David Heath |
November 27th, 2008 02:39 AM |
Quote:
Originally Posted by Greg Harris
(Post 968343)
Is this true, if so do the newer Panasonic cameras such as the 170 shoot true 1080?
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Simple anwer is "no", but it begs the question of what "true 1080" actually means.
If 1920x1080 resolution is the answer, then "no", in the sub-$10,000 market, the EX cameras are the only ones that can truly claim to do that.
The 200/170 sensors are 960x540, but pixel shifting increases the luminance resolution by 1.5x overall (1.2x in each axis), so actual resolution equates to about 1200x650,obviously pretty close to 1280x720. They will produce 1080 system recordings, but the resolution obviously can't be any better than the system produces.
One interesting point is the difference between the 170 and Panasonics 151 (same chip, but uses AVCHD compression and on to SDHC memory. In 720 mode, the 171 uses DVCProHD, which subsamples horizontally from 1280 to 960. Hence users see an improvement by recording in 1080 - nothing to do with the vertical structure, but just to get 1280 horizontally.
With the 151 and AVCHD, 720 recordings are full raster 1280x720, so there is much less point to go to 1080 - the codec captures all the front end is capable of in 720 mode.
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