XHA1 'LIVE' analog outs are 1080x1920 or 1080x1440?
 

Hello All,

(CLARIFICATION - LIVE ANALOG OUTS...)

Searching these threads has confirmed that the live analog out signal from the A1 is:
8bit, uncompressed, 4:2:2

BUT

I can't find anything conclusive about the resolution...

so, what's the scoop, is the live ananlog out 1080x1920 or 1080x1440?
(i'm guessing 1080x1920 because i think the 1440 is only after it reaches the HDV codec...)

Thanks,
Lonnie

Are you referring to the component video HD output?

Hello Lonnie - there's a good chart of all of the outputs for both the a1 and g1 on page 97 of the manual - you can download the manual from the sticky posts to check it out.. component out is 1440x1080 (sorry)... looks like the only way to get 1920 out is on the SDI terminal of the G1 (in fact, I think the chips are only 1440 and to get to 1920 they do some type of shift...you'd have to check..if this is info is too uncertain to be posted Chris just let me know and I'll edit to remove).

yes, Chris, the component HD outs...

Dave,
the page you suggested is intended for playback not recording live, and rumor has it that the component analog outs are out before they are hdv encoded thus not converted to a 1440x1080, but remain 1920x1080...

but i'm trying to confirm this...

thanks, good info - pls. post back if you find out. yeah, when you said that about the outputs, that sounds right (e..g not sure why they would need or want to take those post-encoder). that would be great to know if the A1 can put out 1920..also, did you see anything on the native chips being 1440 and then somehow that is upconverted to 1920? just curious - it might not really matter (in my use anyway), but would be good to know...

come on guys...

i've read the threads, only speculation - anyone know??

Hey Lonnie, I havent tried this yet, but why not just go LIVE out to an HD tv and see what it looks like. I think I read somewhere that it does 1920 x 1080 out. You will certainly know if its 1440, it'll be squished.

I don't own one yet, Jack! Great idea though. I'm going to buy either the A1 or the G1, and then use the IO HD/ProRes field record workflow...

But if I can save some money and go out 1080x1920 in Analog (A1) - why not?

I hooked up my A1 to my Dell 24" LCD(1920x1200) via component out and here is my take.

With the monitor set at 1:1 scale the video seems to be 1920x1080 but it looks like I'm getting an underscaned image because it doesn't fill the screen horizontally. There is about an inch missing on the left and right side.

One weird thing I encountered when I had the Center Marker and Aspect Ratio Guides on was that the monitor didn't show the Aspect Ratio Guides, it only showed the Center Marker. Why is this?

kevin, did you use the composite port in back or the BNC port on side?

Kevin - thanks for doing this...

Besides your suggestion of an underscanned image - going the other way could it be an overscan of a 1080x1440 image??

This is not my area here - come on in boys - the waters fine... HELP us non-engineers...

Not here, I'm using the component out into my Dell 2405 set at 1:1 scale and it is 1920X1080 with no black on left or right side.

Khoi, are you using the back component port or the side bnc port?

I'm using component, BNC does not output HD.

Khoi,
thanks so much...

where/how do you set the 1:1 ratio for this test?

Thanks again,
Lonnie

Go into your menu and choose Image Settings/Scalling and choose 1:1

Thanks Khoi - you are THE MAN!

Lonnie

I was looking at this thread & have little to add, but was hoping someone could help with something I'm a tad confused about. The Dell 2405's optimal rez is 1920x1200... that isn't 16x9... it's 16x10. How would one get proper 16x9 aspect ratio with component connections? I don't own a 2405 but a friend does, so I can't really sort this out myself :D Would this be the 1:1 setting mentioned?

Bill

Does it really matter what it is doing? I mean when hooked up is anybody really going to notice and say the video looks like it was 1440x1080 instead? The 1440x1080 on the HD cameras is anamorphic which means when you view it on a HDTV it is going to look as if it was 1920x1080. The only difference is that the 1440x1080 version may be slightly softer due to the anamorphic pixels. Almost every single HD tape format works this way. HDCAM also uses 1440x1080 and DVCPROHD uses either 960x720 or 1280x1080 pixels depending on if it shooting 720p or 1080i material. So HD material you watch on NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX and any HD cable channel comes from a anamorphic pixel resolution. Thats just the way it is.

