Sooo...
We're all familiar with the revolutionary Panasonic DVX. It's argueably the best "prosumer" standard definition camera ever created. Well.... Panasonic has some news for us. At NAB, I believe, Panasonic will be releasing the specs of their new prosumer HD camera in response the Sony's HDV cam named the HDX100. The following is information that has been confirmed by Jan Crittenden
-Format: DVCproHD, DVCpro50, DVCpro25!
-Data Storage: P2 solid state memory
-Under 10K
-24p!
Her exact words:
" Sorry for not being able to say more guys, I am under lock-down on the subject. I can only say under $10,000, DVCPRO25/50/HD on P2, 24P. "
Things which have been hinted at by those "in power"
- The camera will be priced competitively with the Sony Z1
- The camera will be about the size of the DVX
- May have both tape and P2 recording capabilites
- 1080x720 resolution, possibly with 60p
- Most undoubtably native 16:9
What's so great about this? 6K is a lot of money after all. Well.... to quote Barry Green's most excellent post on DVXuser:
From: url removed, sorry Shaw can't post links to other forums about filmmaking - Wideshot
Mods, I hope the link is ok. Feel free to remove it if not.
Soooo... the point being?
HDV will most likely end up like many other Sony formats - dead.
(I do realize that this isn't only Sony who espouses HDV but Sony is perhaps the major player for the format)
Prepare for the future of indie cinema! Now we'll be able to get some decent film blowups!
We're all familiar with the revolutionary Panasonic DVX. It's argueably the best "prosumer" standard definition camera ever created. Well.... Panasonic has some news for us. At NAB, I believe, Panasonic will be releasing the specs of their new prosumer HD camera in response the Sony's HDV cam named the HDX100. The following is information that has been confirmed by Jan Crittenden
-Format: DVCproHD, DVCpro50, DVCpro25!
-Data Storage: P2 solid state memory
-Under 10K
-24p!
Her exact words:
" Sorry for not being able to say more guys, I am under lock-down on the subject. I can only say under $10,000, DVCPRO25/50/HD on P2, 24P. "
Things which have been hinted at by those "in power"
- The camera will be priced competitively with the Sony Z1
- The camera will be about the size of the DVX
- May have both tape and P2 recording capabilites
- 1080x720 resolution, possibly with 60p
- Most undoubtably native 16:9
What's so great about this? 6K is a lot of money after all. Well.... to quote Barry Green's most excellent post on DVXuser:
Which is best? Hands-down, by far, no question, DVCPRO-HD is a much better format than HDV.
I have an article in this month's Studio magazine that outlines the differences between the two, but I'll sum it up like this (which only adds to Loki's excellent response):
In 1080i, HDV is 25-megabit data. DVCPRO-HD is 4 times the bandwidth, at 100 megabits. In 720p, HDV is 19-megabits, DVCPRO-HD is 5 times the bandwidth, at 100 megabits.
HDV samples color using 4:2:0. DVCPRO-HD provides twice the color sampling, at 4:2:2, which provides better imagery and *much* superior chroma keying capability.
HDV uses MPEG-2 in picture groups of 15 frames. This means you get variable-resolution imagery depending on what's happening in the frame, how much detail is in the shot, whether the camera's moving, etc. If you had a very high-detail panning shot that happens to end on an I-frame, and then you locked into a stationary shot, MPEG-2 won't necessarily have enough "bit bandwidth" to resolve the new shot, so your footage would look low-res and "out of focus" for up to half a second. Whereas with DVCPRO-HD, each and every frame is encoded separately and completely (I-frame compression) so every frame will always look "right", will always be at full resolution, and you'll never have any half-second weirdness going on.
HDV uses two channels of compressed audio, compressed by a factor of 4:1. DVCPRO-HD uses EIGHT channels of UNCOMPRESSED audio, a huge advantage over HDV.
DVCPRO-HD has been out for over three years now. HDV is brand-new. DVCPRO-HD is natively supported by editing programs today, fully. Avid Express HD and Final Cut Pro-HD both use DVCPRO-HD as their native editing format. None of the major editors support HDV as a capture-edit-print-back-to-tape solution yet.
DVCPRO-HD can be used just like DV in editing, as a firewire preview from the timeline type of system. HDV could never do that, you won't see firewire previews from the timeline using HDV. It's a limitation of the GOP-based MPEG-2 compression.
Does HDV have any advantages over DVCPRO-HD? Well, a few, yes. First, it uses higher luma sampling: in 1080i, HDV records in a luma grid of 1440x1080, whereas DVCPRO-HD records about 10% fewer pixels, at 1280x1080. And in 720p mode, HDV records 1280x720, whereas DVCPRO-HD records 960x720. This is a lot less of an advantage than you'd think though, because DVCPRO-HD is recording twice as much color information, so overall the DVCPRO-HD pictures will look a lot more detailed than HDV pictures will. So as far as the pixel grid goes, the DVCPRO-HD format is recording fewer pixels in 4-5 times as much bandwidth, so compression artifacts should be *extremely* much less than on HDV. So HDV can brag about having a bigger overall pixel array, but as to which will look better? Can't answer definitively until I test the formats side-by-side, but I'd bet heavily on DVCPRO-HD.
Second, HDV can be recorded on $4 miniDV tape. I don't know that DVCPRO-HD can, but we'll see. Third, HDV data takes up 1/4 the space on a hard disk as compared to DVCPRO-HD data.
But Panasonic has never publicly ruled out HDV. They just haven't ever joined the coalition. It is my personal opinion that Panasonic doesn't see HDV as a professional format (because it isn't). I think they would be embarrassed to release an HDV camera to the professional market, and why should they? They've got three years of marketing DVCPRO-HD to pros, news stations, broadcasters, etc... they have a full line of equipment from a $6,000 (estimated) small camcorder to a $65,000 VariCam, plus decks and editing equipment, etc... HDV requires a new investment in all new hardware, whereas DVCPRO-HD already has a lot of infrastructure.
So here's where it gets funny -- what if Panasonic was to introduce BOTH? What if this new camera they're introducing records DVCPRO-HD to P2 memory cards, but records HDV onto the tape drive? Would that be the cat's meow or what? I don't know why I thought of this, but it'd be kind of like the DVX vs. PD170... you could buy a PD170, or you could get a DVX, which does basically everything the PD170 does, PLUS 24p. So you could buy a Z1, or you could buy an "HDX" which (if they add HDV to it too) would then do everything the Z1 does, PLUS 24p and DVCPRO-HD... man, that would totally be a knockout blow.
But, that's wild rampant speculation and rumor-mongering on my part. I know nothing about any Panasonic HDV plans. I don't expect that the new camera would have HDV, or they would have mentioned it. But it would be just too funny if it did.
I fully expect that if HDV meets with any sort of wide adoption in the consumer marketplace (i.e., $399 HDV cameras at Best Buy or Circuit City) then Panasonic will play in that game. Why wouldn't they? But I really don't ever expect to see a $399 DVCPRO-HD camcorder, and I don't expect home users to go investing in DVCPRO-HD gear. That seems targeted towards professionals/prosumers.
From: url removed, sorry Shaw can't post links to other forums about filmmaking - Wideshot
Mods, I hope the link is ok. Feel free to remove it if not.
Soooo... the point being?
HDV will most likely end up like many other Sony formats - dead.
(I do realize that this isn't only Sony who espouses HDV but Sony is perhaps the major player for the format)
Prepare for the future of indie cinema! Now we'll be able to get some decent film blowups!
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