First HDTV Camcorder

zymano writes "The JVC GR-HD1 will be introduced in May, it's the world's first consumer camcorder to offer 750 line resolution progressive video at 30 frames per second, recording MPEG2 video to MiniDV tape. The price will start around $2500-$3500 . Some more info here with pictures. Also check out the pro version. With digital cameras at regular stores with resolution over 5 megapixel it makes you wonder why it took so long to produce."

Comments

Maybe they should...

[craenor]

Make it record to like 6 pcmcia cards or something, that would be cool...

Re:Maybe they should...

[FireBreathingDog]

Did anyone else notice this quote in the camcorderinfo.com article:

"Instead, with progressive video, the hole picture is recorded every frame."

The hole picture? Great for porn, I guess...

Re:Maybe they should...

[green pizza]

Make it record to like 6 pcmcia cards or something, that would be cool...

That's not such a crazy idea... in fact, that's what Panasonic just recently introduced for their pro ENG (electronic news gathering) camcorders. No moving parts means a much more reliable machine, probably something the reporters in Iraq wish they had. Removable solid state memory modules also allow the field producers to plug in directly to the PCMCIA/Cardbus slot on a Powerbook and edit right on the scene with no digitizing or downloading required.

Re:Maybe they should...

[David_Bloom]

They would probably have to use some sort of striping, however. I don't think any PCMCIA cards (spare for a few Toshiba PCMCIA HDD's) have enough bandwidth to output 25mbit/s video. This could make PCMCIA-->notebook transfers more complicated, and probably less convenient than a simple cable connection.

Rumors of even *more* advanced stuff..

[Bowie J. Poag]

...I've been hearing rumors that Kodak is developing a system that uses individual molecules to store information. Basically, the light contained within an image interacts with this stuff called they're making called "film"...The film is incredibly cheap to mass-produce. More amazingly, the resolution of the image being captured is practically infinite -- The only limiting factor in image resolution is how small the individual silver nitrate crystrals are.

The 1900's are gonna fuckin RULE.

Re:Rumors of even *more* advanced stuff..

[Anonymous Coward]

The only limiting factor in image resolution is how small the individual silver nitrate crystrals are.

well actually it's limited by the wavelength of light, lens focus etc.

Re:Rumors of even *more* advanced stuff..

[Slashdot Insider]

More amazingly, the resolution of the image being captured is practically infinite -- The only limiting factor in image resolution is how small the individual silver nitrate crystrals are. In other words it isn't.

Re:Rumors of even *more* advanced stuff..

[Anonymous Coward]

how about, stray light that isn't polarized completely in one direction?

Re:Rumors of even *more* advanced stuff..

[Anonymous Coward]

well actually it's limited by the wavelength of light, lens focus etc.

Thank goodness digital photography has eliminated these problems.

Re:Rumors of even *more* advanced stuff..

[asparagus]

The practical res of 35 is 2k, 4k if you wish to be pedantic. Digital technology will pass this line soon enough, and then beyond. Film is dead. It was an amazing technology a century ago, but has failed to outrun the beast that is Moore's law.

The 2000's are gonna fucking rule. And, I'll be there to see them. ;-)

Re:Rumors of even *more* advanced stuff..

[imlepid]

I disagree. Didital won't pass it too soon because for film to completely be outdated digital has to replace medium and large format. Digital cameras are not even close to the crispness of a 4x5 or 8x10 neg.

Re:Rumors of even *more* advanced stuff..

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Oh yeah....Film is real cheap. Just ask you local studio how much money is spend on film alone, for your average movie. I don't have any figures, but I remember it's a huge about....Deffinitly not cheap at all.

As for resolution. Film has never been infinite or anywhere near close. And never will be. Those crystals aren't that small, and pretty soon digital will probably overtake it.

Re:Rumors of even *more* advanced stuff..

[TrumpetPower!]

Blockquoth Mr. Poag:

The film is incredibly cheap to mass-produce.

Actually...no, film ain't cheap. It's damn expensive. Figure five bucks for a cheap roll and another five for cheesy one-hour development. That's $10/24 pictures, or $2.40/picture.

In contrast, I've got an Olympus C730 digital camera. It's 3.2 megapixels--enough to get better prints than you will from that cheesy one-hour place. I can fit a couple hundred photos on a single $120 256 Mbyte XD card. Even if the card were single-use, that's still the equivalent of close to $500 worth of film. And you can re-use and re-use and re-use that card for a looooong time.

The upshot is that I can blow the equivalent of a thousand buks of film in a day just to get a few good pictures and not even think twice about it. I'm sure that's important for a professional. For me, a realtively new amateur, it's truly invaluable. No way in Hell could I even think of this hobby if it weren't for the unbeliveable cheapness of digital.

Cheers,

b&

Re:Rumors of even *more* advanced stuff..

[jred]

You should have known that only a dumbass would've made a smartass comment like that.

Re:Rumors of even *more* advanced stuff..

[Anonymous Coward]

That's $10/24 pictures, or $2.40/picture.

Your math surprises me.

Ten dollars divided by twenty-four is forty-one and two-thirds cents. That's about forty-two cents per picture, not $2.40.

Re:Rumors of even *more* advanced stuff..

[Hans Lehmann]

ballpark cost for 35mm motion picture film is about $1 a foot, including processing, to the best of my recollection. It's running at 16 inches a second, and much of what's shot is never even viewed. You do the math. That being said, the JVC camera shoots at 750/30p. I'm not even sure that's one of the ATSC digital video specs. It's gotta be downconverted (slightly) to 720/30p to be used for anything, and then you still don't get the temporal resolution of 60p or even 60i. The HD standards that seem to be the most popular now are 1080/24p, 1080/60i, and sometimes 720/60p. This thing's an improvement over current consumer cameras, but I don't think George Lucas will be using it for any Star Wars episodes.

Re:Rumors of even *more* advanced stuff..

[spooje]

I shoot 16mm film alot for work. I get a good Fiju color negative for about $35 per 400 foot role. 400 feet = 12 minutes. So seeing as the minimum time requirement for a feature length film is 90 minutes we can start to figure out the average cost of a small film. Let's be generous and only say they are shooting 10:1 ratio (10 takes for every one you use). That means we need to shoot 900 minutes of film. Now 900 minutes divides by 12 minutes (1 role) gives us 75 roles of folm to complete the movie. Now let's multiply the roles by $35 ot costs us per role and you end up with $2,625. This is not including developing, negative cutting or AB rolling. Let take the 900 minutes we need and let's see how much miniDV tapes will cose. I get them 3 for $10 at the local drug store. Each is 60 minutes, but at full DV I really only get 30 minutes out of them. So 900 minutes divide by 10 minutes per tape gives us 30 tapes we need to get. Now they come in packs of 3 so let's divide by 3 again and we get 10. So 10 packs x $10 = $100 I believe you can see just in the cost to shoot DV(at $100) is far cheaper than film (at $2,625)

Re:Rumors of even *more* advanced stuff..

[mkldev]

Wow. It's a lot cheaper than my estimates a few years ago. That's an order of magnitude cheaper, in fact. Has the price gone down, or were my sources for ends just really really overpriced?

Needless to say, I shot that project on mini-DV. The whole 35mm thing... the estimated quarter million in film and development, plus effects, plus editing, plus, plus, plus.... It just didn't make sense. In hindsight, I must have added at least one zero in there somewhere, and probably two. Oh well.

Re:Rumors of even *more* advanced stuff..

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, film IS expensive. However, it is also worth it. I buy black and white film in bulk, for about $3.00 USD per roll. Processing it in my bathroom maybe takes 25 minutes, at $0.50 USD per roll. Depending on the film speed I can get an amazing 16" x 20" continuous tone print. Even the best inkjet printers on the market are NOT continuous tone, regardless of what the company's marketing department says.
Slide film is what really breaks the bank, running at roughly $15.00 USD for both the film, and processing. However, off of a 35mm negative, I can scan at 4000dpi, with no visible film grain (using Fuji Velvia ISO 50, or Sensia ISO 100) for a final resolution of approximately 20 megapixels. The ONLY digital equipment that can come even close is a digital back for Hasselblads that runs at $25 000 USD. And although Zeiss makes some great lenses, Leica still has stricter quality controls, and better glass. Oh.. My M6 will last me over 50 years. Any digital camera will be obselete in two.

Re:Rumors of even *more* advanced stuff..

[evanbd]

Give it time.

Re:Rumors of even *more* advanced stuff..

[Cplus]

He does have a great price on film...it can go pretty low with the right connection I suppose.

Re:Rumors of even *more* advanced stuff..

[Alioth]

Even with the resolution of digital exceeding 35mm, digital still has some artifacts that film doesn't.

Digital is now fine for happy snappy sort of photographs, but for anything I want to keep, it's still not good enough to replace 35mm. The other thing is I've still not seen a digital camera which will take my Nikon lenses for anything less than about 6 grand. Add that to the printer you need to get real photo quality (i.e. not inkjet) and it gets really expensive to get 35mm quality in digital.

Doubtless in the next few years we'll see digital cameras which will take interchangable lenses for sane prices - at that point, I'll probably use film for medium format only. But until then, I'll stick with my trusty SLR film camera.

Re:Rumors of even *more* advanced stuff..

[Anonymous Coward]

there are plenty of cameras for your nikon glass that are under 6 grand. all of the nikon digital bodies (d1x, d1h, d100) are less than this. also the kodak dcs-14n.

Re:Rumors of even *more* advanced stuff..

[pnot]

it gets really expensive to get 35mm quality in digital.

Hear hear. I accept that it's probably possible to match the quality and convenience of my 2nd-hand Minolta SLR with digital these days, but until I can get it at the same price (£90 inc. lens) I'm staying put -- ATM it's not even in the same order of magnitude :).

Re:Rumors of even *more* advanced stuff..

[Urkki]

But the thing is, you don't have to surpass or even reach the quality of real film for consumer use. Other factors, like
- ease of storing lot of pictures
- ease of duplicating pictures at home
- ability to shoot as much as you want for free
- ease of putting pictures to 'net, sending as email etc
- ...

And the quality is alread good enough so regular folks just taking pictures won't notice the difference anyway.

Re:Rumors of even *more* advanced stuff..

[darkov]

The practical res of 35 is 2k, 4k if you wish to be pedantic.

Where did you get these numbers from? Did you pull them out of your arse per chance? Have a look at http://clarkvision.com/imagedetail/film.vs.digital .1.html it's a bit more rigourous than your arse pulling trick and it describes the range starting at 2Mpx for 3200 ISO (very past film) to 16 Mpx for 40 or 25 ISO film.

Re:Rumors of even *more* advanced stuff..

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it's not as bad as you think. 35mm shoots the film VERTICALLY, so you actually shoot half the size of a horizontal frame for 2x the number of frames per given length of film.

1000' of 35mm movie film costs about $500 usd, or about 50 cents per foot... 1000' at 24 frames per second lasts about 11.5 minutes, so About $45 per minute, or $0.75 per second. Double that for development and transfer for editing, and it is about $1.50 per second to shoot 35mm film.

When you are shooting real film, as opposed to digital, where "what the hell we can always shoot more takes - tape is cheap!" people take you seriously. You only shoot what you need, and actors feel the pressure (and can thusly give more believable performances), because they know on an indy short film you've only got 5000' of film to shoot.

Also, just try taking your 'kick-a$$' film to anyone of consequence on mini-DV tape! You'd get laughed out of the room. With film, the company can say - 'we like what you've got so far, here's a bit of cash to add a few scenes' Since you already have the rest of the film shot, you only have to add new scenes, rather than re-shooting the whole thing because DV sucks.

Re:Rumors of even *more* advanced stuff..

[Anonymous Coward]

Excuse me?

Let's do some math... using _your_ 2k as an example (real pros really want 4k [arri wants to make a 4k digital movie camera with lockheed martin for example)

so your image is 2000 wide by 1125 high (assuming a newer, 16x9 format image) - note that this is basically the same res as hd now (1920x1080) - almoust universally agreed on that it is not as good as film (except by that hack Lucas).

So, per frame, with a 24 bit depth you get 6.43 MBytes per frame. Now professionals normally shoot at 24 frames per second, so our of the camer head you've got to move ~154 MB of data per second, again doable, but not to a recording medium located on the camera like tape or a on-cam hard-drive. So we compress it. HDCAM (the current standard) compresses the image 13:1 so down to about 11.8 MB per second - which will easily fit onto tape, but not easily on a portable, camera mounted hard disk.

Motion picture people hate HD for 2 reasons right now: 1 - it has to usually have a f*%$ing cable from the camera to directors monitors (normally with film, we just use a mini NTSC transmitter that goes off the video tap on the film camera, but that's not good enough for HD somehow now)
and more importantly 2 - it won't shoot off-speed.
Slow motion effects require the camera to shoot at many times the regular rate (don't eve start about panasonic's 'hd 60 frame per second offering - it's crap) most pros need a camera that can at least shoot 150 fps.... right now only film will do that (and also in the near future)

doing the math again for 150 frames per second we get about 1GByte per second! now tell me exaclty how you plan on making something that will record even 30 seconds of action at that rate that is even slightly practical in a production environment. (a raid array is _not_ practical in a production environment)

Also, film has a larger colour gamut, equivalent to somewhere near 36 (or some would argue even 48 bit) depth. It has greater latitude than digital (can see into a much more contrasty range, or for the neophytes, the range between how dark something has to be so become black, and how bright something has to be to become white) HD has somewhere around a 5 stop latitude, and some films sit at around 9.5 stops!

Plus, when you buy a $200,000 film camera, it will still work in 20 years, and you'll still be able to get film for it, and your old film will still be usable. in 20 years, your $100,000 HD camera will be garbage, your tape will have oxidised and will now have so many errors on it as to be unusable (film keeps for over 100 years if stored properly) The beauty of film is that virtually all the tech is in the film, and not in the camera. every time Kodak or Fuji make a new film, I get an upgrade, for the cost of the film. Every time Sony makes a new Hd camera, you have to spend $100,000.

Film will be here for awhile, get used to it.

I have used and shot both film and HD, and one day digital WILL kill film, but that day is farther off than the moore's law pundits think it is. HD is NOT film it is pretty video.

Cheers

Re:Rumors of even *more* advanced stuff..

[bluecalix]

>>That's $10/24 pictures, or $2.40/picture.

>Your math surprises me.
>
>Ten dollars divided by twenty-four is forty-one >and two-thirds cents. That's about forty-two >cents per picture, not $2.40

He also doesn't factor in the cost of PRINTING the digital pictures, which is where the cost per picture easily skyrockets past the cost per picture of traditional film, and the printouts are nowhere near as durable.

Re:Rumors of even *more* advanced stuff..

[lorax]

The Nikon D100 will take your Nikon lenses and 'only' costs $1,700, which is still more than a good Nikon film body, but a whole lot less than $6k.

If you have manual lenses, you will lose TTL metering, and since the photosensor is not as large as a 35mm frame, you get 1.5x magnification (your 50mm lense suddenly becomes 75mm), but other than that, it is very nice, it doesn't have most of the problems you hear about with digital. The autofocus is fast, it can take 3 frames a second, all you Nikon lenses, some of the speedlights, 6 megapixels of glory!

Re:Rumors of even *more* advanced stuff..

[pomakis]

I believe the original poster was referring to the vertical (or possibly horizontal) number of pixels in an image, while you're referring to the total number (i.e., area). Given that, your numbers are very roughly the same.

Re:Rumors of even *more* advanced stuff..

