AVC-HD Camcorders - When?
 

Any news or announcements?

Personally I think that the Picture Quality should exceed that of HDV, in theory at least.

Both bitrate and resolution are better than that of HDV - 20Mbps of MPEG-4 AVC is like 40Mbps of MPEG-2 and 1920x1080 of AVC-HD versus 1440x1080 of HDV...

The AVCHD camcorders are said to have 18MBPS, not 20. Since the camcorders aren’t released yet, it wouldn’t surprise me if it gets to be higher than the announced 18MBPS. Where did you hear that it was going to be 20MBPS?

The release date will be anywhere from the end of this year to the beginning of next year but I think at least one of the camcorders will be out by this September.

I stand corrected. Still even at 18Mbps MPEG-4 AVC is like 30-35Mbps of MPEG-2.

So in theory with the better bit rate and higher resolution, AVCHD should be better than HDV.

I say in theory, because actual products are quite different in reality! Take Blue-Ray for example. In theory Blue-Ray should beat the crap out of HD-DVD, but so far it is sucked big time compared to HD-DVD and is vastly inferior...

I'm surely curious to know how BD is "vastly inferior" to HD DVD. Do you know something that everyone else doesn't?

The AVC-HD format was only recently announced... give it sufficient time to ramp up into production. Camcorders aren't built overnight. As Paulo says, I'm sure it'll be closer to the end of the year before we see the first offerings in this format.

This question reminds me of RED a little bit... the project is just announced and everyone is already asking, "where's the footage?" Geez, give it some time. There's something called development. It takes awhile.

In theory perhaps, but a lot will depend on the actual design of the cameras and what recording mode you run them in. If early models are released as consumer-oriented products with inexpensive lenses and sensors, I wouldn't expect that to outperform good HDV cameras. And the initial limitation of 10 minutes of full-quality recording per disc doesn't sound very useful compared to 60 minutes on an HDV tape, so that's another consideration if you shoot long-form projects. The JVC proposal for a camera recording AVC at 50 Mbps is more interesting than the basic AVCHD format - but then you'd have to compress that down to lower bit rates for final delivery.

I'd welcome an affordable AVC camera which gives me something I don't already have with HDV, but so far I don't see it materializing. Maybe in the second generation using Blu-ray discs for greater recording capacity, and if there's a version of the cameras designed with professionals in mind. In the meantime, HDV works fine for what it is and you can buy blank tapes almost anywhere in a pinch. AVC is looking promising as a delivery format, but we need some real-time encoders to make that practical.

I've seen reports that the initial batch of Blu-ray movies has less than stellar encoding quality, possibly because they didn't use the full MPEG2 bandwidth. But HD DVD is also struggling because it takes forever to load and play even regular DVDs, and I saw someone returning one of those players to the store for that reason. So far I'm not convinced that either HD player format is going to be a big hit with consumers, at least not until the prices drop dramatically. That should be at least 2-3 years away given previous new product pricing trends, so I'm in no rush to buy an HD burner. Wake me when the war is over... :-)

Kevin,
I too, have seen the "reports." I too, have seen pre-releases that I'm not permitted to comment on due to NDA, but having seen both, and having seen both early and more recent BD encodes, I can't by any stretch accept a comment such as "vastly inferior."
Bear in mind that any/all reports relating to BD, quality, etc are related to beta products, or products under development.
I dunno that either will be a hit or failure, the game, adult, and Walmart industries will be the determining factor. We know PSP/UMD movies have failed because of poor market strategy, BD and/or HD-DVD could suffer the same fate. Then again, DVD nearly did too, and Beta did as well...So? I guess it's a wait and see.

What, aren't Blu-ray players and movies shipping now? If not, what's the official release date?

I've suspected that such early reports are a bit biased, so it's encouraging to hear that in your opinion things aren't all bad. I know what MPEG2 at 25 Mbps can look like coming out of my camera, so I'd expect at least that level of quality from a professional Blu-ray disc.

