More HVX200 info
 

Okay, so it's in Japanese and you'll need to Babelfish it to read it, but it's got some new info, including this tasty morsel: apparently the CCDs are natively scanned at 1080/60p.

Some people had been speculating that the CCD would be a 720p CCD and "uprezzed" to 1080; this page is making it sound like it's the opposite, that it's native 1080 and "downrezzed" to 720. It also means that the 1080/60i would be created from a 1080/60p scan, so interlace and progressive will probably have the same sensitivity! And, they put in big bold letters that it has a great signal-to-noise ratio. A 14-bit DSP that's internally also 19-bit... not sure how that one works... a new "News Gamma" curve... a center-zoom manual focusing feature... slow shutter speed down to 1/12... new zebras as low as 50% (the DVX's lowest was 80%)... looks like otherwise it has pretty much all the DVX features as well...

Makes for some interesting reading until the big December rollout, at least... especially this tidbit: "In all image chestnut thornback tar - the solution AG-HVX200 which reforms."

http://world.altavista.com/babelfish...0%2findex.html

Thanks Barry!

Looks like a printed spec sheet too:
http://world.altavista.com/babelfish...-hvx200_t.html

I'd love to take credit, but it's not my find. Someone named "saru" at DVXUser found it on the Panasonic Japan website, I guess he was searching there in connection with the Interbee show and found that the Panasonic site had been updated.

salt rake...thats too much

Only 8 bit quantization. That could have easily been 10 bits for a smoother image. The MPEG-2 spec even alows 10bits.

A while back I was searching and found the lux rating to the HVX200, but now I can't find it anymore and I forgot what it was. I remember 10 lux, but I may be wrong. Anyone know?

Oh and Barry, why do you say that interlaced will have the same sensitivity as progressive. The DVX is native progressive scan and the interlace mode has more sensitivity.

"Low light rating. She wasn't' sure, the only thing she could say is that its f8 @ 2000 lux, while the dvx was f11 @ 2000 lux, and it has 7 stops of latitude."
http://www.hdforindies.com/2005/09/r...rom-resfest-on

http://www.roscor.com/nab/2005-NAB_Newsletter.pdf

And finally here's a cool official site for all of you HVX/P2 fans
http://panasonic.biz/sav/p2/


Johann

Looks like a 1280x1080 native CCD block scanning at 60p. Complete with horizontal pixel shift... Wow, full native res for DVCProHD @ 1080. IMO, the only things we can really complain about here are that variable frame rates are only available in 720 line mode and the 8bit quantization. Why do I get the sick feeling in my stomach that the DVCProHD codec will be expanded sometime late next year and we'll see a revised "A" or "B" version of this camera that supports more frame rate options for 1080p? Hmmm... Oh, well, I'm holding my breath for any clips that Kaku and will try to wait patiently for this camera to arrive. Which brings me to my final thing to complain about... It's not here yet.

I am so trying to fight the impulse to pre-order right now.

Hoorah!

If that is the case then why do we not have 1080/60p as an option on the camera? Why only 24 progressive in 1080 mode?

Answered here: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=45784

See Barry Green's posts in that thread (and ignore posts #1,2,4,5,8 and 11).

Because DVCPRO-HD doesn't support 1080/60p (and, well, neither does any other HD recording format... or broadcasting format...)

DVCPRO-HD supports 1080/60i. So they put 1080/24p and 1080/30p within the 1080/60i data stream.

I don't think it's possible for them to expand the DVCPRoHD codec, as that would cause incompatibility within the format and lead to an HDV-style splinterization, something that would defeat the whole point of having put DVCPRO-HD on this cam in the first place.

However, I do think you'll see a new, more-capable codec coming down the pipe from them at some point, because at the NAB reveal last year, they teased a 2/3" P2 camera and it said "HD-D5" on the side of it. D5 is a full native res codec at 250mbps; they've also hinted at the idea of making an H.264-based codec.

Would it happen in an HVX-class camera? Who knows, we'll see. But they've definitely teased that something even higher-end (HD-D5) is coming in the 2/3" lineup!

Got it.

Thanks for the claification. I forgot about the codec limitations.

I was thinking about the 1080/60p to use as a slow motion effect for a 1080/24p project. But I guess I'll use the 720p frame rates to do slow motion and hopefully they'll cut in well with 1080/24p footage. Or just stay in 720p the whole time if it doesn't cut well together.

So even if there was an HD-SDI output on this camera is still wouldn't allow 1080p frame rates above 30 because there is no recording HD format that allows it, right? Even in the high end HD cameras there is no such thing as a 1080p slow motion? No 1080p Varicam yet? In the future I guess.

EDIT: Barry, you answered my question before I even asked it. Bravo!

That's why he's Barry-Wan Kenobi.

The Fidelity Range Extensions to the original H.264 standard support 10-bit and 12-bit coding and YUV 4:2:2 and 4:4:4 color sampling. I hope that, like the MPEG-4 implementation in HDCAM-SR, any such implementation in Panasonic's offerings is intraframe (i.e., GOP-less).

"A 14-bit DSP that's internally also 19-bit"

I believe that actually means "a DSP chip with a 14 bit A/D conversion of the analog RGB CCD data, and an internal process quantizing of 19-bits YUV, most likely a 20-bit chip with one bit reserved for signaling.