[Anonymous Coward]

This solid-state stuff is compressed - RAM is too expensive otherwise. So the resolution is a bit of a moot point while we're all in lossy-land.

Re:Rumors of even *more* advanced stuff..

[Joey7F]

He probably meant 2.40 pictures per dollar

--Joey

Re:Rumors of even *more* advanced stuff..

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you're mixing your markets here.

For consumer level cameras, the lenses are nowhere good enough to give better resolution on 35mm film than about 3-4 Mpixels worth (CCD, the Foveon X3 comes even better out of the comparison). Film grain doesn't even have the chance of coming into it, unless you use crappy film.

For prosumer level cameras, the lenses are slightly better (unless you spend extra money), but then again, you can get your Canon 1Ds and still save yourself the trouble -- at a cost. Film graining may or may not be an issue here, depending on what extra money you spent.

The third-party digital backs (22 Mpixels, if I recall correctly) for the Hasselblads are yummy, which they should be at that resolution. There is probably still some extra resolution to be gleaned from the lenses used there, estimated at 40-50 Mpixels. That's for 2004 or 2005.

At the consumer level, film is all but killed off. Digital cameras are now about 20% of the market, which we can expect to change even more rapidly as 4 and 5 Mpixel cameras make it to the sub USD 200 range in 2004 and 2005. For the press photographers, regular film is already dead. For professionals and enthusiasts, it's a matter of religion, just as it was and is with LP vs CD.

I expect that enthusiasts will still have something to gain by using film, creating effects that are hard to reproduce with Photoshop and similar products still, plus the sheer joy of working the film yourself. Other enthusiasts will see the matter differently, of course.

As for your remark:

Even the best inkjet printers on the market are NOT continuous tone, regardless of what the company's marketing department says.

Cheap shot. Those who deal with high quality imaging from computers use dye sublimation printers. Expensive, yes, but that's what it is when you're aiming for the best.

Re:Rumors of even *more* advanced stuff..

[Alan Partridge]

The practical res? And what would you fucking know about it? Even the very concept of using RESOLUTION (a term that I'm sure you don't understand properly) to evaluate an imaging system is stupid and amateurish.

You can EASILY get 4000 dpi out of everyday, amateur use film stocks with a consumer level desktop scanner. That's DPI, not image size - a 35mm STILLS frame (24x36mm) should give a workable image size of something like 4000x6000 pixels, or 24 mega pixels. In real life, the Canon EOS 1ds seems to give image sizes as good as (better in some respects, worse in others) a SCAN taken from the kind of film image a typical 35mm SLR would produce. The EOS 1ds has a RAW image size of 2704x4064 or approximately 11 mega pixels. It's RESOLUTION is most certainly not equivalent to 1 line per pixel, same as any other colour matrix imager.

When I was at university, we performed experiments that showed over 200lpmm RESOLUTION on normal, monochrome film stock.

If you knew anything abotu imaging, you'd look at the system MTF, because it's HERE where digital imaging really makes gains.

Re:Rumors of even *more* advanced stuff..

[Anonymous Coward]

Just a note slide film is not that expensive. I can get Fuji Provia 100 with processing for about $8 a roll from B&H. Provia is rated with a RMS grain value of 8. It can resolve ~140 lines / mm with high contrast. A 4000 DPI scanned image is roughly ~150 lines / mm. Also Provia has a color gamut that is at least 36 bits deep.

Re:Rumors of even *more* advanced stuff..

[theLOUDroom]

The practical res of 35 is 2k, 4k if you wish to be pedantic. Digital technology will pass this line soon enough, and then beyond. Film is dead. It was an amazing technology a century ago, but has failed to outrun the beast that is Moore's law.

Film isn't dead. There are some other HUGE hurdles digital cameras have to overcome before their image quality is really as good as film.

• First off, there's the dynamic range issue. Digital cameras have only a finite number of bits of precision with which they store store information about the intensity of each color.
• Second, the images you get off your digital camera are compressed. Even if digital cameras had the same resolution and dynamic range as film, they don't have the capactiy to store any reasonable number of 8MP images.
• Third, it's trivial to get more reolution with film, just make the film bigger. Not so with digital cameras. In order to match the resolution of the best large format 8x10 film, you're going to need a 960 megapixel camera. Combine that with the fact that to really match it you need the images to be uncompressed, and you're talking 2.88 gigabytes per frame! Yeah we can store a still image that big, but just imagine 30fps video. Digital cameras are nowhere near the capability of a medium like IMAX.

Digital cameras are great for home users, or those on a budget, but the pros will be using film for a very long time to come. Possibly forever. What's to stop us from coming up with better film before digital cameras catch up? It's not like the semiconductor industy is the only one that technological advances are made in.

Your prognosis of the death of film is extremely premature. It may never happen at all. Don't assume that just because there is a new technology on the block, it will automaticlly replace all existing technology.

Re:Rumors of even *more* advanced stuff..

[mbabauer]

My wife is a professional photographer, and, um, couple of problems...

1) Nikon sucks for digital. I know SEVERAL people who have the D100 and HATE IT. Controls suck, image is not white balanced well...pretty much sucks. Canon makes a MUCH beter camera.
2) Canon 10d is $1500, 6.25 mega pixels, and is an AWSOME camera. Magenesium-alloy body, great low-light focusing, awsome controls. Oh, and its not over $6k, as you suggested.
3) Kodak makes a 14d that is 14 mega pixels, has great color, and is under $4k last I saw. And guess what, its build using the Nikon body! Wow, that probably means it will accept your Nikon lens...hmmm.
4) I know PLENTY of pros that use the Epson 1270, 1280, 2000, 2200 for printing photo-realistic images. Many times, unless you bust the magnifying glass out, you cant even tell its not printed optically. Then there is the whole idea that the labs, like Millers, actually print digital images for less than negatives.
5) Most labs, including Walmart, actually scan 35mm film and print it on the same equipment that they print digital. Its called a Fuji Fronteer...look it up.

We (my wife and I) are members of several professional photographic orgs, and about 75% of everyone I know have either already ditched film, or they are contemplating the idea. The work-flow for digital is a lot quicker, and nothing beats the instant "polaroid" that is provided to ensure you that you got the shot correct. We still have several film cameras, including the Canon EOS 3, Elan IIe...even a Bonica ETRsi 645. They have now stayed on the shelf for the 3 years we have been digital.

Get with the times...

Re:Rumors of even *more* advanced stuff..

[TheSync]

Dynamic range is being solved by CMOS focal plane array processing, just like our retina does. Infact, CMOS sensors can probably have a much higher dynamic range than film.

Expect to see CMOS sensors like the Foveon in cameras soon.

Re:Rumors of even *more* advanced stuff..

[Anonymous Coward]

We (my wife and I) are members of several professional photographic orgs, and about 75% of everyone I know have either already ditched film, or they are contemplating the idea. The work-flow for digital is a lot quicker, and nothing beats the instant "polaroid" that is provided to ensure you that you got the shot correct.

The savings just on dark room fees, or even supplies if you have your own, can pay for the digital camera in under a year.

Re:Rumors of even *more* advanced stuff..

[agallagh42]

I think it's obvious to most people that film still has it's place in some niche markets, like those you speak of. However, digital will get there eventually. It's already there in still photography. As this article points out, it's pretty much there in consumer level video.

Sure, it's got a bit of catching up to do in professional level video, but I give it another 5-10 years max before digital totally kills film in every aspect.

Look where digital was 10 years ago. There was not really any such thing as digital still cameras. Even digital scanners were still hugely expensive. Now I have a 5 megapixel point and shoot camera with 256MB compactflash in my backpack that cost only about double what a high end film camera in the same range would cost (Canon S50, highly recommended by the way).

In 10 more years, we'll probably have 20 megapixel disposable cameras for stills, and our ultra-high definition DV camcorders will record to a 100TB compactflash card at 20GB/s.

Just give it time...

Re:Rumors of even *more* advanced stuff..

[ergo98]

Who cares if the printouts are durable? (though I will say that many digital printouts are as durable as print) With digital photographs you have the digital "master" that will never degrade with time. I can print it out every 10 years if I want.

Regarding the cost of digital versus film: I recently made the transition, getting myself a wonderful little Canon S50BK 5MP to replace my Minolta 5xi semi-pro SLR 35MM. Here are my observations:

-The S50 is tiny-> I actually bring it places, and use it without getting attention as a "wanna be professional photographer" (which large 35MM SLRs unfortunately do). It's much more convenient, yet unlike a standard cheap little POS the quality is not compromised whatsoever.

-Because it's digital, I take ___WAY___ more pictures than I used to. Because I instantly get feedback on how it turned out, the chances of getting a good picture are dramatically better. In the past 3 weeks or so I've taken some 400 pictures.

-To get professional quality, as-good-as-35mm-quality costs me $0.50 Canadian from FuturePhoto (printing it out on your own inkjet is generally lower quality, and usually higher priced, though of course there is tremendous versatility with that). When you add up film and processing, that's easily on par with standard 35mm, however here's the kicker: I only get the good pictures processed, whereas with 35mm I got the good and the bad, so probably 50% of the pictures (or more) I wouldn't have gotten developed if I had the option. Because of this in
the end digital is far less expensive for me.

-Getting larger prints (ex. 8x10) definitely swings in favour of digital where I've found digital beats optical by a pretty good factor (apart from those shops that are just scanning the print and digitally printing)

Re:Rumors of even *more* advanced stuff..

[Hugonz]

At 1200DPI or more, you can use inkjet, the problem is that it doesn't get cheap....photo paper is necessary.

Re:Rumors of even *more* advanced stuff..

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea...the 1900's sure were great...the automobile...rollerblades...computers...toasters.. .

Re:Rumors of even *more* advanced stuff..

[bluecalix]

Very true. I think the ability to take lots of pictures with a digital camera and only keep what you like is a great bonus. However, as many of us have seen, computer storage media has a way of becoming obsolete and unreadable in a very short amount of time, compared to standard printed photos which you will be able to "read" as long as you can see.

Re:Rumors of even *more* advanced stuff..

[Anonymous Coward]

With digital photographs you have the digital "master" that will never degrade with time.

This is, of course, completely wrong.

How do you plan to store your digital masters? On hard drives? Hard drives are mechanical. They fail over time. I would imagine that even in perfect working order a hard drive couldn't store data with perfect fidelity indefinitely; magnetic patterns tend to degrade over time.

On tape, or CD, or DVD? All those media have shelf lives.

If you want to talk about really long term storage of a photograph, think paper. Heck, even cheap photos from fifty or a hundred years ago survive today, albeit with some degradation if not carefully stored. And there's no reason to think they couldn't last even longer. It's just that we don't have any photographs that are more than about 150 years old, because that's how long ago the process was invented.

If you want your holiday snapshots to last long enough for your grandchildren and great-grandchildren to look at them, invest in paper copies and store them in a cool, dry, dark place. They'll still be there in five hundred years.

Re:Rumors of even *more* advanced stuff..

[big_pianist]

Motion picture film with processing, printing and negative conforming isn't cheap by amateurish standards.
Any suitably large format is almost certainly out of reach of all but the most dedicated Joe Filmmakers.

But! On the pro end of the argument, film is very cheap, comprising a vanishingly small fraction of the budget of most films, sometimes five percent or lower. This is especially true today when salary demands and post-production effects are driving film budgets.

Re:Rumors of even *more* advanced stuff..

[ergo98]

This is, of course, completely wrong.

Errr, no it isn't. I think you're taking the use of the term "master" a little too literally: Obviously I'm not taking the picture and then putting the CompactFlash card into a shoebox for safekeeping: I can copy that file a million times with each copy being an exact replica of the original - A new master. Compare this to film where each replication of the origianl degrades, limiting such a scheme, but instead I can burn them all on a CD-R (actually several), and in a couple of years I'm sure I'll save space and increase convenience by copying all of those onto a DVD-R, and then a decade later on a super-high storage a DVD-Blu, and then a couple of years later on holographic online P2P storage, etc. This master, as mentioned, will never degrade with time: It is exactly like it was when I first took it.

Re:Rumors of even *more* advanced stuff..

[Anonymous Coward]

This master, as mentioned, will never degrade with time: It is exactly like it was when I first took it.

Err... not really. See, what you're saying is that digital masters are perpetual if you invest in the time and effort (and maybe cost) required to maintain them. Degrading digital media have to be copied to new media before they become unreadable, and so on.

The same is true of photographs, only in a different way. If you invest in the time and effort (and cost) required to store a photograph carefully, it will last indefinitely. (Think an airtight, opaque box with an inert atmosphere in it. In that case, you're pretty much preserving the photo until the end of time.)

But the interesting stuff is at the other end of the spectrum. What happens if you completely fail to maintain a digital master and a photographic print? The digital master, if it's on a hard drive, will become unavailable in a few years. If it's on tape or optical media, it will become unavailable in a few decades. But the photographic print, sitting in the attic in a shoebox, will be available in one form or another for centuries.

Re:Rumors of even *more* advanced stuff..

[Anonymous Coward]

The article is talking about HD.
The poster is talking about HD.
You, sir, are talking about digital still cameras.

Foot, meet mouth.

Re:Rumors of even *more* advanced stuff..

[Alan Partridge]

Sigma has it already in their SD-9 product.

Re:Rumors of even *more* advanced stuff..

[llin]

Until you figure in film costs. A decent roll of color neg will cost you ~$5/roll, and decent processing, at least another $6/roll. [Conceivably, you can go super-cheap on film and processing, but I suspect you'd still be hard pressed to go under $6-7/roll total]

If you're a professional, going digital will pay itself off within the first month (not to mention the instant review and 0-hour turnaround).

Even as an amateur, I clocked in about 8,000 shots in the first year that I got my first digital Nikon. That's a little over 200 rolls of film, the consumables alone would have accounted for more than the price of the camera, and the real-time preview was invaluable in improving my shooting.

Re:Rumors of even *more* advanced stuff..

[n6mod]

He pulled them out of professional experience. 2k Datacine is the workhorse of the industry. 4k is high-end stuff, but not uncommon.

That number is horizontal resolution, and the frames are always 4:3. (Film frames are always 4:3. If you're seeing anything wider, it's either matted or anamorphic)

So we're talking about 2048x1536 or 4096x3072. Not sure about color depth, but I'd guess 36bpp.

And, quite frankly, motion picture film sucks compared to 35mm still film. Nobody cares about grain, because at 24fps, it really doesn't stand out. Remember Seattle Filmworks? The guys that gave you prints and slides cheap from their film? They were repackaging motion picture film (5294 and one other...) and processing it. The quality stank, because mp film is designed to be cheap, not good. ;)

Re:Rumors of even *more* advanced stuff..

[n6mod]

Let's do some math... using _your_ 2k as an example (real pros really want 4k [arri wants to make a 4k digital movie camera with lockheed martin for example)

And a 4k digital camera will produce a much better image than a 4k datacine of film. There's much, much less noise in a digital sensor than the filim->datacine process.

2048x1120: I see you shoot soft-matte. ;)

As to RAIDs not being practical in a production environment, you should look at what director's friend is doing. I spoke to these folks last year, and it's a really interesting approach. The Philips Viper can output unprocessed data, which saves you from Sony's notion of a "good image" and lets you do the processing in post where it belongs. They offer ruggedized RAIDs (look at the XDReel) that are designed specifically for the production environment.

And the serious win here: You effectively get to make your film stock decision in post. Since you're dealing with unprocessed bits off the sensor, you can make all the contrast/color rendering decisions later.

