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public opinion poll: XDCAM vs. P2
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Walter,
I’ve got to disagree with on the archiving. All you have to do to archive XDCAM material is put the disk on a shelf. With P2, you have to DO SOMETHING. It may be as simple as burning a DVD data disk, or dumping files to hards drives that sit on a shelf, or whatever. But with XDCAM, you keep the video on the original camera media; with P2, you have to move it and store it somewhere else.
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[Tim Allison] “But with XDCAM, you keep the video on the original camera media; with P2, you have to move it and store it somewhere else.”
Which also means you have to keep purchasing more and more XDCAM media. With P2 you can pick and choose what you want to archive. So you purchase the sticks once and then you come up with the archiving plan of your choice.
Both products work, but just because you put the XDCAM disc on the shelf, doesn’t mean it’s a better archive source. It just means you have to store ALL the material rather than just what you need to store.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR Apple Color Training DVD available now!
Read my Blog!
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One question, Walter…
How do you archive P2 media?
I ask because storing P2 on hard drives is very risky at best. It’d better be a mirrored RAID or two separate hard drives cloned and then hard drives don’t have a long shelf life at all. I have three beautiful LaCie D2 door stops. Storing on backup tapes is expensive and slow. Blu-Ray is the only feasible media for long term storage and that brings you back to XDCAM HD which is stored on Blu-Ray discs. I give you the fact that an XDCAM disc is about $30 and a Blu-Ray is about $12.50. But using XDCAM only handles you media once, not twice.
Don’t get me wrong… I’m not trying to start a war but just clarifying the issues from an XDCAM point of view.
_______________________________
Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com
https://blogs.creativecow.net/waynecarey -
Except that we are talking about the EX1 here…it doesn’t record to XDCAM disks…it records to the SxS cards, just like the HVX records to P2 cards. So there isn’t a disk to put on a shelf. Not unless you buy the disks and then record to them via some XDCAM recorder…if that is what you do. I am an XDCAM noob, so I have no clue.
I just know that the EX1 shoots to solid state media, not disks.
Shane
GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD now for sale!
http://www.LFHD.net
Read my blog! -
Again it’s interesting to watch a thread veer off course a bit. in the P2 vs XDCAM war I’ve started I was thinking more along the lines of the bigger cameras like HPX500 and the PDW 350. But this isn’t necessarily about the cameras. I was just wondering about the format itself and the workflow issues of using that format.
Again, thanks for everyone’s feedback and I value all of your opinions. The COW is such a great resource.
-trevor ward
Red Eye Film Co.
http://www.redeyevideoproductions.com
orlando, fl -
Oh, well if you are comparing the shoulder cams like the HPX 500 and 2000 and 3000, they have much better (larger) chips and can take much better lenses. In that case, I’d say that P2 KILLS over XDCAM. DVCPRO HD is much easier to work with than XDCAM…any day of the week.
Shane
GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD now for sale!
http://www.LFHD.net
Read my blog! -
Panasonic is far better (100 Mb/s) [than XDCAM 35 Mb/s]
Ummm, depends on what you mean by “better”. DVCPRO-HD at 100Mbps compresses more heavily than XDCAM at 35Mbps.
How? Because the long GOP is far more space efficient.
I’m too tired to do the math right now, but from memory I think the DVCPRO-HD is about 3 times as heavily compressed.
DVCPRO-HD is easy on the CPU, so you can composite more tracks on a given machine. But then I really don’t think either of these codecs are that great for post work. They are really best for acquisition work.
Long GOP is a pain to edit natively in many cases, and I simply think it shouldn’t be done. Unless you’re doing just a few simple cuts, get the video over to ProRes asap, and do all your work in that before your final render to MPEG-2 or H.264 or whatever.
DVCPRO-HD is also limited in resolution. It maxes out at 1280×1080, while XDCAM EX as noted is a full raster codec at 1920×1080.
