The new line of HDV cams from Sony, using CF card to record the same codec may , in fact, transform the market more than we may expect.
The HDV codec, despite the dirt campaign against it as proven reliable and a serious alternative in the market.
The codec is mature, well accepted and fastly growing in professionnal use.
The workflows are well tested with the many NLE that support it.
Canon and Sony product strategy send the message that HDV is a serious product, and that are totally comitted to it.
Once the CF issues are resolved we may very well see Sony or Canon (probably both ) hitting the market with an affordable camera recording only on cards and using the codec, a direct opponent to AVCHD for professionnals.
In fact the Sony EX is bringing more credibility to the codec, since it can record (beautifully) at 25mbps.
Panasonic may have a long way to go to establish the product even if they start with a pool of fideles supporters.

AVCHD is still maturing as far as editing, but as far as image quality, it's pretty much right there with HDV. HDV was a bear to deal with early on, and AVCHD is about at the same point in the curve where it's still being ironed out.

The difference is that AVCHD is really being pushed in the consumer end, so hopefully advances will come faster than when the "only" HDV cam that was affordable was the old HC1... "Consumer" AVCHD is on it's 3rd generation with lots of cameras from different manufacturers available.

The Sony SR11/12 is putting out some pretty impressive video at a reasonable price point - very clean camera but limited controls, highly automated with "smart" features... I'd love some manual controls, but I'll just be happy with great footage...

The HMC150 looks promising, and I'd expect Sony to "reply" as well - there's a huge gap in the product lines between "consumer" AVCHD at around the $1K price point and "pro" cameras in the $5K+ - range... it's like the whole "prosumer" market is empty of "new" competitors - that shouldn't last too long!

The HMC150 looks like a great camera on paper, could be a sign of things to come! While I lean towards Sony, I've had a couple Panasonics I really liked along the way too - competition is GOOD!

I'm perfectly ok with an all HD camera, even if Apple can't seem to ever bring a bluray burner and updated DVDSP to market.

You can always throw a BD burner into an external box and run through USB.

The new line of HDV cams from Sony, using CF card to record the same codec may , in fact, transform the market more than we may expect.
The HDV codec, despite the dirt campaign against it as proven reliable and a serious alternative in the market.
The codec is mature, well accepted and fastly growing in professionnal use.
The workflows are well tested with the many NLE that support it.
Canon and Sony product strategy send the message that HDV is a serious product, and that are totally comitted to it.
Once the CF issues are resolved we may very well see Sony or Canon (probably both ) hitting the market with an affordable camera recording only on cards and using the codec, a direct opponent to AVCHD for professionnals.
In fact the Sony EX is bringing more credibility to the codec, since it can record (beautifully) at 25mbps.
Panasonic may have a long way to go to establish the product even if they start with a pool of fideles supporters.


There is some safety in using "older technology" it's a known product and the work flow issues are resolved. However, MPEG-2 as good as it has gotten, is about at the limit. Some minor improvements may be possible, but it's only more of a small increment improvement that's possible.

As far as MPEG-4, the potential for more improvements is still out there. As processing power increases, the ability to improve also increases. (In the context of this message, I'm looking beyond the HMC-150 to the future.)

With 25 Mbps HDV, you are limited to sub-sample the horizontal to 75% of the resolution and color. Thus, 1920 --> 1440 "Y" and color becomes 960 --> 720 horizontal. Yet, with AVCHD at 24Mbps maximum / 21 Mbps average, there is no sub-sampling. I'm aware that the HMC-150 will not have as sharp an image as a full resolution image sensor, but my point is not the camera, but what the CODEC can do. (After all, the HMC-150 will not be the last AVCHD model Panasonic will introduce.)

Without any camera to test, we can't say for sure, but AVCHD's CODEC should hold up to stressful images, with lots of movement, better than MPEG-2 can. In 6 months, we can run tests, but everything I know about compression says that MPEG-4 has the upper hand here.