You have a good point on off-speed shooting, but I think with the raw output from the Viper, the latitude issues are somewhat ameliorated. (I don't have hard numbers here, but ISTR 7 stops being mentioned.)

You're right, we aren't there yet. But I do think we're closer than your post would have us believe. I'd say film has at most 5-10years left for mainstream shooting. For certain effects and applications, though: Film will never die.

Re:Rumors of even *more* advanced stuff..

[Anonymous Coward]

Show us just how much of a cock slurping insider you are faggot.

Re:Rumors of even *more* advanced stuff..

[iamhassi]

Add that to the printer you need to get real photo quality (i.e. not inkjet) and it gets really expensive to get 35mm quality in digital.

4x6's printed at Walmart from any media (CD, CF, SD, Smartmedia, floppy, etc) is only 29 cents each.

Multiply that by 24 and you get $6.96, about the same price as real 35mm film and developing.

Don't forget that now you get only the photos you actually want, not the overexposed or accidental photos that didn't turn out, not to mention the fact that you don't have to wait to shoot all 24 photos before development.

Re:Rumors of even *more* advanced stuff..

[Anonymous Coward]

The previous comment/troll was posted by:

Goldstein, Joshua bpoag@comcast.net

c/o Mr. and Mrs. Arnold Goldstein
4480 Dovetail Road, and...
4480 Dovetail Road, Apt. Basement
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260 United States
Tel: (412) 780-9090

Joshua (a/k/a "Bowie J. Poag") is a 25-year-old engineer. He has attempted to harass/make himself known to the world for over 12 years. He lives with his mother, and that's her voice in the answering machine message. Every time Mr. Goldstein decides to post another comment, another copy of his personal information will be posted immediately afterward. In the past, releasing his personal information has proven to be an effective deterrant to his behavior. Once he changes his behavior, the posting of his personal information will be stopped.

What took so long?

[Moonwick]

My guess would be that whole 30 frames/sec thing. :)

Re:What took so long?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not just 30 fps, but 30 fps that you could put in a small form factor. Try integrating the CCD, optics and electronics along with a storage medium and I'm sure it gets to be a pretty big undertaking.

Re:What took so long?

[Some Dumbass...]

My guess would be that whole 30 frames/sec thing. :)

I would guess that the problem was this part:

The price will start around $2500-$3500.

Until it could be done at a low enough price point for Circuit City to carry them, it wasn't going to be done.

homemade films

[Anonymous Coward]

All i need now is version 3.0 of Jahshaka and Spielberg is going to have to watch his ass...

awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

this will allow me to pirate theatre screenings with uncanny quality and resolution.

oh sweet lord in heaven, let this beauty have stereo mikes .. oh creator of all that is copyable .. let this fine device not be scarred by the evil of digital rights management ... I will be producing an eyepatch and parrot for my shoulder, post-haste!

Glorious movie theatre, I am here .. I am within your comforting womb .. I wish nothing more than to suckle at your darkened swollen teat, and to distribute the nectar of your loins on P2P filesharing networks far and wide .. if the burly man by the door doesn't catch me.

I shall distributed unauthorized reproductions only when the muse moves me, and lo, she has moved me this night!!

Re:awesome

[inertia187]

That's just sick and wrong. Not just what he said, but how he said it.

Re:awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

Oy, just checking out your honeymoon pics... the pictures haven't loaded yet but I can read the captions:

off to the "blow hole."

The blow hole was interesting.

Thar she blows!

Too wet for me.

Now that's a tug boat.

I *really* hope those are just pictures of a whale once they finally load.

Re:awesome

[bombkit]

Dude.. Have you noticed how big this god damn thing is?? Don't you think someones going to notice you lugging in a huge HDTV camera into a theater? Wouldn't a more traditional stealthy micro camera be a more wise choice?

Oh wait, the eye patch and the bird probably already give you away...

Re:awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

that would be a nice skit for "triggy happy t.v." - the guy walking into a theatre with full sized broadcast camera, tripod, cabling, etc.

and that british (or is it aussie?) accent, 'Hoy - just be setting up over 'ere then, yah?'

Figures

[oaf357]

A month after I buy a new camcorder this happens. I'm glad they decided to stick with the tried and true MiniDV tapes.

Re:Figures

[Anonymous Coward]

dont feel bad, when displaying it on a Television it doesnt have a visible difference between a high end regular DV camera with decent glass lenses and this really low end HD camera with ultra-crappy plastic lenses.

we had a demo of one here, and unless you have a REAL hd tv it means nothing and it will NOT record in 1024i so true HDTV is not possible with this camera.

ignore it, you really dont want it.

Good job slashdot

[abhinavnath]

To the editors: word.

You have successfully posted two stories on two different revolutionary camcorders with no dupes.

Yet.

Re:Good job slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, waste your modpoints.

Well, because...

[cybermace5]

With digital cameras at regular stores with resolution over 5 megapixel it makes you wonder why it took so long to produce.

The logistics behind capturing, processing, and storing that much data at video rates.

Not standards compliant with anything

[tliet]

Since this camcorder is not compliant with the regular MiniDV codec don't expect it to work with anything else but the included JVC software. Although specwise it's nice, this camcorder is has all kinds of new technology and uses it on a older standard.

Now you know why it takes so long to produce, although the goodies are available, a good infrastructure to support them is still not ready.

Re:Not standards compliant with anything

[Nogami_Saeko]

Erm, it says right in the article that you can set it to standard SD/MiniDV mode to record in the older DV25 format should you so-desire...

N.

Hello?

[Anonymous Coward]

750 lines is not proper HDTV resolution.

1920 lines is hdtv.

Re:Hello?

[yoink!]

No, there are several HDTV spec'ed resolutions:

The formats used in HDTV are:

720p - 1280x720 pixels progressive
1080i - 1920x1080 pixels interlaced
1080p - 1920x1080 pixels progressive

You can get the whose story here at HowStuffWorks.

Re:Hello?

[Martigan80]

You can get the whose story here

I thought you would go to a HomeDepot for the whose story!

Digital camera's Vs Video recorders

[Michael's a Jerk!]

With digital cameras at regular stores with resolution over 5 megapixel it makes you wonder why it took so long to produce. Speed. With a digital cameria, you have *one* picture containing 5 megapixels, and a little time to process / save it. With video, you need to constantly save those same images one after the other in realtime. Video encoding/compression must be done *very* quickly in realtime.

Re:Digital camera's Vs Video recorders

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Agreed.

I wonder where these people come from, you know the ones that submit stories that actually get accepted. I had hoped that "nerds" would have a better understanding of technology limitations, but they end up comming across as geek-wannabes that are actually technology worshipers without any idea of its limitations.

Case: a device that converts vibration into energy. Slashdot submitter's idea: use that device in a cell phone so that the phone powers itself using the vibration function. Verdict: Submitter fell asleep in physics classes about entropy and perpetual motion machines.

Case: Wanting a 5 megapixel video camera sooner. Well, Sony makes HD cameras for the movie industry, but in this case, doing it remotely affordably (IIRC, Sony's is $150,000) is a different question because of the market demands involved. There are issues with encoding high definition video to MPEG2 in real time, something I'm not sure many (if any) PCs can do right now. There might also be issues with the CCD chips used in most multi-megapixel still cameras that makes it so it can't capture a new frame 30 times a second.

Re:Digital camera's Vs Video recorders

[u19925]

The two beasts are quite different. First check the quality of photo taken with 1.3 MP camera vs 1.3 MP camcorder. The camera photo is far superior. The camera CCDs are designed for better dynamic range, color, long exposure etc.

Next check the size of CCD. The camera CCD size is big. So to create a reasonable zoom lens for video, you need really big (physically) lens. CCD size in most camcorder is 1/4.7" (this is related to physical size, but is not the physical size). Camera CCD on the other hand are about 2/3" (Sony 717, Nikon 5000 etc).

As you increase more pixels, you need corresponding bigger lens (else light falling on each pixel with reduce and will reduce low light sensitivity). Again this is a challenging thing to do. This is one of the reason, why we are seeing saturation in digital camera too. It was more than 2 years ago, 5 MP non-interchangeable lens digital cameras were announced. We haven't had any pixel increase since then. We can scale pixel count, but without scaling sensitivity, lens size etc, it is of no use.

Camcorder CCDs also have to read pictures really fast. This increases noise. In digital camera, you are reading CCD fast only in preview mode. During the actual picture taking, the CCD read is really slow (compared to camcorder). Another reason, why it is harder to increase camcorder pixels.

Re:Digital camera's Vs Video recorders

[SamDrake]

Yeah, that bit about 5 MP cameras was pretty bone-headed. 1080i is 1920 x 1080 at 30 frames per second. Figure 16 bits per pixel and that's 995,328,000 bits per second coming out of the CCD. Yeah, I can't imagine why a camera like that took so long for that to come out. Sheesh.

anti-slashdot url technique

[Anonymous Coward]

"jvc_introduces_professional_high_definition_jy_hd 10u_02_07_03.htm" ?! Hah. Maybe to avoid slashdottings people should just start putting the entire article in the URL? This one is almost there.

Digital camera convert into HDTV camera ?

[zymano]

Wouldn't it be possible to construct a HDTV camcorder out of a high resolution digital camera? I would thing yes. Compress, store on a harddrive or recordable dvd. Would be clunky but possible.

Why hasn't any entreprenuer come up with this with all the HDTV sets sold ?

Re:Digital camera convert into HDTV camera ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Digital Still Cameras do not have imaging sensors that can produce data that fast.

In order to create a 30fps video, an imaging sensor has to be able to expose a scene and transfer all that data. The two processes usually run in parallel. to expose a scene in 30ms requires a very sensitive photodiode. (hence CCD rather than CMOS is usually used for video) In addition, reading out that much data means that either the sensor has to have many A/D converters or one very fast one.

Re:Digital camera convert into HDTV camera ?

[Anonymous Coward]

the specs of the CCD's in digital cameras don't allow readout fast enough to support realtime video at high res.

Re:Digital camera convert into HDTV camera ?

[zymano]

didn't know that. interesting.

Re:Digital camera convert into HDTV camera ?

[GunFodder]

Don't most digital cameras take a significant fraction of a second to move the picture data to storage? If the datapath between the CCD and storage isn't fast enough to support streamed data then you would have to literally tear the camera apart to use any of it.

MPEG2?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why MPEG2 and not MPEG4?

Urgh?

Re:MPEG2?

[Temsi]

Because hardware mpeg2 encoders are already available for HD, mpeg4 encoders aren't, and the quality is better. Pretty simple, really.

That being said... I've seen the images from this doohickey, they're not that great.

First of all, it's MPEG2, which while better than mpeg4, is still a very lossy compression (it only saves every 6th frame, using compression algorithms similar to jpg, then uses even more complex algorithms to keep track of changes in the image between those 6 frames).
As such, it's only good for two things:
Home Movies for those 34 people in the US who have an HDTV in their home, and for independent filmmakers trying to work on a shoestring budget. Even then, there are better choices.

Personally, I'm more excited about the new Panasonic 24p.

And I'm even more excited about the new Panasonic DVCPRO-HD Varicam coming later this year (using a 100mbps DVCPRO format, with 5 times the bitrate of this JVC, but is still low enough so it can be edited on a laptop, in standard NLE's such as Final Cut Pro, Avid Express or even Premiere).

If you want to shoot digital, you can do a whole hell of a lot better than this. If you want to shoot HD, this is the cheapest way to get it... but remember: you get what you pay for.

Re:MPEG2?

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah, you're right, MPEG-2 looks like crap. i can't even stand to watch dvd's anymore because of the poor image quality.

Re:MPEG2?

[Temsi]

That's not my point, and you know it.
My point is, not all HDTV is GOOD HDTV.

This one isn't good.
Cramming 1280x720 into a 19mbps bitrate, which is 6mbps LESS than DV, by the way, is NOT good quality. DVD's with less than 1/3 the number of pixels works fine with MPEG2. But DVDs are not the end-all quality standard. Uncompressed video is, SD or HD.
I do this stuff for a living, so I know what I'm talking about.

Oh, and sarcasm is wasted on me, mr. Anonymous..

Re:MPEG2?

[Anonymous Coward]

mister coward, actually. anonymous is my first name.

now, blockquoth you:

First of all, it's MPEG2, which while better than mpeg4, is still a very lossy compression (it only saves every 6th frame, using compression algorithms similar to jpg, then uses even more complex algorithms to keep track of changes in the image between those 6 frames).

in here you seem imply that the "very lossy" mpeg2 is not a good video compression system. sure, it may be lossy (numerically), but perceptually it's pretty damn good (at high enough bitrates). i was pointing out that it is the reigning standard in high quality home video. and while it might not be ultimate in super high quality, it currently ranks as "pretty damn good".

you're a codec snob, and i am calling you on it.

Re:MPEG2?

[Nogami_Saeko]

Yes, it's MPG-2, stored at an average bitrate of around 19Mbps, over twice that of the highest quality DVD video possible, so that's pretty decent in my books...

The biggest problem here is that it's a one-chip camera. If they made a 3-chip version, the quality would be stunning.

Yes, the Varicam is nice, but for what, around $100,000? Remember, this camera is $3,500.

N.

Re:MPEG2?

[Temsi]

So because it's cheap, it's ok if it's no good?

The Varicam is around $60.000 (plus lenses and accessories), the Sony FW-900 is around $100.000 (plus lenses and accessories) and I actually did make a point of noting that you get what you pay for. If you want HD, this is not the way to go. This camera is getting more hype than it deserves. Basically, it's a cheap camera, with an image that looks every bit as cheap as the camera (around 3% of the full blown HD cameras).

The 19Mbps bitrate, while more than twice that of the highest quality DVD's, the number of pixels it's encoding is almost 3 times the number of pixels in a DVD. Besides, any serious videographer will tell you that it's better to shoot on DV than DVD. For various reasons, A) the bitrate is around 1/5th (yes, even DV has a higher bitrate than this HD camera), B) real-time MPEG encoding will never be as good as post encoding using multiple passes (because it needs to calculate the changes between each of the keyframes, it can't really do that well in real time), C) the single chip design is certainly a huge drawback, even though it is not a typical CCD chip. The quality would still not be stunning, because of the lossy compression.
Remember, you're talking to someone who has actually seen the output from this camera, as well as Varicam and the Sony FW-900 24p camera.
Believe me, this thing is more hype than substance. DigiBeta would yield better results...
I'd rather shoot on an AG-DVX100 (24p DV). At least I'd be getting 24p, and the color saturation is far superior, while still NTSC DV's native 4:1:1, it's still better than this because MPEG uses 4:2:0 (so does PAL DV btw).

Given the choice when shooting, I'd pick the panasonic 24p DV camera over this half-assed HD camera any day.
This is a toy for hobbyists, not a tool for professionals. If you want to shoot home movies in HD, this will do the trick just fine. If you want to sell your work, it won't.

Don't get me wrong... I love HD (probably more than most), but HD shouldn't be marginalized to a point where it's debatable whether it's better than SD. In this case it is highly debatable, which is really unfortunate. I had really high hopes when I heard about this camera over a year ago, but the end result was really disappointing. I expected more from JVC, even for $3500.

Re:MPEG2?

[Nogami_Saeko]

One of the reasons I'm willing to put up with the compromises in this camera (the biggest being a 1-chip CCD instead of a 3-chip), is that it will put extreme pressure on the other manufacturers to bring out an equivilent (or better) unit at the same price point, driving prices down and features/quality up.

