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Sony's HDV 1080i Consumer Camcorder
An anonymous reader writes "Sony has just announced a high-definition video camcorder that records in 1080i. A site was just created with a lot of information about the camcorder. The camcorder uses the HDV spec which records to standard MiniDV tapes. It includes 3 CCDs and along with the announcement it appears Apple and Adobe are now supporting the HDV standard. The camcorder carries a steep price at $3,700 though. See the original press release as well, though it doesn't contain much information."
Cheap porn can be brought to us in HD!
Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein
It will be competing in the super-high-end consumer market through the professional market. It's similar to the Canon XL1 series, which go for similar prices, with similar characteristics (high end digital video, everything manual, etc.).
Craig Steffen
http://www.craigsteffen.net
Now just think of all of the super high quality porn that will be available on the net!
My
Well, maybe not cheaper..
Now had you said 720p or 1080p, I would have been more interested, but this is at least a way for home movies to look better...if you're rich.
I wonder how much storage space is on it, and how long it will take to transfer onto a PC/Editing system given 1080i's bandwidth requirements?
I don't know, do I really need to see every pore on my family's face in home movies?
I beleive the JVC GR-HD1US has been avialble for more than a year now, and at a slightly lower price than the Sony. Sony seems to have been spending a lot of (well considered) money on the PlayStation 2&3 platform and ignoring the "consumer electronics" feild for a while now. They just aren't up to snuff compared to Panasonic, JVC, Zenith and the other giants.
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how huge a hard drive I'll need to edit HD iMovie projects now...
I have a Sony DV camera and it works fine with iMovie.
Remember, You are unique...just like everyone else.
Screw Porn (HAHAHA). Throw caution to the DCMA and BOOTLEG, BOOTLEG, BOOTLEG. Now all I need is 3700$, some milk duds, and a rear seat.
My sony mini-dv works fine with my PowerBook. No need for proprietary software or drivers. The only think I had to do was get a cable.
My
-I get a piece of brand new tech for 500 dollars.
-I get a digital camera that uses the X3 sensor and has a true 8MP CCD, not this 1.5MP x 3 garbage that you see.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
RTFA:
"The HDV spec was agreed upon as a standard by Sony, JVC, Canon, and Sharp for new high-definition consumer camcorders last year. Along with the announcement of the new Sony HDV camcorder comes support from major video editing software companies including Apple and Adobe"
Go on the DV boards like 2-pop or creative cow and find me all the people who are unable to use sony's "not recognized and not standard" DV VTR's and cameras. They ARE standard and any editor that can capture DV can get video from them just as easily as from a JVC, Panasonic or Canon. No drivers necessary.
"I forgot my mantra."
I doubt many people really want to watch high-def porn.
It'll just make the flaws and bad makeup stand out more.
I have a Sony DCR-TRV22 mini-dv camcorder and it works fine with all the software I've tried (Adobe Premiere, Microsoft Movie Maker, iMovie etc). I would happily recommend Sony camcorders to anyone, regardless of what platform/software they're using.
Why does anyone still make interlaced devices? I thought everyone agreed that progressive scan was better. Wouldn't they be better off with 540p than 1080i? It seems to me that it would be easier to make the device, and similar or better quality.
Am I missing something?
Seeing High-Def ass will be just like seeing all the craters on the moon upclose.
I know a lot of sony camera's only work with the proprietary software.. IF you use a USB connection.
However, if you actually go out and buy a 1394 cable, it works in all applications just like any other DV device would.
?SYNTAX ERROR IN LINE 42
It is really surprising that we have interlaced standards in the HDTV specs.
Basically, 1080i = 540 lines / refresh.
720p has 720 lines per refresh.
The problem with interlacing is that it introduces or exacerbates certain visual artifacts. This is one of the reasons some of the networks are sticking with 720p for their HDTV broadcasts.
Whether this interlaced standard is a carryover from the consumer electronics folks or not, I would stick with 720p until something nicer comes out. Be interesting to know the history here. Computer LCD makers are well settled on progressive displays at this point.
