1440 x 1080 v 1920 x 1080
 

Some advice please. I notice that the Canon's have a pixel count of 1440 x 1080. All the HD televisions are 1920 x 1080. The Sony cams are 1920 x 1080. Is there an explanation as why there are differences and what is the best or true specs.
Thanks in advance

Hi Grant,

The explanantion is in the non-square aspect ratio of the pixels in HDV as an acquiring format. Sony is the same as Canon in this regard, since both use HDV. When the video is displayed as square pixels, it fills the 1920x1080.

There's another thread discussing this, take a look:
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=86473

Thanks, but it doesnt explain the two different formats. So the Sony pixels are square and the Canons are rectangle. Is that correct? If it is, which one is correct. Now before you tell me they are both correct, which is best? Best picture quality, best for use in FCP, best for display on a 1920 x 1040 HD screen?

Thanks

Umm, that part is actually incorrect. The Sony HDV cameras and Canon HDV cameras record in the same format (though they each have their own flavor). The native files produced by HDV in both Sony and Canon are 1440x1080.

In FCP (and others) the software "knows" to display the video properly. In the past, DV posed the same problem because it's pixel aspect ratios were not square. So if you looked at the native DV files they looked squished either horizontally or vertically, depending on whether you were shooting in NTSC or PAL. Now with HDV, we are only dealing with the one pixel aspect ratio of 1.33 wide x tall.

So, the HDV Sonys and Canons record the same size native image. Which looks best displayed? Who knows, but at this moment I'm liking what I see from Canon.

Ultimately, to get a true 1920x1080 image, you have to move away from HDV to another HD format. What Sony camera were you thinking of that produces a native 1920x1080 image?

The entire Sony HDV range are 1920 x 1080. Here is a sample
http://www.sony.com.au/production/ca...tegoryId=23796
Im confused as it clearly states that all Sony cams are true HD at 1920 x 1080 and the Canon also advertises true HD at 1440 x 1080. Some one is telling fibs?

HDV does not support 1920*1080.

The HVRA1P you linked to records in HDV (1440*1080).

The 1440*1080 images needs to be stretched out across 1920*1080 pixels to show you the correct undistorted image.

Marketing, what can I say? On the site they just avoid talking about how they get to the 1920x1080 image.

In the HDV format, both Sony and Canon "display" a 1920x1080 image, but both record that image within the particular parameters of HDV.

Using the FX1 as an example, this is from elsewhere:
"The widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio is the norm for the new Sony HDR-FX1! Not only is HDV's 1080i format 16:9, the new CCD on this camcorder is laid out with a wide pixel shape. The output will be 1440x1080 using 60 interlaced fields per second. The CCDs itself each are 960x1080 (there are three CCDs for good color representation)."


Also, have a look at the general explantion of HDV aspect ratios over at wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDV#Res...d_aspect_ratio

One more thing: the Canon claim to using 1440x1080 that you mentioned is probably in reference to the actual CCD sizes, as opposed to Sony's 960x1080.

The size of the CCDs in these cameras is, of course, an entirely different conversation from one about the resolution of a HDV native file.

All Canon and Sony HDV camcorders record 1440 x 1080 to tape using rectangular pixels.

Upon playback the image is properly scaled to 1920 x 1080 using square pixels.

There is no difference between Canon and Sony in this regard. Case closed.