Cineform support of HVX200 and P2 workflow

[Josef Crow]

David

wonder how Aspect would handle the speculative new 24p Panasonic HDX-100 camcorder and its DVCPRO-HD footage.

Is there an advantage in editing with Aspect over FCP?

Is it possible/easy to convert from DVCPRO-HD to Cineform codec?

Could you tell me how much hard drive space an hour of 720p/24p footage would require in Cineform codec?

What are your general thoughts on DVCPRO-HD verus HDV as an acquisition format?

thanks.

[David Newman]

Aspect HD can be adapted to support any media types. It is still unclear what Panasonic is doing.

Aspect HD will out-perform FCP (in quality and speed), as CFHD is designed for editing whereas formats like MPEG2 and DVCPRO-HD are not.

720p24 in CFHD will be quite efficient, high quality between 7-9MBytes/s.

"What are your general thoughts on DVCPRO-HD verus HDV as an acquisition format?"

DVCPRO-HD may seem less compression (it is not) but it is also lower resolution, so I wouldn't say it is better than HDV is any technical meassure (although clearly 24p is a big plus.) DVCPRO-HD compression for 24p is only 40Mbits/s (i.e. 24 out of 60 from 100Mbs), for an I-frame DCT format that is not good.

DVCPRO-HD 960x720 24p = 40Mb/s
HDV HD1 spec 1280x720 24p (theoretical) = 19Mb/s

Assuming we see real a 24p HDV camera at some point - I believe the motion compression of HDV will make it the higher quality of the two formats -- plus HDV will have to resolution edge.

CineForm has posted quality analyses of both HDV and DVCPRO-HD vs our solution. http://www.cineform.com/technology/quality.htm

[Kevin Shaw]

David: by all accounts it appears that Panasonic will announce a reasonably priced DVCProHD camcorder at NAB in April. Can you tell us whether Cineform has any current plans to write drivers for capturing footage into Aspect HD from such a camera, or at least would consider doing so?

[David Newman]

We will certainly consider doing it. Panasonic hasn't approached us yet, so I know no more than you about this camera. As for conversion DVCPro-HD to CFHD that should be easier than dealing with M2T data. So in the end the CineForm acceration would the same.

[Uri Blumenthal]

David, slightly off-topic. About Panasonic HVX200 P2 DVCPro HD P2 camera, and Adobe Premiere Pro on PC.

It appears that it's capable of DVCPro HD 1280x720p and 1920x1080{p24, i60}.

Some questions for you:

1. Which of your products is likely to handle this DVCPro HD?
2. Will that product interoperate with Adobe Premiere Pro?
3. Since it stores recorded video on P2 card, will extra hardware be necessary (as no capture is needed, just copy the files or plug the P2 in as disk), and does CineForm offer it?
4. Why are you saying that DVCPro HD is lower resolution than HDV? Panasonic says:
The AG-HVX200 records on a P2 card in 1080 in 60i, 30p and 24p;
in720 in 60p, 30p and 24p;
in 480 in 60i, 30p, and 24p either in DVCPRO50 and DVCPRO.
How is this lower than HDV spec?

Thank you, and apologies for catching you where I found you, rather than in the HVX200 forum. Chris, please feel free to move this posting, if that's the policy.

[David Newman]

1. None directly as we consider DVCPRO-HD to be an inferior format so we will convert it to CFHD.

2. Currently PPro has no DVCPRO-HD support.

3. This will be an interesting problem to solve.

4. Notice how you have listed only the vertical resolutions for DVCPRO-HD, it is the horizontal resolutions that are lower than HDV.

HDV vs DVCPRO-HD
1440x1080 vs 1280x1080
1280x720 vs 960x720

[Aaron Koolen]

<<<-- Originally posted by David Newman : 1. None directly as we consider DVCPRO-HD to be an inferior format so we will convert it to CFHD.
-->>>

David, but if the image is stored as DCVProHD in the HVX200, what benefit would be got from using CineForm's codecs? The superiority of the CFHD codec would seem redundant no? Excuse me if the question seems silly, I know very lilttle about the CineForm stuff and DVCProHD

Aaron

[Uri Blumenthal]

David, thank you for the answers - though I admit they aren't what I hoped to hear. :-)

However I'm still confused.

a. According to Adam Wilt <http://www.adamwilt.com/DV-FAQ-tech.html#DV50formats>:

1080/60i DVCPro-HD samples luma at 1280 - which is still higher than the actual 960 sampling of HDV. At the same time, they're providing 640 Cr and Cb, vs. 480 of HDV (better chroma)

1080/50i is rumored to sample 1440x1080, still 4:2:2 (Adam couldn't confirm it). Again, seems clearly better than HDV.