Is 1080p in the standard? I didn't think it was....
Anyways, fun stuff.
...that HDV's recorded bitrate is still 25Mbit/sec. While you might think that is a lot compared to terrestrial HDTV's 18Mbit stream, in fact, it's very little. In production you generally want to record MORE in acquisition than distribution.
The defacto HD production format, HDCAM, records something like 140-180MBit/sec, the uncompressed signal is something like 996MBit/sec.
The most likely market for this camera will be indie filmmakers, documentaries, and industrial/corporate promotional use. The price makes complete sense--and most of the market buying VX2100's and XL1's will probably look seriously at this.
Most broadcast/network HD will still be HDCAM, DVCPRO HD (off the popular Panasonic Varicam) or 35mm transfer.
Calum
Whats the point of having a system that records HDV, but must use MPEG2 compresion to store it on miniDV tapes that it uses?
Am I not getting something here??
Phil.
Either the article info is wrong, or I misunderstand HDTV resolutions. According to the article, there are three CCDs:
Each CCD measures 960 x 1080 pixels.
1080 is supposed to be the vertical resolution, with horizontal at 1920. This is less than half the horizontal resolution.
-Adam
Final Cut Pro HD has been out for what, five months now? And even before that some form of HD has been supported in Final Cut Pro. I am not familiar with the earlier versions of it, but some of the FCP books I have all discuss editing it.
It is cool to see a 1080i camera out there though. Give it a few weeks and there will be a consumer affordable model.
For now I will stick with my Canon Optura Xi.
double yawn.
On a serious note. I have been thinking about things like this for a while. It's not exactly a highly original thought, but more and more of high end hardware/software/electronics/mechanics are becoming available to the normal joe. This has been widely known and considered with apache/linux/mysql/php/etc., but it is happening in many realms other than software.
I think that we are stepping into a creative boon as a result of this. When only large profit-intensive, single-minded corporations have access to these types of materials you don't see much creativity in how they are used. However, you stick that power with a vast majority of the public and you are going to have some incredibly original and creative ideas. I am looking forward to the creativity too....Doggy style is so 20th century.
is whether Sony has managed to solve the compression problems of getting an HD signal on a dv tape. Footage from the GR-HD1 has nasty compression artifacts which has preculded anybody from getting too excited about using it.
My money's on no, but it's still cool to see companies working at getting these products to market. The next few years are gonna be exciting for filmmakers as desktop HD comes online.
Given the sinking cost on digital still cameras (2mp CCDs are considered outdated it seems, 5mp is the new hotness)... it isn't surprising that HD camcorders are showing up.
:-)
My questions are more about the loss in compression, and how it interacts with existing editing suites? Standard 400mbps firewire? When your capturing from firewire on a host, and it tries to render the live video stream, is Premiere going to blow up? (Well, Premiere blows up on it's own constantly without wierd hardware (Premiere XP is supposidly much better)).
Neato, but expected. Now all the people can replace those old camcorders in the closet that see one use ever two years with a newer, better, camcorder that will see a use every two years
Southeastern Virginia REPRESENT!
every gas station attendant and blogger will now become an independent film maker trying to tell me about their "influences"
We do video between labs for overflow (more students than a lab can hold). Thing is, normal DV cams just don't have the resolution to capture the professor and screens without looking totally blurry. This would go a long way to fixing that. It still wouldn't give a crystal clear image, but much better than what we have now.
At $4,000, it would be an actual viable option, though expensive. A DVPro unit is just out of the question, no way we are paying $50,000 just to get clear video between two labs.
I'm just glad to see it in general, it's probably the first real push I've seen to bring HD recording in to the consumer realm. Still quite a ways off, but at least it's starting.
Just on the heels of the "Death of the floppy disk", I cannot wait for the Death of Interlaced Video Formats!
After spending years programming for and editing interlaced video, I can honestly say, "ARGGGGHHH!"
