Joseph George
March 8th, 2003, 01:38 PM
2003 is the year that HD will start seriously replacing SD and film. We have 3 low cost HD formats now, and a new high end HD format. The low end HD formats first: DVHS has been around for years. HD DV is being introduced with the new JVC HD camcorder, and now we have also blue laser HD DVD. The first 2 formats were developed by JVC, which is owned by Matsushita (Panasonic). Blue laser HD DVD was developed by Sony and another Japanese company, which is generally unknown to the US consumer. All three formats have transfer rate equal or higher than HDTV. Both HDTV and HD DV use MPEG2 and have the same transfer rate. 720p and 1080i look about the same when viewed. So go see HDTV program on the best HDTV set you can find and that is what this camcorder will do. It is an amazingly sharp and detailed picture. 1 CCD or 3 CCD's? It does not matter. Vacuum tube based pickup systems needed 3 sensors. The way CCD's are made, one is all you need. No still camera uses 3 CCD's. 3 CCD's give you more color control, but you can do that in post. Both JVC HD1 and HD10 camcorders have automatic and manual focus, white balance control, etc. Their viewfinder and the LCD have a poor resolution so you'll need external monitor for accurate manual focusing, accurate viewing, etc. The transfer rate is 19 Mbps. Vericam has 100 Mbps and Cine Alta 140 Mbps. But by the time it gets down to HDTV, it's MPEG2 at 19 Mbps. So you can get as sharp picture on HDTV as with the most expensive cameras. How much can you project it? Large screen theatrical digital projection is fine. 1080p that Star Wars and Spy Kids 2 were made with will project only to 50% larger (longer) size for the same visual sharpness when viewed from the same distance. Concern: The JVC is not 24p. Answer: It does not matter. The end material will be HDTV or a film festival projection -- all these festivals have 30p digital projection systems. Do you need 25p for Europe? I don't think so. Europe is behind Japan and the US in HDTV and if 25p or 50i becomes European standard, then I'm sure that we'll soon have vector interpolation software that will translate to that speed. All you need to do is recreate interim frames, changing the 30p to 60p, and that transfers to 50i, 24p and 25p nicely. The motion artifacts are a less objectionable at 30 fps than 24 fps, which is a welcome plus. They are even less at 60i, by the way. 30p gives you a better film look than 24p. 24 fps was an improvement over silent era 16 fps, but dates to 1929. Any director would choose 30 fps over 24 fps if projectors worked at that speed. What is missing to give this camera a true film look is the shallow depth of the field of a 35 mm lens. So you'll be using a lot more telephoto and will have to compose differently. The large depth of field is already a problem on Varicam and CineAlta, where the CCD is basically twice as large as on the JVC. Expect similar depth of field as on Super 8 mmm. It is something we can live with.