720p DVCPro-HD records 1280 horizontal, but samples 960 Y (though I don't understand why would Panasonic sample 960 if they already have the "proven" capability to do at least 1280). Note that Sony HDV samples 960 Y.

I want to make sure we're comparing apples to apples (resolution on paper vs. resolution recorded vs. resolution sampled).

b. Also, HDV suffers heavily from compression artifacts during image acquisition, so it's hardly usable for "crowded" scnenes with a lot of dynamics. DVCPro-HD doesn't seem to have this problem. This alone would make HDV inferior in my view.

c. Regardless of the opinion which format is superior - DVCPro format is there, it seems popular, there's hardware that produces it. Wouldn't it be nice to support that format also ?

d. What's the problem in uptaking files that are already on the disk vs. capturing through specialized hardware? It seems a major simplification - just transcode them into whatever intermediate format you need and don't bother with camera control and data rate (the only thing left - CPU and disk drives should handle the speed, but it's there for the capture as well if not worse).

Thanks!

[David Newman]

Uri,

a. Don't confuse CCD resolution with format resolution. The format of the HD2 is 1440x1080 with 4:2:0 sampling, DVCPRO-HD is 1280x1080 with 4:2:2. This means HDV has better luma resolution and inferior vertical chroma resolution (with superior horizontal chroma res.) The Sony Fx1/Z1 uses three offset 960 CCDs to achieve the 1440 res (all digital still cameras use a similar technique.)

b. I totally agree, I was saying HDV has higher resolution but as it has a lower bit-rate it potentially has more artifacts. However bit-rate alone is not a good indicator of quality. In general noisy/busy scenes will favor DVCPRO-HD, clean simple scenes will favor HDV, there is no clearly superior format between HDV and DVCPRO-HD.

c. Yes, but you ask CineForm, a company that produces a competing format. On our website we rip into DVCPRO-HD (and HDV MPGE2-TS for that matter) to show how it is poorly suited for post-production (see www.cineform.com and click on quality.) DVCPRO-HD is a fine acquistion format but a terrible choice for post-production. By converting into CineForm Intermediate you get much better multi-generation characteristics and higher editing performance.

d. Certainly many will take this approach, but the use of acquisting format for post-production has it consequences.

[Uri Blumenthal]

I understand, thank you. But regarding competing formats, I thought CineForm is producing an INTERMEDIATE EDITING format, neither acquisition nor delivery. So I don't see how you compete with either one - you complement both.

[David Newman]

Yes, exactly that was what I was trying to say. Whether you shoot HDV, DVCPRO-HD or even using Film there are benefits to editing using CineForm Intermediate.

P.S. Any here seen Dust 2 Glory yet (opened in LA/NY last week, and tomorrow anywhere else.)

[Uri Blumenthal]

Excellent! So we can expect CineForm supporing DVCPro HD at some later time (probably closer to when the Panasonic HVX200 is released)?

P.S. Dust 2 Glory - not yet... After returning from the trip, hopefully.

[Marcus van Bavel]

DVFilm Maker 2.21 will feature support for the
Panasonic HVX200. The camera will shoot
1920 x 1080, 24P and record to an .mxf file
on a P2 card, with a 2:3:3:2 pulldown, in
1080i format. The image quality is expected
to be much better than an HDV camera.

Maker will remove the pulldown without
recompression and convert the clip into
a Cineform AVI suitable for editing on
almost any Windows-based editing system.
like Premiere or Vegas.

There is more information here
http://dvfilm.com/hvx200

[David Newman]

That is very cool. I look forward to trying it out.

Note: on your website you refer to "the HD frame size is automatically shrunk to 1440 x 1080 with a 1.33 pixel aspect ratio." Whereas I believe the 30i (2:3:3:2 pulldown for 24p) mode on DVCPRO-HD only encodes the image at 1280x1080. So the image will be upres'd to 1440x1080, then it will work great in tools like Aspect HD.

[Marcus van Bavel]

Thanks for pointing that out. "shrunk" was a bad choice of words, I've changed it.