Panasonic Chip De-Mystified?

[David Battistella]

Thanks Jan,

🙂 I figured that. I just got back from shooting a few for more days with my DVX100A and when I look at the stuff (and clients see the stuff) they are always blown away. I am sure the images of the HVX (regardless of the exact pixel count as I am more of a subjective picture type) will be stunning. I almost got a demo on the HVX at Pan canada a few weeks back, but I just missed the camera the day I was there.

I am looking forward to seeing this product, but a little saddened that the new Mac laptops will not have the right card slots. That is a bit of a drag as I have been holding out on the laptop purchase. I’m an FCP user and to have a nice seemless workflow would have been nice.

Thanks for getting into the thread.

David

[Karl Holt]

I did say that directly after my 1080 comment…..

“If you shoot 720p onto P2 you can store the native progressive frames (720p native mode, i think) “

[George]

Jan –

If you cannot disclose the true spec for competitive or other reasons thats fine and understandable. But you really should talk to your marketing people. The comment on the product PDF from Panasonic says, “1080p scanning” thats misleading or a play on words at best. A true statment might be “1080p hardware upconversion”.

Most of the vendors that do not want to release S/N ratios or other tech specs usually say: NA or Not Available.

They don’t claim the spec to be something it is are not!

BTW the P2 technology is a major step forward for us all. Also the camera tests (shootouts) that are currently underway now will show performance reasonably well.

– Thanks.
George

[Blub06]

When and where are we going to get a look see at these tests?

Chris

[Jan Crittenden livingston]

[George] “The comment on the product PDF from Panasonic says, “1080p scanning” thats misleading or a play on words at best. A true statment might be “1080p hardware upconversion”.
I>

George, The CCD output is an analog signal. If the camera scans that information coming in at 1080P, how is that statement wrong. It isn’t. CCDs are analog devices, the signals coming off of them are analog.

Hope that helps,

Jan

Jan Crittenden Livingston
Product Manager, DVCPRO, DVCPRO50, AG-DVX100
Panasonic Broadcast & TV Systems

[Graeme Nattress]

It’s an anlaogue signal from a discrete sampling system. I mean, you can pull a 24bit 192khz sample from vinyl, or analogue cassette tape, but that doesn’t mean that the underlying signal justifies such a sampling rate by virtue of it’s noise floor or frequency response. You could use a 16bit AtoD and sample at 2540p, but that doesn’t mean it’s a chip that warrants such treatment. Or think of sampling the analogue output of a CD player at 24bit 192khz. Does that sample sound any better than the original 441.khz 16bit recording?

Jan, we fully appreciate that the specs of the HVX200 CCD are a trade secret. No doubt some internet magician will do some enlightening experiments and reverse engineer and figure out what’s going on, but until then all we can do is look at the pictures the camera makes, and from all reports I’ve read, it does a great job. It’s obvious there’s some Panasonic magic going on with the CCDs. Can you not just say, “it’s Magic”, it’s “a trade secret”?

Graeme

– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects and Standards Conversion for FCP

[Jan Crittenden livingston]

Hi Graeme,

I thought I was answering the question as to why we said we start at 1080P. The fact that the pixel count is not reveled is already known. I thought the question was why the 1080P mention.

Thanksm

Jan

Jan Crittenden Livingston
Product Manager, DVCPRO, DVCPRO50, AG-DVX100
Panasonic Broadcast & TV Systems

[George]

This whole issue likely has nothing to do with a technical spec nor a real trade secret. A more likely explanation is that Panasonic wants the camera to compete in both markets. Its a Marketing Idea!

the 1080 camp (sony,canon)
the 720 camp (jvc, panasonic)

The new 1080 “Scanning Camp” (panasonic)

By calling the spec as 1080p scanning (without mention of the true CCD resolution) you are describing what the A/D conversion does as an output not really as an analog input as Graeme so accurately mentioned.

So I guess by using the new marketing tom foolery panasonic has created, here’s whats possible.

A Sony Z1 with some pixie dust burned in to the A/D converter (even though its a 1/3 Sony 1080 x 1440 HAD chip) I am sampling into my FinalCut Pro easy setup or onto a Firestore Drive array QT 4K preset at full 4K digital resolution. I now have a 4K HD Camera! Watch out Dalsa and Viper. Your 90mm CMOS has nothing on us!

A HVX200 with still more pixie dust burned into the A/D converter (even though its a 1/3 720p CCD) can now sample to 70mm / 15 perf IMAX resolution. But it can only record 1 frame of footage on two 8 GB cards. We now have the first Panasonic Digital IMAX camera.

You can see from a marketing (not a technology) standpoint Panasonics slight of hand works wonders.

Shh! Just don’t tell anyone (public) the truth. the hvx is actually a 720p camera!

[Toke]

[George] “the hvx is actually a 720p camera!”

What do you think a camera with 720ccd’s with pixel shift producing 1080 image should be called?
Should they try to market 720ccd-with-pixel-shift-producing-1080 camera?

[Michael Brennan]

[gary adcock] “that may be true in 1080 as that is the spec for the Sony developed 1080 PSF,(progressive segmented frame) — but not true of 720p which is a truly progressive captur”

The term truely progressive recording would be more accurate imho.

Mike Brennan