I agree that people certainly aren't going to sell HD programming using a camera like this - by all accounts it's a consumer HD camera. That said, $3,500 is a consumer pricetag. I don't think they'd even try and put this camera in competition with the high-end cameras offered by Sony or Panasonic, that's not their goal.

N.

Single CCD?

[cascino]

The single CCD is 1/3" true 16x9 with 1290x880 native resolution.
I don't know about you, but there's no way I'd shell out $2500 - $3500 for a camera with only a SINGLE ccd. I'm sure the resolution's great, but I'll take an XL-1 over this thing anyday.

Re:Single CCD?

[Anonymous Coward]

the XL1 output is BETTER than this HD camera anyways. we had one to play with. it has crappy plastic lenses, and overall it's of low-end quality. it's overpriced for what it is because it's "the new thing"

the Xl1 blows it away in output easily with crisp everything. even with the damned soft focus problem of the XL1 (Me and my camera,,, it's a love hate relationship) it still blows away everything out there except for sony digi-beta and above.

Re:Single CCD?

[nmg196]

Er, excuse my naievity, but what's wrong with a "single" ccd? I thought they only used multiple CCDs because they couldn't make a single one of that resolution fast enough. Now that technology has improved and you can have a high-res CCD with decent colour, surely thats BETTER than 3 joined together with dodgy prisms?

I certainly know that my latest digital video camera that only has one, is much better quality than my old one that had three...

Nick...

Re:Single CCD?

[Lumpy]

Bingo. My Canon XL-1 will kick this HD camcorder's butt any day just based on 3 simple things.

1 - the XL1 has a real lens no integrated crap like this thing.

2- XL1 has 3 CCD's

3- the XL1 overall produces the absolute BEST picture for any camcorder that costs $4000.00 No other camcorder can record clear enough to show you DV artifacts easily. (Simply gain-up to add noise to the picture to hide the DV artifacts.

I have seen captures from this camera and a XL1 together. (Both shot on the same set at the same time)

you cannot tell the difference.

plus the XL1 has had a progressive mode for over 5 years now. movie mode is 30 full frames per second.. non-interlaced..... and looks DAMN good.

XL-1 is the only choice for doing anything serious outside of the pro SONY cameras.

Re:Single CCD?

[Anonymous Coward]

1 vs 3 ccd's don't really matter. I model various EO sensors for the military and the biggest factors are effective focal length, pitch of your CCD and number of pixels. The rest tends to only make a minor difference. (Not to mention the electronics.)

Re:Single CCD?

[connorbd]

It's called color separation -- the three chips make for much better color quality because they don't have to composite all the color information. And consider this: if I can do that much better with one CCD in my el cheapo JVC, don't forget that the same applies to the chips in the Canon GL-2 I drool over at my not-so-local Micro Center. /Brian

Re:Single CCD?

[happystink]

Movie mode is most definnitely NOT real progressive video, and if you think Sony and Canon are the only choices, you should check out the panasonic DVX-100. I love the XL-1, but for true progressive video and the extra vertical resolution that comes with it, the DVX100 is the best choice, and has beaten the XL-1 and PD150 in all comparisons, and even the American Society of Cinematographers has called it "a breakthrough camera", etc. Very awesome camera.

Re:Single CCD?

[nmg196]

I would have thought it was the other way round, if you've got three chips - you need to mix the three channels back together again. If it's all coming off one chip, it would all be done in the same place and properly calibrated?!

If three is better, how come really decent 6 megapixel+ digital SLR still cameras only have one CCD and get stunning colour accuracy?

Re:Single CCD?

[Lumpy]

Yes it is. record in 30 frame mode on the XL1 and dig into the resulting video if it was transferred from the camera properly. It is IN FACT a full frame. you have to have a pinnacle DV-500 card and use the correct settings to get that 30 full frames per second out of the camera. a regular fire-wire capture will NOT work... I tried for a year to get it out of the camera and had to spend $480.00 for what I thought was a horribly overpriced Firewire card to get it.

a regular DV capture is not designed for progressive. you need to specify it with high-end DV capture card + software.

Re:Single CCD?

[winter@ES]

Mod this sumbitch up.

Out of all these cameras being discussed on slashdot, the most amazing (and for some reason, most ignored in these forums at the moment) is the Panasonic DVX100 (came out about 6 months ago.) The DVX100 is the FIRST and ONLY prosumer (less than $5,000 - actually less than $35,000 for this functionality) camera that shoots full frame progressive scan 24 frame-per-second. Also known as 24p, this is the same format (sans resolution) that the uber expensive CineAlta cameras use (such as for Star Wars: Ep 2) for duplicating.

The interesting thing about 24p is that this is the same frame rate that actual film uses, and the subtle effect of seeing motion at this rate (such as the particular jitter that you get during a pan) provides for a much more "film-like" moving image. Besides that, the DVX100 also has the most on-chip resolution of any these prosumer cameras (PD150, XL1, etc) and side by side comparisons do show it to have the superior image in almost all cases (even low light.)

Here's a link to some more info on this awesome camera.

paulb

Re:Single CCD?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope. It is not capable of true progressive as the CCDs.

See:
http://www.dvinfo.net/canon/articles/artic le57.htm

It doesn't matter if you use a DV500 or not.

Re:Single CCD?

[pressman]

The Sony vs. Canon debate reminds me a lot og the Kodak vs Fuji debate among photographers. Personally, I prefer the image quality of the PD150, but the ability to use 35mm motion picture lenses with the XL1s gives it a definite advantage. I worked on a short that shot on an XL1s with 35mm Zeiss prime lenses and a flicker adapter and the image looked just awesome. Definitely not video, but also definitely not film. It was somewhere in between.

In a straight shootout with stock parts though, i prefer the image quality of the PD150. Too bad you can't put good lenses on the thing though. Try doing a rack focus and you'll want to pull your head off.

Re:Single CCD?

[connorbd]

Can't quite answer that one for you -- I don't know all the details. I can only relate it to what I know about video signals.

There's four different ways you can transmit a video signal (apart from an RF connection, that is): composite, s-video, component, and digital. I'll skip s-video, as AFAIK it's just a hybrid between composite and component. Digital means you're sending bits, and it's up to the monitor to make sense of them; in this context it can be dismissed. That leaves composite and component.

High-end video standards -- SVHS, MiniDV, DVD -- tend to favor component (or s-video) connections because of the higher bandwidth required. It's possible to mash the R/G/B signals together, but the end result will be somewhat lossy. This doesn't matter on straight VHS, since the picture signal of VHS-NTSC is so poor compared to an OTA NTSC signal that the loss of color value doesn't really matter.

I've actually seen a fairly dramatic example of something similar to this, though I'm not sure if it's precisely the same issue. I produce a public-access TV show, and since I work part-time at a not-very-high-paying job my equipment is all consumer equipment -- JVC GR-DVL70 (single chip) camcorder, Mitsubishi S-VHS VCR, and my monitor is a Zenith TV-VCR combo. I've had the opportunity to view my output on a decent TV, both straight off the camcorder and from an S-VHS master.

Well, as it happens we have a new VCR in the house that includes SQPB, so I was able to pop the S-VHS master into the deck for a showing. I immediately noticed that while I got decent color from my personal VCR, the new family unit caused massive color washout, probably from the circuitry's attempt to downconvert the signal to standard VHS before pumping it through a composite connector. (It's a DVD/VCR combo unit, with both S-video and composite outputs, but as is common with those units it's not possible to run the VCR through the high-quality outputs -- if you ask me it makes having SQPB sort of pointless.)

I'm not quite sure what I've just proved, but essentially more data, properly managed, is better. If you have three CCDs, each tuned to a primary color, the DSPs in the camera don't have to worry about trying to separate a composite color signal. I suspect it makes frame encoding easier, and the end result is certainly better in terms of color space.

(There is one downside, though: at least in the case of Sony units, the construction of the CCD assembly makes it impossible to implement night shot on a 3-chip camera. But then night shot is more of a consumer feature than anything else...)

Re:Single CCD?

[happystink]

Also the DVX100 has a sweet cinegamma gamma setting that really looks great, it's basically a flat gamma curve with no shoulder. Also you shoot at a 1/48 second shutter speed, like film, which helps even more. The PD150 can do some nice footage, but the 24p mode is exclusive to the DVX100.

Incidentally, Sony has a prosumer model now called the PDX-10 with even more on-chip resolution than the DVX100, which lets it do 16:9 natively, but the important thing to remember is that as long as the chip has at least 345,600 pixels used, that's fine, cause they just all output 720 X 480 pixel images, so even if a chip had 1 billion pixels, it wouldn't help unless you were outputting a larger image than 720x480. The XL-1 has 280,000 , not sure on the PD-150, and the DVX100 has 410,000.

But yeah, just seeing the side by side footage of the DVX100 vs the PD150 on DVD should convince anyone that the DVX100 is one super super super awesome camera. You can get a CD showing it at promax.com i believe, you have to phone and ask I think.

Re:Single CCD?

[happystink]

The other poster pointed out a good link, and here is another I think is the one I am thinking of, but it's a .pdf which I can't read right now:

ftp://ftp.panasonic.com/pub/Panasonic/Drivers/PB TS /papers/Progressive-WP.pdf

But I'm pretty sure it's the one I'm thinking of, which explains some stuff very boringly (but the other poster gave a less boring link!).

There is a large amount of confusion as to what progressive really means, but the frame mode the XL-1 uses is in fact very nice, but it's not true progressive unfortunately.

HDTV...camcorder...okay.

[Alan Holman]

Remember: an HDTV camcorder is useless without an HDTV.

Re:HDTV...camcorder...okay.

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember: HDTV's are about $800 now. Get your ass to your nearest Good Guys and buy one, or turn in your Geek card at the nearest kiosk.

Re:HDTV...camcorder...okay.

[Doppler00]

Some of us have computer monitors. Most of those display resolutions higher than HDTV, so you wouldn't need to spend another $2,000 dollars to view your camcorder video.

20 computer years =~ 6 months real time

[deadfishhotmail.com]

"With digital cameras at regular stores with resolution over 5 megapixel it makes you wonder why it took so long to produce."

Although traditionally HD heads are rediculously expensive the real hold up is storage. That's why it'll be a while before we see 1080i consumer cameras. the CCDs are there but it'll be a while (ok maybe six months) before storage is small enough and cheap enough to drop into a consumer cam.

Ed

why it took so long to produce...

[Drakonite]

[quote]With digital cameras at regular stores with resolution over 5 megapixel it makes you wonder why it took so long to produce.[/quote]

Maybe that accurate of light sensors are slower and take more than 1/30th to fully react to the range of light change it needs to deal with.

Psh.. what am I saying... "Maybe" is a bit of an understatement.

Re:why it took so long to produce...

[deadfishhotmail.com]

Ummm...try the recovery time of the CCD. They can charge up really really really quick- but then they need a bit of recovery time in the dark before the next frame.

Re:why it took so long to produce...

[roseblood]

QUOTE:
Maybe that accurate of light sensors are slower and take more than 1/30th to fully react to the range of light change it needs to deal with.


If this is so, how can a certain Digital SLR (CANON EOS) capture in as little as 1/1000th of a second? If a digital sensor can't capture an image in less than 1/30th of a second how the hell can you get nice blur free photos of moving objects (which often blur as shutter speeds as quick as 1/250th of a second)?

Re:why it took so long to produce...

[Drakonite]

It is my understanding that a lot of high end digital cameras only expose for a fraction of a second, but it takes a moment for the image to fade from the sensor (or after reading other comments I am reminded the correct TLA is CCD).

In other words, just because it can charge from the light in 1/1000th of a second doesn't mean it can change from one image to another that quickly.

Perhaps my information is a little dated, but this used to be a problem, and the cost/demand ratio of p roducing equipment was worth it for the mass market.

This is actually major news to some people

[mao che minh]

For those of you that are not "in the know" (I work for arguebly the most successful photography and digital imaging company in history) such a pioneering effort by an industry "under dog" is profound, and highly acknowledged by the industry. I caught wind of JVC's development about two months ago, and it had alot of corporate folk racing to beat them to the punch. There are at least two other major companies that will make press releases very soon concerning similar accomplishments, and if JVC plays their cards right, they can make alot of coin if they properly manage their patents.

Believe it or not, such specs on a camcorder, at that price, will be most highly prized by the adult film industry. Don't ask me why I know that, because frankly, I'm not allowed to tell.

JVC made a real accomplishment here, no doubt.

Re:This is actually major news to some people

[Anonymous Coward]

Believe it or not, such specs on a camcorder, at that price, will be most highly prized by the adult film industry.

Yes, because you'll want to see EVERY BUMP on that shaven pussy.

Oh.. look ... she didn't do a thorough wiping job this morning .. oh.. *gulp* neither did he. *wretch*.

Re:This is actually major news to some people

[unicron]

Bro..seriously..quit watching that damn scat porn. I'm worried about ya..seriously.

Re:This is actually major news to some people

[Anonymous Coward]

Nyert nyert nyert. Yer a phunnie troll.

Re:This is actually major news to some people

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

As at least one other poster has pointed out - most people probably don't want to see high-def porn. Those cameras see everything - tv news anchors hate high-def because standard make-up just makes them look like crap when you can see individual pores on their faces. Most of the girls in porn are skanky enough to begin with. Now either they are going to have to start breeding genegineered porn actors (participators? fuckers?) with perfect skin, hair and other physical characteristics or a lot of their audience are just going to get turned off, not on by watching that stuff. Its bad enough when you can see their boob-job scars through crappy makeup on today's standard-def porn...

Meanwhile, on the technical side, the reviews I have seen of this camera indicate that it lacks a couple of important features, even in the pro model. The first is a reduced color gamut due to being a single-chip ccd, instead of a 3-chip (RGB) system. Many consumer level standard-def cameras are single-chip and that is part of the reason you can immediately pick out something recorded on a cam-corder versus real film. Apparently, as single chippers go, the JVC is pretty good, but there are plenty of 3-chip standard-def cameras available today in the same price range that should provide significantly better color range.

Also, related to that is a lack of flexible white balance. The report I've seen says that there are two white-point settings and that's it. Even cheapo consumer cameras have automatic white-balance and some of the prosumer ones have manual white-balance too. So, unless you happen to be shooting under ideal conditions, you could end up with your colors looking a little weird (anyone up for green porn chicks? - I kill myself with the puns today). You can fix white-balance in post, but that's generally a pain in the ass.

Re:This is actually major news to some people

[Anonymous Coward]

Now either they are going to have to start breeding genegineered porn actors

Yeah, they've already started... see the loving close-ups of ass in the opening minutes of Final Flight of the Osiris.

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0350934

Re:This is actually major news to some people

[bellings]

Well, they're going to shoot using high-def cameras. They're not going to distribute high-def films.

Why won't they distribute high-def films? Not because there might not be a market for it, but because it's currently impossible. DVDs are only 720 x 480, and no-one is going to broadcast porn from your local PBS station.

Actually, this begs a serious question. Is there currently anything I could possibly use a HDTV for other than watching my local PBS station? The local cable system certainly isn't broadcasting any channels in high definition, and no commercial network affiliate within 300 miles of my house has a digital transmission yet.

Can you get HDTV through any satellite companies? How many HDTV channels do they have, and what resolutions do they actually broadcast HDTV, or just enhanced definition?

Re:This is actually major news to some people

[subreality]

I work for arguebly the most successful photography and digital imaging company in history ... such specs on a camcorder, at that price, will be most highly prized by the adult film industry. Don't ask me why I know that, because frankly, I'm not allowed to tell.