It is almost impossible to tell the difference between 1440x1080 and 1920x1080 unless you start to mathmatically analyze the pixel values.

If you are hooking up your camera to a LCD monitor via component it will always look correct because the camera outputs the anamorphic pixels as a 1920x1080 shape to display.

I doubt anybody could ever even tell if the signal was 1920x1080 or 1440x1080.

Just to note that the chips are 1440x1080 pixel chips. The chips however do use pixel shift to help get back some of the detail to bring the resolution closer to 1920x1080 pixels. I cannot remember if the live outputs pump out this 1920x1080 or not but again it doesn't really matter. It isn't going to make a huge difference and if anything it will only give you a tiny tiny tiny edge in sharpness in the overall image.

Yeah this would be 1:1 scalling, it will be 16X9, but since the monitor is 1920X1200, it won't use the extra 120 pixels and won't fill up the whole screen, it will be black on top and bottom.

Thanks Khoi.

Hi Thomas,
and thanks for bringing even more knowledge base to this...
My intentions and reasoning are my eventual workflows. If I can purchase the less expensive XHA1 and string the component outs to the IO HD, transcoding uncompressed analog to ProRes422, and stay there until output - this would be a great, relatively inexpensive solution for an uncompressed field capture since the transcode to ProRes422 is high quality (like Cineform) and no raids needed in the field. Which leads to the question - what is the quality and resolution of the uncompressed analog outs of the A1...

We know this can be done via an all digital route with HD-SDI and the G1, but the added costs to this is the same amount spent on Aja's IO HD. Thus, the questions about analog uncompressed - and if it was pumped out 1080x1920... (and a horizontal hit from 1920 to 1440 is 25%...) However, your real world experience does buffer this a bit if you tell me it's almost undecernable...

Any others care to give their oppinion here - I do truly value your input since all I have next to me is my XL2...

Thanks,
Lonnie

Pixel dimensions only apply for digital signals.

To ask whether the horizontal dimension of the analog output is 1920, is to not understand how analog signals work.

The more accurate question would be to ask if the analog output is derived from a 1920 internal raster or 1440. Since the CCDs do not have 1920 horizontal photosites, even this question is more or less moot...the analog signal could not be composed of more than 1440 horizontal samples.

Nate - I like your brain.

Then let me ask you, do you think the signal from the A1 is pumped up or processed off the 1440 rastor prior to the component out to be 1920? or do you know if it is just the pure 1440 raster sample out of the component?

Thanks,
Lonnie

Keep in mind that it ain't just the "1440 rastor output." Sure, each CCD is 1440 pixels wide, but don't forget, there's a very effective resolution boost provided by the Pixel Shift process in the horizontal axis. What happens at the CCD level and what happens at the output are two different things... it's not 1:1. Pixel Shift puts the horizontal resolution up in the neighborhood of 1920.

thanks Chris... and assuming you read my proposed workflow - uncompressed component out of A1 to IOHD (transcoded to ProRess422) into FCP, in your opinion would this "signal pumping" component analog out be quantitatively/subjectively/objectively as close as the G1's hd-sdi out? ...huh? :)

I don't know as I've never tried it. I'm perfectly happy with HDV, so I've never seen a reason to capture by any other way but FireWire.

What I suggest is to get your setup and then capture a few test clips at 1920x1080 resolution and 1440x1080 resolution and compare the two. Checking out the footage yourself will be much better then anybody on this forum telling you with words how it will look. Only you can decide how well the footage will look.

yeah Tom I agree, but these are PRE-purchase questions before I plunk down 7k on camera and IO HD - that would be a large investment for a test and then only to be possibly disappointed...

so, I'll probe a little more than go for it... probable outcome: get the A1, see how HDV and Firewire work for me in FCP Studio 2... check out software transcode of HDV to ProRes422 in FCP... then consider Aja's IO HD among others if I feel I have a need for a higher field capture codec workflow...

