[QUOTE=Shannon Rawls]So there we have it...

Sony's F750, F900 & F950 CineAlta cameras = fake HD
George Lucas, you idiot!


This is simply incorrect Shannon. As I stated above, E3 was shot on
a 950 that features duel link HD-SDI output.
950 output(s) can be UNCOMPRESSED 10bit w/ 4:4:4 color sampling.
The internal HDCAM recorder was NOT used.
Lucas is a genius and his decision was to record TRUE HD.
If he decided to use HDV he would be an idiot.

I also stick to my statement that HDCAM is not a GOP codec. Radek
has provided NO PROOF and will not be able to IMO. I could be wrong,
and if I am, it should be easy to slap me down. I am wrong all the time
and am happy to learn the truth if I am incorrect about HDCAM using GOP.

I will also say that many HDV camcorder *owners* are out there claiming
and promoting to clients that HDV is real HD. It is not and only someone
who has no expience would say that.

Other statements in this thread such as,
"a loss of resolution while panning is good" is a absurd. If I want to lose
resolution I'll blur the image in post. Pixel count is deceptive. If an image
is made up of huge macroblocks who cares what the pixel count is?
Try counting the macroblocks and that is the pixel count.

Sorry for being harsh, but I am trying to "keep it real."

Jacques, you are correct. I think shannon was joking. Sarcasm isn't as easy to pick up on the web...

The 950 does spit dual link HDSDI out so there was one channel of 4:2:2 and one channel of 0:2:2 (note these are not the exact numbers 4 is actually somewhere near the equivalent of 19 but for all intents and purposes 4:4:4 is just simpler to remember.) You will never see anything recorded from the 950's in camera VTR because um, well, because there is none.

Also can someone please point out a link to an F750? I was under the impresssion that SONY's F designated 24p playback and record and as far as I know the 900 and the 950 are the only HDCAM's capable of that. The 750 is a 59.94/60i alternate frame rate and I thought that was all...

and what is GOP?

And anyone with actual experience, or that knows, when recording from a 900 the image is in fact 1080x1920, then is "compressed" to 1440x1080 to fit on tape, does the 950 use this same compression? When we tested the 950 out the SW-1 deck used standard load tapes (40/52 min) but just recorded twice as fast (20/26) so I'm thinking that maybe the compression is still there on the 950 just not in the color portions. Can anyone provide insight?

950 uses separate deck. Records 1920x1080, MPEG4. Yes, it has GOP (group of pictures). There is no new Sony format that would use not MPEG2/4/GOP, for couple years now.

900 can output 4:2:2 1920x1080 over HDSDI, on tape records 1440x1080 3:1:1, same on Episode 2.

750, European version has 25p mode.

Radek

Page 9 of this document details the HDCAM-SR compression scheme:

http://www.panavision.co.nz/main/kba...onysrw5000.pdf

"Yet another industry first from Sony is an integrated video encoding/decoding chipset that conforms to the MPEG-4 SP (Studio Profile: ISO/IEC 14496-2:2001-1)... It is free from GOP (Group Of Pictures) structures, and is scalable in its pixel count (SDTV, HDTV, Film-resolution data), bit depth (10- or 12-bit), and color resolution (component or RGB). In order to achieve maximum compression efficiency, the HDCAM-SR format resorts to intra-frame compression for progressive images. Intra-field compression is used for interlaced images."

So yes to MPEG-4 - no to GOP for HDCAM-SR.

Hope that clears it up.

-Steve

Ah HA! I am NOT wrong. Go to that PFD and read page 9. It says
under the "Creating Virtually Lossless Images" paragraph that:
It (Sony's HDCAM SR MPEG4 SP studio profile codec) is FREE from GOP structures . . ."

I am right after all! (well, maybe 'vanilla' HDCAM does use GOP?)

But, this raises another question, why didn't 'they' use MPEG4 for HDV
instead of MPEG2? I have seen wonderful HD images on a plasma
screen at only 8mbps. MPEG2 is well over 10 years old and MPEG4 is
something like 4 years old?

I've heard rumors that MPEG4 as an acquisition format is in the works
and due to appear sometime in the near future on inexpensive cameras.

