JVC or Panny / HDV or DVCpro HD?
 

Hi

I am still working out whether to buy the HD100 or wait for the new Panasonic. I am particularly doing Green screen / chroma key work. So as I understand it the Panasonic would be better due to the date rate (100mbps).But:

(1) How much difference does anyone think the Panny would make to chroma key work over the JVC? Is it marginal? Because I really like the look and feel of the JVC and would go that way if the benefit is negligible.

(2) Would my laptop that I use for the first phase of editing be up to DVCPRO HD? It's a 2.8 ghz windows based with 2gb RAM (will be soon anyway!). I can'tr afford to buy the Panny if it means upgrading my hardware to cope with it.

Thanks!

Trevor

In theory the Panasonic should have a substantial edge over the JVC when it comes to chroma key work, due to its 4:2:2 color sampling.

As far as a computer goes, DVCPRO-HD is less processor-intensive than HDV. Check with the minimum specs that are recommended by your NLE manufacturer to decide whether your current hardware would be adequate to the task.

That is it. The format is better suited for that work, but the camera-head well (only) be of comparable quality (seen the price range)

Why is DVCPRO-HD less processor-intensive than HDV? Because it is not so much compressed?

If you take in consideration only color space, the HVX200 will give you the edge. But keep in mind a camera is not only a recorder. If it's electronics and specially lens are not up to the task, you can be recording to HDCAM SR and it won't look good.
It's too early to tell how good the HVX200 will be. It's all only in the paper for now. Everybody criticized the CA on the HD100 lens. Then the Canon H1 has it too. My guess is that the HVX200 may have it too. In this price range of HD, my guess is that every camera will have their share of problems/limitations. The HD100 and H1 have CA, but you can change the lens. If the HVX200 has too, what are you going to do?
To make a long post short, I would wait and see how good the real HVX200 is. As far as we are concerned, it may even have the split screen design limitation of the JVC. We don't know how Panasonic is getting around this problem or if they are even getting around it at all, or will only use JVC's solution of a scanning the chips separately. It might be the only way for now.
So I would just wait and not go by a sheet of paper alone.

The more compressed, the harder the CPU works.
The less compressed, the less the CPU works.

On the other side of the coin.

More compressed files (HDV) require less hard drive throughput speed.
Less compressed or uncompressed files (HD-SDI) requires mucho hard drive throughput speed.

I think going and getting your hands on the camera's you're interested in and making a judgement for yourself is best.

This is why I plan on using Cineform which puts everything into 8bit 4:2:2 color space and significantly reduces cpu overhead. I hope to avoid using mpeg anything for editing. I believe they are ready for the DVHDPro files coming from the HVX200 too. Worth a download and test if you are on a PC based system. They have a version included with Sony Vegas.

To be honest, I don't know how well they do with green screen since I haven't had a need for that yet. They seem to be shaping up as a defacto standard 3rd party tool for Premier and Vegas users, at least for the short term.

Cineform works with ProHD already?

Version 2.0 seems to support the JVC completely...

Yes, however, if the camera captures/coverts in HDV, your in 4:1:1 or 4:2:0 and have already lost much of the information needed for a good key. If your going out via SDI or uncompressed where the source is 4:2:2 then it's fine. However, if the image that resolves is not sharp enough due to internals or substand quality lens, then you lose any advantage (esp with the fixed pany).
It will require a personal review of the image quality in a side-by-side.

I'd rent both and put them through their paces in your own pipeline.

HDV compresses pictures in groups of 6 or 12 or 15, depending on which flavor you're using (720p, 1080/50i, or 1080/60i). In order to get at any particular frame, the processor may have to decompress every frame leading up to it (within the group).

So, in a group of 15 frames, only the first frame can be individually uncompressed. To get at the second frame, you'd first have to decompress the first frame, and then uncompress the second frame. All frames (except the first) in the group of pictures (GOP) record only the changes between frames. So to get to frame 15 in the group, you'd have to decompress all fourteen frames that come before it.

As opposed to frame-discrete compression (like DVCPRO-HD, DV, MJPG, etc) where each and every frame can be accessed individually. If you want to get to frame 15, you just uncompress frame 15; in 1080/60i HDV you'd have to uncompress frames 1 through 14 before you could get to frame 15.

I thought that wasn't out yet.

Thanks for all your help. Another couple of considerations are whether the Panasonic has auto focus or manual only, and if it has manual only does it stop at infinity? And does it have any focus assist?

The last thing is on the much discussed direct record to thrid party disk option. As I understand it, firwire will transfer at a maximum rate of about 70mbps. If DVCPRO HD is running at 100mbps wouldn't this be a problem for live capture? I am probably showing my ignornace more than anything else, but...

Thanks

Trevor

... downloadable already it seems...

It offers both.
Yes, it has two focus assist devices. The first is peaking (aka electronic viewfinder detail, or "EVF DTL"). The other is a magnified 1:1 extraction shown as an overlay on the LCD. You can see a pixel-for-pixel representation of the center of the screen, and use that for precise focus.

There are three different speed implementations of firewire; the original was 100-megabit, the current is 400 megabit, and the latest is FW800 (which is, of course, 800 megabit). The HVX uses the 400-megabit standard, plenty fast enough. It's a proven system that's already working for live capture in Avid and Apple systems; the AJ-HD1200A deck uses firewire to transport DVCPRO-HD data to the computer.