You work for goatse.cx?

Re:This is actually major news to some people

[Anonymous Coward]

sorry, you are wrong. I bought my XL1 from a porn shop that was going all "HD" for a song.. (wipe the dried spooge off the camera and you're golden..)

The tape section was never used and was taped shut, they used XL1's for studio cameras feeding the video back to the digi-beta decks.. Why? a $4000.00 XL1 is cheaper if it's dropped than a $36,000.00 sony with a $15,000.00 lens.

they ARE going HD and us consumers are getting a hell of a deal out of it by snapping up the high end NTSC equipment for a song

Re:This is actually major news to some people

[Spoing]

Hmmm...while I agree, there are workarounds -- COUGH! *filters* COUGH! -- excuse me. Where were we?

Re:This is actually major news to some people

[Hadlock]

the 18" sattelite dish companies transmit the discovery channel in HDTV and there's a couple others. i think you can get a HDTV signal for a couple of TV shows on fox and various sports games (superbowl, ncaa final four, etc).... but it's not really there yet. i own a (12", 20 year old) tv, and that's for playing video games on when the computer with the tv tuner card dies, and to catch things on tv like september 11th and the spaceship columbia that the net just isn't fast enough for yet. i watch my dvd's on my tibook otherwise. no HDTV in my future, until they stop news broadcasts in an analog signal.

Re:This is actually major news to some people

[Anonymous Coward]

then again there are those of us who want to see her anus puckering at a distance

or maybe that's just me

Re:This is actually major news to some people

[TheSync]

Yes, Mark Cuban's HD-NET is carried by satellite. Plus a lot of cable companies are now carrying HD channels of terrestrial broadcasters on their digital cable channels.

You could have hundreds of high-def video channels on a digital cable system. The problem is that the legacy analog video channels hog huge amounts of broadcast. As the MSO's drop analog channels, they can add many more digital channels.

Re:This is actually major news to some people

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Dish carries HBO-HD, SHO-HD, PPV-HD, CBS-HD, Discovery-HD and is working on more. DirectTV has a similar line-up, I think minus CBS but plus Cuban's HD-NET.

All the major networks have HD shows, ABC, CBS and NBC have nightly line ups that are practically all HD - the most common exceptions are the "reality" crap shows because they shoot so much footage that just gets wasted it is not yet worth the expensive for them to shoot in HD. Other than that, any show that is new in the last two years is almost certainly HD and plenty of older ones have moved up too - NYPD Blue is a great example of an old mainstay that has been modernized and made a lot more engrossing with HD, it is like a whole different show now. Miracles, which I think was canceled, was a new show that was just beautiful in HD.

The one exception is FOX - for some reason they won't show anything higher than DVD quality (widescreen 480p) some of their stuff looks damn impressive for such a low rez, particularly 24 and Fastlane, but some looks like crap (Malcolm is always out of focus and the framing is terrible). The cartoons like Simpsons, Futurama (RIP) and King of the Hill are still all 4:3 but digital and 480p makes them look incredible. They get more bandwidth than a DVD (19mbps vs 9mbps) which may explain why they look so vibrant.

My local cable system (Comcast) has started carrying HBO-HD and SHO-HD along with all the locals

Here's a site that has a decent, but not totally complete, list of each week's HD programming.

HDTVGalaxy

Finally, with the right equipment, depending on your situation -- surprisingly cheap equipment, you can "tivo" HD easier than regular tv because it is already an MPEG bitstream, no encoding required, just pull it out of the are and drop it to disk. At 19mbps, you get about 8GB per hour. I watch all my HD timeshifted and commercial-free, it is totally the way to go.

Re:This is actually major news to some people

[jaydho]

Higher-res is desireable, even for porn. Suze.net is an approriate example, they keep bumping their film-scan resolutions up due to customer demands. Granted Suze Randall is an awesome photographer and makes her models look great, but I've never been disappointed with too much resolution for any purpose.

Re:This is actually major news to some people

[angle_slam]

Why won't they distribute high-def films? Not because there might not be a market for it, but because it's currently impossible.

It's not i>impossible. There is currently one system available that allows you to record HD and, more importantly, to distribute HD content. That is D-VHS. For a list of currently available HD movies, click here.

Just remember, kids:

[Murdock037]

Hi-def digital cameras do not necessarily help you make better movies.

Re:Just remember, kids:

[No. 24601]

Hi-def digital cameras do not necessarily help you make better movies.

But neither do jerky, amateur homemade movies invoke superior art!

the revolution has begun. Just like VHS. IT BEGINs

[zymano]

The porn industry catapulted VHS. IF porn starts using HDTV media then WATCH OUT.

Goodbye VHS!

Good one

[Anonymous Coward]

nt

Finally...

[bioart]

High Def Porn!!!

Great Leap forward but still falsl short

[MrCaseyB]

Theres some great comments at this link

http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/jvc_introdu ce s_professional_high_definition_jy_hd10u_02_07_03.h tm

I am all in favor of companies pushing forward with better devices, I appluad JVC. I do not see why anyone would want this at this time though. It's a bit preamture. How would you distribute the material? DVD is not HD yet, nor is DVCAM, MiniDV VHS, or digbeta or whatever. So exactly how am i supposed to view this material or share it with people? hook the camera up to the TV everytime? Maybe I'm supposed to buy JVC's DVHS deck for recording HD material, maybe I can get my friends and family to buy them too. No thats ok.

Another thing is it records in MPEG2. I enjoy the MPEG compression on my DVDs and OTA HD broadcasts, but that material sure didnt start off as compressed MPEG. I imagine after capturing, editing, compositing and then final output the PQ would be greatly reduced.

I work with HD material everyday, Scanning film to HD, working with HDcam and D5, rendering HD res out of 3dsmax, HD compositing with a Quantel iQ. Let me tell you, it is not easy. Being professionals even we struggle with the quirks of this new technology, EDL conversions, pulldown, audio sync, It's a beast. I don't really think the consumer level person is going to want to struggle with a non standard device that creates good looking pictures that hes going to have to downres just to view them on most displays.

I wish JVC all the luck, I wish I could buy one to play with, but In my opinion the technology isnt quite ready for John Doe and his girlfriend to make HD pr0n.

Re:Great Leap forward but still falsl short

[MrCaseyB]

>Great Leap forward but still falsl short

I was talking about the camera, not my spelling.

Re:Great Leap forward but still falsl short

[zenyu]

I wish JVC all the luck, I wish I could buy one to play with, but In my opinion the technology isnt quite ready for John Doe and his girlfriend to make HD pr0n.

I think the initial market will be film students. Right now a lot of them struggle to raise $50k mostly to buy and develop 35mm color film stock for their thesis films. With this camera they can buy the camera and the editing setup for $5-6k, this is easy to raise in comparison. Some are already doing digital editing of scanned 35mm anyway so for them it's just the cost of the camcorder really. It's surprisingly cheap to scan film btw, like $13 for 8 minutes of B&W film; I guess it's volume since that's about as much as my local photo shop wants to charge for a 36 exposure roll of still photographs, or maybe I'm just a sucker.. The mpeg2 will suck, but at that resolution maybe it won't matter so much, a student film needs to look good on a 10' screen not a 300' one. Eventually this will make it into the hands of your uncle, and then hopefully he'll make good use of iMovie to edit the thing down to just a few minutes of torture. ;)

Re:Great Leap forward but still falsl short

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree on this count. MPEG-2 quality varies depending on the compression bitrate. Now I haven't looked at the specs just yet on this JVC, but I bet that there'll be some visible artifacting, plus the fact that I bet the colorspace's been reduced to mabye 4:1? (that's what MiniDV and DVCam are, at 5:1 compression). Now let's do some compositing, that'll decrease qualtiy even more due to the fact that a NEW MPEG-2 stream needs to be created for the composited sequence. Now let's output it to DVD. A NEW multiplexed MPEG-2 stream needs to be created for the appropriate DVD-bitrate. so basically we're looking at a couple of generation losses here.

These are actually problems in all digital formats, and being HI-def, mabye the problems won't be as bad as current DV systems.

Single chip though, and no manual white balance. YEAH! that's gonna sure be a winner!

Re:Great Leap forward but still falsl short

[devnullkac]

In my opinion the technology isnt quite ready for John Doe and his girlfriend to make HD pr0n.

Actually, I think the porn actor spells his name John Dough :-)

Re:Great Leap forward but still falsl short

[Anonymous Coward]

Right....

so JVC can sell what, 30 camcorders to hard bargaining film students each year?

- MBA Marketing student

Re:Great Leap forward but still falsl short

[pressman]

Being a recent film school graduate...

Personally, I'd rather shoot Super16 at 16:9, do an HD telecine with a bumpdown to MiniDV for offline editing in Final Cut Pro, generate an EDL, bring back to the lab for an online edit, output to 35mm (if I have the funds) or encode to MPEG-2 for DVD output.

And just where are you getting this insanely inexpensive telecine rate. At the post houses here in Seattle, you're looking at $200/hr for telecine on one of their older machines.

For the scope and budgets of my projects now, there's no way I could afford 35mm for capture. Output to 35 is a different story, but paying for the color timing is just so outrageous.That's why we shoot Super16. All told, getting it through telecine is about 25% the cost of capturing on 35mm.

Re:Great Leap forward but still falsl short

[abmurray]

It's surprisingly cheap to scan film btw, like $13 for 8 minutes of B&W film

Umm...no. If that's the quote from your local photo shop they're probably just taping off the wall or running it through one of those little gadgets you get at best buy. Scanning film is much more expensive.

--
a.b. murray

Re:Great Leap forward but still falsl short

[zenyu]

It's surprisingly cheap to scan film btw, like $13 for 8 minutes of B&W film

Umm...no. If that's the quote from your local photo shop they're probably just taping off the wall or running it through one of those little gadgets you get at best buy. Scanning film is much more expensive.


Actually, it's from the film maker next door. I think I implied she's getting a special deal. Maybe she has a friend do it, I don't know. I do know she got me to help her set up a wireless network with a bottle of wine. I can't imagine that a cash strapped student is paying full list either. I know lab seems to have an unending supply of ppl using our Avid, who then turn around and edit our videos pro-bono.

Re:Great Leap forward but still falsl short

[abmurray]

Actually, it's from the film maker next door.

Well...in that case.

Care to hook a brother up? =]

Seriously though, even though you don't know me from Adam, if you could ask her about how much she's paying/using/etc, I would really appreciate that.

I'm gearing up to (hopefully) shoot a short late this summer, and had planned on renting an XL-1 and shooting with that; shooting and then scanning film would normally be WAY too expensive.

Seriously though, I would be indebted if you could see if what you can find out.

Thanks in advance -

--
a.b. murray

secret home videos

[facts]

HDTV Camcorders? Can we say homemade pr0n revolution ;)

Specs

[TampaTim]

Some not-yet-Slashotted specs here.

blue laser dvd

[zymano]

I think compress blue laser dvd will handle a whole movie i think, not sure.

Additional info...

[asparagus]

This thing records MPEG-2 compressed video in a proprietary style to MiniDV tape. The jury is still out on whether HD at 25mbit/sec will be artifacted. It's still an amazing technological leap, though.

-Brett

Re:Additional info...

[Quikah]

The jury is still out on whether HD at 25mbit/sec will be artifacted

OTA HD in the USA is about 19 mbit/s, no artifacts that I have seen.

Re:Additional info...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm really surprised you should say that. OTA HD is chock full of artifacts. Even D-VHS, at 25 Mbps, is artifacty.

DVCPRO-HD, at 100 Mbps, looks pretty good. HDCAM (I forget the bit rate, but it uses DCT compression) is extremely good. D5-HD is practically perfect. And D6, of course, is totally uncompressed.

Re:Additional info...

[TheSync]

ATSC over-the-air emission rate is 19.34 Mbps using long-GOP MPEG-2. There are all kinds of artifacts, but most people won't notice them except for certain kinds of scenes.

Another issue is that not all MPEG-2 compressors are made the same. Broadcast entities purchase very, very expensive MPEG-2 compressors that can do a much better job than cheaper ones. Issues like pre-filtering of noise, better searches for movement, etc. can dramatically improve the compression job.

But there are some things ATSC emmission rates just can't do well - the best example I've seen is an native American dance where a headress with hundreds of thousands of feathers go down the back of the dancer, each feather moving in a different direction. At 19.34 Mbps, it looks like fuzz.

Most broadcast engineers consider 50 Mbps good looking HD, but most prefer at least HDCAM (270 Mbps) rates. Uncompressed HD is a bit over a Gbps.

I'm sure we'll see HD scenes from this new prosumer HD camera woven into HD programs just like prosumer DV camera footage sneaks into mainly Beta or DVCPro production where you need a cheap, small camera to shoot...think about interviews of that Butterfly woman 100 feet up in a tree, or embedded reporters in a war.

Two major drawbacks of film

[yerricde]

Basically, the light contained within an image interacts with this stuff called they're making called "film"

But unlike digital video storage technology available in 2003, this "film" can't be erased and reused, and it'll deteriorate over time.

Re:Two major drawbacks of film

[Anonymous Coward]

So will digital. Digital is based on minute charges on magnetic particles.. detirorates with exposure to air, vibration, magnetic fields....

Film is based on density of silver halide particles (for b&w) and pockets of dye (for colour) b&w film will last for more than 100 years if sitting on a shelf. Colour for more than 50 years at least. Digital... mebe 20 years.

I'll take my chances with film.

Re:Two major drawbacks of film

[Anonymous Coward]

oh come on you film chauvinist--you know very well that you can make perfect copies of yr digital media every 19 years til the end of time.

No wonder, really.

[Anonymous Coward]

With digital cameras at regular stores with resolution over 5 megapixel it makes you wonder why it took so long to produce.

Actually, no. It's a different thing to make a camera that can take stills and one that can do continuous video. The size of the CCD is not the issue. The speed of the CCD, the processing power of the underlying electronics, and the storage density with it's associated problems is why this is an engineering challenge.

Not a surprise from JVC

[jeffmeden]

Lots of reasons, like wideband processing for the images (although JVC is leading this field so its not such a surprise, ive had a JVC 1 MPixel 'consumer' DV cam for a year now), but mostly its the CCD being able to capture and reset properly at 30 frames a second. Ever wonder why DV cams take crappy stills and DigiPic Cams take crappy video? Exactly.

Links

[crammit]

More Links:

The consumer camera, GR-HD1

The Pro camera,JY-HD10U

Re:Not standards compliant... I disagree!

[Anonymous Coward]

MPEG2 isn't enough of a standard for you? You can edit the stream like any other MPEG2 transport stream. Very standard. -Lorin (author of the mentioned site with pictures)

Name recognition and patents

[mao che minh]

Name recognition and patents - the reason why R&D demands so much attention from the marketing folks.

Re:Hello? - 1080 lines is the max!

[Anonymous Coward]

1920 is the horizontal lines, but 1080 is the vertical lines. If you count it your way, then you end up with 1280 lines out of this camcorder. It's 3 times NTSC, anyway! And you've got to spend tons more to get anything better. -Lorin

i tried to find it at jvc . had no luck . goodjob

[zymano]

i check it out.

well, duh

[Naikrovek]

With digital cameras at regular stores with resolution over 5 megapixel it makes you wonder why it took so long to produce.