I've seen both players running movies, nearly side by side, but through different tv's (Blue-Ray/Samsung tv, HD-DVD/Pioneer tv) so it's not scientific, but the HD-DVD LOOKED like the best tv picture I've ever seen and the Blue-Ray looked merely average.

Is JVC now included in the AVCHD fold? This is the first I've heard this. Good news, if true.

I wish someone could give us some idea when, and what cameras, are coming using this format. But I really wish there were HD-DVD camcorders in our future, instead of Blue-Ray or it's watered down variant.

Sorry, I should have said Panasonic, not JVC. Sounds to me like they may make an AVC-based version of the HVX200 using a higher bit rate than AVCHD, and that will be the most interesting camera to come out of all this. AVCHD itself sounds like a dud for professional purposes, since the recording time is limited to about ten minutes per disc at full quality. Might as well just buy an HVX200.

AVC is shorthand for MPEG-4 Level 10, aka H.264, also known as Advanced Video Coding. Different formats will make use of AVC. So what Kevin is talking about is that Panasonic announced they would make a 50-megabit format called AVC-Intra, which is intraframe-only (i.e., no long-GOP). Sony and Panasonic are introducing AVC-HD, a format initially targeted at consumers, which uses H.264 but in a long-GOP structure for lower-bitrate recording.

Well, now, hold on... I'm no fan of long-GOP, that's well-known, but if HDV can be accepted by professionals, surely AVC-HD will be embraced and rejoiced over. Better encoding efficiency, no dropouts, no head clogs, full-raster recording in all modes, native 24p supported in both resolutions, and killer audio (7.1 channels of uncompressed PCM, 5.1 channels of Dolby Digital AC-3). Not to mention that it'll be fully cross-compatible between manufacturers, so no more HDV format incompatibility issues. It's as good as HDV in every way, and substantially better in many ways.

Kevin makes a very good point, a lousy camera head recording to a better format will likely result in a worse overall picture than a great camera head recording to a lesser format. But considering that the very first HDV camera launched was the prosumer FX1, followed immediately by the aimed-at-pros Z1 & HD100 and then the clearly-aimed-at-pros XLH1, I really don't think there's any reason to suspect AVC-HD will be launched any differently. Yes AVC-HD will also be offered in cheap DVD-recording camcorders, but keep in mind that it's not only to disc. Sony has chosen to announce it to disc, and they're limited by today's 1.3gb mini-DVD capacities. But eventually there will be blu-ray mini-DVDs (at least, I believe that's what they're counting on) and that could extend the recording times by six to 12 times as long.

And mini-DVD isn't the only option. Panasonic's announced that they'll put AVC-HD on SD cards, and 1GB cards aren't all that expensive now and will record for about as much time as that mini-DVD. 2gb and 4gb cards are available now too, and will only continue to get bigger and cheaper as time goes on. Any significant recording-time limitation is likely to be a temporary issue, at least as far as the SD cards go (and when the blu-ray mini-DVD discs are out).

That may have been because the HD-DVD was hooked to the Pioneer. Did you see the display at Tweeter?

Since AVCHD should look a lot better than HDV you should expect to see a Z1u replacement before Sony decides to release a consumer AVCHD camcorder. To my knowledge this would be the first time a consumer camcorder gets a better codec than their professional camcorders which is why I think a Z1u version will be released first. Lest just wait and see how Sony is going to resolve this issue.

As for Panasonic, they don’t have a consumer HD camcorder yet so September would definitely be a good date for them. Also their AVCHD version will have 3 CCDs and a focusing ring.

As currently defined for the AVCHD format as such, I doubt it. Those of us who need long recording times won't use it because of the miniscule disc capacity at full quality, and people who don't care about that are buying the HVX200. Plus there's still the question of how we'll effectively edit the footage from such cameras, and how the finished output will be delivered to viewers. It's taken several years already to sort out some of those questions for HDV since that was first proposed, and it's looking like it's going to take a similar length of time to do the same for AVC cameras.