Can we not yet send someone back in time, to whack the ^%#!$@ who first thought it up?
I haven't had a floppy drive in any of my PCs for 5 years, and I haven't missed it. It would be wonderful if I could say the same thing about interlaced video!
(end of whacko rant).
On a serious note. I have been thinking about things like this for a while. It's not exactly a highly original thought, but more and more of high end hardware/software/electronics/mechanics are becoming available to the normal joe. This has been widely known and considered with apache/linux/mysql/php/etc., but it is happening in many realms other than software.
Oh come on, this phenomenon has always been happening in most all fields. Look at cars, a $30000 Subaru WRX can stomp a pure bred race car from even 10 years ago. Look at motorcycles, a Suzuki GSRX can compete with Gran Prix bikes of just a few years ago. Pro versions of things filtering down to the consumer is a daily occurance, and yet this concept of "creative boon" still wants to come up like having a triple chip 1080p uber camcorder is somehow going to make someone more creative than a $200 vhs camcorder. If you can't come up with beautiful poetry with a pencil, having a beowulf cluster isn't going to help either.
"mini DV" is not "DV", it's a different standard
Sony's MiniDV standard ain't standard bub, I'm sorry. Tapes recorded by their cameras have caused me countless problems in countless ways. Take one Sony MiniDV tape, place in a JVC high quality DV deck. Things go fine at first, but capture for long enough and you'll get horrible artifacts, sound sync problems etc. The solution of course, is to buy a sony deck to go with it; which most of us have done. Sony doesn't play nice with others; I've been working with them alongside with Canon for 7 years now.
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I've shot with the JVC HDV camera, and my impression of it is that the resolution is excellent (as is to be expected), but the real quality differentiator between it and a "real HD" camera is the quality of color and image delivered by the whole system, not just a high resolution imaging chip.
This is not suprising - I have always found the image and color quality of DV cameras to be much lower than even medium-end pro cameras (such as the elderly SVHS Panasonic Supercam). The prosumer cameras do not have $3,000 lenses. They do not have the amazing amount of color DSP going on as the pro cameras.
But at the same time, HDV cameras are better than nothing, and certainly good for "riskier" shots where a $100,000 HDCAM camera being lost would be a problem. You just can't skydive with a full-size camera, for instance...
One other issue is that 25 Mbps is really limiting for MPEG-2 HD (heh, so is 19.4 Mbps, but that is another topic).
If you are into a lot of action with lots of uncorrelated motion vectors, you might be better off with upconverted DV, as 25 Mbps is fine for inraframe coded DV.
Sony's equipment works fine for me. I use a PC and connect the firewire port to Sony's iLink (via 4 to 6 pin cable) for digital transfers to my hard disk. All the editing is done on Adobe Premiere (I've used versions 4.5 thru 7.0), which DOES have Device Control support for most of Sony's camcorders.
Get your facts right before posting.
People often observe that the HDTV standards specify 1080i, 720p, and 480p, but there is actually more to it than this. The ATSC standard specifies these resolutions at 60Hz (where Hz here measures refreshes per second, which is the same thing as frames per second for progressive scan, twice the frame rate for interlacing), but it also specifies lower frame rates. In particular the standard actually specifies 1080 line progressive scan at 30fps (because that has the same bitrate as 1080i at 60Hz) and also at 24fps (because this has the same frame rate as movies and other production on film).