Now, before we enter into a format war, let me step back and say a few things that will help. There is not a single camera that is ideal for everyone. Nor is there one "killer camera" that blows everyone else away. In selecting a camera, it's a lot of give and take. One must give up some things to take advantage of others.


The Sony EX-1 is an excellent camera, if I had one, I wouldn't bother with 25 Mbps and record at 35 Mbps, to avoid sub-sampling. The sharpness, features, and low light performance are outstanding.

The other side of the coin is that it costs a lot more than the HMC-150 and the EX-1 has a rolling shutter. Depending on who you talk to, the rolling shutter either is or is not a major issue. Now we are into the area of personal preference and different needs.


The HVX-200 uses a 960h x 540v pixel offset CCDs and will never produce an image as sharp as the EX-1. However, for many, sharpness isn't the only issue and there are a lot of HVX-200s out there. In fact, it's hard to find any month were several of my video magazines don't talk about the HVX-200.

The new Panasonic 200a, 170, and 150 all use the improved CCDs with less noise and better low light performance. On one hand we give up the sharpness with pixel offset CCDs, but on the other hand, many like the color, dynamic range, and over all look of the image. (Back to give and take...)

It should be interesting to put the HMC-150 (and 170) against the other cameras. At NAB, I was impressed to see how well the Sony Z7u did in poor lighting. CMOS imagers have come a long way!!! So, who does better in low light, the Panasonic 150/170 or the Sony Z7u? I don't know, but it will make for an interesting test.


There are a lot of issues here about which company has the correct direction for success here. Panasonic pushing improved technology or Sony/Canon, with "Older", but proven technology. Time will tell us who was right...


Panasonic may have a long way to go to establish the product even if they start with a pool of fideles supporters.

I'm at a bit of a loss to understand the term, "fideles".

Explain this please, thanks.



Best wishes,

Bob Diaz

You can always throw a BD burner into an external box and run through USB.

Yes, but how would you author your disc?

Bob Diaz:
"I'm at a bit of a loss to understand the term, "fideles".

Explain this please, thanks."

Sorry Bob and excuse my french. "fideles" closest translation would be "loyal" or "faithful".

Back to your interesting post, I don't doubt the future potantial of the codec (you are far more knowledgeable than I on the subject). My point was that HDV has still lots of life in it. And that it seems to be more and more accepted as a professionnal codec. This kind of credibility is not only about codec and camera but the whole workflow and the ability to convince shooters and buyers that they have a trustable tool to do the work.
In that sense Canon and Sony commitment to HDV is very important.


Best wishes

I'm getting impatient to see some footage from this camera and read some reviews. September can't come soon enough.

As I recall from NAB, the September date was for the 170, not the 150.

However, I've heard everything from September --> November 2008 for the date range. I replayed the interview I had with Jan and as I remembered, "The 150 will be out in October and the 170 will be out in September." Here's the link with the interview:

http://web.mac.com/bobdiaz/Site/Podcast/Entries/2008/4/18_NAB-Jan_from_Panasonic.html


So, it will be one more month longer you have to wait, sorry about that...


To Robert Morane,

No question that HDV still has a lot of life in it. Canon said they will still be supporting HDV for about 3 more years. I assume that by then, AVCHD will be well developed and it will be easy for them to step into the AVCHD market. (Being first means that you get to deal with all the driver support issues. Not impossible, but it does require more work.)

It should be interesting when the HMC-150 comes out, because someone is going to record different things side by side (HDV vs. AVCHD) to see how well each CODEC will stand up.


Best Wishes,

Bob Diaz

See a review of the HMC-150 LIVE:

Videomaker to review Panasonic HMC-150 Live on 8/19/08

August 11th, 2008 by jburkhart
Panasonic has given Videomaker the scoop on the HMC-150, and we thought it would be selfish to keep it to ourselves. So we’re going to be doing a live review of the first HMC-150 in the USA on Tuesday August 19th, at 11am pacific / 2pm eastern.

