http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/News/Press/200307/03-0704E/

Very interesting and very encouraging. Let's hope that this standardization comes to fruition.

Thanks for the heads-up, Frank!

Very interesting indeed! Hmm, the shape of things to come, perhaps? To be known as HDV, to record on standard Mini-DV cassettes as well. Japanese press release from Canon Japan:

http://web.canon.jp/pressrelease/2003/hdv.html

See also http://www.jvc-victor.co.jp/english/press/2003/hdv.html

The Canon Japan press release says basically the same thing as the Sony release. Maybe we will see an HD XL2.

I'm just wondering why Panasonic is not there. Do they bake something different or they just let their JVC division to test water first?

<<<-- Originally posted by Adrian Douglas : Maybe we will see an HD XL2. -->>>

That would be supersweet, but it might also herald an end to the XL line.

It means the end of NTSC as a production tool for those that have wanted to discard it for some time but didn't have the deep pockets to do so.. As an acquisition tool this will be amazing. The fact that canon is onboard means that they will for sure have a XL1 type camera. It's a logical progression. We will all benefit.


<<<-- Originally posted by Nigel Moore : <<<-- Originally posted by Adrian Douglas : Maybe we will see an HD XL2. -->>>

That would be supersweet, but it might also herald an end to the XL line. -->>>

We sure will Michael. I don't know if it will be the XL2, the time frame is about right, I'm sure this HDV deal has been on the board for a while which is why Canon hasn't rushed out a 24p camera to compete with the DVX. I guess we'll find out at NAB next year. A true progressive HD XL would be great as my XL1 is starting to show it's age. Desktop HD should be in full swing by then to. The next couple of years are looking pretty damn rosey.

Can anyone explain why JVC didn't just kill Betacam outright the first time around? Why do just a 1 CCD HDV cam?

What's all this talk that 3 CCD just "wasn't possible yet?"

Does this mean firewire as we know it is dead too since it will be MPEG2?

So USB 2.0?

I don't get it - yet.

Canon and Sony had better put 24P on their new cam as well!

<<<-- Originally posted by Mark Kubat :
Does this mean firewire as we know it is dead too since it will be MPEG2?

So USB 2.0?

I don't get it - yet.
-->>>

800 mbps FireWire is available now, with a third revision coming in the next few years. Given the wide spread adoption and acceptance of FireWire in the professional DV world, I don't forsee any changes here. I think (or hope!) FireWire continues as the standard digital transfer method :)

As far as i can tell, it is still a dv25 standard, hence it won't need greater bandwidth yet. dv25 is 25megabit's per a second, and these standards hover around there as well. Our current equipment, except for a couple software updates are pretty much fully capable of the new standards.

Zac

Forgive me folks but I need to ask a few questions in order to continue moving forward with equipment considerations and business projections. I realize that the answers may simply not be available yet.

"25p" Is this the 24p we have all craved ?

I need a more simple explanation as to why our current gear is said to be capable of the new standard ( I believe Zac had mentioned this) . As my luck would have it FedX delivered my new A06 pioneer DVD burner about 8 hours ago, what will be it's fate?

Has a projected price / market date even remotely be suggested?

My new computer has IEEE 1394A, I believe I read that the "A" simply represents an industry standard for cables and pinouts, Any knowledge on this?

Will the existing NLE's be able to patch and handle this new format?

Thanks for any help?

heya Don,

25p simply refers to the progressive frame rate per second of PAL standard video.

I am australian, so all our video runs at 50i (fields per a second) and some camera's like the dvx100e here can capture 25p, which is 25 full frames per a second instead of 50 split fields per a second.

When video here is shot at 50i, it is capturing 50 unique fields (imagine every second line of video, horizontal and vertical*this is very simplified*) so in fact you get a very particular motion characteristic. This is a huge contributor to the so called 'video look'. You know that ultra realistic smooth and almost imediatly home footage or I am there looking stuff.

Film being the king of a market that is fueled by economics many years ago found that the slowest frame rate they can run, hence save money using less film, is 24 frames per a second and retain a smooth movement.

That of course means it is capturing 24 FULL frames per a second, no fields no muck no fuss.

Finally now cameras here are being released such as the dvx100 that in NTSC land captures at 24p then uses some funny step downs to convert it to 60i (ntsc standard) but it is not capturing 60 unique fields per a second rather splitting up 24fps into 60 fields, so it still retains the look of 24fps, which is exactly the same way film is transfered, so if you have ever seen a dvd of a movie you like, that is what was done.