Lots of people in the independent film industry really want 24fps progressive (usually referred to as 24p), because video shot this way can be blown up onto 35mm film and shown in a cinema, and can ideally provide film quality for a much lower cost than actual film (and which can be digitally edited etc etc much more easily than stuff shot on film. They have at times gone out of their way to kludge something similar from consumer DV cameras in the past. Quite a few films have been shot by taking a PAL SDTV camera, getting it to output 576 line 25fps progressive, blowing it up onto film and then running the resulting film at 24fps. The playback speed is slightly slower than the filming speed, but it is close enough not to notice. (Just as an aside, the reverse of this is often done when movies are shown on European TV, which are filmed in 24fps and shown at 50Hz interlaced (ie 25fps) on PAL TV. This sometimes explains why films have slightly different running times on European and American TV, and some actors complain that their voices have a higher pitch when they watch their movies in Europe)
Now this camera does not support either of these 1080 line progressive scan modes, presumably because the CCD sensor in the camera would have to be different to do this. It can apparently film 1080i 60Hz and then fake 30fps or 24fps progressive from that, and I would be very interested to see how good this is. It is undoubtedly much better than the old PAL DV camera at 25fps trick, but how it compares with cameras that film 720 lines in genuine progressive scan remains to be seen. These 720p cameras have apparently been a big hit with film-makers, but a genuine 1080p camera for a few thousand dollars would be something special. It would mean that film-makers could rent a camera for a few hundred dollars that could produce something very close to genuine cinema quality, and they could make movies with it without the costs of film stock. Sony have been making 1080 line 24p cameras for professional use for a few years now ("Star Wars Episode 2", the "Spy Kids" movies, and no doubt a few others have been shot with them). This would change the independent film world, as the absolute minimum amount of money required to produce a feature film with decent picture quality would be reduced from a few tens of thousands of dollars to close to nothing.
Photos from the shoot.
Recently I've been using the Panasonic 24p cameras which are also amazing. They're really good on the set shooting music videos, but I have yet to test them in the field.
What this discussion doesn't tell you is how perfectly acceptable (I would say fscking GREAT) regular mini-DV is right now.
Yes, I know, lots of people want high-res, high-def, high frame rates, gorgeous colors, minimal artefacts etc. Some of those even NEED those things.
However, if you are reading this discussion and you don't have experience with what "plain, vanilla" mini-DV can do, then just don't worry about new fancy-pants cameras for now.
Instead, get a mini-DV camera and a Mac (especially) or a PC. These cameras are small. lightweight, affordable, easy to learn and quite reliable.
Then you can take 1+ hours digital footage on a $5 tape, import into your fast laptop in real time and edit it right there, in place, about as easily as fixing up your MP3 titles in your mp3 player. Then you can author a DVD, burn it and give it to friends or family, and you know what, it looks great on TV.
The biggest limitation really is the processing time when you finish the product and want to export to DVD, and more resolution would only make this worse.
So, go film a friends band, your kids jumping over the lawn sprinkler, make a roadtrip movie for your car-nut friends or whatever. In two years time it will be much clearer what the next realistic step up in resolution is, and in the meanwhile prices will keep going down.
Read the parent post. I was refuting his claim that sony's miniDV was "proprietary" which its not, that it required custom software, which it doesn't, and that it speaks to open source to which its irrelevant. I didn't say that sony is perfect and its too bad you've had bad luck with them. Actually, I had to get rid of my JVC deck because it gave me problems with tapes made in panasonc, sony, canon and even jvc cameras. Replaced it with a sony deck and suddenly all of those tapes work fine now. Seems to play well with others on my desk.
"I forgot my mantra."
I think you're watching the wrong porn ;)
Sony's MicroDV format is, indeed, proprietary (altho I believe other vendors are giving some support to this). MiniDV, however, is widely supported and I have used a variety of software (Premier, Pinnacle, etc. etc.) to upload/download off my MiniDV Sony camera.
CrazyLegs
"Pork!!" said the Fish, and we all laughed.
More anti-corporate crap. You probably buy your coffee at Starbucks and wipe your ass with Charmin.
-- No sig for you!
Forgive me for stepping on your words:
Basically, 1080i = 540 lines / refresh. 720p has 720 lines per refresh.
but it seems you are implying that 720p is a higher resolution than 1080i. You are correct that more lines are refreshed during each scanning pass in a progressive scan format. However, the refress rate is half as often.
