JVC Previews NEW Pro HD Camera Specs to Select AVR Resellers

Laurence Maher · March 24th, 2005, 07:36 AM

Say guys, aren't we considering the possibility that the component out may be pre-compression? If that's the case, this camera BLOWS AWAY the sony. Someone tell me here if they know anything about that.

Steven White · March 24th, 2005, 09:16 AM

The analog outs on the FX1 and Z1U are pre-compression as well. It will be higher bitrates, true progressive scanning and lenses that make this better... but considering at "under $10k" may well be twice the price of an FX1 - it better be.

Ken Hodson · March 24th, 2005, 10:16 AM

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=41437

Dave Ferdinand · March 26th, 2005, 12:10 AM

This camera sounds amazing. It's going to cause a revolution in indy film making, and maybe broadcasting.

/ starts saving to buy one

Dylan Pank · March 26th, 2005, 05:07 AM

<<<-- Originally posted by Dave Ferdinand : This camera sounds amazing. It's going to cause a revolution in indy film making, and maybe broadcasting. -->>>

Dunno about that, but at least the next wave of Blair Witch Projects, Open waters et al have the chance to look a little better. :o)

Charles Papert · March 26th, 2005, 07:45 AM

I read these discussions of 24p vs higher frame rates with interest, as I do believe that there is a generational gap developing over those who have been conditioned since childhood to accept and prefer the look of 24 fps, and those who have been weaned on video games and consider 60 fps acceptable for storytelling (which the other crowd will likely consider a "soap opera" look)...tell me, are any of you high-frame rate fans over 35? Informal poll here!

<<<-- Originally posted by Ron Evans: well directed movies take great care to allow for the deficiencies of 24p using carefully arranged angles for moving shots to give the impression of smooth movement. Ron Evans -->>>

Ron, I could only wish that even a tiny percent of directors working the in the industry today understood the concept of strobing to that effect...as a camera operator, I've almost always had to be the one to tell THEM that I should not pan faster or slower as they requested as that would put the shot into the "dead zone"...! Honestly though, it's not that big a deal to work around the "deficiencies" of 24 fps--we spend a lot more energy dealing with other types of unwanted camera motion (bumps in the dolly track, unwanted vibration in camera mounts, that sort of thing).

I'm looking forward to checking this camera out at NAB, by the way...I'm very encouraged by the form factor; hope the images bear out.

John Jay · March 26th, 2005, 09:07 AM

Hey Charles,

I reckon Ive got 10 years on you, (dont tell my girlfriend!) and I honestly prefer a higher frame rate (progressive of course)

I have mentioned before that imho 24P is all about protecting jobs and union, to successfully pull off a 24P production you need lots of high quality gear and experienced personnel like yourself for example.

Also I dont think 24P in the small format gives you instant filmlook, otherwise the 500,000 ft of Super8 Ive telecined since 1987 would look just like the projected image?

Moreover, I also dont think Super8 looks like Academy - and not for the reason of grain or DOF but more to do with the Telephoto compression qualities over the shorter focal lengths in the small film format for the same field of view.

I would like to see even higher frame rates like 70 and greater - I want innovation not stagnation - I want to see 3D cinema like Hitch did with the Birds (see it at Universal, Florida) or Honey I Shrunk the Audience over the road at Disney

The last 'video' game I played was Zork on a DEC PDP10 in 1979, but that was text based so I guess that doesnt count :)

just my 2 zorkmids....

Charles Papert · March 26th, 2005, 11:47 AM

"you hear a songbird in the distance"...

I was playing Zork on the MIT Infranet in '79, John! My dad used to bring home a briefcase terminal (with suction cups for the telephone handset, and of course no screen, just paper roll) and my bro showed me how to hack in to the system to play Zork. Hours of fun.

(I'm 39 by the way...)

<<I have mentioned before that imho 24P is all about protecting jobs and union, to successfully pull off a 24P production you need lots of high quality gear and experienced personnel like yourself for example.>>

hmmm...I would use exactly the same lighting package and personnel regardless of base frame rate. I hadn't read your thoughts on this, could you point me to another thread where you elaborated or summarize them here?

Re: Super 8, I think it looks a lot more like film ('cause it is) than any digital format, both projected and telecined.

At our Instant Films festivals (www.instantfilms.tv), most of our participants shoot 24p (or perhaps Frame Mode on the XL1), but occasionally a film will show up at 60i. I have yet to prefer this look, in some ways being drawn OUT of the film because of the "raw" video look.