In PAL land we shoot 50i, so much easier to use a standard of 25p and just split each frame into 2 fields and it will work on standard televisions. That is really it.

Not so complicated is it :)

Zac

Can anyone explain why JVC didn't just kill Betacam outright the first time around?You mean Sony, don't you?

Thanks Zac,

I was just wondering about the 1 frame difference, I guess it really won't make a difference, (or will it)? I realize about the frame rate, to be able to shoot in 24p will allow us to shoot commercials with great looks and great effects without the oversharp image of 60i, but when the specs were said to be 25 I didn't know if the 1 frame difference mean't anything or not?

Also, what did you mean "Our current equipment, except for a couple software updates are pretty much fully capable of the new standards".

Any news on chip size and number? (just curious).

Thanks for the help

What i meant is, the HD standard they have chosen will not be any more taxing on your storage space and throughput in comparison to our current standard.

I do conceed there will be slightly more pressure on your video card and cpu to play back the higher rez produce, but in reality any decent system up today that can already handle DV very well will handle this new standard without breaking a sweat.

You see they are just stuffing a new standard into the old standards framework. Hence it is a question of software updates rather than serious hardware change.

Current firewire speeds will be fine. Current harddrive speeds will be fine. Nearly everything will treat this new standard the same as the existing DV standard.

Zac

Ps. the 1 frame difference between 24p and 25p is a non issue it is almost impossible to spot the difference. What is noticable is that 25p handles long pans far smoother, as it's pulldown rate is even 2/2 (splits it into 2 fields) where as 24p-60i plays some funny math with 2's and 3's to fit it in and tends to jitter slightly because it's pulldown is not even, this of course only really noticable during long pans.

Thanks again Zac,

Is there any guess as to Whether todays NLE programs (Vegas 4 etc.) can be patched or will HDV need a new round of editing programs to handle them?

Unfortunately I was sent this by Sonic Foundry

"Thanks for writing. You will have to capture with a different program and then do your editing in Vegas 4.0. Vegas 4.0 can only capture from firewire and firewire doesn't capture HD".

The data rate is apparently to high, I was discussing this in the Vegas section of DVinfo. I guess it will take eide, raid, or the new firewire (2 or B) to capture it but I also think it is going to be a wait and see about a lot of issues.

It's not data rate, Don... FireWire supports 400 megabits per second; HD is 100 megabits per second. Your standard current-generation FireWire could handle a couple of HD streams and still leave plenty of overhead. I believe it's more of a CODEC issue, or the lack of a standard one for HD over FireWire, perhaps.

I wish you folks could saw my skull open and dump the info in, it's the only way I am going to learn fast enough.

Chris, how does the codec effect transfer protocol, I would think that 1's and 0's are are transfered and the source and destination would be the only ones that cared about content.

Thanks for the help.

<<how does the codec effect transfer protocol, I would think that 1's and 0's are are transfered and the source and destination would be the only ones that cared about content.>>

Well, yes. The problem is that it's not quite as easy as that. I don't know exactly how DV is compressed exactly, but I've never seen DV footage that's been anything other than 720x480, which says to me that it can't be anything else and that the codec is optimized for this. HD would require a higher resolution and more compression (since it's more data in the same data size, according to previous posts).

This is fine and all, but doesn't answer your question. As for capturing data, DV on a tape is just a steam of DV data. In order for the capturing program to read it, it would need to know how to decode it to display it, and, at the *very* least, get the timecode to know where to begin and end. I mean, sure, you could theoretically dump an entire tape onto disk and then deal with it with something that could handle HD (actually, IIRC, someone made a backup solution that used DV tapes as opposed to the rather expensive regular backup tapes... so it's not impossible to deal with data that way), but when was the last time you did that? You need to see the video and hear the audio while you're capturing and get only what you want.

But all of this hasn't been written in stone yet, if firewire is fast enough, and new programs must be written to edit and burn HD, then why not write them using firewire protocol? High def camcordrs are new, The programs are just starting to trickle out. Why would a manufacturer work around one of the most user friendly, widly used transfer protocols that they are already licensed for? I guess thats where I am lost. Digital data is in binary, octal, hexidecimal, and some wierd grey codes made up in many different lengths. I guess that's my question, what does firewire care if it's carrying Hd, Sd, or pictures of hooters girls (wee hah). There are firewire hard drives, still cameras, video cameras, human interface devices, DVD burners, CD burners, all kinds of equipment that use firewire.

