV tape in there, you will not be able to play the data through the firewire nor capture it. You have no access to the footage (other than to play it on a television and watch what you cannot digitize).
And, JVC offers cameras and decks that feature the same HDV logo — but if a Sony shooter gives you a tape, you will not be able to play that on your JVC equipment and digitize it.
If you like the Sony HDV, but prefer the JVC HDV deck because it can take large cassette sizes… um, don’t do it. That deck will never be able to play back your camera’s tapes so that you can digitize them.
The formats are mutually exclusive, when it comes to digitizing. The editing programs can support both formats, yes; but the playback equipment cannot.
A JVC HDV deck can play back JVC HDV to firewire, but cannot play back Sony HDV or ProHD tapes to firewire. A JVC ProHD deck can play back JVC HDV or ProHD to firewire, but cannot play back Sony HDV to firewire. A Sony HDV deck can play back Sony HDV, but cannot play back ProHD or JVC HDV to firewire.
I guess what I’m saying is — don’t necessarily go assuming that HDV is a standard, it’s actually currently about three fairly incompatible, mutually-exclusive standards. If you’re planning on getting an HDV camera so you can shoot for HDV post houses, you better check with them as to what gear they support, because the Sony and JVC implementations are mutually exclusive when it comes time to digitize. Either that, or every post house is going to have to buy at least two decks so they can support both flavors.
For customer confusion purposes, it probably would have been better if they hadn’t lumped both formats under the HDV banner.
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Get the most from your DVX camera. The DVX Book and DVX DVD are now available at https://www.dvxuser.com/articles/dvxbook/ and at Amazon (https://tinyurl.com/54u4a) -
[Barry Green] “For customer confusion purposes, it probably would have been better if they hadn’t lumped both formats under the HDV banner. “
Barry,
Isn’t JCV’s format called “Pro HD”? I always found this to be a bad choice since it might confuse consumers into thinking that it’s somehow not HDV or worse, another flavor of HD superior to even HDCAM. I know the guys and gals on this board will laugh at this, but I’m sure we’ll all find ourselves over the next year debating with people who insist that “ProHD” is miles and miles above HDV- just like I spent the last two years debating with people who INSISTED that DVCAM has more resolution than mini-dv. Some even thought DVCAM had a 4:2:2 color space!
Oh, and one more thing I’d like to add, is that JVC previous one chip HDV camera isn’t compatible with the new JVC decks, and also JVC is going to be releasing a 50 mb HDV camera that will also not be compatible with any gear from its other two HDV cameras. So that’ll make 3 flavors of incompatible HDV from just JVC alone. Yow!
jeremiah black
dual 2 gig G5
2.5 gigs of RAM
Decklink Extreme capture card -
Does the box that converts firewire HDV to HD SDI only work with one format, all or some?? I think what you are saying Barry, is that HDV has more than one nail in it’s coffin. For that degree of incompatibility under the “same” video format name to be allowed is ludicrous! How is any consumer going to navigate that minefield??
Graeme
– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects for FCP
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Well, if you notice the difference with your own eyes, then you should go for it.
In the end we are all making products to be seen, not to be calculated by some machine! -
[toke lahti] “In the end we are all making products to be seen, not to be calculated by some machine! “
Very, very true. All the tech stuff is helpful, but you can’t argue that something looks better by pointing to a calculator any more than than you can argue someone into laughing at a joke.
jeremiah black
dual 2 gig G5
2.5 gigs of RAM
Decklink Extreme capture card -
This hdv soup is beginning to look a farce and I’m not going to touch it with a ten foot pole. Reminds me about new revolutionary DV which broke very fast to dv, dvcam & dvcpro and 1st gen decks couldn’t play each other. So hdv50 will be the fourth incompatible member of a happy family!
Btw, I see this 1080 pull-down thing as a very minor problem.
But anyway, some day Panny will have to make new dsp’s and then the codec might get better.
And that can’t take many years any more…About that time that NLE vendors can add new support to new codecs; it’s been only half a year that hdv cameras have been available and already almost all support it. So I won’t believe they would have any problems to support a little bit improved dvcproHD codec.
Sidenote: it was quite funny, after I proposed in the “elephant” thread for HQ recording straight to DLT tape, to listen to this DVguys radioshow where Jan talked about DLT being a good choise for back up!
How about Varicam2 with internal DLT deck and dvcpro288 codec? :-
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Is jvc really going to launch hdv50 cameras?
I just read that 7000 will be 25Mbps only…
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