We've also had one or two that were made with Mini35's but were also unexceptionally lit or composed, and they basically look just as flat as if they had saved the time and bother. One was made at 60i with the Mini, and it looked positively weird...!

But again, I'm used to 24 fps, seen it all my life, it's what says "narrative" to me. No question that 60 fps belongs with motion simulator rides like you described, those are challenging enough on the system without adding strobing!

I love this sort of conversation/debate by the way--the psychological effects of different technical parameters. Very interesting stuff.

But then I just realize--again--that this is way off topic. Sorry folks. John, is there another thread we can pick this up in?

John Jay · March 26th, 2005, 01:12 PM

51 and counting...

Charles - open a thread and I will see you there

I too am interested the psychological qualities rather than the technical debates

Dominic Jones · March 26th, 2005, 03:56 PM

Hi there all, new here - great forum!!

"Also I dont think 24P in the small format gives you instant filmlook"

For my tuppence worth, I think something that everyone overlooks (mainly because they're not so well informed, or rather, they're informed by marketing rather than experience, imho) is the fact that getting a "film look" has very little to do with the frame-rate (this'll actually get you a filmic motion, not a filmic look) and more to do with the latitude, gamma-curve and colour rendition of the medium.

Clever post manipulation and well informed lighting are far more key factors in creating a filmic look than buying a camera that does 24p, and I for one would like to see more emphasis placed on increased exposure latitude than increased resolution (not that that's not a factor, of course).

Perhaps when the "HD-Wars" have died down this will come to the for of consumers and, therefore, companies minds. One can only hope...

I'm sure you guys (Charles and John) already know this - you seem very well informed and are obviously highly experienced - but I think it's something that few videographers/indie filmmakers seem to know, and it's all about sharing the wealth, isn't it?!...

On another complete aside, those resident in the US commonly lack another piece of useful information - we see everyone wax on about 24p, when most cameras do have a 25p mode (at least here in PAL land) that is a perfectly reasonable substitute requiring only a slight change to the audio track for 24p presentation - I can never understand why everyone gets so het-up about 24p. I suppose with lower end non-switchable (i.e. 50/60hz) cameras it's more of a challenge if you want 60i/p and 24p, but that, thankfully, seems to be becoming a thing of the past...

Pete Wilie · March 26th, 2005, 06:12 PM

The last few posts have been exactly the type of discussion I was hoping to have in the Define/Quantify Film Look thread.

Interesting point been discussed here about the relevance of 24p to obtaining the film look, especially in light of the fact that quite a few people have posted in the above thread the notion that 24p is one of the key attributes of a film look. Of course, film is 24p, but the notion of whether a motion picture would be "better" at a higher frame rate is a very interesting question.

I would like to encourage you to continue your discussion in the Define/Quantify Film Look thread.

Best Regards,
Pete

Joe Carney · March 26th, 2005, 08:54 PM

I'm very excited about this new JVC, but what I'm hearing about the new 2/3 1080p one coming out later this year for under 20k is really going to revolutionize things. Good Lord, I hope I can afford both:).

To the sound of Janis Joplin...

Oh Lord won't you buy me a new JVC, my friends all have Sonys...

Ken Hodson · March 26th, 2005, 11:30 PM

Yes 2/3" will be huge especially with the new HDV resolution. JVC does seem to be quite agressive in this new format. The ENG style cam will likely use the 50Mbps Pro version of HDV, and my guess it was delayed only because JVC realized that it couldn't quite all be crammed into 19/25 Mbps and have it replace their Pro lineup. This forthcomming cam will be the VariCam killer, as my guess is it will come in at $ 8 t to - 10 grand with ramping options up to and past $20 grand with different lens. If they go 4:2:2 in the new Pro format it will most definitely be market defining. There are a lot of years of compession agorithm tech to be exploited in those 50Mbps. Just wait and see what JVC do with 24p and 19Mbps with the new HD100 then imagine 50Mpbs with 2/3" ccd's. OUCH!
By the way I do think the 24p mode on the new HD100 will be fabulous. One has to realize that 19Mbps at 720p has a data per pixel advantage over 25Mbps at 1080i. Then you factor in 24p which saves the compession of 6 progressive frames or 12 interlaced fields per second. The data per pixel of 720p24 is far greater than Sony's 1080i data per pixel rate. And the Sony's image looks pretty darn good in moderate motion.
This is the year of HD. Production film making may never be the same.