FireWire is just the pipe that carries the data. FireWire is not a format. As long as the data fits within FireWire specs. it can do the job.

Exactly. The only limitation Firewire would have is the speed at which it can deliver the bits. If DV is 25Mbps, then Firewire will have no problem for a long time to come since it can deliver (even in its slow form) 400Mbps.

I think you may be confused by what Sonic Foundry told you. They probably meant to say "We don't support HD over Firewire" and not that "You can't do it" since, as you said, it's just 1s and 0s - there's absolutely no reason to not be able to do it. As Jeff said, it's just a pipe. The thing is that they need to be able to understand what's coming down the pipe.

So which of the following is correct.

A. future software may in fact use firewire to transfer high definition video.

B. The format of firewire is incompatible with high definition video.


Jeff, you are the Mac man, how does the new FCP transfer HD?

sorry for the Bother folks, I am just trying to get a grasp on a few things that are important to me, I was always the kid that had to know HOW things functioned to understand it. So please forgive me for dragging this out.

Don

Don, I'd say most definitely that your option "A" is the correct one.

<<So which of the following is correct.

A. future software may in fact use firewire to transfer high definition video.

B. The format of firewire is incompatible with high definition video.>>

A is correct. B doesn't make a lot of sense since there is no real "format" to Firewire... none that would make a difference to the video, anyway.

Think of it this way: You have a cable connection from your cable company. A station can send normal TV signals over cable, and they can also send HD signal over the same cable, right? The cable isn't the problem if your TV can't display the HD signal, it's the TV's problem. It's the same thing with DV and HD over Firewire. They can both be transferred without a problem, but your NLE has to know what to do with it - it's not Firewire's fault if the NLE doesn't.

Don

forgive me for dragging this out
This message board was created for the purpose of dragging thiings out!

;-)

Jeff, you are the Mac man, how does the new FCP transfer HD?

HD can be over FireWire or some other method such as SDI (Serial Digital Interface, another pipeline like FireWire). If you were using SDI, you'd need a PCI HD capture card like Pinnacle's CineWave HD, with an SDI interface.

anyone know if panasonic is in the group,
or have another format (50 mb hd???)

ciao
Francesco

Panasonic is not in the group at this time, however, JVC is owned by Matsushita, the parent company of Panasonic. It seems like they are hedging their bets.

Hey Frank, no he meant JVC as they were the company that brought out the single chip HD camera, but I agree, kill Betacam & for you guys over in the states sakes, kill NTSC forever. We Aussies are lucky we're backwards?? we've been enjoying Pal since '66. Pete C

<<<-- Originally posted by Chris Hurd : It's not data rate, Don... FireWire supports 400 megabits per second; HD is 100 megabits per second.>>>

Panasonic's compressed HD is 100 mbps. True uncompressed
1080i and 720p HD I believe are both close to or over 1 gigabit per second.

The 100mbps Panny variety is actually compressed
at something over 6:1 and is 8 bit. Using the varicam and a panasonic
D5 ( AJ-HD3700B) VTR you can even record 10bit uncompressed.
Sony's HDCAM is also compressed at 4:1 if my memory is right.

you are right

hdv 25 Mbit 1440 1080 4.2.0
hdcam 140 Mbit 1440 1080 3.1.1
dvcpro hd 100 Mbit 1280 720 4.2.0
D5/D5 hd 270 Mbit 1920 1080 4.2.2
hdcam SR 440 Mbit 1920 1080 4.2.2
D6 1000 Mbit 1920 1080 4.2.2

if I'm right

Ciao
Francesco

According to this page and Michael Robin (guru) from broadcast engineering
the "nominal" bit rate for uncompressed 10 bit 4:2:2 HD is 1.485 Gbps.

http://2001newsarchive.broadcastengineering.com/ar/broadcasting_hdtv_data_multiplexing_4/

According to fiberoptics-info:

SMPTE 259M Level “C” NTSC (4:2:2) 4 x 3 13.5 MHz = 270 Mb/s

SMPTE 292M 16 x 9 Hi Def 74.25 MHz = 1.485 Gb/s

New data on

www.hdv-info.org

Ciao
Francesco

Thanks, Francesco -- really nice to see Canopus on that list!