v/s Canon XLH1
 

Now that it does HD-SDI... what is the difference between HD200/250 and XL-H1?

720p vs 1080i
both do 24p (24f)
both HDV
both have HD-SDI
both interchangeble lenses
6GOP/12GOP vs 15 GOP
$8K vs $9K

what else is the difference?

At NAB today, a JVC rep said that for 60p, they will be using a 12 frame GOP to fit the data in the same 19Mb/sec. Not sure about other modes.

Len's options at this point (I'd think) as well as 24p. Also on the workflow side the JVC workflow includes a dedicated deck and the ProHD product line is growing. There are quite a few things that make ProHD attractive over and above the camera itself.

You'd think they would utilize the full 25Mb/sec.

Dedicated deck?
 

Has anyone heard what the "dedicated deck" story is for 60p? Has one been announced -- or at least hinted at?

Tip

You'll be interested to find out that I've been dumping 60p sequences to the HD-100 for some time. It dumps down at 59.94 and captures right back at 59.94 although I have not seen the HDV60p on my screen as Tim Dashwood did. Nevertheless it has been working. This makes me think the existing deck would work.

It has a 60p light on it. So yes I belive it should. The only catch is no SDI and (i could misunderstand this) but I think the component can only do SD video.

As excited as I am about my jvc imvestment I'm kinda disappointed about the canon. I"ve always loved the canon's back to the A-1 digital and to have no future announcement of 60p, no deck and a high price tag. I'm really disappointed....I've been looking for an excuse to switch or invest in a h1 for interlace shoots but I am so happy with jvc 720p I don't see buying one in the future.

I really like the design and feel of the h1/xl-1 but if the guts inside don't have what I need it's of no real use but a toy. I hope they come out with a 720p model to compete.

GYHD250 vs XLH1
 

Hi Ram,

The GY-HD250 has some major advantage over the XLH1. Here are a few:

HD-SDI out, WITH imbedded audio

Lenses - 2 lens choices available now, and 6 by the end of this year. At NAB, we are announcing 3 new Fujinon lenses, and one new Canon lens. Plus, we have all of hose adaptors available: 1/2" bayonet, 2/3" bayonet, 35mm prime, and 16mm price.

Image inversion - to correct for use of film lenses that invert the image.

TRUE Progressive scan, at your choice of frame rates: 24, 25, 30, 50, and 60

True, broadcast type studio package option, with a camera "sled housing", studio viewfinder, rack-mount CCU

There are more advantages, but these are some of the major ones.

Regards, Carl

will the lenses and adaptors for hd250 also work with the hd100?

Lens Mounts
 

Yes, the lens mounts on the GYHD100, GYHD200, and GYHD250 are all the same.

Wow, I didn't expect Canon just help out the HD100 just yet, sort of works against their own little cam in a way.

Any way to find out more about these lens options? Just curious on what they are and where the price will land.

Unfortunately, they did specifically say that it would be 19mb/sec, 12-frame GOP for the 60p. Don't know...but perhaps they are constrained by an HDV standard that says 720p=19mb/sec and 1080i=25mb/sec? Just a guess. Any HDV standards experts know about that?

I'm sure they're doing their best to optimize the codec but since 60p would be used for high-motion images, I guess when the camera hits the streets we'll have to see how the longer GOP really does with that much data.

Carl-
We're about to replace our studio cameras and I had a couple of questions about the studio housing. Since we'll be iso'ing each camera via hard drive, can the camera be mounted in the housing with the hard drive attached to the back of the camera? The JVC drawing of the housing and HD250 shows a large 4X3 CRT viewfinder mounted on top which would throw off the center of gravity and require a beefier tripod head, can that be replaced with a 16X9 LCD? What about the CCU, does it have an HD-SDI input? Thanks.