Lonnie

Well I can tell you that in terms of compression quality and artifacts that captuing live to ProRess will be better. In terms of detail I doubt you would notice any gain over HDV. HDV is digital and a analog component output slightly softens the video. So even if there was the full raster of 1920x1080 pixels getting converted to analog and output chances are any gain you would have had might be lost due to the softness of the analog conversion. SDI however would keep all the detail since it is still digital. To some people the analog vs digital thing isn't that big of a deal because component doesn't give you any artifacts and is very clean even though slightly softer.

I wouldn't really consider the advantage of the AJA IO to be extra detail but to get rid of any mpeg2 based artifacts in your footage and get better color detail.

Converting HDV to ProRess isn't going to gain you anything either. HDV is already HDV and converting it to another format isn't going to make it look better. Converting to ProRess or uncompressed isn't any different then FCP converting each frame on the fly to uncompressed when you edit HDV. The only thing that converting to ProRess will do for you is make the footage use less of the cpu during editing so you may get more realtime performance. Then again the ProRess material takes up much more bandwidth for the disk drives so chances are unless you have a raid setup you would only get one or two streams in realtime anyway.

The only time ProRess would be an advantage with HDV material is if you need to take it into a few other 3rd party programs to render. This makes sure you are not encoding multiple generations of mpeg2 of the same piece of video.

Thomas,
Thanks for taking the time. This was exactly what I was looking for. Now I know systematically how to go about my homework.

1. Compression artifacting is a big eye-soar for me, personally. But since I really like the imagery I've been able to view (even from a compressed upload) from this particular Canon line, the purchase of an A1 is a done deal (2 paychecks away).Then I'll see first hand if HDV/firewire is something I visually like. (And your explaination of no visual gains using a software cross conversion to ProRess from a firewire HDV ingest made perfect sense.)

2. If HDV is not to my liking, I'll explore uncompressed out the components of the A1 through a third party card into FCP6.

3. If the analog to digital softening of the image is an issue at this point, I'll ebay the A1, and move on to the G1 with HD-SDI, which we all know will work fine.

Thanks for helping me in my systematic approach. And thanks to the others for helping my mind wrap around this as well - I'll keep you posted of my findings if it will help others in their respective endeavors...

Lonnie

I used the component port on the Back.

When I use the Video Terminal, I can get everthing on the cameras LCD to display on my monitor. But when I use the component out, I can't get the Aspest Ratio Guides to display on the monitor, even though everything else shows up.

My monitor is the 2407FP. Here are pistures with the Video Terminal, and the Component Out with the Display setting in "1:1" and "Aspect"

Why don't the Aspect Ratio Guides show up with the Component Out?

Hi Kevin,
thanks for your time too (man, I love this site - Chris you done did good!)

The max resolution with the Dell 2407 is 1920x1200 (i have one too) - this explains the top and bottom "matte" (or black space) on the "1:1" picture, so we are getting the 1080 vertical from the analog... (help me out engineers - my degree is biology)

now for the black on the sides obviously not getting the full 1920, but it sure seems bigger than 1440... close enough for me - sold! Kevin you rock!

Now as for your guide lines - I have no clue, but you could aim the camera at something better than a plain white wall for reference and mark your dell accordingly by referencing your camera's LCD (would not use a permanent marker or chisel for this :)

Kevin & Thomas you guys are champs today! Thank you all as well -
Lonnie

Hi Lonnie. Please take a look at Nate Weaver's earlier post, because what you are saying is really very inaccurate (I'm trying to be polite here! :) ).

The width of the analogue component image on the LCD depends on 2 (or 3)factors. One is the timing of the D/A converters in the camera, i.e. where the active video starts in relation to the horizontal sync pulse. The second is the timing of the A/D converters in the monitor, i.e. where the line sampling starts in relation to the horizontal sync pulse. Either of these factors can cause a black border at the sides of the image. They can also cause the image to be cropped, for example if the monitor A/D starts sampling later than the start of the active video period produced by the camera you will miss the first few samples of each line.

A possible third factor is how the monitor scales the sampled video data and maps it to the LCD panel. This could also leave a black border.

Anyway, the point is that none of these factors is directly related to the number of sensors in the camera's CCD block, so you can't tell from these pictures whether the source was 1440 or 1920 or whatever.