We’re taking it out for a test drive this week, and will report our impressions live at http://www.videomaker.com/live.

There will be footage from the HMC-150 to download, and the chat room will be active, so if you have a question about the HMC-150’s functions or features, join the live show and we’ll try to answer it for you right there.

P.S. If you can’t make the live show, the review will be looping on our channel afterwords at: videomaker.com/live

WOW, I can't wait for that....

Bob Diaz

See a review of the HMC-150 LIVE:

WOW, I can't wait for that....

Bob Diaz

Bob:

I would love to hear your followup comments and review of the HMC150 now that it's released. Your knowledge of the camera back in March was dead on.

Jeff

Bob:

I would love to hear your followup comments and review of the HMC150 now that it's released. Your knowledge of the camera back in March was dead on.

Jeff

VideoMaker gave a good basic introduction to the camera. I'm not sure why the files they posted weren't very good, but I've now seen several different files from users who now have the camera. The files posted by the users look great. Maybe the prototype used by VideoMaker had a problem or they set it wrong.

As for image quality, the 720p modes are the sweet point for the camera. The images are sharp, the colors look good, and the dynamic range is what I expect from this camera. As for compression noise in 720/30p and 720/24p, I have to look really hard to see it. In this case, I have to pause the video and look very close to catch it.

The highest data rate is the same for all the modes, so 720/24p has the lowest compression ratio, followed by 720/30p. No surprise that the image is so clean looking.

Even at 720/60p, the image remains clean. There's always going to be some compression artifacts with any lossy compression system, but for normal viewing you are not going to catch it.

Moving up to the 1080 modes: If we look at 1080/24p or 1080/30p with no comparison, the image looks very good. The colors are very good, the dynamic range is good, and at first glance, it looks sharp.

However, if we compare the image at 1080 on the HMC-150 to the Sony EX-1 the HMC-150 has the pixels, but not as much fine detail as the EX-1. I'm sure that this would hold true for the HMC-150 vs the Canon A1. With the HMC-150 vs the EX-1 the trade of is cost. With the HMC-150 vs the A1, the trade off is low light sensitivity. So, there's going to be some trade-offs between each camera.

The HMC-150's strong point is good low light with minimum image noise, even at +6dB and some have said +12dB.

The HMC-150's weak point is going to be slightly less sharper than the other cameras in the same price range.


As for the issue of work flow:

For editing native, a Quad Core or higher is required. Based on Moore's Law, this should be a non-issue in about 3 years, but for now, purchasing a faster speed computer does eat into the cost savings for the camera compared to getting a higher model, like the HPX-170.

Transcoding does solve the processing power issue. I don't have any issue with that, but some may feel otherwise. On the MAC side, VoltaicHD does work, but is VERY SLOW!!! Right now, Toast 9 seems to be the software of choice for transcoding on a MAC.

I'm using a MAC and converted from PC to MAC about 1 year ago, so the PC side of the software, I'm not the best source.

It's starting to get to the point of information overload as more and more users get the camera. I try to read most of the messages, but there are so many, that I just don't have enough time to check out the many different messages and files people have posted.


I can safely say that there are messages for users, who just got the camera, who are very happy with it. So far, I have yet to see anyone who's sorry they got the camera. So it is a good camera.

Just remember that feelings about the different cameras are subjective. So, I can safely say it's a good camera, BUT it is wrong to say that this camera or any other camera is the "best camera". Every camera has its strong and weak points, so different people have different views on "the best camera".


This weekend I was going to talk about resolution issues on my Podcast, but now I'll change that to a summery of what I've seen, now that the HMC-150 is shipping. I'll post this the new Podcast on or before Sunday night.

Bob?s Technical Comments (http://web.mac.com/bobdiaz/Site/Podcast/Podcast.html)


Bob Diaz