Laurence Maher · March 28th, 2005, 11:13 PM

Steven White,

Good points about the lenses, true progressive frames, bit rates. Ya, they may say the Z-1 is uncompressed, but one of the gods of digtal cinematography Scott Billups (literally was one of the inverters of digital cinematography/ also a Dig Cin top shooter/ And a "first opinion" tech consultant for the likes of Sony/Panasonic/JVC ) told me that the signal out was not near that of professional HD, nowhere NEAR. He transcoded it with his high end AJA card and got out less than 2:1:1 color separation. Something like 1.6 : .08 : .08 actually. It's my guess that after using the 3rd party HD-SDI converter mentioned in the Video Systems article, the JVC's uncompressed out will be a much more realistic representation of "uncompressed".

Well, let's all hope anyway.

Dominic Jones · March 30th, 2005, 07:36 AM

OK, so this is not my area of expertise (don't get this with film!!), so please be patient if I've got this all wrong!

But...

My understanding of colour seperation in video is that it is a compound ratio of (number of luminance pixels) : (number of chrominance pixels on odd scan lines) : (number of chrominance pixels on even scan lines)

So 4:2:2 is to say that for every four luminance pixels there are two chrominance pixels on both the odd and even scan lines.

Now, assuming that I've got this right (which I may well not have done, so PLEASE correct me if I'm talking b*****ks here - I'd love to know more about this side of the coin), surely there is no difference between 2:1:1 (or 1.6:0.8:0.8, for that matter) and 4:2:2??

My thinking here being that if you double all the numbers (which maintains exactly the same ratio), then you end up with 4:2:2 from 2:1:1 - which makes them the same thing, no?!

March 24th, 2005, 10:16 AM	#63
Ken Hodson Trustee Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: Vancouver BC Canada Posts: 1,315	http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=41437 __________________ Damnit Jim, I'm a film maker not a sysytems tech.

March 26th, 2005, 07:45 AM	#66
Charles Papert Wrangler Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Los Angeles, CA Posts: 6,810	I read these discussions of 24p vs higher frame rates with interest, as I do believe that there is a generational gap developing over those who have been conditioned since childhood to accept and prefer the look of 24 fps, and those who have been weaned on video games and consider 60 fps acceptable for storytelling (which the other crowd will likely consider a "soap opera" look)...tell me, are any of you high-frame rate fans over 35? Informal poll here! <<<-- Originally posted by Ron Evans: well directed movies take great care to allow for the deficiencies of 24p using carefully arranged angles for moving shots to give the impression of smooth movement. Ron Evans -->>> Ron, I could only wish that even a tiny percent of directors working the in the industry today understood the concept of strobing to that effect...as a camera operator, I've almost always had to be the one to tell THEM that I should not pan faster or slower as they requested as that would put the shot into the "dead zone"...! Honestly though, it's not that big a deal to work around the "deficiencies" of 24 fps--we spend a lot more energy dealing with other types of unwanted camera motion (bumps in the dolly track, unwanted vibration in camera mounts, that sort of thing). I'm looking forward to checking this camera out at NAB, by the way...I'm very encouraged by the form factor; hope the images bear out. __________________ Charles Papert www.charlespapert.com

March 26th, 2005, 09:07 AM	#67
John Jay Major Player Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: US & THEM Posts: 827	Hey Charles, I reckon Ive got 10 years on you, (dont tell my girlfriend!) and I honestly prefer a higher frame rate (progressive of course) I have mentioned before that imho 24P is all about protecting jobs and union, to successfully pull off a 24P production you need lots of high quality gear and experienced personnel like yourself for example. Also I dont think 24P in the small format gives you instant filmlook, otherwise the 500,000 ft of Super8 Ive telecined since 1987 would look just like the projected image? Moreover, I also dont think Super8 looks like Academy - and not for the reason of grain or DOF but more to do with the Telephoto compression qualities over the shorter focal lengths in the small film format for the same field of view. I would like to see even higher frame rates like 70 and greater - I want innovation not stagnation - I want to see 3D cinema like Hitch did with the Birds (see it at Universal, Florida) or Honey I Shrunk the Audience over the road at Disney The last 'video' game I played was Zork on a DEC PDP10 in 1979, but that was text based so I guess that doesnt count :) just my 2 zorkmids.... __________________ John Jay Beware *PLUGGER-BYTES*