Show me a 5 megapixel digital camera that you can get at a regular store that takes 5 megapixel full motion video..... yep, that's what i thought. there are none.

it takes A LOT of bandwidth to get all of that uncompressed video off of the sensor and through the processing circutry. taking a few still photographs per minute (or even per second), is a lot different than taking 30 5 megapixel images per second.

so no. it doesn't make you wonder.

A bit OT, but...

[WegianWarrior]

...he is taking our interest in a nicer way than most other sites we stresstested:

Hello, my friends from SlashDot! I never expected this kind of recognition. I highly recommend that you also check out the more updated First Impresssions article that I wrote for CamcorderInfo.com! (They have a MUCH fatter pipe than I do, I'm sitting on a measely 256K DSL line!)

Still, as I struggle with getting good enought content to justefy my SOny TRV18E, I don't think I'll shell out for this babe yet.

DVD and licenses

[Anonymous Coward]

mpeg2 is used for DVDs, mpeg4 is not and costs more to license. Same reason why many game developers are not using mpeg3 for sound anymore - licenses brother.

Re: DVD and licenses

[IroNick]

MPEG-3 is not anything. However, MP3 is the sound codec used by MPEG-1, aka MPEG layer 3. MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 uses ACC codec for sound.

because...

[CanadaDave]

"With digital cameras at regular stores with resolution over 5 megapixel it makes you wonder why it took so long to produce."

Easy, with a digital camera, you can capture the image (store charge on pixels, by opening shutter), then you can take your time reading it out. Reading this out at 30 frames/second (minimum 25 fps needed for humans to think it's a video) means you have to read it out in 0.033 seconds per frame. Or, for 5 megapixels, that's 6.6ns. Or roughly 500 MHz per pixel. I think that math is correct, at least it seems correct. Anyways, that's the challenge: reducing the delay, which mainly has come about via technology scaling (0.13 vs. 0.18, 0.35um, etc...)

Re:because...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think your math is correct too, except for that weird part where you gave a quantity in units of "MHz per pixel". Just for fun...

500 MHz per pixel times 5 megapixels
= 500 * 5000000 MHz
= 500 * 5000 GHz
= 2,500,000 GHz

Uhm, yeah. That would be a lot. Delays in production would be understandable, what with the zero yield and all. On the plus side, due to the speed of light, such a device couldn't be larger than 0.12 microns if the signal is to travel across it in one clock cycle. Can't complain about a clunky form factor, but I'm afraid focusing an image on something that size is going to be a tad difficult.

Why not MPEG-4

[yerricde]

Because DV video (similar to motion JPEG) uses the same DCT as MPEG-2 and can be made to run off the same ASIC?

Because MPEG-4 royalties are much higher than MPEG-2 royalties?

Because Sony and the other studios are scared of MPEG-4?

there's video and then there's stills

[Anonymous Coward]

"With digital cameras at regular stores with resolution over 5 megapixel it makes you wonder why it took so long to produce."

Try taking 30 pf those pictures per second, moving them through an MPEG2 encoder and then a moving tape mechanisim.

Why not earlier?

[Repran]

"With digital cameras at regular stores with resolution over 5 megapixel it makes you wonder why it took so long to produce."

Encoding a 5 mega pixel JPG is easy... The hardware had trouble to create 750p MPEG-2 video in real time. That is the limiting factor.

Whats needed still

[mozumder]

Sucks that this thing doesn't do 24p. That could be used for easy film transfer for moviemaking.

Also, the long delay for something like this to come out is due to the need for an ASIC that can compress the data in real-time to MPEG2 format using very little power. This is the reason we didn't see an HD Camcorder before. The compression technology in the chips are still very new.

Note that there are also better versions of the video compression ASIC coming. Hopefully this will get us to 1080p resolutions soon. And maybe recordings onto solid-state mediums as well. I'd like to see real-time compression onto MPEG4 or WM9 formats. This will be about 3 years away.

Re:Hello? - 1080 lines is the max!

[Tenknics]

other way around bro. 1080 is horizontal, 1920 is vertical. remember hdtv is widescreen and the width is great than the height, and 1920 > 1080 so 1920=vertical scan lines.

Re:Now is the perfect time

[Soko]

Now is the perfect time to sell my Hitachi VHS camera on eBay. I mean, it even claims to be artificially intelligent. Gotta fetch a big price.

o_O

If it actually can claim that it's artificially intelligent, it means it would likely pass a Turing test. That being the case, eBay has, I think, a moratorium of sorts regarding the buying and selling of sentient beings. Might want to check thier Terms of Use.

If you've just left it running, you're likely OK. Just remember to take out the tape befre you ship it.

If it's neither of the above, you have other er, more significant problems.

HTH. HAND.

Soko

Boy are they behind!!!

[evilviper]

Obviously these guys just don't realize that hard drives are replacing tapes, and that solid-state cameras are SOOO much better! Boy are they gonna be upset when they find out they can't sell this thing!

Hmm, they seem to have more money than me... I'll shut-up now.

Re:Boy are they behind!!!

[evilviper]

Damn! Some moderators have absolutely no sense of humor what-so-ever.

Re:Boy are they behind!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

troll moderation was just metamoderated unfair -- see? the system works occasionally

Re:Boy are they behind!!!

[evilviper]

Yeah, but I must say the bad usually outweighs the good here.

That's all!?!?!? [joke]

[Quantum Jim]

Only 30 Frames/Second? Bah! That's nuffin! My GeWizForce 3DFX 1000000 can do 100 Frames/Second at 20000x1500. Amateurs... ;-)

Re:That's all!?!?!? [joke]

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for point out this was a joke, man, cuz I really wasn't sure.

SONY MD Camera was 1st w/MPEG-2

[djupedal]

Sony DCM M1 MD Data 2 (MD View Disc) Camcorder - This camera is what, 3 years old now? And it's still a neat toy....includes an ethernet connection and on-board JAVA for web access.

"World's first MiniDisc camcorder! Record up to 4,500 still images on a single disc. Or in motion video mode, record 20 minutes of digital quality video on a single MiniDisc. Direct disk access eliminates fast forward and rewind. The DCM-M1 records digital video with MPEG2 (real time) encoding similar to DVD, and ATRAC audio together!" (see the link review)

Capturing the Issue

[Goldfinger7400]

Anybody know just how "consumers" are to get HD off this thing for editing? Last I heard, capturing true HD required a PCI card that cost over twice as much as this camera. Or is the MPEG-2 compression (which probably sucks, btw) enough to fit it over a standard firewire interface? In any event, some new Codecs are going to be needed before this can be useful for most.

Re:Capturing the Issue

[Anonymous Coward]

You just use Firewire to suck down the content to your PC. It's slightly less bandwidth than DV all in all. No new codecs, the MPEG2 is standard. Also the MPEG2 compression does not suck. Just check out my article about it. There are raw frame grabs up there to check out. The real complaint I have after working with the camera for a little while at the PMA show in Vegas is that the color is flat. Needs 3CCDs, then it would be GREAT.

-Lorin (author of one of the camcorderinfo.com articles about the camera)

Re:Capturing the Issue

[briareus]

Easy -- miniDV is 25Mbps (the camera writes to miniDV tape as mentioned).

And you thought ..

[lordfoul]

Your Acne looked bad on super8 ?? wait till ya get a load of this.

640x480

[4volt]

My fujifilm S602 takes exelent 640x480 30fps video to compact flash or smartMedia.

I'd like to see more VGA based video recorders, even though it obviously wouldn't work as well in the theater.

I find it much easier to edit them my MiniDV footage, the biggest pain being transfering from tape to digital.

Re:640x480

[4volt]

Clarification: not that MiniDV isn't digital, just transftering from the Camera to the PC is a pain, just transfering it from a disk drive as a file is one step faster and easier

Re:640x480

[pressman]

640x480 at 30fps is crap... pure and simple. That's not even big enough to fill an NTSC television. MiniDV with Firewire out is the way to go with consumer level video camcorders. The next step up is obviously capturing straight to disk, but no camera assistant wants to lug around that hard drive just so you can have uncompressed footage to play with. Check out the film russian Ark. One take! Shot on HD straight to disk. 90 minutes of carrying a multi terrabyte hard drive around must be torture!

Transfering from tape has advantages if you're an editor. It forces you to watch the film and make very decisive choices of what footage to capture and use. It forces a level of economy into the project. Just shooting on digital is already creating a new generation of lazy videographers and directors who just shoot and shoot and shoot because they can. Most videographers coming out today couldn't light their way out of a paper bag and frequently forego lighting altogether because you can get an exposure in low light on video.

Basically, anyone who's shooting video or plans to should go take a course in basic three point lighting for film.

Re:Now is the perfect time

[B3ryllium]

Hitachi 3700A - Fully Automatic/Artificial Intelligence

The VHS mechanism is broken, however, so it cannot load tapes properly. I use direct A/V output as my webcam :) Excellent quality with a BT848 card.

750/30p? WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

...to offer 750 line resolution progressive video at 30 frames per second

Okay... no part of that made sense. (The sites are presently slashdotted.) The two standards for HD are 720p and 1080i. This camera obviously isn't 1080i, so it must be 720p. That's 720, not 750.

720p is 1280x720x60 fps. This camera doesn't do 60 fps, though; it does 30 fps.

In other words, and just being a totally pedantic dickhead here, this camera isn't technically HD. HD is either 720p at 60 f(rames)ps or 1080i at 60 f(ields)ps, and this camera does neither.

(Yeah, yeah. 1080/24p. But that's not a broadcast format, so I'm omitting it.)

Re:750/30p? WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, this is how it is:

In interlaced video, you alternate between two fields of even and odd lines. The fields are displayed at a rate of 30fps each. => 60 fps total.

In progressive video, there is only one field, displayed at 30fps.

As for the 750 lines thing, you're probably right it's a typo. The pro version's specs says 720 lines.

Re:750/30p? WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, that's not how it is.

1080i displays 60 fields per second, yes. But 720p displays 60 distinct frames per second, not 30.

As another poster suggested, it must be displaying every frame twice on playback. Which is, in my opinion, the worst of both worlds. You get the lower spatial resolution of 1280x720, the artifacts associated with progressive scan, and a lower frame rate.

In short, I would not buy this piece of kit.

Re:750/30p? WTF?

[briareus]

Claims like "750 lines" quite often refer to the ability of the optics to resolve detail. Generally the optics in any given camera are capable of more than the CCD's or other hardware (for obvious reasons).

Largely useless

[tsangc]

I'm pretty doubtful this camera will sell well. Most of the buzz about this camera post NAB was negative-Industrial/professional users demand 3CCD's for accurate colour reproduction, little to no software exists to support desktop editing of the proprietary MPEG-2-TS compression stream, and the DV25 tape format doesn't carry enough bandwidth to accurately represent the HD picture.

Re:Largely useless

[Anonymous Coward]

I wrote the review up on camcorderinfo.com about the unit, and I can tell you after having used it that it is easy to use the MPEG stream. Just convert it to a HuffYUV encoded AVI and edit from there. DV25 definitely holds enough bandwidth because broadcast 1080i tops out at 18 megabits a second! True though that the color leaves something to be desired...

Re:Largely useless

[tsangc]

I can tell you after having used it that it is easy to use the MPEG stream. Just convert it to a HuffYUV encoded AVI and edit from there.

But wouldn't you suffer compression artifacts from going from one codec to another? You'd want to edit native in that format...

DV25 definitely holds enough bandwidth because broadcast 1080i tops out at 18 megabits a second! True though that the color leaves something to be desired...

ATSC 1080i may very well be low speed but that doesn't mean that the acquisition format can be that low rate. IIRC, HDCAM for example goes from a 996Mbps raw HD bitrate to a 140Mbit rate recorded on tape.

For example, just because a DVD has a bitrate of 9.8Mbit doesn't mean that a DV camera with a 25Mbit stream is good enough to fill DVD quality material. As a result, DV25 may be an acceptable bitbucket format for HD archiving, but you want to shoot on something that captures as much of the HD bandwidth as possible, before the artifacting, DVE and other stuff gets to it and it goes out for distribution.

Re:Largely useless

[Anonymous Coward]

HuffYUV is lossless. That's why he made a point of mentioning that it was specifically that codec. It takes an assload of diskspace (and you thought DV was big... yipes) though.

Re:Largely useless

[tsangc]

HuffYUV is lossless. That's why he made a point of mentioning that it was specifically that codec. It takes an assload of diskspace (and you thought DV was big... yipes) though.

But if you decode, you'll need to reencode. Native codec editing means if you don't run an overlay, DVE or anything else on the footage, you won't need to reencode that clip.

Re:I can't believe...

[LordofEntropy]

Um that was dripping with sarcasm by the way...

Figured that would be obvious with the 400 post addressing it already. Too subtle I guess.

MPEG makes editing hard...

[captaineo]

Last time I saw specs on this camera (the site is slashdotted now), I noticed that it records MPEG-2 at over 20Mbit/sec. This is going to look quite good, since broadcast 1080i HDTV streams are limited to ~18Mbit/sec - and the camera is 720p so there are fewer pixels to compress. On the other hand, if they use full MPEG-2 it will make editing very difficult (and lossy) since the software will have to break apart and re-encode the frames around each edit.

They might be using I-frame only MPEG, which is basically the same as JPEG for each frame, or DV. In this case the 20Mbits/sec won't look nearly as good, but editing will be much easier (and lossless).

A good application for this camera might be low-budget filmmaking, where the final output format is NTSC but you want a better image than DV can deliver with its horribly lossy compression... I don't really see the point of working at 720p since the vast majority of HDTV systems are designed around 1080i. Well, perhaps this is just a stepping stone to a 1080i camera...

(and just to pick a nit - there is no such thing as a 30 frame-per-second video format. Ever since the advent of color, NTSC video has been 30000/1001 frames per second, or 60000/1001 fields per second)

Re:MPEG makes editing hard...

[mkldev]

More accurate to say that there is not a color 30fps video format (although I'm not 100% certain about PAL-M). Black and white video cameras could still output 30fps if they wanted to. Most TV sets just dutifully sync right up in my experience.

Re:MPEG makes editing hard...

[nmg196]

I agree. I'm sure that if you want to edit your movies, you'd be better off with a normal Motion-JPEG camcorder that doesn't lose any quality if you edit it (each frame is stored seperately as a JPEG without relying on previous frames). Editing MPEG - especially if you cut it into small chunks, is going to considerably degrade the quality each time you mess with it. With M-JPEG it can go back on the tape in the exact same quality you recorded it in (unless you applied any weird effects that actually modified the frames -eg a crossfade or title).

Re:MPEG makes editing hard...

[happystink]

But wait, you're saying this format is going to be less lossy than DV25 which is 25MBits/sec ?

Re:MPEG makes editing hard...

[zenyu]

Editing MPEG - especially if you cut it into small chunks, is going to considerably degrade the quality each time you mess with it.

I haven't edited in a few years.. But the last time I did you recoded everything into jpeg frames then edited that. Then for the final cut you stuck the Beta or DV original and final tapes into the deck and the system re-retrieved the frames and recoded them to the final tape. There is no progressive loss from recoding because recoding is done just once to final.

Re:MPEG makes editing hard...

[captaineo]

If they use full MPEG-2 with P- and B- frames, then yes, at 20Mbits it should look better than DV (because of interframe compression).

But if they use I-frame-only MPEG (which is essentially the same compression technique as DV), then it should look worse.

Re:MPEG makes editing hard...