Richard

Richard,
thanks for being polite, but not necessary... I'll take lumps all day to get to the bottom of things.

However, we know the fact is they are 1080 x1440 - not trying to figure that part out... trying to figure out if prior to being spewed out the analog component if they are "boosted", manipulated, hit with a magic stick, so to be anything that may resemble 1920 horizontally. Others have chimed in that even if it's a pure 1080x1440 signal that i probably couldn't tell the difference, but i thought before i plunked down cash, i'd like to know more...

What i've found out: nobody seems to know for sure. The image looks acceptably widescreen-ish. And analog signals can't be measured in pixel resolution.

So, my game plan still applies. Keep you posted...

Thanks all,
Lonnie

...And I have such great respect for the people of this site, I wanted to make sure my replies are met with my intended thoughtfulness - especially to you engineers or signal savvy guys who must be squirming in their chairs reading my ignorance...

So, sincere thanks. My forte is more the creative side (writing/directing/acting/editing), but since I am also the operator/purchaser of my own gear, I'm learning as I go (and hopefully always will).

Thanks for your patience,
Lonnie

Well you have to understand that it already resembles 1920 horizontally to begin with. See the second paragraph and accompanying diagram from my article Canon XL H1 Image Sensors, DSP and Frame Rates -- obviously written for the XL H1 but it also applies to the XH series camcorders as well.

Basically, 1440 anamorphic equals 1920 square.

There's no "loss of resolution" associated with this method (1440 anamorphic equals 1920 square) thanks to the Pixel Shift process in the horizontal axis. And that's pretty much all there is to it.

Now the real question is, what can you do with this information. What *difference* does any of this stuff make. And the answer is it hardly makes any difference at all and there really isn't very much you can do with this information. It boils down to understanding two things:

1. Any HDTV monitor will properly scale this 1440 anamorphic signal to 1920 square, automatically. There's nothing you need to do.

2. When editing 1080i HDV, make sure to set the Pixel Aspect Ratio of your video editing software to 1:1.333.

There is a large body of anecdotal evidence presented here on this site from a wide variety of actual XH A1 owners which clearly shows that *they* have not been disappointed... and who is to say that their standards of quality aren't more stringent than yours. In other words, if the output was disappointing, don't you think you would have read statements to that effect already? And yet there are hardly any negative reports about that.

Even if you were disappointed, that $7k is not "lost," you could easily recover 100% of it.

Just curious, what kind of HDTV do you have in the house right now? A computer monitor will not be sufficient for reviewing HDV originated video, nor will an HDTV with a resolution of 1280x720.

Chris,
Thanks for your firm opinions - I do find the value in them...

To answer your other question: Oddly enough, I don't watch TV and don't own one, accept to monitor my SD DVDs via SD monitors and LCDs. My world right now is SD: Sony PVM Production Monitor, 8045q field monitor, nebtek pan70 on camera mount, and 2 Dells LCDs, and two 40inch Tvs who sole purpose are two see how the real world will see my SD work (no cable, no satelite, no American Idol)... and I'm now finally making the slow transition to HD...

Where yes, I'll finally breakdown and get an HDTV, but I was waiting for my HD equipment workflow to justify it (ie. HD: disk burners/readers, camera, monitors, etc...)

HD Monitors I'm looking at for field and studio are Panny's 17", their new 7inch on camera lcd, and nebtek's customized Marshall, and now I understand Nebtek is introducing their own line in July... (some of these monitors may seem like overkill for an A1, but I would like to future proof some of my HD purchases toward bigger/better HD as best I can)... And the great cost of the A1 allows me some clams left over to splurge on other necessities...

So, I'm definitely not the first one into the HDV pool, but now that the waters have been tested, and I can finally afford to back my homework with purchases, I'm here to do what this forum was designed to do - educate myself - and thanks for providing a safe place to so!

Sincerely,
Lonnie

Chris,
p.s. thanks for directing me to the info on anamorphic pixels and my future nle settings and thoughts - will prove to be invaluable... also lends itself to other questions I need to start probing answers to right now!

Thanks again,
Lonnie