The HVX200 creates beautiful footage and is great to work with. It does however have 960×540 CCDs which means that its “4:2:2” color sampling actually has lower chroma resolution than the 4:2:0 of XDCAM EX (which has been widely found to work great for chromakey), and the HVX is far behind in the sharpness department, even with its built-in uprezzing circuitry (low res can certainly be OK as part of a pleasant film look, film wasn’t that sharp either in many cases).
My suggestion: rent a Sony and the corresponding spec Panny for a weekend, shoot a variety of scenes, and do your own evaluation of what is important to you. Nothing beats that!
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[B.J. Ahlen] “But then I really don’t think either of these codecs are that great for post work. They are really best for acquisition work.”
I can speak from experience that the DVCPro HD codec is fantastic for post. We’ve been cutting with that codec for three years now and have delivered about 80 HD episodes to networks so far. Even HDV originated material has been converted to DVCPro HD for entire documentaries with exceptional quality. Nothing but praise for the quality of our masters so far.
I have no idea how XDCAM holds up in Post as we’ve never had to use that format.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR Apple Color Training DVD available now!
Read my Blog!
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[B.J. Ahlen] “Ummm, depends on what you mean by “better”. DVCPRO-HD at 100Mbps compresses more heavily than XDCAM at 35Mbps.
How? Because the long GOP is far more space efficient.”If the 8 bit signal starts at 994 mbs and one algoritm delivers individual frames and a payload of 100mbs, and the other offers Groups of pictures so that your resolution is not frame independent and a payload of 35mbs, the 35mbs has more compression. You can put whatever marketing spin to
this you want, the 35mbs has more compression. It is more efficient, sure, but maybe that shouldn’t be the priority when capturing the master footage.[B.J. Ahlen] “DVCPRO-HD is also limited in resolution. It maxes out at 1280×1080, while XDCAM EX as noted is a full raster codec at 1920×1080. .”
You are also mistaken here. These numbers are based on the pre-filter intelligently applied to the signal prior to compression. If you look at the XDCAM HD signal coming from the 355 Sony camera the recorded footprint is 1440 X 1080. This also due to the pre-filter. Manufacturers apply this pre-filter to get rid of frequencies and details that are problematic for the algorithm. With almost 40% more signal, 1920 X 1080 XDCAM EX, vs the XDCAM HD 1440 X 1080, it still has to fit in a 35mbs payload. Numbers are easy to understand but if you don’t understand why they are what they are it can lead to the misinterpretation of the number. Add this to the fact that the DVCPRO HD codec applies the compression an an imdependent frame basis, each frame is resolution independent unlike HDV, or XDCAM HD, or EX.
Best,
Jan
Jan Crittenden Livingston
Product Manager, HPX500, HVX200, DVX100
Panasonic Broadcast & TV Systems -
[walter biscardi] “I can speak from experience that the DVCPro HD codec is fantastic for post. We’ve been cutting with that codec for three years now and have delivered about 80 HD episodes to networks so far.”
Yes, of course it works good for post. It’s been used for many years and it is rock solid within its parameters.
Is it fantastic for post? That’s a value judgment. If you have to deliver full raster 1920×1080, I’d say not, because it doesn’t support full HD, so you have to uprezz as a final stage before delivery.
If you had to do significant compositing and grading, the end result would have been better if you had switched immediately after acquisition to a full raster post codec such as ProRes HQ, Avid DNxHD, or even Sheer.
720P has been a delivery format for quite some time now, but I trust you can see where things are going. If you are going to sell your productions again in a few years time, it is not likely that you will find acceptance for anything less than 1920×1080, unless it is “must-have footage” that will be run through a Teranex before broadcast.
Even consumers now are calling for 1920×1080 “Full HD” (a Sony campaign term I believe), and European broadcasters have been holding out as long as they could for 1920x1080P.
[walter biscardi] “I have no idea how XDCAM holds up in Post as we’ve never had to use that format.”
Blech. As I said, you can do simple cuts and basic stuff without much worry, but why suffer? Just use a purpose-designed post codec.
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