I am sure HD will look great using mpeg4 @ 100mbps. Maybe worth waiting
for.

I already said that "no to GOP". No GOP. HDCAM SR DOES NOT USE GOP!

(Everyone got that?)

Implementing MPEG-4 on a chip is more demanding than implementing MPEG-2. It requires significantly more computation, and as a result, will also require significantly more power (from a chip made with the same size transistors). Clearly, MPEG-2 is one of those engineering compromises.

Considering it hasn't been announced, I wouldn't get my hopes up. It seems far more likely that they'll develop an "HD-DVD" or "Blu-Ray" camcorder, which records MPEG-4 variants to disk at low bit-rates. (like less than 10 Mbps), to occupy the same part of the market as DVD camcorders currently hold.

Personally, I'm hoping the holographic versatile disks (HVDs) really take off. If they can truly read/write at the 1 Gbps number I've seen thrown around, and if they can hold TB.... we may have 440/880 Mbps 4:4:4 future in a reasonably short time.

-Steve

Getting back to the original topic... Canon will most likely follow JVC's path, it's natural to assume an XL3 with interchangeable lens, and a good quality one for starters. Still, we'll yearn for larger CCDs with higher quality glass. However, Canon may surprise us. They will wait, watch, and see. Then produce something that the competition couldn't quite fulfill. I am hopeful.

Yes it will be interesting. Cause JVC have what used to be their defining sales pitch (Interchangeable lenses) and of course it's HDV blah blah.


Aaron

A couple of interesting things to note.
About two years ago Canon made an announcement that
they were building a new plant in which they would start to
manufacture their own CMOS chips. It is possible that
some very cool things could come from there, but a great
CMOS chip alone is not enough for this old road dog to
get excite or very hopeful about.

I (and others) are and have become a bit disappointed with
Canon, because they are invariably 'followers' and (so far)
never leaders.

They do like to sit back, take their time and deliver products,
which are good, but are certainly not in the 'break through'
category. Canon doesn't like to make waves, and because
they have a profitable line of "pro HD" lens, no one I
know expects them to deliver a camcorder with HD-SDI out.

Without that, another 'plain yogurt' HDV camcorder won't
blow my dress up ;)

Unfortunately, Canon has been putting all its CMOS chip-making energy towards dSLRs. It's been amazingly successful, too. The chip in the Digital Rebel XT is not only huge (APS-C sized, nearly six times the surface area of a 2/3'' chip and 19 times the surface area of a 1/3'' chip), but it has amazingly clean images at up to 800ISO even at 8megapixels. It's cheap, too! I bought my Rebel XT (which I LOVE) for under $800, lens included. That must mean that these chips cost well under $500 to manufacture, probably much, much less which is really impressive. Sure, they use bayer interpolation, but at 8mp, who cares? The dynamic range is also excellent in RAW mode, although still less than good film (the overall image, IMO, is usually better.) Canon has a very expensive dSLR that shoots 8fps (the Rebel shoots at 3fps or so) but they need to bring that up to 60 if the want to put it in a video camera. Sure, I'd be happy being limited to 24fps, but I don't think they could sell a prosumer camera that shoots that slow.

Sony and Altisens seem to be making good video CMOS sensors. Altisens has a $700 2/3'' 1920X1080 CMOS that JVC is using three of in its 2/3'' HDV camera, which looks amazing in all ways (except for HDV). Sony has announced a 1/3'' (single sensor) CMOS camera that will sell for about the price of the FX1, I think, and they have another 1/3'' single CMOS camera out for 2 grand now that does HDV.

Talking with Bill Kennedy of Panasonic, I got the impression that smaller chips are the future. He basically said as much. Too bad. However, he said the future AFTER that would be single sensors, which might or might not be larger. Here's to hoping for a 2/3'' HD camera for under $10,000. In 10 years, I think this would be very possible, and it would definitely beat out 16mm film. To me, that's very exciting...except that I can't wait that long.

For all the work of Sony, Canon et al. ... I think Kodaks announcement to lay off more than ten thousand more workers is an important announcement.