Guy Barwood
Forum Replies Created
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I’ll bet by the time P2 drops to a price many of us in the special events business can afford it, this camera will be a well outdated model and Panasonic could have moved to a pure P2 product line.
What stops you using the camera as a player? It works fine for me now. My cameras don’t get used enough to worry about one record and one play per tape as I currently work.
I would be more interested in just a DV tape transport as a fall back, and common standard capture amoungts the mass’s. Use P2 for non DV if you like. What I wouldn’t want however is DVCPRO (PAL) at all. As it is 4:1:1 most of my needs would requrie conversion to DV (4:2:0) or MPG2 (4:2:0) and that’s not a pretty picture.
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ah but Ken, it turned the 13th here 35min ago 😉
I did a little non scientific test here, on the quality HDV can provide from a pretty much perfect source under perfect conditions (ie a high res still image downsampled).
The results were very interesting.
On one hand, it showed me that there is very little (none to my eye) difference between the visible colour resolution of 720p 4:2:0 and 720p uncompressed (4:2:2). This was very satisfying to see, and can only lead me to believe (unless my test is inherently flawed) that the difference we see in 4:2:0 to 4:2:2 cameras is much less about the colour resolution, and much more about the overall quality of the camera, lens and the size of the CCD block.
On the other hand, it showed me that while HDV totally craps over DV, at the current bit rates there is a hell of a lot of compression going on. Maybe I just happened to pick an area that suffered more than most, but in the close ups of the neck and necklace with only a 3x magnification from a 1:1 on my LCD (and my TV is about 3x my LCD size), there is almost no skin detail left on the neck and clearly there are large artifacts around the necklace itself.
It is a 5Mb total web page to load but please if you can have a look.
https://www.dilithium.com.au/video/hdv_testEven if the Pinnacle encoder was not up to quality of the one in the HD100, the HD100 is going to have to deal with all that motion, which I would think might at least level the playing field with the test a bit, if not make the job much harder for the camera. It just has me thinking maybe the sweet spot for the data rate was a bit higher. Maybe I am over reacting though, after all I haven’t seen any real footage.
I have printed A4’s of every photo of the HD100 released though 😉
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It’s an interesting explaination of the problem they encountered because it really doesn’t quatify if the Drive or the Firmware was to blame. Writing video to a HDD is still writing data files which is what a disk is designed for, and many other HDDs are doing just fine doing the same thing. I’m not sure how a disk drive could get confused when asked to write data without more information on why Jan came to that conclusion.
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OK, I just followed the link from https://www.creativecow.net/forum/read_post.php?postid=111323500381296&forumid=193 and have now seen my first P2 card!
“Compliant with PC Card standards (Type II)”
Therefore I can only assume the camera’s firmware is the problem in recognise the 1.8″ HDD, unless as you say Jan tried it and it did recognise it but dropped frames trying to capture to it, in which case there is probably still a firmware problem and just some tweaking by Panny could get it to work. It may be too late for the SDX800, but certainly not for the HDX200.
With that option, it would make me think very very hard before deciding between a HDX200 (better codec even if it is technically lower res, unknown CCD res though) and a GY-HD100 (detachable lens, native 1280×720 CCD). Why not have the option and provide the flexibility to work how you want when you want. I’m happy to accept the HDD will only work with 720p/24/25/30 due to the HDDs capabilities, but thats 99.9% of my shooting needs, for the rest I would accept the P2 workflow. Of course this is all just me though, each to their own.
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The post I read from Jan was that they tested them in the SDX800 but they didn’t work at all (ie device not seen), not that they worked but couldn’t sustain the transfer rate. Could you post a link to that thread you referenced?
I totally agree that it is great they are even testing it, as long as the purpose is to try to get it to work, not ensure it doesn’t 😉 It does tell me the physical connection and size must be the same as a PCMCIA card though, which I didn’t know before. The interface could well be whatever is normal for PCMCIA, but only the firmware doesn’t know how to handle the device (like a device in Windows without drivers).
PS: PC Benchmarks have shown these 30GB 1.8″ HDDs can sustain at least 10MBps which is 80Mbps (and it only drops to that at the very inside of the platter, it is much faster on the outside), so 50Mbps shouldn’t be a problem unless the interface to the drive is causing problems somehow.
See https://www.tomshardware.com/storage/20050323/pocket_rocket-04.html
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[Barry Green] “I think his point might be that it might be a little optimistic to expect a $20,000 tape drive in a sub-$10,000 camera.”
I think you have chosen to ignore the comment he origonally made is preparing that reply.
“If panny would sell 100,000 cameras of those, then those 16 heads’
price would be less than 1/10 of what they are today.”Not saying he is correct, but no saying he is wrong either.
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opps, sorry that obviously should be https://www.dilithium.com.au/temp/hd100_side2_custom.jpg
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Looking at the ‘other’ side more, I think they would have been better putting two RCA audio connectors where the 6pin 1394 port is, and putting the 1394 port horizontally under the 1394 switch (not needing the Line Out mini plug.
See https://www.dilithium.com.au/temp/hd100_side2_custom.jgp to see exactly what I mean.
Of course I can’t see whats under it, but I’m sure with the effort of the whole design process such a design could have been achieve.
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So is this correct?:
720p (1.666Mb/f) (record time on a single 4GB* P2 Card)
960x720p 24fps 40 Mbps (14min)
960x720p 25fps 41.6 Mbps (13.4min)
960x720p 30fps 50 Mbps (11.2min)
960x720p 48fps 80 Mbps (7min)
960x720p 50fps 83.3 Mbps (6.7Min)
960x720p 60fps 100 Mbps (5.6min)1080i (3.33Mb/f)
1280×1080 24fps 80Mbps (7min)
1280×1080 25fps 83.3Mbps (6.7min)
1280×1080 30fps 100Mbps (5.6min)If it is correct, which, if any does the HVX200 NOT support (if it is known yet).
*Using 1GB = 1024MB
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Is there any cahnce we could summarise all this back in some table format of frame rates and resolutions? It got a bit consfusing after a few posts.
Cheers
Guy