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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."
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.
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)
Tea and kung-fu. Life is good. Rising Phoenix
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.