Sony and Panasonic came out a few months ago with PDX10 and DVX100. The PDX uses basically a native 16:9 CCD. The picture is excellent although the low light performance is not as good as on PD150 because of a smaller chip. Sony never really promoted this camera much although the 16:9 aspect ratio gives it 50% resolution advantage over PD150 - on wide aspect material. DVX does not even have 16:9 chip and was heavily promoted. It's progressive scan also gives it 50% subjective sharpness improvement over 60i. The Panasonic has larger CCD's, the Sony has a lot sharper viewfinder and LCD screen. The Panasonic does not have gain up and auto focus and in the progressive mode. The Sony has a lot more accurate sound and picture synch. Why Panasonic did not develop the camera further? Why Sony did not promote their PDX10? Why is JVC coming out with HD10 in the US this year and not the next as was originally planned? Why are they introducing HD1 2 months after introduction in Japan and not 6 months, as is their normal practice? The answer is blue laser HD DVD. Sony brought this format to the market faster than anyone expected. Sony HD DVD recorder goes on sale in Japan next month and Sony will be showing next month at NAB a blue laser based camcorder and VCRs with 50 Mbps transfer rate. HD DVD will soon replace DVHS; it is a lot more convenient, reliable, smaller, and longer lasting. Until then the HD distribution will be DVHS. Sony at the CES show basically pulled the plug on Digital 8 and introduced 3 DVD-based camcorders. Hitachi and Panasonic have DVD-based camcorders. Panasonic and Hitachi belong to the consortium that backs the new blue laser DVD format. So now all 3 companies have basic mechanisms for DVD camcorders. Sony and the company that developed HD DVD are beginning to mass-produce the blue laser mechanisms and will be supplying them to others. So I guess we'll see HD DVD camcorders soon. Until copyright protection is worked out with Hollywood we'll need to distribute on DVHS, unless you get HD DVD recorders from Japan. Sony was under pressure by Toshiba, which wanted to bring to market less sophisticated HD DVD, and wanted to do it before Sony. It was red laser based. Toshiba makes very high quality products, although it is not as known in the US. Sony beat them with their product introductions. So 2003 is the year when we'll see HD basically beginning to replace SD at the high-end consumer market and throughout the professional product market range. Digital filmmaking? The highest resolution is Thomson Viper system and CineAlta. Viper was developed by Philips Broadcast. Philips is Europe's equivalent to Sony of Japan and they sold the broadcast division to Thompson of France (owns GE and RCA brands). Thomson bought also Grass Valley so they are now one of the major players in the pro market. The viper is a camera only and outputs Gbps to hard drive arrays in its uncompressed output. You'll get the same exposure latitude as with negative film, however the product is still in its early stage and work with it is not as easy as with e.g. Cine Alta. It also has available 4:4:4 output, the same as the new CineAlta camera to be introduced at CES. Last Star Wars was made with CineAlta. The coming up will be made with the new CineAlta. The new CineAlta has a lot higher transfer ratio and a lot improved color. Although Spy Kids 2 had excellent picture, the last Star Wars did not. The CineAlta has too much color compression and when Lucas combined it with letterboxing, the picture had a lot to be desired. Rodriguez did not use letterboxing on Spy Kids 2 and the picture was excellent. The projected picture, after transfer to positive, while less sharp than film, gives subjectively higher sharpness because of lack of grain that film productions have. So the new CineAlta is good enough to replace film. Some will say that it does not have the exposure latitude of film. No problem! This is something DP's will have to work around. It is not hard. You need to know how many F-stops are your whites and blacks off the middle, that's all. It is different than on film, the whites also end suddenly, not as smoothly as with film, so highlights will have to be lit up more carefully. Good DP can take care of that. There were some talks that higher resolution would be better. Both the resolution, and the color quality are fully sufficient. Can't have slow motion? Sure you can. Rodriguez has done it by shooting at 60i; then used software to recreate frames from the fields. The vector interpolation software exists and it's a simple and fast process. So now you have it. HD in its present form is here to replace everything -- from SD to film. 2003 is the year for things to start seriously happening. This is when Japan's HDTV becomes digital and Europe finishes their HDTV network to start broadcasting in January 2004. Until then the limited HD in Europe was sent via cable and satellite. 2003 is the year when HD ready sets will be superseded by HD sets in US. 2003 is the year when a student filmmaker will be able to make, show, and distribute a better movie than some of the junk Hollywood is producing. verybestest@hotmail.com