[captaineo]

MPEG is really intended as a final-output format, not an acquisition format. (for the same reasons that JPEG is a good final-output format for images, but a poor input format)

The issue with editing MPEG-2 is that it uses inter-frame compression. In MPEG-2, frames are grouped into "GOPs" - batches of inter-dependent frames, typically 15 to 30 frames long. If you want to cut to another shot from the middle of a GOP, you have to break apart all of the frames surrounding the cut and re-encode them into seamless GOPs. This adds another layer of lossy compression. (just like in JPEG, once you disturb a single pixel of a DCT block you have to re-encode the entire block)

Intra-frame formats like DV and I-frame-only MPEG are easier to work with, since you can freely mix and match frames. You only have to re-compress if you alter the contents of a frame (e.g. to superimpose a title or do a dissolve).

Re:Hello? - 1080 lines is the max!

[mkldev]

You're both right and wrong. 1920 is the horizontal resolution, 1080 is the vertical resolution. Horizontal resolution means the number of distinctly visible pixels in a single scan line from left to right. So since 1920 > 1080, that would be 1920 dots from left to right (the longer width of the screen) and 1080 lines counted from top to bottom (the shorter height of the screen).

It's kind of confusing because the vertical resolution is the number of scan lines, which are horizontal in orientation, while the horizontal resolution is basically the number of vertical slots in the aperture grille. So there are 1080 horizontal lines on the screen, which is the vertical resolution of the display.

However, it is a bad idea to talk about horizontal "lines" of resolution, for two reasons. First, it is confusing, since it could mean the number of horizontal lines drawn (the vertical resolution), but it is also commonly used by people with sloppy terminology to mean horizontal resolution. Since the raster is row-major order (left to right first, then down one line), there aren't really any horizontal lines anyway. Thus, it's better to say "horizontal resolution", or even "pixels across" so that there's no confusion.

Because the MPEG4 you know and love is dead

[Small Hairy Troll]

There, I've said it. The latest MPEG work is centered around a new algorithm named H.264, or Advanced Video Coding.

This algorithm used to be called MPEG4 part 10, but is sufficiently different to MPEG4 to warrant a new name. Basically the H.264 algorithm gets you video that is the SAME quality as MPEG4 but at around HALF (that's 50%) of the bit rate. This means that you can in fact have 1080i video at bit rates lower than 9Mbps.... well within the maximum throughput of the current generation red laser DVD technology.... which explains why the DVD forum is considering using H.264 for the next generation of DVD's.... High Definition DVD. A whole High definition movie on a single DVD - and that's without having to move to a blue laser.

Don't believe me ? Take a look at the evaluation I did (self plug - who cares) a year ago comparing MPEG4 with H.264, I have a screenshot at balooga.com

The other point worth mentioning, that not many people realize, is that MPEG4 works well at low bit rates. As the bit rate increases, the efficiency gains afforded by MPEG4 diminish until a point is reached where you are better of using a good MPEG2 encoder. There are stations in the US that are actually broadcasting good quality 1080i at 12Mbps. MPEG4 won't get you anything more than MPEG2 at that bit rate.

The only niggle about the H.264 algorithm is the processing power required. My dual Xeon 2.8Ghz takes around nine hours (yes, I said hours) to encode a single ten second 1080i sequence. Granted the reference H.264 decoder (which is available for download off the web, by the way) is not optimized for speed and is not multithreaded in any way.... which is why I run three encoding sessions in parallel.

The H.264 algorithm requires so much power because it does so much. For example: Macroblocks can be any shape. The algorithm remembers scene changes so 'I' frames are not required when a camera goes from the head shot of the news presenter, to video footage, and back to the presenter. It senses those atrifacts that become apparent around, for example, text/subtitles in the MPEG2 domain and smoothes them out. It will iterate over a group of pictures again and again until it finds the best possible method for compression. In short, H.264 is amazing.

Re:Because the MPEG4 you know and love is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

The only niggle about the H.264 algorithm is the processing power required. My dual Xeon 2.8Ghz takes around nine hours (yes, I said hours) to encode a single ten second 1080i sequence. Granted the reference H.264 decoder (which is available for download off the web, by the way) is not optimized for speed and is not multithreaded in any way.... which is why I run three encoding sessions in parallel.

The H.264 algorithm requires so much power because it does so much. For example: Macroblocks can be any shape. The algorithm remembers scene changes so 'I' frames are not required when a camera goes from the head shot of the news presenter, to video footage, and back to the presenter. It senses those atrifacts that become apparent around, for example, text/subtitles in the MPEG2 domain and smoothes them out. It will iterate over a group of pictures again and again until it finds the best possible method for compression. In short, H.264 is amazing.

It may be amazing, but when I read the above it does not seem very practical.
They will at least have to fix the encoding to be in real time. What broadcaster is pepared to have to pre-encode all material? And what would happen to live transmissions?
Also it seems like there will be a hefty delay in the encoder when it is ever going to be realtime. How else can it iterate over a group of pictures long enough to include scence switches?
Finally, it seems like the broadcasters have to hope that you don't zap. If I come in to your channel watching the video insert, how will I get the presenter head picture when that is apparently back-referenced in the video stream, but I did not receive it because I was on another channel at that time?

Re:Because the MPEG4 you know and love is dead

[eericson]

Just as a frame of reference a good MPEG-2 encoder (My example is MPEG Power Pro from Heuris Software) will do a 2 pass encode on 2 hours of video in about 18 hours. (On a single chip 3.06 P4)

-E2

Re:Because the MPEG4 you know and love is dead

[FullCircle]

I like the detail you mention around edges. Those shots look great where the players uniforms meet the grass or other players.

However, the field looks terrible. It looks like they are composited over a background with a blur filter applied. In big splotches at that.

At that datarate, something has to be lost, but IMHO it would have to be disturbing watching a movie encoded with that algorithm. Depth of field is one thing, but an obvious blur on the background makes for an odd effect.

Obligatory MPAA reference...

[mdemeny]

Of course, Jack Valenti will likely claim that the only use for these cameras is to make better bootlegs from theatre recordings... in the same way that the RIAA effectively killed DAT.

Some other benefits

[-tji]

16:9 CCD - All the existing consumer video cameras have 4:3 CCD's. They must accomplish widescreen by kludging the picture some way. Such as, masking off the top and bottom of the picure (letterbox style) to create a 16:9 image - losing a bunch of resolution in the process.

480p60 - In can do 720p30 (1280x720 progressive, 30 frames/sec). But, it can also do 480p60 (720x480 (DVD resolution) progressive, 60 frames/sec). This 60fps capture is great for fast moving action, like sports. (Note that many DVD's are progressive - but only after re-combining the video encoded into 2 interlaced frames. So, it's 480p30. So, this 480p60 would be better than DVD)

Component video to HDTV - It includes an adapter cable to input directly to an HDTV for playback. Otherwise, you don't have an easy way to play back in full HD resolutions... DVD's can't handle it. You could use D-VHS if you had the right tools & formats.

Re:Some other benefits

[tempfile]

Progressive NTSC DVD is actually just 480p24 due to the telecine (3:2 pull-down) process.

What about editing?

[porkface]

Compression sounds great, but how well does this stuff edit? Current DV is almost completely lossless (some software codecs are) and it edits smoothly. My experiences with MPEG2 are that it's not so hot for source material.

Re:Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

sorry but the XL1 has had the ability to record progressive for 5 years now.

it's called movie mode.. it records in 30 Frames per second mode instead of the NTSC standard of 60 fields per second. and yes it is a full 740X480 frame. there are a few articles out on the net that says otherwise, but those people NEVER EVEN TOUCHED THE CAMERA.

So Canon beat them to it a long time ago, and with tons better optics. I have yet to see a camcorder that can beat the Canon XL1.

Major drawbacks of digital

[gilesjuk]

Drawbacks of digital are that the formats change so fast it becomes hard for older media to be read.

With film you can still scan the film if you want or easily devise a projector if they had all disappeared.

Re:Major drawbacks of digital

[yerricde]

Drawbacks of digital are that the formats change so fast it becomes hard for older media to be read.

This is a problem only if a format is born and is then completely dead within 20 years, the term of a United States patent. After 20 years, there's always some specialty shop that still deals in old formats.

Re:Major drawbacks of digital

[Anonymous Coward]

So I guess the challenge is to calculate the degradation of film versus the degradation of converting one lossy digital format to another every ten years as formats change.

Re:Hello? - 1080 lines is the max!

[nmg196]

> other way around bro. 1080 is horizontal, 1920 is vertical.

Nope... There are 1080 horizontal scan lines (making the vertical resolution 1080) and 1920 pixels horizontal resolution (you never refer to the horizontal resolution in lines).

What say you to foveon?

[chancegray]

http://www.foveon.com

They have a product which does not have to interpolate between red, green, and blue (at least not through some active means). The detector itself sees all three colors. I think there was an article on it here on slashdot.

Here it is:

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/02/11/1938 22 8&mode=flat

-Chance

Re:What say you to foveon?

[otis wildflower]

I say...

1)Where is it?

2)When will I get at least 11 megapixels for under $500?

Let me know when question/requirement 2 is satisfied...

As someone who is on both sides of the divide:

[flimflam]

The "resolution" of film (talking motion picture here, not still), is not directly comparable to digital, but assuming you're going the DI (digital intermediate) route as more and more people are, the limits are really on the scanning end. Most people for economic reasons still scan at 2K, though with the Spirit 2 I expect more will be going 4K. Some do 8K for effects work. Digital is almost at 2K -- with higher res products on the distant horizon (Dalsa, Lockheed and the like). The problem (besides making the damn things work!), is data management. Right now there's no way to put a 4TB RAID on your shoulder.

Anyway, the real problems with digital for most people, practically speaking, aren't with resolution anyway. They're shooting for broadcast which is HD res max by definition. The problems are latitude, too much depth of field (from 2/3 in. imagers), and a host of intangible things that keep people looking for that "film look".

I shoot a lot of HD now, so I'm not dismissive of it at all. Someday I expect it to surpass film, but in the mean time film still has some life in it -- and probably will for another generation or so. BTW -- have you checked out the advances that film is making? Try shooting 5218 some time -- 500ASA, very low grain, extended shoulder, nice colors, etc. Film is not a stationary target.

It was to me until I saw it

[flimflam]

and unfortunately it looks like crap.

Upconverted footage from the Panasonic DVX100 makes much nicer HD.

lines = horizontal resolution

[flimflam]

They're not talking about pixels here.

It is in fact 720P/30. It dupes each frame on the output to give you standard 720P/60 (actually 59.94) on the output, or it can format-convert it to 1080i.

What does "2k" mean?

[gjt]

I saw Texas Instruments use the same term to describe the resolution of their newest Digital Light Projection (DLP) movie theater system. What does "2k" (or "4k") refer to? Horizontal lines of resolution? Vertical Lines?

It just seems stupid and non-descriptive to use terms like this when the full resolution can be lucidly and easily expressed with two numbers and an "x" - 1920x1080.

Re:What does "2k" mean?

[Anonymous Coward]

2k or 4k means 2000 or 4000 silly. ie a 2k image about 2000 dpi.

Re:What does "2k" mean?

[Alan Partridge]

nope - 2k just means the image is APPROXIMATELY 2000 pixels wide.

Re:Now is the perfect time

[Alien Being]

Topic: Is fuzzy logic desirable in a camera?

Discuss among yourselves.

Now we can make better porn movies!

[boy_afraid]

I guess the average person can make excellent amateur porn movies.

Useless because....

[Anonymous Coward]

This camera is an interesting curio, but ultimately useless because of the MPEG2 compression. MPEG2 is a lossy compression format that uses "changes" from frame to frame as a major theme to reduce information. This means multiple frames of "past video" are required to create the "current frame" being displayed. This pretty much obviates the ability to do frame by frame editing, a staple of video editing.

DV frames store all of the information needed to display a single frame in the frame, with "interlacing" being the major, allowed, concession. Video capturing and editing suites expend a lot of effort just handling interlace problems, adding in MPEG2 needs would (does) vastly increase complexity, reduces editability, and can foster new artifacts and increase ultimate file size.

It will be a curiosity ultimately relegated to the "good idea pile" out back.

Re:Now is the perfect time

[Anonymous Coward]

Who are you, Linda Richman now?

Image Mirror

[br0ck]

Mirror of images from second link

Why it took so long

[mathrawka]

Why spend expensive engineering time on a product that no one will buy? HDTV is finally starting to take off and people are purchasing HDTVs in the past 6 months. Personally, I only know one individual that purchased a HDTV. Most places that have HDTVs are businesses. If a business is going to make some HD footage, then they will rent a HD film camera. These Camcorders are not meant for high end use, but for people that want to own a HD recording device but don't want to work out the massive amount of money for a HD film camera. Sure it sounds expensive, but compare it to the cost of a HD film camera... a rental will run you around $1,500 a day. A purchase will run you over $100,000.

Damn Is slashdot getting slow

[sogoodsofarsowhat]

This information was printed in a feature article in Popular Science. LAST MONTH. So lets see printed media faster with the news than /. and the internet. (shame on /.) Nice thing is POPSCI will only run the article once, but i expect to see it at least 2 more times here before MAY :P

I saw this camera on display in Akihabara, Japan

[winston_pr]

It was hooked up to a plasma display and the picture quality was ofcourse amazing. I was however surprised by one thing. The system was hooked up in real-time, so I could see myself being captured in HDTV on the screen, but it was delayed about 2 seconds. I don't think it was a setting but rather due to the high resolution being encoded in realtime. Anyone have any other idea why this is ?

Big film :)

[grahamsz]

I'm with you on this. I can extract 125MP of info from a single negative or chrome taken with my 4x5 camera - it just has to be seen to be believed, oh and i need a computer with more memory to handle that sort of image gracefully

OT: HDTV - Broadcast Vs. Cable/DBS

[maynard]

I have an HDTV. I live in the Boston area, so I am lucky in that every one of my local broadcast stations are currently broadcasting a digital signal, which include NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX, WB, UPN and PBS. CBS broadcasts almost their entire evening lineup in HD. ABC and NBC broadcast their most popular programs in HD. The second/third tier networks either broadcast widescreen 480p or the occasional HD program. After going through the trouble of installing an antenna on my roof I'm getting all the channels without signal loss or artifacting.

I also have DirecTV and have recently tried Comcast HD service. Here's the lowdown:

• Dealing with Comcast CS was like pulling teeth without anesthetics, they had no idea what they were selling and misrepresented the service when I was finally forwarded up through the CS clue-chain. When the installer came out they cut my Internet connection by accident. When I finally cancelled out of disgust, a service rep came and installed a filter on my Satellite line! And yes, it was a straight run from the dish to my TV, the filter being placed right next to the dish. Asshole.
  
  
• Both DBS and cable offer HD Showtime and HBO, though Comcast also offered a select few local channels in HD. DBS continues to be significantly cheaper per month for far more SDTV channels, though the premium stuff is priced about the same. DirecTV also offers HDNet, which broadcasts a good deal of sports and the occasional HD transfer of Hogan's Heros. Can't wait for I Dream of Jeannie. DBS currently offers no local HD channels.
  
  
• Comparing image quality of broadcast vs. Cable shows a significant decline in image quality with Cable. DBS doesn't offer local channels in HD yet, but it too suffers from over-compression problems. I assume this is because of higher compression... I think the cable companies are using a 6Mb stream compared to a 14Mb stream over PBS and full 19Mb stream for CBS. You really notice the difference. Since DBS has the same compression issues, HBOHD/ShowtimeHD have about the same image quality over DBS as cable.
  
