Whither P2?

[Toke]

Just to add some numbers, Kodak EXR 50D (5245/7245) has also MTF of nearly 200 lp/mm!
There just isn’t very many cine lenses that can resolve that.

[Blub06]

With respect, I seaid mid level video cameras and lower cost video cameras have similare pix density. I was careful not to say Hidef and low end have the same pixel density.

[Blub06]

Nobody’s talking about focal planes here.

When Graeme said something that inferred that the tolerances are tighter or harder for the smaller chips when it comes to getting a lens to work with them I inferred that he was saying that the tolerances were even more critical with smaller chips than with larger chips. My response was this might be so but the nature of non fixed focus means the focus ring adjusts for this.

Standard-def video lenses are typically engineered to provide 30 to 40 line-pairs per millimeter. That’s more than enough to resolve a standard-def image on a 2/3″ chip.

Okay, I guess, I always knew they were junk compared to my cine and still lenses. Not that that really matters.

High-def video lenses are typically engineered to resolve much more detail (which is why they cost 10x to 50x more!) High-def lenses typically can resolve around 85 line-pairs per millimeter, which is enough for a 2/3″ high-def chipset such as the CineAlta or Varicam.

I wonder if this is true. The story of optics is not unlike that of any industry. They have sort of figured out how to design and manufacture glass and lenses to resolve far more than 85line pairs per mm for general use. In the early 1980s film could resolve over 100LPMM the lenses (not the top of the line) were resolving well beyond that. Today even cheap lenses can resolve beyond the average of yesterday. Imagine if Intel was still making the 8088, WHY? They moved on, now they cant make a chip that does not have millions of circuits in them. Everything has moved on, no glass manufacture is going to find it economical to make low rez glass.

These new 1/3″ cameras have the same # of pixels on them, but in 1/6 the physical space! Meaning, they need a lens sharp enough to resolve between 133 line-pairs per millimeter (for 720p) and 200 (yes, 200!) line-pairs per millimeter, to adequately resolve a 1080-line image on a 1/3″ chip.

Think about it — a 1/3″ chip is about 2.95mm in height. 1080 lines in 2.95mm = 366 lines per millimeter, or about 183 line-pairs per millimeter. That means that, to resolve a comparable level of sharpness, you need a lens that can resolve twice as much resolution per millimeter as a typical high-def lens, such as would be used on a VariCam or CineAlta.

That is no small feat.

Right on. but they were doing it well before HIDEF came along. Remember the Sony analog Hid Def of the 1980s, they used the lenses of the 1980s.

And that’s why Graeme and I tend to believe that these little chips are pushing the limits of what we can expect in the way of high-def, and that their ultimate resolution will probably be more limited by the lens than by the chips themselves.

I think this is where we disagree the most. Unlike you guys I think that the cameras and electronics are still behind the resolving power of the most common lenses. If we are looking for the weak link (so that we can find where the most imporovments are to come) I dont see the optics as that link.

Chris

[Sambronko]

First Off Think That Flash Based Media Is The Future And P2 Is Still A few Years Away
From Being Truly Viable And I Think It’s A Great Product.

A Story Of A All Panasonic House,

We Bought M Vision (Panasonic M1) 20 years ago ( 3 dockable cameras 9 Decks) at about 35,000 each. Used High Grade VHS. Not Bad for News Crews.

By 1990 They Basically Told Us No More Parts Will Made So We Pursed Other Options

So We Bought MII 12 Years Ago (10 VTR’s 5 Cameras) at 22,000 A deck.
Awesome Format But A Minority. Still Use Today. If We Can Find Tape.

2003-04
Looking At P2 Had Quotes And Everything
When We Asked If They’ll Support The Uber Expensive P2 5 Years From Now They Said “Oh Sure No Problem”

Fool Me Once Shame On ME, Fool Me Twice Shame On You…..

We Looked Real Hard At P2 And Another Station In Our Group Is Going With It For All News And Production.

Last Year We Bought XDCAM Our First Sony Purchase And Could Not Be Happier.

It Is In Both News And Production. We Dropped One on A Concrete Floor (Ouch)
Only 300 Dollars Damage, Optical Drive Worked Fine.

News Dropped One Out Of A Ballon at 12 Feet Onto Grass And The View Finder Snapped Off, Optical Drive Survived Fine.