60p
 

Keeping within the 19 mb/sec HDV1 standard was a planned decision.
Since the introduction of the GYHD100U, we started hearing from some prominent customers that they loved the camera, but they wanted to also have a 60P mode. And, they wanted this feature without an increase in bandwidth. Our "magical" MPEG engineers have done just that. The GYHD200 and GYHD250 cameras will employ a new MPEG encoder chip that can now encode the HD signal into a MPEG-2 Transport stream at 720P/60, in the same 19.2 mb/sec bandwidth. This is a major achievement for our factory, and we are very excited about it.

In our booth here at NAB, we have sample HDSDI footage running through this new encoder circuit, and then being decoded back to HDSDI. The orgional HDSDI and the encoded/decoded HDSDI are then connected to two side-by-side DTV1710CGU HD monitors. And the results are pretty amazing. You can't see the difference between the raw HDSDI and the encoded/decoded signal. Some HDVinfo.net members have seen this demonstration, and I believe can verify this. This new encoder chip will be used in the GY-HD200U and GY-HD250U.

This new encoder will also be used in a stand-alone Encoder/Decoder, called the SA-DV50U. This box will have HDSDI, Analog HD, and HDV input, and it will output HDSDI, Analog HD, and HDV

Studio
 

Bob,

The final design of the housing has not been set yet. I will remind our factory engineers to remember the DRHD100 in their housing design.

The Viewfinder may be a LCD unit. I would be surprised if it's a CRT unit.

The CCU that will be used at this time is existing Standard Def. RM-P210U. This unit has SD outputs only. So, a separate BNC coax cable will need to be connected to the camera head for HD or SD SDI. So, to each camera site you would run a 26 pin CCU cable, and a coax cable if SDI or HDSDI are needed.

Future products or accessories may incorporate the SDI/HDSDI signal into a single cable solution, but not right away.

Regards, Carl

new lenses
 

Hi Guy,

Here is a run-down of the four new ProHD lenses that are being shown at NAB:

1. Fujinon HTs18X4.2BRM-M48 - Fujinon 18X Wide Angle - Approx. list of $10,800. Estimated delivery of August 2006

2. Th17X5BRM - Fujinon17X - Approx. list of $3,300. Estimated delivery of August 2006

3. Th17X5BRMMD - Fujinon17X with motorized focus/zoom/iris. For pan/tilt remote applications - Approx. list of $4,000. Estimated delivery of August 2006

4. Canon 20X lens - 5.8mm-116mm - Prototype only at this time. No price or item # yet.

These four lenses, plus the two that we already have, will work on any of the GYHD cameras.

Regards, Carl

Thanks Carl. I bet the lens of most interest to most will be the Th17X5BRM. $3000 is not so unthinkable a price if there is a definite difference in performance. You might want to look at selling the camera with this as a stock option. No need for the current stock lens if you have this one. August is still some time away though.

It will be interesting to see what an extra $2k on the lens can do for you. Thinking of the usual CA, powered zoom speed. It is lens like this that make the HDxx0 series more attractive than its fixed lens cousins.

I guess there is no chance of adding an auto focus function to a future model camera for use with a lens like the Th17X5BRMMD?

Any thoughts on single focus/iris/zoom controller for tripod use with a lens like the Th17X5BRMMD?

Annoying little blighter arn't I (and not too little either...)

I stood there for a couple of minutes trying to find compression artifacts, macroblocks, etc and I must say it was incredible. I hope my Digital TV provider starts using an encoder like this.

The other reason for the choice of 19.2Mbps is that it is ready for microwave transmission or digital broadcast based on the ATSC industry standard. (Am I right on this Carl?)
There were two microwave transmitters connected to HD100s at the booth.
I believe ABC, FOX, ESPN, etc are already delivering 720P60 in the same bandwidth - or less.

Ken Freed explained to me how higher bandwidths wouldn't necessarily mean a better end result because it is the quality and efficiency of the encoder that counts, and sticking with a broadcast standard allows for live, low latency microwave transmission. This was two days ago and I wasn't taking notes so I don't want to put words in his mouth. Maybe he'll come on and explain it to us after NAB?