March 26th, 2005, 11:47 AM	#68
Charles Papert Wrangler Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Los Angeles, CA Posts: 6,810	"you hear a songbird in the distance"... I was playing Zork on the MIT Infranet in '79, John! My dad used to bring home a briefcase terminal (with suction cups for the telephone handset, and of course no screen, just paper roll) and my bro showed me how to hack in to the system to play Zork. Hours of fun. (I'm 39 by the way...) <<I have mentioned before that imho 24P is all about protecting jobs and union, to successfully pull off a 24P production you need lots of high quality gear and experienced personnel like yourself for example.>> hmmm...I would use exactly the same lighting package and personnel regardless of base frame rate. I hadn't read your thoughts on this, could you point me to another thread where you elaborated or summarize them here? Re: Super 8, I think it looks a lot more like film ('cause it is) than any digital format, both projected and telecined. At our Instant Films festivals (www.instantfilms.tv), most of our participants shoot 24p (or perhaps Frame Mode on the XL1), but occasionally a film will show up at 60i. I have yet to prefer this look, in some ways being drawn OUT of the film because of the "raw" video look. We've also had one or two that were made with Mini35's but were also unexceptionally lit or composed, and they basically look just as flat as if they had saved the time and bother. One was made at 60i with the Mini, and it looked positively weird...! But again, I'm used to 24 fps, seen it all my life, it's what says "narrative" to me. No question that 60 fps belongs with motion simulator rides like you described, those are challenging enough on the system without adding strobing! I love this sort of conversation/debate by the way--the psychological effects of different technical parameters. Very interesting stuff. But then I just realize--again--that this is way off topic. Sorry folks. John, is there another thread we can pick this up in? __________________ Charles Papert www.charlespapert.com

March 26th, 2005, 01:12 PM	#69
John Jay Major Player Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: US & THEM Posts: 827	51 and counting... Charles - open a thread and I will see you there I too am interested the psychological qualities rather than the technical debates __________________ John Jay Beware *PLUGGER-BYTES*

March 24th, 2005, 07:36 AM	#61
Laurence Maher Join Date: May 2004 Location: denton, texas, usa Posts: 416	Say guys, aren't we considering the possibility that the component out may be pre-compression? If that's the case, this camera BLOWS AWAY the sony. Someone tell me here if they know anything about that.

March 24th, 2005, 09:16 AM	#62
Steven White Major Player Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Canada Posts: 547	The analog outs on the FX1 and Z1U are pre-compression as well. It will be higher bitrates, true progressive scanning and lenses that make this better... but considering at "under $10k" may well be twice the price of an FX1 - it better be.

March 26th, 2005, 12:10 AM	#64
Dave Ferdinand Major Player Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Vancouver, BC Posts: 359	This camera sounds amazing. It's going to cause a revolution in indy film making, and maybe broadcasting. / starts saving to buy one

March 26th, 2005, 05:07 AM	#65
Dylan Pank Major Player Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Portsmouth, UK Posts: 611	<<<-- Originally posted by Dave Ferdinand : This camera sounds amazing. It's going to cause a revolution in indy film making, and maybe broadcasting. -->>> Dunno about that, but at least the next wave of Blair Witch Projects, Open waters et al have the chance to look a little better. :o)

March 26th, 2005, 03:56 PM	#70
Dominic Jones Major Player Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Brighton, England Posts: 225	Hi there all, new here - great forum!! "Also I dont think 24P in the small format gives you instant filmlook" For my tuppence worth, I think something that everyone overlooks (mainly because they're not so well informed, or rather, they're informed by marketing rather than experience, imho) is the fact that getting a "film look" has very little to do with the frame-rate (this'll actually get you a filmic motion, not a filmic look) and more to do with the latitude, gamma-curve and colour rendition of the medium. Clever post manipulation and well informed lighting are far more key factors in creating a filmic look than buying a camera that does 24p, and I for one would like to see more emphasis placed on increased exposure latitude than increased resolution (not that that's not a factor, of course). Perhaps when the "HD-Wars" have died down this will come to the for of consumers and, therefore, companies minds. One can only hope... I'm sure you guys (Charles and John) already know this - you seem very well informed and are obviously highly experienced - but I think it's something that few videographers/indie filmmakers seem to know, and it's all about sharing the wealth, isn't it?!... On another complete aside, those resident in the US commonly lack another piece of useful information - we see everyone wax on about 24p, when most cameras do have a 25p mode (at least here in PAL land) that is a perfectly reasonable substitute requiring only a slight change to the audio track for 24p presentation - I can never understand why everyone gets so het-up about 24p. I suppose with lower end non-switchable (i.e. 50/60hz) cameras it's more of a challenge if you want 60i/p and 24p, but that, thankfully, seems to be becoming a thing of the past...

