Toke, in Japan interlacing is the preferred format. They see progressive, at least in 24p form, as inferior.

Why not try thinking outside the box for a moment.

Let's imagine the number of households with computers. Let's also imagine that a network HD capable media player is about $200....add network card (for older machines), cable and possibly router...maximum $375.

Not only can you watch or listen to whatever you want but it can be delivered on any format. The new network HD media players have a flexibility of use that may be difficult for those stuck on a linear delivery mode to comprehend.

For my money Blu-ray and HD-DVD - being dedicated and expensive expansion devices, are dead in the water before they're even released. Why would anyone pay hundreds of dollars for another flaming box that they're going to have to find space for (in already crowded cabinets and shelves); let alone a spare set of component 'ins', and all it does is play proprietry format disks...

Network HD capable media players are the low-cost portals that will ultimately power much of the mass acceptance of HD because they increase connectivity rather than restricting it even further, regardless of whether you presently have an SD setup or not. The only truly essential HD device you require with a network HD media player (apart from a computer of course) is a HD monitor.

Anything else like a DVB-t or s card for streaming or recording live HD broadcasts is supplemental and incredibly affordable compared to stand-alone receivers.

To all intents and purposes network HD media players will fulfill the promise of computer driven digital entertainment.

Even Sony has recognised this fact with the impending release of their own network HD media player. They're even launching VAIO computers with expanded HD support; not that it's essential - it's just a mark of how seriously they're taking the computer driven digital entertainment market.

The true facts regarding HDV final product delivery are that there's no definitive answer as yet because the delivery landscape is in a constant state of flux; but to write off HDV based on what's achievable at this very moment may be premature.

You know Steve, you've hit on something there. It would be ideal to have such a system. Although it will all depend on who makes the most material available and gets market penetration first. I'd love a do-all system. My dream is to have a playback system that doesn't care what you feed it!

Y'know, I had a similar discussion once with someone who refuses to run a second camera unless he's getting paid a lot of extra money to do so, and he depends on his E&O insurance to cover his butt if anything goes wrong. It's basically the same issue with HDV except the significance of a dropout is potentially bigger, but any dropout in any format is a nuisance. So yes, it's a real concern whether HDV can be used reliably for important work, but there are ways to deal with that just like with any video camera. If you're shooting HDV and don't have access to a second HDV camera, you could at least run a second DV camera as a backup so you don't completely miss something important.

I'll agree that we don't know enough yet about HDV to assess long-term reliability of the equipment, but so far people seem to be getting fine results when shooting with good tape.

The AVeL Linkplayer two is pretty much what you're looking for.. you can throw just about anything at it

<<<-- but so far people seem to be getting fine results when shooting with good tape. -->>>

Flawless.

I agree Kevin ;-)

Somehow one of my posts seems to have gotten mixed up in another thread, so I was trying to fix that. Never mind...

:-)

<<<-- Originally posted by Simon Wyndham: Mike, DV, DVCAM etc do suffer dropouts (well the tape versions of them do anyway), but they are only ever 1 frame or so and are correctable in post. -->>>

How do you correct them?

Simple. DV dropouts usually take the form of little squares, so it's possible using some Photoshop skills to use information from either the preceding frame or the following frame to patch over them. Failing that there's Dynapel's Motion Perfect which also has a function to repair dropouts.

None of these solutions is possible with a 1/2 to 1 second HDV dropout.

Interesting Business Week Article
 

There is a very interesting Business Week article avaialble online.

at: [http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jan2005/tc20050110_2911_tc024.htm]

NEWS ANALYSIS
By Stephen H. Wildstrom

What HDTV Is Missing: HD Content
Today's snazzy new sets are capable of showing pictures that are much better than those broadcasters and studios are yet providing


Kind of right along the lines of this topic.

This isn't true:
"Even the cable-sports network ESPN HD, which often does an exemplary job with HD, sometimes cheats, offering 720p images, but on a 4:3 screen. The reason, according to an ESPN (DIS ) official, is a shortage of mobile HD production facilities. Broadcasting an event in both standard and HD formats requires parallel production operations because the HD shot shows a much larger chunk of the field."

I work for ESPN and we never produce 720p in 4:3- and broadcasting an event in both SD and HD does NOT require parallel production operations. All of our animations and graphics are 4x3 safe, but our show is created in 16x9 and a 4:3 center-cut output is created in Bristol, CT, downconverted and sent out to SD land.

It's possible when he says "cheats" he means that shows that are created in SD for ESPN are shown on ESPN HD also- just upconverted. But in that case, they're not 720p images, they're 601 30i images upconverted to the 720p format.

ESPN really took a big bite when they started doing HD shows. I know they signed some major contracts with two truck companies to get some HD trucks built so they can produce shows for their HD network... they don't get any more viewers and it costs them probably twice as much, maybe 3 times as much, to produce.

I know the preproduction takes twice as long- nobody in the sports broadcasting world has ever been "trained" in HD. We've all just learned as we went. Many producers have never worked HD shows and don't know what's involved and many of the issues created when integrating SD content in HD shows. Things that used to take 5 minutes, now take 10- especially when we check in with ABC in New York or ESPN in Bristol to do our transmission checks. We have to check the HD encoders, and the back-up encoders, make sure lip sync is correct, that our graphics look good, etc. and there always seems to be some problems somewhere in the path. Many of the satellite trucks don't have disembedders or HD decoders, so we have no idea what we're really putting out except for the feedback we get from Master Control in NY or CT.

But he's right there really IS a lack of HD content, and he's right, there are only a small percentage of HD trucks on the road- but every major truck company out there, and even many of the smaller ones, have HD trucks and are building or converting more over. Many of the trucks I worked on last year that were 601 digital trucks are now HD trucks. I'll probably do twice as many HD shows this year as last year, and in 2006 will probably do twice as more as this year.

Simon Wyndhamwrote: <One thing I'm confused about is why SD looks great on an SD monitor, but not on an HD one.>

Kevin Dooley wrote: <I'm not doubting the validity of your claims Simon (infact, if you go from 720x576 to 1280x720 you should be able to get decent uprezzing), but looking at 720x480(486) on a native 1080i monitor should look like crap. You're talking over 2.25 the amount of pixels--and even the best uprezzers are gonna have trouble making up that many extra pixels.>

I posted this question in another forum because my Sony PD170 video which used to look great on a CRT TV now looks horrible on my Pioneer 50" Plasma set. The answers were that I must be doing something wrong, that maybe the image was being scaled improperly, etc. Reading this thread, it seems that I'm not doing anything wrong (I'm feeding the signal from the camera into the set's media receiver box with an S video cable, also tried a firewire in through another box) and that the SD video is just going to look lousy on my plasma set. Any thoughts on what is the truth and whether there is anything I can do short of buying an HD camera? Will hardware upscalers be of any use? (If so, which would you recommend?)

Thanks for any info!

Man ... Simon accuses ME of making "sweeping assumptions" and then proceeds to make a zillion of his own.

Two quick things.

>>saying SD is dead.

No - we are NOT saying that. HDTVs play SD content so there is no either/or issue. Both formats will coexist.

>>although we might see some form of high definition DVD PLAYER, it is doubtful that we will see a high definition WRITER. Now, perhaps the writers will appear, but remember how much SD DVD writers cost when they first arrived

Read my original post. The $250 Linkplayer and the numerous similar boxes en route for 2005 already play HD content off standard red lazer disks. And Best Buy, et al., sell red-lazer DVD-writers to produce these disks for as low as $30 after rebate.