What components would such computer need? What would be the cost? Is Wafian a small factor PC, with extra dressing? Can you build such small factor PC for a fraction of the cost? I think that Aspect PC, which handles 1440x1080 pixels at 8 bits wold be enough.

Prospect is available from cineform as a turnkey system or you can build to cineforms specs yourself. Aspect is 8 bit, prospect is 10 bit, aspect can't capture direct from HDSDi, prospect can (as well as HD component). I don't know what's in a Wafien box. Prospect could be built into a regular PC case, that could be a rackmount case. The raid array will go in the PC case. Problem with Prospect is it is a PC and as such needs a monitor, keyboard and mouse, Wafien does no. However there is no reason why the PC monitor could also be an on set HD monitor.

Some people have said they think that the HD-SDI out (1920x1080 at 4:2:2) will not be noticeably better than HDV (1440x1080 at 4:2:0). For everyday shooting, I suspect that's basically true, but also suspect it probably ISN'T true for high-end work such as complex compositing intended for professional HD programming. I'm also guessing that since the H1 uses horizontal pixel shift, the detail in the HD-SDI out is higher than the 1440 that HDV can record...maybe even approaching the full 1920 pixels. Would love to have that explicitly tested by rez-chart and real-world images.

So, here's my understanding -- not entirely complete -- of the Cineform solutions at present:

If 1440x1080 HDV is enough, as it is for Petr, then a decent PPro editing box with the $500 Aspect HD software is all you need.

Neither Aspect HD nor Prospect HD Edit can ingest HD-SDI. Prospect HD Ingest into an AJA card (about $5300 for the package) processed on a fast dualie PC (not clear to me right now whether that need only be a dual-core, or must be a dual processor, dual core system) would do the job. So figure around $8-9K. That would be the cat's meow for studio work. For on-location shoots, it is up to you to make the PC setup portable enough for your needs.

According to Cineform, the Wafian incorporates the ingest, conversion to 10-bit Cineform Intermediate, a small LCD screen, and short-term storage in one box about the size of my home AV receiver for $15,000. Then you'd need a Prospect Edit system (PC cost plus $2K for the Prospect software), along with your editing system (PPro is favored) for editing.

Cineform is definitely out in front with their products, but undoubtedly competition will show up on the scene before too long.

I've been doing some research on this HDV capture and unfortunately, software is not the main issue. It's your hardware. HDV takes up sooooo much more space than that of regular DV. For example, (correct me if I'm wrong) but I believe for a dv project that takes up about 300G on your hard drive, if done in HD, takes up close to 5TB. To really work in HD, at a speed faster than that at which grass grows, you have to have something along the lines of a G5 quad with at least 8Gig of Ram AND a conduit connecting it all that's faster than firewire and the like. You are looking at fibre connections, and even that would be preferably dual fibre connections, all connected through a fibre switch. The cable itself is like $100.00 per run. Then once all of that is worked out, then you can get some software.

Now, of course, this is for doing a feature project. I'm sure if you are doing a commercial or something of the like, you can get by with a smaller system.

That's why Waffien is priced as it is. It's all in one unit.

Bryon, maybe you're thinking of UNCOMPRESSED HD, which requires a large multi-drive RAID array of gargantuan storage size. Computing performance for HD is going to depend on the solution chosen, including NLE, but isn't at all out of reach...

HDV files are about the same size, roughly 13GB/hour, as miniDV, and will edit ok but a bit slowly on my 3.0GHz P4 using PPro 1.5.1...can't be too specific about that because I've only done a brief checkout of that mode just to see that it works.

I recently added Cineform Aspect HD on my current system, so also can't give a completely detailed report about performance under various stresses to the system, but the timeline on that same system seems to work just as smoothly as with miniDV projects (For $500 the retail version of Aspect gives you substantial acceleration and an updated codec as compared to Cineform's technology that is licensed in PPro 1.51.). HDV footage converted to Cineform Intermediate files is only about 40-50GB/hour (depending on whether they are 8-bit Aspect, or 10-bit Prospect), which ain't bad for a codec that is touted as being "visually lossless." It is a really practical alternative to true uncompressed output and the huge storage demands it makes. Once editing is done and you're ready to archive, you can choose to export to either a larger but very pretty Cineform AVI file or an HDV file with the same storage requirements as miniDV.

