HMC150 Footage Available For Download
 

I have uploaded some raw footage from the HMC150. You can download the MTS files here.

VonTraining.com Forum :: View topic - Download HMC150 Raw Footage

Thanks for the RAW footage. I download a few and tested on Adobe Premiere CS4 using AVCHD project. Play well on my PC machine.

Thank you for these. I pulled down a couple of clips for Vegas testing. Dropped right into 8.0c and 8.1. No issues whatsoever.

Edits natively somewhat ok
 

My computer:

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 @ 3.00GHz
6GB DDR 2 RAM
Vista 64-bit

My systems Windows Experience Index rating is 5.7


In Vegas 8.0c I can scroll through this 1920x1080 footage and play at 16 - 18 fps on my preview.

Hi K.C.

I had heard that CS4 handles AVCHD, but I do not have any personal experience with CS4. I'm glad the footage worked well for you.

Hi Perrone,

You are welcome. I'm glad they worked well for you in Vegas.

Hi Eric,

Your system is much faster than mine, but at least you can watch the files. What part of Texas are you in? We will be in Dallas in March doing a demo of the HMC150.

Victoria
 

Hi Mark,


Im in Victoria, TX. I've played with the HMC150 at Industrial Audio and Video in Houston a few weeks ago. They had it with an HVX, JVC and Canon's. Really nice cam for the price. If I was going to buy the cam, I would buy a Quad Core machine or HDMI capture card from BlackMagic.

You don't feel like going back in time because of the slow workflow?

People that have to transcode get almost real time transfers so what benefit do they get by going solid state? I guess no tape dropouts?

Hi Eric,

Because I use Edius 4.6 and have to transcode, I do not see the time advantage of AVCHD. Since AVCHD is relatively new the NLE companies are playing catch up. It was the same way when HDV first came on the scene. There is no doubt about it, the numbers back it up, AVCHD is superior to HDV.

Setting aside AVCHD aspects of the camera, it is a dream to shoot with, does 720- 24p, 30p, 60p and 1080- 24p, 30p and 60i, and does well in low light. Additionally it does not suffer from the negative aspects of rolling shutter that comes with CMOS cameras.

Hmm.. I'd like to know more about your 'numbers'.

All the things you list above, to my knowledge, actually have nothing to do with the compression format the footage is encoded into (HDV/AVCHD) but rather the technology associated with the cameras that currently use these technologies.

- CMOS cameras that suffer from rolling shutter as you point out above do so because they use CMOS chips - not because they are AVCHD or HDV.

- There are plenty of camera models out there that record a true 24p, either 1080 or 720 that are HDV cameras.

From what I've read, HDV is still considered slightly superior in terms of image quality than is AVCHD.

Jon

AVCHD is the successor to HDV and is superior. Here is a comparison of the codecs.

Panasonic AVCCAM

All the newer cameras have HDMI outputs which is uncompressed 4:2:2 color space output right off the sensor block processor. Recording the HDMI would actually be the way to go when the new portable HDMI recorder is available.

Hi Jon

Yes you are correct. That is why is said "AVCHD aside". When talking about the HMC150 there are two main areas. One, the format, AVCHD, and two, the camera itself.

Again you are correct, CMOS determines the side affects of rolling shutter and not AVCHD or HDV. The HMC150 does not suffer from the side affects of rolling shutter because it uses CCDs and not CMOS.

As far as HDV being superior to AVCHD, I have not read that. Perhaps when the only AVCHD camers were consumer based cameras with a low bit rate setting that may have been true. But now that the HMC150 records in the PH mode at 21 Mbps with a max VBR of 24Mbps, AVCHD in the higher mode (PH) is superior to HDV, even though HDV records at 25 Mbps. AVCHD is Mpeg4. HDV is Mpeg2.

What I read from Sony's information on AVCHD is this. "The quality of AVCHD recording in the 9 Mbps mode is roughly equivelant to HDV recording." Well since AVCHD can record in 21 Mbps, it seems that according to Sony, AVCHD is superior to HDV.

I also learned the following information from the same Sony PDF. Mpeg 2 compression operates in blocks of 16 x 16 pixels. Mpeg 4 compression operated is blocks of 4 x 4 pixels. If you think of the screen as a jigsaw puzzle, Mpeg 2 sees about 6000 pieces and Mpeg 4 sees about 100,000 pieces.

I'm not an engineer, but all of those numbers from Sony seem to support what I saw in the video on the Panasonic site comparing HDV to AVCHD.

Mark,

Your points are compelling and appear to be 100% accurate. I watched the video on Panasonics website and if you are telling me Sony is publishing information that backs that video up, it would appear what I've been reading around in general forums is in fact bad information (most likely the result of people speaking about topics of which they do not know) so I thank you for pointing this out.

I know people have complained about the performance aspects of AVCHD on the timeline (any editor), I would imagine using Cineform's Neo Scene and converting AVCHD into 10-bit 1920x1080 .avi files would solve this issue and probably be a better place to edit from anyway.

Does anybody agree or disagree with this?

Jon

Update:

Mark, I downloaded your files, downloaded the Neo Scene trial and transcoded your AVCHD files into the Cineform .avi's as I had suggested in the prior post.

Results are incredible and super smooth playback inside Vegas 8.0c. Files are native 1920x1080,29.97fps,60i files. I trust you shot this footage at 60i?

Jon

HDMI Portable Capture Device
 

I would like to see a FireStore that records directly via HDMI with an edit friendly codec.

Does anybody know if HDMI transfers keep their TC, UB, etc ?