  
• Showtime and HBO are just that. The programming isn't that exciting, though getting recent Soprano's in HD is pretty nice. One positive for Showtime is that they actually letterbox 2.85:1 films instead of mauling the film to 1.85:1 like HBO.

In short, putting up a good antenna on your roof ensures the best image quality possible. If you care about HBO/Showtime you might want to consider DBS or cable, I personally would recommend DBS over cable at the moment for both price/performance and CS quality. Finally, HDTV is good. :)

Cheers,
--Maynard

This is not High Definition

[pyite69]

HDTV is one of two modes:

1280x720 at 60 frames a second (best)
1920x1080 interlaced, 30 frames a second (acceptable)

It looks like this camera is 50% of the way there.

Re:This is not High Definition

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is 720p better?
The 1080i video sourced content that i've seen (Masters on CBS) has been much better than the 720p (Superbowl on ABC) on my Samsung DLP.
Maybe CBS is just better at HD than ABC but 720p just doesnt have the holyshitwow factor that 1080i has.

"special video"?!?

[tomdarch]

and it includes JVC's own video editing software for manipulating the special video - which is not compatible with most current video editing solutions

What? If I can't get it into Final Cut Pro, why would I want it? Surely, they can write a codec for QuickTime. Besides, as others have pointed out, editing/manipulating MPEG-type compressed video is 'problematic'.

It's nice that the industry is starting to get into HD, but I'll wait for Sony and Canon to release sub us$4,000, HD, 3-ccd cameras with a more standard codec. Luckily, I won't need a new camera for a few years.

Re: But interlacing is crap

[pyite69]

720p at 60 fps is better than 1080i at 30.

Broadcasters don't even use the full 1920, the
resolution they use is generally 1400 or less.
Just about every TV out there converts 1080i to
540p anyway.

Interlacing really should have NEVER been a part
of the ATSC specs, except for one backward
compatibility mode with existing NTSC. ARGH.

Mark

Resolution and color quality...

[Kjella]

The single CCD is 1/3" true 16x9 with 1290x880 native resolution. I don't know about you, but there's no way I'd shell out $2500 - $3500 for a camera with only a SINGLE ccd. I'm sure the resolution's great, but I'll take an XL-1 over this thing anyday.

True, it has less color quality per pixel, on the other hand you have more samples to (920000 @ 1280x720 compared to 346000 @ 720x480). If you're making 640x360 (16:9) for a PC screen or NTSC TV, I imagine averaging over 4 pixels will do just as well. Of course the optimal would be having both - both superior resolution and color quality. But, 3CCD & 1080p and you're looking at a $100k price tag last I checked, I think 3CCD & 720p would be quite a bit less, but still. Personally I'll stick to my old analog SVHS camera anyway, the cameraman (me) doesn't deserve more...

Kjella

Film is not dead/"resolution" is not everything

[Mr. White]

A $2000 digital camera will compete with a $100 walmart film camera. For your digital camera, you need to get high end lenses, because sensors are more sensitive and crappy lenses produce soft, poor quality images. That ads big $$$$. Not to mention all the other gadgets you need to purchase.

Manufacturers focus on "resulution," so they can stick a big pixel count on their box, but the quality of 5 "megapixels" customer grade cameras produce are laughable to most amateur photographers. Sharpness, speed, noise, color saturation and all the other things that culminate in a great photo are simply not present in most customer grade digi cameras, regardless of resolution. Pro cameras do a better job in these aspects, but they generally fall on their face to film.

If you want to shoot digital for magazines, or newspapers, you're looking at $5000 digital camera. That camera will produce images that your $500 film camera does. Oh yeah... guess which one will be worth sh*t in resale value in 2 years?

The point I'm trying to make is that digital is getting there, but it will be many years before an affordable digital camera produces film quality images.

Witold
www.witold.org

Re:Film is not dead/"resolution" is not everything

[valkraider]

One word. Foveon.

More info, and more yet. Combine this with high resolution and good lenses - digital is about to surpass film in quality.

Re:Film is not dead/"resolution" is not everything

[pressman]

This looks interesting, but until CCD's can reproduce the same exposure latitude as film without dropping shadow to complete black and blowing out highlights, film will still be king. It still has about 4-6 stops of exposure lattitude to go.

Also, digital still just looks too sharp. The digital projection of Attack of the Clones looked pretty good, but the actual film projection looked even better. You could see further into the shadows and the highlights didn't blow out as much. If you watch the DVD which is taken directly from the digital source, you'll see just how sharp and harsh lines are. Much harsher than in real life.

That said, it's good to see digital video advancing at the rate it is. the prices are dropping and postproduction costs are finally starting to drop making it more and more affordable to shoot HD 24p and release on film. In fact, I'm going through this right now with a feature I'm working on. We're actually shooting on the Panasonic DVX1000 at 24p (MiniDV), hopefully doing an HD uprez and color correction and then outputting it to film.... if we get into any festivals. If not, we'll simply do the uprez and color correction and manufacture DVD's to distribute.

Essentially, for about $15k you can be a pretty damn complete psot house now!

10:1 is stingy

[joss]

If you are shooting a film, you typically need more than 10x as much film as eventual footage.

It's not just that you need multiple takes per scene, you often film from separate angles simultaneously and then splice together as you see fit. Also, you shoot far more scenes than you want and put together the bits you like later.

100:1 is generous, 10:1 is minimal.

Re:10:1 is stingy

[abmurray]

It's not just that you need multiple takes per scene, you often film from separate angles simultaneously and then splice together as you see fit. Also, you shoot far more scenes than you want and put together the bits you like later.

Not in my experience. More angles=more cameras=more $$$.

Seriously though, if you're shooting at a 100:1 ratio, you're either doing a documentary or didn't spend enough time planning the shoot.

Was it Ford who claimed that he could fit his cuts in a shoebox? Shooting's my least favorite part, anyways. Takes the most work, the most time, and its where most of the screw-ups happen. I like to get in, get it shot, and get out. If that's one take with one camera, then that's what we're going with.

That's why you rehearse and storyboard =]

--
a.b. murray

Re:10:1 is stingy

[Anonymous Coward]

• I shoot documentaries at 12:1
• Well run scripted films shoot 4:1
• Video requires more takes as the lumance responce in much more finiky
• Lumance responce on film provides more lattitude enabling superior post color correction
• The only scenes shot with multiple camera are large explosion scenes
• If you are going to compare something to video, compare 8mm
• Film enables flawless speed changes enabling
  • Slow run to speed up action
  • Fast run to stablize shakyness
• List goes on

Point is, if you need the functionality, video just will not do. And it doesn't look like it will for the forseeable future.

Re:10:1 is stingy

[abmurray]

Point is, if you need the functionality, video just will not do.

I'd say that it depends. I have noticed a lot of nice-looking pieces on cable lately that were shot with video. Now, I'm sure it was relatively-high end equipment. Not BetaSP or anything, but definately high pro-sumer grade.

My point is just that it really depends on the project. Is it worth the hassle of film? Because that's what film is. Wow does it look great, but lighting, metering, sync sound, more complex equipment, and so on.

Sometimes, film is the only way to go...but personally, if it's up to me, I'm very satisfied with the look and quality of something shot on miniDV. Light carefully, frame carefully, PLAN your shoot, and then tweak what you need to on the computer.

I have no allegiance to either, I just like what causes the fewest headaches.

--
a.b. murray

Re:10:1 is stingy

[spooje]

Actually what I was saying (my appologies if I was not clear) is that a 10:1 ratio is generous as a MINIMUM ratio. That's a normal ratio for what I like to call "Hope crap happens when I'm around" documentary making. You know like go into the jungle get some leopards and natives shots. A much more reasonable rate is about 20:1 - 25:1 for a decently funded narrative. I picked 10:1 because it's easier to multiply by late at night.

Well

[number]

I hate to say it, but H.264 is not all that. And yes, I know, since I've worked on programming MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 video compression libraries, and know quite a bit about the new spec.

Firstly, your comparison is between two vastly mismatched encoders - one is using a wide range of tools to near-maximum potential (H.264), the other is using a vastly smaller range of tools quite poorly (MS MPEG-4 distribution). The post-processing used by MS is much worse than the stock H.264 in-loop post-processing, the motion search is far worse, the quantization is "dumb" (i.e. trellis quantization would achieve much better quality), and it's not even using advanced MPEG-4 coding tools like QPel or B-frames. It's also missing subjective improvements like noise randomization, DCT-domain in-loop deblocking or masking based on luminance and temporal position (such as those you'd find in a good MPEG-2 encoder).

Also, the reason you're better off using MPEG-2 at high bitrates is because of better encoder tweaks, not some deficiency of MPEG-4 itself. The MPEG-4 bitstream is more efficient at storing the same data than MPEG-2 in almost all cases, and encoders will eventually mature to reflect this.

But I'm still excited about H.264. The quality diminishes rapidly when you disable the brute-force searches that make it so efficient, so don't expect miracles from high-speed encoders. Hardware implementations should be quite impressive though.

If you're still playing with it, ffmpeg recently added a native H.264 decoder which should be a good portion faster than the one you were using.

Re:Well

[Small Hairy Troll]

You make several good points. However I ran the comparison against both the Divx and the MS MPEG4 encoders - however the quality was almost identical in both (even Divx 2 pass). Yes, the MS MPEG4 and Divx encoders may not have been the best encoders to use (for example, the Philips MPEG4 implementation may have been more efficient), but I was comparing these encoders to the H.264 reference encoder circa December 2001 December. How efficient was the reference MPEG2 encoder when it first appeared ? It certainly couldn't compress 1080i at 19Mbps with the same resultant quality as current MPEG2 implementations. So in my mind, the MPEG4 implementations I used had time to mature, whereas the H.264 implementation was very imature.

However I must respectfully disagree with you concerning the implementation of hardware MPEG4 encoders . A number of companies that have been working on such MPEG4 devices, most notably Philips - who had a huge MPEG4 display at NAB last year (including hardware MPEG4 encoders etc.) - have completely pulled out of the business. Other companies who had been working on MPEG4 solutions have laid of employees or have completely cut back. I seems that H.264 has all the momentum that MPEG4 had at one time. Add the MPEG4 licensing terms to the mix, and the long term outlook for large scale MPEG4 roll-outs don't seem good.

As an example.... ATSC, DVB and the HD forum are all considering H.264 for the next generation of their respective standards, not MPEG4.

Re:Well

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

I poked around and did not find ready reference to H.264 licensing terms. I know MPEG4 is total snafu, but what are the H.264 terms? How about submarine patents, any ideas on the chances of some of those surfacing and dorking up the current terms?

Re:Well

[Timmeh]

I'm also quite interested in this, hope he answers your question. Actually, now that I think about *activate google powers*: first search result for h.264 is this @ :

By any name, the codec, scheduled for completion in spring 2003, is a product of the Joint Video Team (JVT) of the International Telecommunication Union and International Standards Organization. And it's already making waves.

Ok, that doesn't tell me much, but a search for h.264 and royalties brings this up :

One of the initial goals of the H.264 project was that the so-called "baseline" codec should be free of problems with patents. It should be possible to build products using the technology without having to pay royalties. I originally laughed at this idea and talked about flying pigs, but it appears that the aim has come true; the baseline codec uses technology that is either not patented or the patent holders have waived their rights to royalties.

I likes me the sound of that.

Re:Well

[Small Hairy Troll]

MPEG-LA, the body in charge of setting licensing/royalty payments are asking the concerned parties to submit all patents and IP relating to H.264. I guess this is to make sure that submarine patents can't emerge at a later date... If you are a patent holder and you miss the boat, tough luck for you I suppose.

What this means is that the licensing process will not trial the H.264 standardization process, as it did in MPEG4 by a couple of years.

However I am not yet aware of the type of licensing scheme they will come up with. I'm sure Microsoft are hoping that it will be similar to MPEG4, in which case people may jump ship from H.264 to Microsoft's WM 9.

We all know where we'll see this first...

[Mondain98]

I predict now that the first early adapters of this technology will be for HD porn.

Here's why it took so long

[JohnnyBolla]

Because no one can watch it. Who has an HDTV?

Re:Here's why it took so long

[pressman]

Just because you record in HD doesn't necessarily mean you're going to output back to it. The image quality on these HD cameras is going to be noticeably higher than the Canon XL1s and the Sony PD150. Once you deinterlace the image after editing it, it's going to look amazing even in 720i.

Run your footage through Magic Bullet and you'll be amazed at the image quality. When the 3CCD puppies hit the market at the same price point as the XL1s and the PD150, MiniDV and DVCam will be the format for people to whom image quality isn't necessarily as important as just capturing the moment. The irony is that you'll be capturing HD footage on MiniDV and DVCam tapes.

Longevity of digital media

[yerricde]

Digital is based on minute charges on magnetic particles.. detirorates with exposure to air, vibration, magnetic fields....

Such deterioration can be stopped by "refreshing" the data, that is, by copying it to a new medium whenever your broadcast studio migrates to a new format. Analog formats such as film cannot be "refreshed" onto a new medium without generation loss.

Colour for more than 50 years at least. Digital... mebe 20 years.

Excuse me? DVD-R (admittedly not what this article is talking about, but a digital video storage format nonetheless) has a predicted longevity of about 100 years as well.

this camera IS so worth the money

[bladeohlsson]

i was it in Shinjuku 2 weeks ago and it was the best quality I have ever seen in any consumer/prosumer camera. They has a demo of the camera of footage they shot around the store and it looked like something I have never seen before. Really cool. And it was only lik 350,000 yen or something.

The important thing about this news...

[zgwortz962]

What makes this item of real interest to me is that it's an entry point for HD camcorders in the pro-sumer market, not so much what it does or how it does it. Although I've been following this news now for quite some time, and am suitably impressed that they managed to do this without requiring a new tape format, what this *really* signals is the opening of a new market segment for the electronics companies to fight over... Next year, there will be several more companies competing in this market, the cheapest at just under $2000, the most expensive being 3 CCD models good enough to make any pro-sumer switch. Within 3 years, you'll see the first HD consumer camcorder under $1000, and the prosumer market will already be entirely HD. I don't think current the current resolution camcorders will live on much beyond that, except in the dirt-cheap market. (Does this seem fast to you? Why does this cost $3K right now? Not the lens - it's nice, but not much better than in current camcorders costing half the price or less. Not the CCD - it's not even very high resolution compared to those in even a $500 digital camera. Nothing mechanical -- the tape mechanism and other mechanics are effectively the same as on much cheaper camcorders. The ONLY expensive bit in these cameras is the fast compressor/decompressor chip, and you know that's gonna drop in price...) I've been shopping for a camcorder for personal use a while now, and the decision of getting a cheap one to last me 2-3 years, or an expensive one to last longer is effectively made because of this camera and it's implications. Cheap now, HD later...

Don't need to transcode lossy-to-lossy

[yerricde]

versus the degradation of converting one lossy digital format to another

If you use a lossless format or a well-known lossy format, you don't have to worry about repeated conversions of the actual data, just copying from one storage medium to another (which is lossless). Some free software author will probably start a project on Savannah or SourceForge that can translate the original video into an uncompressed AVI.

Re:Don't need to transcode lossy-to-lossy

[msx2]

mmm i could do that ;) it's not that problematic either but i would probably go for mpeg1/2 instead of uncompressed...

So sick of stupid front-page comments!

[niwrat]

I'm really sick of comments like "With digital cameras at regular stores with resolution over 5 megapixel it makes you wonder why it took so long to produce." As was commented earlier it's because of CCD sensitivity! Keep comments like that on the comments page, not as the article header PLEASE!