I don't see AVCHD being anything but a niche product for consumers until a better version is released using blue-laser discs to increase the recording capacity, and maybe then we'll have something to talk about. But even then you'd still have the problem of using a new type of recording media which could take a while to become widespread and affordable, as opposed to recording to existing tape stock or flash memory cards. I don't get the point of that design choice, other than for Sony and Panasonic to try to make money selling AVCHD discs. Good luck with that in a world where consumers are already getting used to using flash memory cards in their still cameras.

I'd say Panasonic has the right idea to take the AVC codec and adapt it to record on flash memory cards in a camera similar to the HVX200, hopefully at a lower camera price. I could see such cameras becoming commonplace in another 3-4 years or so, by which time flash memory will be more affordable and computers will be powerful enough to process MPEG4 footage in real time without too much heartburn. Until then, HDV will remain the best compromise for practical and affordable HD production, and DVCProHD will pick up the slack if you want something more robust.

AVCHD recording to specialized red-laser discs with limited capacity makes no sense. Someone should deep-six this proposal before it comes to market and get on with the business of designing flash-based video cameras.

File this under "Area 51", but there's been plenty of scuttlebutt that the FX1 is already discontinued, which would certainly imply an FX2 is on the way. It would be most interesting to see if it would be AVC-HD.

There's always that question, of course. JVC HD1 users had to wait over two years for Apple and Avid to add support. That's the way it is with all new formats.

However, keep in mind that H.264 is showing up everywhere, and graphics card manufacturers like nVidia and ATI are going to be adding H.264 decode chips on their graphics boards. Hardware-accelerated decompression is going to greatly simplify the transition to editing the new format. That said, I don't have any indication when it'll be editable in a realtime fashion of course.

That question has nothing to do with AVC-HD, as it's the same question HDV and DVCPRO-HD and HDCAM users are already facing.

Did you see the press release where Panasonic said that they're releasing AVC-HD on SD memory cards? It was a separate press release; there were two announced on the same day (the joint one, and then a separate one where Panasonic said they would make SD-card AVC-HD cameras). I agree that the mini-DVD idea makes no sense to me either, but recording straight onto SD cards makes a lot of sense. AVC-HD isn't just about the mini-DVD. Sony will make it to mini-DVD, and Panasonic may or may not, I don't know, but Panasonic has said that they're going to record AVC-HD straight to SD cards. With 4GBs already on the market, and 1GB cards plenty cheap, and larger sizes coming, that should address the adoption concerns.

And, AVC-HD is likely variable bitrate too. 9mbps, 12mbps, 15mbps, 18mbps etc. I think 18 is likely the highest-quality format, but I can't see why it wouldn't support variable bitrates, for longer recording times.

Again, I agree. And that's what Panasonic is doing. But -- how well have DVD camcorders been adopted by the marketplace? If they're selling truckloads of them, then it would make sense as to why they'd make a high-def version. That's something I don't know, haven't bothered to keep track of market adoption rates of DVD camcorders. Clearly it makes little sense in a professional realm, but if consumers are adopting them then it makes sense for Sony to extend it by making an HD version.

As I understand it, ''AVC-HD'' is disc-based by definition, just as HDV is tape-based by definition. We will no doubt have other cameras using the AVC codec to record to other media, and that has some potential for professional purposes. But 10 minutes of recording time per AVCHD disc at maximum quality, or 20 minutes at marginal quality? That's just silly, and suggests they should have waited until they could release a blue-laser version. I'm interested in what Panasonic is proposing here, but the Sony disc-based solution sounds like a dud.

As far as distribution is concerned, my issue there is whether we'll have to further compress AVC footage for final delivery on standard HD media. Specifically, does either HD DVD format support AVC playback at bit rates matching what the cameras will produce? If so that improves my impression of all this; if not we're stuck with yet another cumbersome production format.