Our News People Are About as Carless As They Come Most Of Them Are 22 years Old Fresh From College. And They have Shaken These Sony’s Like Crazy And Not One Disc Problem In Over A year.

( I Can’t Say The Same About Firewire Plugs On Cameras And Decks They Have Managed To Break The Center Of Every One)

The Other Day A Female Reporter Closed The Trunk Of Her News Car On It, She Actually Asked Me If It Would Hurt It? 🙂

Hopefully Panasonic Will Support P2 (PII) Unlike MII. And M Vision (M1)

BTW They Told Us That As Long As Sony Makes Beta They’ll Support MII (1993). Only Time Will Tell. All I Hope Is P2 Adopters Don’t Get Left Behind. As We Did Twice.

Just A little Insight from Someone Who Spent A Lot Of Money With Panasonic Over the Last 25 years…

[Lawrence Bansbach]

[Barry Green] “P2 can record indefinitely as long as you keep hot-swapping cards. There is a field device (the ‘P2 Store’) which automatically copies the contents of a card onto its internal hard disk and erases the card, ready for hot-swapping back into the camera. If you had enough storage available, you could record for hours and hours uninterrupted by continually hot-swapping cards.”
Because the AJ-PSC060G “P2 Store” appears to take as long to offload a P2 card as it does to fill it, if you’re recording 1080i60, 1080p24, 1080p30, or 720p60, you’ll probably need at least three P2 cards to shoot without interruption for more than 16 minutes (assuming 8-GB cards). And even then the constant swapping could get nerve-racking. Even if the camera doesn’t get jostled during swapping, either the operator will have to swap the cards while shooting (which could be difficult during a handheld shot or a complex pan/tilt on a tripod) or an assistant will. Especially because the slots are right below the viewfinder, I would think that the assistant would get in the operator’s way.

[James Mulryan]

I know I am coming in late to this discussion, but is the lens on the new P2 the same one that is on the DVX100?
Lets say for cost reasons I can live with a fixed lens. Lets say I can live with the small chips and and somewhat iffy lens as a trade-off for having a discrete cinema verite style camera with a true HD format.

For a few dollars more:
Why can’t this lens have true witness marks and indicators in the viewfinder that represent actual distance?
What about putting a true apeture ring on the lens? Or at least locating the electronic manuel control near the base of the lens?
These two things would greatly reduce the problems that I have when operating the DVX 100.
I think Panasonic should also make an optional ergonomic shoulder pad that can hold two radio mics, and an Anton Bauer battery. If this was designed from the inception by Panasonic instead of relying on outside vendors to provide these solutions, you would get a true system. Low mass on this camera and no shoulder mount throws out the advantage of body coordination and relies strictly on hand-eye coordination making for difficult pans and reduces overall steadiness.

[Barry Green]

[James Mulryan] but is the lens on the new P2 the same one that is on the DVX100?
No, it’s a newly-engineered high-def lens that is similar in basic operation to the DVX lens, but isn’t the same one. It’s larger, longer, and engineered to high-def specs.

Why can’t this lens have true witness marks and indicators in the viewfinder that represent actual distance?
It will have true distance marks in the viewfinder and on the LCD. It’ll have readouts in three different modes: feet, meters, and in MF00-MF99 modes. Having the readout in feet will acutally give you a lot more precision in measuring distance than you would get with markings on the barrel. Plus, having the distance marks on the LCD mean you don’t have to turn the camera around to look at the lens barrel to see what your focus and zoom settings are — they’re right in front of the operator at all times.

If you want to convert the lens ring to fully manual control with hard stops, the Century Optics ring should be adapted to let you do that as well.

What about putting a true apeture ring on the lens? Or at least locating the electronic manuel control near the base of the lens?
No true aperture ring on this camera. But for your other question: you asked for it, you got it. The aperture wheel has been moved to the base of the lens. The layout has been changed so that lens controls are all clustered up by the lens, etc to make them more intuitive.

I think Panasonic should also make an optional ergonomic shoulder pad that can hold two radio mics, and an Anton Bauer battery. If this was designed from the inception by Panasonic instead of relying on outside vendors to provide these solutions, you would get a true system. Low mass on this camera and no shoulder mount throws out the advantage of body coordination and relies strictly on hand-eye coordination making for difficult pans and reduces overall steadiness.”
Sounds like a good suggestion. Let’s hope Jan sees this message.

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