Sony and Panasonic came out a few months ago with PDX10 and DVX100. The PDX uses basically a native 16:9 CCD. The picture is excellent although the low light performance is not as good as on PD150 because of a smaller chip. Sony never really promoted this camera much although the 16:9 aspect ratio gives it 50% resolution advantage over PD150 - on wide aspect material. DVX does not even have 16:9 chip and was heavily promoted. It's progressive scan also gives it 50% subjective sharpness improvement over 60i. The Panasonic has larger CCD's, the Sony has a lot sharper viewfinder and LCD screen. The Panasonic does not have gain up and auto focus and in the progressive mode. The Sony has a lot more accurate sound and picture synch. Why Panasonic did not develop the camera further? Why Sony did not promote their PDX10? Why is JVC coming out with HD10 in the US this year and not the next as was originally planned? Why are they introducing HD1 2 months after introduction in Japan and not 6 months, as is their normal practice? The answer is blue laser HD DVD. Sony brought this format to the market faster than anyone expected. Sony HD DVD recorder goes on sale in Japan next month and Sony will be showing next month at NAB a blue laser based camcorder and VCRs with 50 Mbps transfer rate. HD DVD will soon replace DVHS; it is a lot more convenient, reliable, smaller, and longer lasting. Until then the HD distribution will be DVHS. Sony at the CES show basically pulled the plug on Digital 8 and introduced 3 DVD-based camcorders. Hitachi and Panasonic have DVD-based camcorders. Panasonic and Hitachi belong to the consortium that backs the new blue laser DVD format. So now all 3 companies have basic mechanisms for DVD camcorders. Sony and the company that developed HD DVD are beginning to mass-produce the blue laser mechanisms and will be supplying them to others. So I guess we'll see HD DVD camcorders soon. Until copyright protection is worked out with Hollywood we'll need to distribute on DVHS, unless you get HD DVD recorders from Japan. Sony was under pressure by Toshiba, which wanted to bring to market less sophisticated HD DVD, and wanted to do it before Sony. It was red laser based. Toshiba makes very high quality products, although it is not as known in the US. Sony beat them with their product introductions. So 2003 is the year when we'll see HD basically beginning to replace SD at the high-end consumer market and throughout the professional product market range. Digital filmmaking? The highest resolution is Thomson Viper system and CineAlta. Viper was developed by Philips Broadcast. Philips is Europe's equivalent to Sony of Japan and they sold the broadcast division to Thompson of France (owns GE and RCA brands). Thomson bought also Grass Valley so they are now one of the major players in the pro market. The viper is a camera only and outputs Gbps to hard drive arrays in its uncompressed output. You'll get the same exposure latitude as with negative film, however the product is still in its early stage and work with it is not as easy as with e.g. Cine Alta. It also has available 4:4:4 output, the same as the new CineAlta camera to be introduced at CES. Last Star Wars was made with CineAlta. The coming up will be made with the new CineAlta. The new CineAlta has a lot higher transfer ratio and a lot improved color. Although Spy Kids 2 had excellent picture, the last Star Wars did not. The CineAlta has too much color compression and when Lucas combined it with letterboxing, the picture had a lot to be desired. Rodriguez did not use letterboxing on Spy Kids 2 and the picture was excellent. The projected picture, after transfer to positive, while less sharp than film, gives subjectively higher sharpness because of lack of grain that film productions have. So the new CineAlta is good enough to replace film. Some will say that it does not have the exposure latitude of film. No problem! This is something DP's will have to work around. It is not hard. You need to know how many F-stops are your whites and blacks off the middle, that's all. It is different than on film, the whites also end suddenly, not as smoothly as with film, so highlights will have to be lit up more carefully. Good DP can take care of that. There were some talks that higher resolution would be better. Both the resolution, and the color quality are fully sufficient. Can't have slow motion? Sure you can. Rodriguez has done it by shooting at 60i; then used software to recreate frames from the fields. The vector interpolation software exists and it's a simple and fast process. So now you have it. HD in its present form is here to replace everything -- from SD to film. 2003 is the year for things to start seriously happening. This is when Japan's HDTV becomes digital and Europe finishes their HDTV network to start broadcasting in January 2004. Until then the limited HD in Europe was sent via cable and satellite. 2003 is the year when HD ready sets will be superseded by HD sets in US. 2003 is the year when a student filmmaker will be able to make, show, and distribute a better movie than some of the junk Hollywood is producing. verybestest@hotmail.com