HDV is not out of reach at all for anyone who already has a decent editing box.

I think that DVCProHD codec is pretty good for HVX or H1 cameras with their CCDs and DSP.
And I'm happy that Panasonic decided to implement this codec in HVX.
If it is not enough for some kind of work ("codec is FAR from perfect") then I think that H1 is not enough too.

Laco,
DVCProHD, HDV, and uncompressed all have very different strengths and different weakness, so it probably isn't quite right to say that if one is not right for a purpose, then another isn't either. Very exciting times when many of us are now able to choose amongst High Definition solutions!

2 year old camera close in resolution!
 

Just for fun, I hand held shot the chart with my JVC HD10 .
It's resolution looks maybe just a little lower than the HVX !
Again, this was hand held, the chart was on an 8.5x11 printout.

HD10 at 720p http://home.earthlink.net/~lesd/hd/jvc-HD10-chart.jpg

JVC HD10 at 1920 size: http://home.earthlink.net/~lesd/hd/j...-1920chart.jpg

and the HVX: http://home.arcor.de/martin.doppelba...rts/0088YP.png

Enjoy! ;)

-Les

I wanted to say that if somebody is not satisfied with DVCProHD compression then he has to look at better camera than HVX or H1 too.

HD10 resolution on this chart is 600Hx450V.

Could you mount the camera on a tripod?

No need to defend Panny, if you read my post I will be using the XLH1 into a Panny DVCproHD deck. I am currently working on a project shot on a Varicam. Interviews on a black background and once you tweak ANYTHING the blacks get VERY noisy. I am doing an offline in DVCproHD and recapturing uncompressed for the final product. I was just surprised to see so much noise...



ash =o)

Well, it was at 1/250 sec exposure, but I guess the hand held could have screwed with the focus a bit. I'll try to shoot it again this weekend.

So what did you think of the much poo poo'ed HD10 ? It can still hold it's own on res, but it still has all the non-manual controls issues, and non optimal mpeg2. But you can get one on Ebay for < $1600, I'm sure.

Amazing -- 600x500 for about $2K and 600x600 for $10K.

But worse, the HVX is grossly over sharpened -- look at the wheel outline.

-----------------

However, I've been shooting with my JVC HD1 in India. Once again I'm blown away be its "filmic" color which IMHO is the reason I and others liked the DVX100 so much. The HVX has the same great color.

Which leads me to conclude that for many -- the HVX's great color and 720p60 and 720p24 operation will make it a winner if/when there is a cost effective way to record. Sorry, P2 still makes no sense for general use.

---------------------

The CCDs will be an issue only when operating at 1080i.

It's not clear why Panasonic even bothered with 1080i since it involves under sampled CCDs recorded to an under sampled recording format. In fact, it's not clear why anyone would shoot such 1080i when they have the ability to record 720p60.

------------------

Lastly, these long passionate "conflicts" seem to occur with the introduction of every camera. I remember the brutal criticism of the JVC HDV cameras' "lack of exposure control." Shooting in India under all sorts of light conditions, I realize how EZ it is to control exposure. So EZ, I'm revising my JVC Guide -- making it much simpler. The first version was long because I wasted space responding to all the criticism. It was a "defensive" document.

I suspect that in a few weeks folks will have sorted out the CCD rez issues. And, HVX lovers can all become less definsive.

Of course, all this would all be much simpler if Panasonic had provided the necessary specifications to understand the camera.

Speaking of specs -- what are the sensitivity specs?

The JVC HD10 was hand-held.

3 lux on HVX

With fast check just by eye the chart shot with details -5 shows about same resolving power and no sharpening.

I'm mostly amazed by the poor horizontal resolution. You get that out of every 16:9 sd camera.
I just wonder if there's any difference with real resolution between 720 and 1080 recording modes?
And if 1080 mode is always reducing vertical resolution to remove flickering from 1080i displays?

20% increase in resolution and the camera gets called hd instead of sd. This industry is sad...

Well, I think I still have to buy it, because it's the only progressive 16:9 1/3" sd camera after all. (XL2 has smaller area for video in the imagers.)

Remove the two back doors on a Cadillac, and it's now a Sports Car.
So I wouldn't necessarilly call it sad.