That's the other thing. The HD100 is a 720P60 recorder, it just doesn't encode 60P. However, I have also sent a 60P m2t out via DVHSCap back to the camera. This is why standards are so important for futureproofing.

To the original question, I have heard that the the 250 will be $8995 for Body Only (lens extra). Is this true?

Thanks

Yes. According to the info given at NAB.

"both do 24p (24f)"

Is 24f equivalent to 24p though? I havn't kept up too much on the Canon but the initial rumours were it was like the Sony, and interlaced CCD only.

24F is much better than Sony's Cineframe 24. It's all in the eye of the beholder, but most who have analyzed it are fairly impressed with it. Yes, the camera's CCD's are interlace, but whatever Canon did to make a virtual 1080p...well, it just plain works. The look is very similar to F900 Cinealta.

btw, I thoroughly applaud JVC for their improvements to the GY line. Honestly, if I hadn't already bought my camera I would be sorely tempted by the new 60p cameras. That said, I have found that the H1's 1080i converts to 720 60p extremely well too.

They're both great cameras, that's for sure.

I like the true progressive nature of the JVC cameras, but the question for me will be this:

Consumer HD sets are moving towards 1080p. Which camera's footage holds up best on an unforgiving, full raster 1080 TV like the Westinghouse LCD? The jury's out on that one, because I expect the JVC cameras to convert fairly well, but will 720p look a bit softer than full raster 1080i/p of the H1? Who knows? I do know that I am very impressed with the direction of the JVC line and look forward to seeing the 60p footage when the 200's ship.

I'm a fan of the lucid look of 60p.

Guy,

I'm pretty sure that's right, the 24f is interlaced.

I've been weighing between the JVC and H1 for a month and since the announced release of the 250, I was considering waiting but I won't. October is a long way away and there could be delays, and then there could be something else on the horizon. I ordered the H1 today.

Sorry Carl, If I was doing more studio work, I'd probably chose JVC.

I think they're both great cameras. I would prefer the Canon shoot 720p, 24p etc, but for me I like the Canon glass and I've always used Canon products and I don't plan to do much film out.

Unfortunately these forums tend to pit shooters and editors against each other based on brand loyalties. I think it's just cool to celebrate the visual arts medium and most of all, enjoy the process of capturing images and telling stories.

Why? Canon committed to the 1080i format, but pulled off a pretty convincing 1080p look via the F modes. The recorded frame size via HDV is 1440x1080, and if acquired via SDI is full 1920x1080. I understand the purist argument over "true progressive" but I don't think it's all that simple. Many people aren't aware that good 1080i can be downsampled and interpolated into good 720 60p. I've done this myself through Compressor and the results were fairly shocking. Nowadays you can get a little Teranex converter to do high quality, motion adaptive conversions in real time.

Now I'm not implying that's actually preferable to true progressive, but again, results showed me a lot more than theoretical arguments.


Well said.

That is correct. The 19.2 Mb/Sec transport stream will fit into an existing digital Standard Def microwave. That's one very important reason that we stayed with the HDV1 19.2 MB/Sec. plan vs 25 MB/Sec. Plus, 19.2 MB/Sec. is more than enough to insure top quality of the 720P/60 signal. The ATSC transmission standard for 720P transmission calls for about 15 MB/Sec., or less, so we're above that.

Ken, the tentative list price for the GY-HD250U is $8995 US for the camera head only.

Thanks Barlow,

As I mentioned on the H1 site, I appreciate the extra work you and others do on all these forums and the info you provide to educate us less technically proficient users and newer users. That's stuff you can't find in manuals or mags. That's why I've been camped out on the site for the the last 6 weeks.

Ken

Ken

Thanks Ken.

Not trying to talk you out of the JVC at all. It's a phenomenal camera, period. And now an even better camera line. It's just when people go into the "true progressive" argument I have to chime in and give my relatively "real world" impressions. 1080i has a lot going for it too.