It does sound like AVC recording may be the next big thing, and I'll probably have to eat some crow for saying I didn't think much of it. But I'm still skeptical it will be a realistic production option before 2008 at the earliest, and in the meantime I've got videos to shoot. The AVC cameras are going to have to be compelling to make me want to ditch the HD gear I've already bought.

It wouldn’t surprise me if the successor to the Z1u gets a blu-ray drive because all they have to do is use the same media that’s on the XD CAM. Or they can use standard blu-ray discs that will allow the media to decrease in price. Just keep in mind that a unit of this caliber will never get released this year but I suspect a February/March 2007 date.

They did say that both discs will coexist with each other so my theory may actually be correct. Mini DVD discs for a HC1 type camcorder and blu-ray for the Z2. Also chances are, it will definitely not be called Z2 because that will confuse people, which is why Sony went from PD170 to Z1u and the design may look very different.

I googled it and came up with this, which is a press release I hadn't seen before.
http://panasonic.co.jp/corp/news/off...n060511-6.html

They're saying that it will be AVC-HD compatible, so whether it's bound to the mini-DVD or not, it's going to be the same data (or compatible data). So just as HDV is defined by the tape, yet HDV recorded on a FireStore is still HDV, it seems that AVC-HD will be AVC-HD whether it's recorded to tape or card.

Blu-ray players can play back AVC-HD discs.
http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content...ong-for-HD.htm
http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content...der-Format.htm

Don't know about HD-DVD; neither Sony nor Panasonic are members of HD-DVD, they're both members of the blu-ray association.

Complete agreement.

I've gotten in trouble here at DVi, so before I step in another heaping pile, let me say my next camera purchase could be from ANY brand. I show equal prejudice - I think they ALL have something wrong with them.

I'm hoping Panasonic ditches the SD card recording for their AVCHD camcorders and moves to mini-disc or at least includes both as an option. Pretty unlikely on either account, I know. The solid state memory card for recording may be a little too slightly ahead of it's time for me. I've read and heard reports of people having corrupted and lost files on the high quality "error-proof" P2 cards, why would standard cheap SD cards be any more reliable?

I think Sony moving to mini-disc instead of Blue-Ray is just an excuse to create another format to be discarded later. "Buy a new camcorder latter this year, buy a new camcorder late next year because we like to dribble the technology to ya", kind of thinking. They say BR drives are too big, expensive, and power pigs, yet they're are putting them into laptops today. I guess size would be a factor. (I wonder how much time a mini-Blue-Ray disc will hold?) As far as the 10 minute time limit, I don't like it either but a mini-DVD RW goes for what, five dollars? For ninety dollars I can shoot for three hours, bring it home dump it into the computer, burn it to the big DVDs and go out tommorrow with my mini-DVD RW's and do it all again - like a less expensive P2 workflow but I don't have to screw around with it in field. A big plus in my book.

I wonder what Canon and JVC will do? Why haven't they joined up with AVCHD? Be cool if they created something of their own and went HD-DVD, but again, not likely. It took the giants - Sony and Pannasonic combined and what was it, two years work, to come up with AVCHD?

If you take your AVCHD footage and burn it to Blue-Ray would it look any different from the same footage burned to HD-DVD? From what little I've seen, I like the HD-DVD better but would it matter in this case or is the AVCHD footage the "bottleneck"?

Oh, and if you think I'll be one of the early adopters of a AVCHD mini-DVD camcorder, think again. I'll wait to see if long-GOP HD goes down well onto the mini. I've heard people complain about DVD camcorders too. I've heard the XDCAM disc system is reliable but mini-DVD is smaller, less robust, and no doubt, built cheaper. We'll have to wait and see.