In progressive formats, all of the screens pixels (each frame) are refreshed every ~1/30 second. In interlaced formats, each frame is made up of 2 fields and fields are refreshed alternately every ~1/60 of a second. In the end 1080i has refreshed 1080 lines of resolution in 1/30th of a second, while 720p has refreshed 720 lines of resolution in 1/30th of a second. In the case of 1080i, the gun is spraying electrons much faster than 720p.
The alternation of even and odd lines is virtually invisible to the eye when dealing with slower moving images. Our eye's persistence of vision continues to see the odd lines of the TV image while the even lines are being displayed. The reason films run at 24 fps is because that is that is the point at which the human mind percieves continuous motion from individual stills. (You may have noticed that sometimes when you see silent films that they appear to be sped up. This is because they were often filmed at 18 fps and played back at 24 fps. Film is expensive, especially back then! (Film contains silver.) Shooting a film at 30 fps, instead of 24, would add 25% more cost to film stock and processing. Why raise the budget with very little visual impact?
Also, folks often confuse the way things are acquired and the way they are distributed. Just because something is distributed in 1080i does not mean that it has to be aquired in an interlaced format. For example, the Panasonic AG-DVX100A is a prosumer 24p camera. But it uses the standard MiniDV format to record the image. The image is recorded at NTSC 29.97 interlaced. All of which is explained here by Adam Wilt. By using 3:2 pulldown (RTFA), the 24p images can be encoded and displayed on standard 29.97i NTSC equipment. The same technique is used to produce DVDs.
The difficulty of interlacing is that when motion occurs quickly, the odd and even lines don't seem to match up correctly and can create moire (that weird visual pattern you see when somebody wears a tightly striped shirt on TV) or other visual distractions. However, this effect only applies to images that are acquired interlaced. If the images are acquired progressively and displayed interlaced, you will never notice the problem. 1080i, if care is taken in the acquisition phase, should always looks better than 720p.
You said it man. Nobody f#%ks with the Jesus.
i thought there were 540p cameras already available for this market segment.
540p is higher bandwidth.
What do you guys who claim that HD porn reveals too much detail (i.e., pimples, sores, blemishes, scars, etc...) think you see when you actually have sex with a real person? You guys are making it clear that you're virgins. Well, HD porn will give you a better idea what it's like; It can be disgusting. So the argument that it won't do well is ridiculous because people go to prostitutes.
The 720 v. 1080 argument compares 720 60p v. 1080 60i. 60p is better for sports because it is progressive scan. The JVC cameras are actually 30p, and so actually have less temporal information than 60i.
These new cameras are really better in almost every way than the JVC. Presumably JVC is working on an upgrade, now that they no longer have the market to themselves.
My video compression blog
The ATSC (broadcast digital HD MPEG-2) standard in includes 1080 24p (perfect for film source) and 30p (perfect for not much) formats.
If I was the ruler of the digital video world (and I'm working on it), the HD broadcast formats would be 720 60p for stuff that's shot on 60i video today (news, reality), and 1080 24p for entertainment content (movies, dramatic series).
I really, really wish this camera supported 1080 24p - if it did it'd take over every film school in the nation in a matter of months!
My video compression blog
Yeah, best way to think of HDV is that it's the HD version of DV. It's NOT a pro broadcast format, but it is "good enough" for a wide variety of tasks, and likely will wind up going more upmarket than its creators considered.
Also, since HDV uses interframe MPEG-2, it gets a lot more bang for its bit than the other intraframe only formats get. But that makes it a pain to edit.
Beyond the broadcast/network side, Hollywood DV is mainly D5, which is the main thing I've worked with.
My video compression blog
If I might toot my own Third Law:
Democratizing media technologies raise the total number of worthwhile pieces, but reduces the percentage of worthwhile pieces.
My video compression blog
Oh, D5 definitely does 1080. Most of my HD work is with D5 24p 1920x1080.
It rocks.
If only the decks didn't cost $50,000 and up...