And why are we even using the hand-held shaking shots from a HD10 as any type comparison? Joke or not? That shouldn't have even been posted, because it's now going to confuse people to think that they should get an HD10 on eBay over an HVX-200 to make their short film....I know it's hard to comprehend, but TRUST ME, it can/will happen. C'mon guys, think. Just think of how many idiots work at your job that you can't beleive got the position they have.....yea, it's like that. *smile*
Do you realize how many people come to this website to help make purchasing decisions? Everybody is not as smart as you are. I know it's hard to understand that, but there are allot of sheep out there who will believe anything..AND NO, they will not go any further in research then this one thread of discussion.

- ShannonRawls.com

Rant
 

I posted the quick , handheld JVC HD10 chart because I wanted to make a point. "The Emperor's New Clothes"

These camcorder companies are so lame that in 2 years they have hardly made any progress in terms of real HD resolution. Many of them are protecting expensive 'pro' cameras with 5 figure price tags.
Look at the still camera market. That market grows at a much more expected rate in image quality. Don't let Sony and Matsushita lull you into thinking that the image sensors are like diamonds in price. That's BS.

These companies do not have the best interest for the filmmaker as their primary goal. They want to tie you into their product line, their P2 cards, their expensive tape decks, etc.
The Japanese have a saying: "Business is war".
In the next 2 years, they will be whalloped by non-video derived bayer cameras from some smaller companies. Think 'mini-origin' . Nothing to do with Sony or Canon or Matsushita. More to do with Seagate, Intel, and some industrial sensor companies that are not into the cartel. And some very smart Codec people ;)
-Les

Look at Canon. Unlike Sony and Matsushita it does not make its own CCD's and its HD camera resolve the most. It produces true 24 fps rate, unlike Sony. The Canon XL2 resolution is only somewhat less than Panasonic's HVX resolution.

Sony and Matsushita have cornered the market and other companies are filling the vacuum that they created. If Sony could develop 25 Mbps DV codec/tramsport 10 years ago, it does not make any sense not to progress beyond 25 if the resolution is now nearly 5x higher (HDV).

It took Sony about 3-1/2 years to increase CineAlta's 175 Mbps rate to 880 Mbps in their CineAlta SR portable deck, but in 10 years they could not go beyond 25 Mbps with DV/HDV. Does it make sense?

Wait, you're joking right? I'm a pretty nice person, but if someone really has 10K ready to spend on an HD cam and buys the HD10 now instead of the HVX based on that rez chart.. well, come on now. Really, not to sound mean, but if a person did as you described, they'd be technically so inept that the likelyhood of them producing anything watchable with any camcorder is almost zero. In fact, I dare say such an individual would indeed be lucky to purchase the HD10. They've just wasted 2 grand instead of 6. I repeat, I'm not trying to be mean, its just that shooting compelling video is incredibly difficult and if someone doesn't know the difference between a 30P MEPG2 based 1CCD two thousand dollar camcorder and an HVX with DVCPROHD, 24P, Selectable frame rates, etc... and then goes and makes a purchase decision with such little knowledge.. Man, we just can't protect such an individual from bad decisions by including/excluding specific rez charts on an internet forum. People are responsible for how they spend their money, not us.

And if they really are very talented, hey, they'll produce a great piece with that HD10!

Actually it does make sense. That 25mbps rate is there because its the amount of data a readily available and cheap DV tape drive records. By using currently available hardware (DV transports) and combining them with very efficient MPEG2 based recording Sony has been able to drastically reduce the R&D and manufacturing costs of their first batch of consumer/prosumer HD cams. The result is that they've sold a TON of Z1s, FX1s and probably a bunch of HC1s.

Both the development of the CineAlta and HDV camcorders has been in response to market forces. I'm sure if Sony thought they'd sell as many CineAltas with 175mbps rates they would not have bumped it to 880 in such a short period.

We don't have to like 25mbps HD camcorders, but they certainly make sense.

Tape transports are a strategy
 

They could have been using hard drives a long time ago. ( > 25 megabits)
But imagine the reaction of the tape division guy at a board room meeting, when that topic would come up! *That's* what it's about.

Screw tape. Tape is so 80's !

-Les