Options are good, but it would be enough for Panasonic to release an AVC camera using high-end standard flash memory cards instead of P2. Flash memory makes sense in the long run because it's already ubiquitous for digital still cameras, which means the media is widely available at a reasonable price. Any disc-based recording solution will be a nuisance by comparison, because the discs will be scarce at first and probably never catch up with flash cards for availability.

As a matter of speculation, why shouldn't a stock flash memory card be equally reliable as P2 (or more so) if it's based on a simpler design? Millions of people all over the world are using flash memory for photography and I haven't heard mass panic over lost images from that, so why not expect as much for video?

Ah, sounds like the terminology is still getting sorted out then. So sorta like all the odd variations of HDV are still referred to as HDV, the different variations of AVCHD proposed by Sony and Panasonic will still be AVCHD? I guess that makes sense then.

Anyone hear any rumors about Canon or JVC getting in on all this?

XDCAM and Minidisc?
How/why would you even mention these two formats in the same sentence? XDCAM and AVC HD won't begin to compare, based on what's been said, what was shown, etc.
This comment and your earlier post about "HD-DVD looks better than BD" make me wonder what message people are hearing from the marketing that's out there.
The only difference at the end of the day (in terms of picture quality) from HD-DVD and BD is the encode/decoder. It's just a disc. "I've seen data from the Seagate and the Western Digital, and to my eye the data from the Seagate looks better..." If you're comparing MP4 to MPEG 2, then you're not comparing the discs, you're comparing the encoding format.
It's all about the encode and decode, once you're looking at the same format. Just like Cinemacraft is a better encoder than Ulead Video Studio.
Just about everything related to AVC HD is speculation at this particular point, and I think we've all been victims of camera format speculation on more than one occasion in the past couple years, yes?

Don't hold your breath!
 

Sony Z2?

My Pro-video supplier here in Kumamoto plays golf regularly with some of Sony's development team.
Although Kumamoto is the centre for the production of Bravia HDTV's, I think that the staff also have quite good knowledge about the other equipment being produced in Japan.
Here is what they say:

When Sony introduces a new Professional product (NB. not consumer level) the production line is projected to run for AT LEAST 4 years before the unit will eventually be phased out for a new product.

How old is the Z1?
Don't hold your breath waiting for the Z2................

I agree, but -- production run changes can be done. I fully expect 1440x1080 CCDs to be phased-in. This is a chip level change. Could be a Z2 -- certainly by NAB 2007, but could be IBC 2006.

To me, the media imply a certain encoding... and in practice that would be the case too.

IMO, that's not a fair accusation to make.

While BD may theoretically be better, it may not be better in practice. In practice, it did not look better to John. Of course, the comparison may have been unfair since different displays were used. But his comment there was entirely reasonable.

Of course you can have discussions about which system is *theoretically* better, but the more reasonable thing to do is to evaluate the performance as practiced. (Unfortunately that may be difficult to test- which displays do you go with?)

Glenn,
I did not imply nor say in my response, that BD is better, theoretically or otherwise. I do feel BD will be the successful format of the future, but that's not a question of "better" nor worse.
The point is, BD supports both MPEG 2 and AVC. So does HD-DVD, with VC1 tossed in there for both formats too.
Seeing a display of one codec/format without the other for comparison in the first place, and most likely different content in the second place, negates the concept of objective judgement.
Can you support the idea of encoding the same media with the same encoder to the same codec at identical bitrate, and suggest that it would appear "better" on one playback format vs another?
If you want to suggest that someone saw an identical film encoded in VC1 vs MPEG 2 vs AVC, and saw all three from the two formats, I'd obviously accept that as a premise for making a judgement, albeit not an accurate nor objective judgement.

My mistake, I erroneously (mis-)remembered that each format was associated with different codecs + resolutions... which doesn't seem to be the case.

Douglas R. Bruce,

You do know that that the Z1u came out a little less than a year after the PD170 came out so the statement about Sony releasing new Professional products every 4 years is a joke.