March 26th, 2005, 06:12 PM	#71
Pete Wilie Major Player Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Houston, TX Posts: 331	Define Film Look The last few posts have been exactly the type of discussion I was hoping to have in the Define/Quantify Film Look thread. Interesting point been discussed here about the relevance of 24p to obtaining the film look, especially in light of the fact that quite a few people have posted in the above thread the notion that 24p is one of the key attributes of a film look. Of course, film is 24p, but the notion of whether a motion picture would be "better" at a higher frame rate is a very interesting question. I would like to encourage you to continue your discussion in the Define/Quantify Film Look thread. Best Regards, Pete

March 26th, 2005, 08:54 PM	#72
Joe Carney Inner Circle Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Centreville Va Posts: 1,828	I'm very excited about this new JVC, but what I'm hearing about the new 2/3 1080p one coming out later this year for under 20k is really going to revolutionize things. Good Lord, I hope I can afford both:). To the sound of Janis Joplin... Oh Lord won't you buy me a new JVC, my friends all have Sonys...

March 26th, 2005, 11:30 PM	#73
Ken Hodson Trustee Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: Vancouver BC Canada Posts: 1,315	Yes 2/3" will be huge especially with the new HDV resolution. JVC does seem to be quite agressive in this new format. The ENG style cam will likely use the 50Mbps Pro version of HDV, and my guess it was delayed only because JVC realized that it couldn't quite all be crammed into 19/25 Mbps and have it replace their Pro lineup. This forthcomming cam will be the VariCam killer, as my guess is it will come in at $ 8 t to - 10 grand with ramping options up to and past $20 grand with different lens. If they go 4:2:2 in the new Pro format it will most definitely be market defining. There are a lot of years of compession agorithm tech to be exploited in those 50Mbps. Just wait and see what JVC do with 24p and 19Mbps with the new HD100 then imagine 50Mpbs with 2/3" ccd's. OUCH! By the way I do think the 24p mode on the new HD100 will be fabulous. One has to realize that 19Mbps at 720p has a data per pixel advantage over 25Mbps at 1080i. Then you factor in 24p which saves the compession of 6 progressive frames or 12 interlaced fields per second. The data per pixel of 720p24 is far greater than Sony's 1080i data per pixel rate. And the Sony's image looks pretty darn good in moderate motion. This is the year of HD. Production film making may never be the same. __________________ Damnit Jim, I'm a film maker not a sysytems tech.

March 28th, 2005, 11:13 PM	#74
Laurence Maher Join Date: May 2004 Location: denton, texas, usa Posts: 416	Steven White, Good points about the lenses, true progressive frames, bit rates. Ya, they may say the Z-1 is uncompressed, but one of the gods of digtal cinematography Scott Billups (literally was one of the inverters of digital cinematography/ also a Dig Cin top shooter/ And a "first opinion" tech consultant for the likes of Sony/Panasonic/JVC ) told me that the signal out was not near that of professional HD, nowhere NEAR. He transcoded it with his high end AJA card and got out less than 2:1:1 color separation. Something like 1.6 : .08 : .08 actually. It's my guess that after using the 3rd party HD-SDI converter mentioned in the Video Systems article, the JVC's uncompressed out will be a much more realistic representation of "uncompressed". Well, let's all hope anyway.

March 30th, 2005, 07:36 AM	#75
Dominic Jones Major Player Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Brighton, England Posts: 225	OK, so this is not my area of expertise (don't get this with film!!), so please be patient if I've got this all wrong! But... My understanding of colour seperation in video is that it is a compound ratio of (number of luminance pixels) : (number of chrominance pixels on odd scan lines) : (number of chrominance pixels on even scan lines) So 4:2:2 is to say that for every four luminance pixels there are two chrominance pixels on both the odd and even scan lines. Now, assuming that I've got this right (which I may well not have done, so PLEASE correct me if I'm talking b*****ks here - I'd love to know more about this side of the coin), surely there is no difference between 2:1:1 (or 1.6:0.8:0.8, for that matter) and 4:2:2?? My thinking here being that if you double all the numbers (which maintains exactly the same ratio), then you end up with 4:2:2 from 2:1:1 - which makes them the same thing, no?!