My video compression blog
Comparing 1080i and 720p: 1080i has 1.5x as much horizontal resolution and 1.5x as much vertical resolution, for a combined 125% higher still image total resolution. However, 1080i runs interlaced, so it only gets 30 frames per second, compared to 60 full frames at 720p. Multiplying out still image size by frames per second, we see that 1080i's bandwidth is only 12.5% higher than 720p's.
1080i @ 60Hz = 1920 x 1080 x 60 / 2 = 62,208,000 pixels/sec
720p @ 60Hz = 1280 x 720 x 60 = 55,296,000 pixels/sec
Since the eye cannot really distinguish much more than above 10,000,000 pixels/sec, this is really a moot point. They're both awesome. Yes, 720p is better for fast motion. Yes, 1080i is better for slow, beautiful scenery. And yes, 1080p will rock both of their worlds if it ever comes out.
I was under the impression that it had to do with differences in how the LP record mode is implemented between brands. I've never seen a miniDV tape recorded in SP that had compatibility problems.
Black trenchcoats with pockets large enough to carry one very high quality video camera, three extended-play tapes, and a small red penlight so you can see what you're doing in the darkened movie theater.
That and some contraband Junior Mints. You can't do illegal movie pirating without Junior Mints. Remember: If you're watching a pirated movie, chances are you've helped finance the terrorist organization that makes Junior Mints.
Be safe: Only watch movies that were pirated by people eating Goobers.
*****
Dear Mary,
I yearn for you tragically,
A.T. Tappman, Chaplain, U.S. Army.
In two years, these will be $300-500. If I start saving a dollar a day, by that time I should be able to afford the camera and some nice accessories.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
I will wait until it is under 1K and everybody offers it.
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
It's nice to see that finally someone other than JVC has jumped on the HDV bandwagon. I won't be buying any of these cameras anytime soon (I have neither the budget nor the motivation) but the sooner they come out, the sooner I'll be able to find a cheap, used unit.
;-)
I do professional documentaries with two Sony VX-2000 cameras, and occasionaly do studio shots with a very old Sony DXC-3000A connected to a DV (FireWire) converter and recorded directly to hard disk. I have also started to dabble in the area of live editing, by using analog equipment to switch/mix cameras, run effects, insert titles etc. while broadcasting over QuickTime Broadcaster and recording to miniDV simultaneously. Which brings me to the reason I won't be switching over to HDV anytime too soon.
First of all, there just isn't enough demand for HD format. Most people don't have TVs that can take it. Second of all, there's no universal format beyond miniDV tapes to distribute it on. Finally, my work is more in the actual content of the documentary than the quality of the video itself. (In short, it's not a music video or movie.)
I'm also not sure how good the new HDV camera looks. Yes, it has a much higher resolution than any non-HD camera, but resolution is only part of the story. My DXC-3000A which is a very old 3-CCD studio recording camera (not a consumer model) doesn't even come close to the resolution of my VX-2000. But it looks better. There are several reasons for this. Larger CCDs (not necessarily better resolution), higher quality lens, overall stability, and signal processing. You still can't cram that much into the size of a VX-2000. I suspect when the consumer model HDVs come out (the current ones are prosumer at best) my DXC-3000A will still beat them in general quality, even with the lower resolution format. Of course, my friend reminds me that his Bolex 16mm film camera beats ALL of my equipment anyday. Luckily, I don't have to wait a week for my film to be developed, and it doesn't cost an arm and a leg to work with.
So what it boils down to is, I can't afford it (I can afford a camera, but not 2 plus a new non-linear editing package, live video mixer and all the other bells-and-whistles associated with it) and most people won't care either. It's still the way of the future, and I'll eventually migrate, when it'll be cheap again. In the mean time, everyone else is welcome to buy one of these. (Remember, I'll be around to take it off you for $800 in 5 years.
The camcorder carries a steep price at $3,700 though.
Actually, that's pretty cheap for an HD camcorder.
In professional broadcasting, even a standard-definition camera runs US$50,000-$70,000.
World's tallest building rises in the desert