You basically want everybody to believe that the successor to the Z1u will be released in the first quarter of 2009 at the earliest. Sony would be considered mad if they did that. Panasonic may release a successor to the 100B with AVCHD that will kill the sales of the Z1u especially considering the codec is a lot better than HDV. Also Sony would have a consumer camcorder with better compression than the Z1u as well.

Look at what happened to Canon with the GL2. They lost their edge to both Panasonic with the DVC30 and to Sony with the A1u. If Canon has release a successor to the GL2 they would have been in a much better position than they are now. Sony would not want to be in the same situation.

In order to 'kill sales' of the Z1U, Panasonic has some design work to do. In particular they need to ditch P2 in favor of standard flash memory and maybe use a higher-resolution sensor, plus it would help if they had lower-priced HD cameras like the FX1 or A1U.

It does sound like Sony may be about to make a massive blunder by using red-laser discs instead of flash memory for their AVCHD camera, but that's their business. Hopefully the "Z2" will have a similar solution using Blu-ray discs with more capacity that can play directly in Blu-ray HD players, and next year would be a good time to start talking about that. If they can't get Blu-ray recording to work at a reasonable price and don't use flash memory then Sony could be in trouble, but so far they've got a lock on the affordable HD videography market. I wouldn't count them out until we see final shipping specifications for the next round of HD cameras.

Kevin Shaw,
I already mentioned that the successor to the Z1u may use Blu-Ray.

As for Panasonic releasing a successor to the Panasonic 100B, it would definitely compete with the Sony Z1u because of the better compression and the price will be under 4000 dollars. Your right, that P2 cards is not a good idea but Panasonic will most likely have an SD card slot although I bet Panasonic will have at least 2 slots instead of one. I’m no fan of 24p but for a lot of people that feature alone will be a deciding factor which will gave an edge to the Panasonic.

Paolo, I did not say that Sony release new Professional products every 4 years. Please read my posting correctly.
As to the PD170, I do not follow every camera released - but I don't think the PD170 was a HD camera. So the Z1, in my opinion, was not a successor to the PD170 - it was a new product

To be honest, I don't want everybody to believe anything! I am just adding some facts that I have heard that come from Sony people. You know, the Japanese ones that are actually working on the products over here in Japan.

But time will tell. It is not so important to me what the final truth will be.
Thanks for your opinion. It is always healthy to hear different views.

____________________

Posted twice by accident

Actually the Z1u is a successor to the PD170 but I do understand your argument about one being SD only and the other having an option to record on the HD format.

I don’t think someone who works for Sony would ever disclose a product before it’s officially announced knowing that their can be legal action against them. So it can sometimes make perfect sense to tell people that a successor to the Z1u won’t be out for a long time especially knowing that the sales of the Z1u may be at stake.

Ironically, if it was someone who worked for Canon saying that kind of remark I’d probably believe him/her. Like I mentioned in my previous post, Canon have yet to release a successor to the GL2. It would be hell for a lot of people if Sony decided to never release a successor to the Z1u for a long time.

All of these camcorders better get released quickly because it very depressing to be waiting this long.

Apple’s secrecy virus has spread to Sony, Panasonic and Canon. Hopefully some information will be announced soon.

How can you claim to know the price when the cameras are still in an early development stage? Like I said, let's see what happens when shipping AVCHD products are available, which will probably be a while yet.

My definition of early is about 2 to 3 months from now as the time we may see the first AVCHD camcorder.

That 4000 dollar price tag is an educated guess since you can get the Panasonic 100B right now for a little under 3150 at B&H.

All I can tell you is the speculation is certainly entertaining.

FWIW...
Sony doesn't have a fixed life span on ANY product. Some go long, some go short, and some in between. Several recent examples of that.
Anything that is in the HDV family, which a "Z2" would be...can't be stored on anything but tape, because that's the spec of HDV. It can't have a unique bitrate either, because that's the spec of HDV. If they were to walk away from HDV on the professional side...then you'd have more to speculate about.