First look at Sony XDCAM HD
 

Interesting video interview with Bob Ott of Sony on the new XDCAM HD cameras.
* needs Flash 8 Player

Yep, it is an interesting interview. I'm not sure I buy the reasons for 1/2" ccd's though" Surely it is harder to make 1/2" ccd's than 2/3" ones? The paradox of video cameras?

Had a play with one the other day though. I liked it, although I'm waiting to be able to test one out in anger as some have told me that it isn't full res progressive scan. And since one of them is Graeme I have to take it pretty seriously!

The more feedback I hear about the cameras, as well as post production troubles, the more I feel that high def is still a beta technology. Very nice, but you have to put up with a few hinderances to get it to work for you.

In fact I think that SD has only reached its pinnacle in the last year or two.

Progressive modes half res? Is Greame sure about this? That would be a horrible mistake by sony, considering the cost of these new camera's. Who the heck would buy this offering if while shooting in 1080 24p 0r 30p it only resolves 540. I was really hoping that this XDCAM-HD offering from sony was going to be awesome and the become that middle of the road HD camera...better than sub $10,000 HD and not quite as good as the over $50,000 HD. But if it's only doing half res on progressive recording, then forget it.

Well, I'm hoping that the info is wrong too. But Graeme is not the only person to have said this to me after seeing the camera.

It does puzzle me somewhat though because on all the Sony literature about, at least the 350, it states "true 24p, 23.98p, 25p, 30p" etc. Note the word "true" that they use.

So I am rather puzzled, expecially considering the price of the cameras. I am hoping to get my hands on one myself very soon, so I will be putting this under very close scrutiny.

The Rep at Video Forum claimed that it WAS full rez, not sure if I trust him though.

Demo footage certainly looked full rez on an HD monitor.

The reps at Video Forum didn't really know their stuff apart from the product manager who was around doing talks.

At one point my colleague and I had to correct and impart information to a guy asking about the system that the rep didn't know the answers to! From the looks of it the guy seems set on getting one. I think Sony owes me a commission!! ;)

I didn't make the Video Forum this year - have Sony released any UK prices for the 330 yet?

The Sonybiz site has the 330 down for 19k Euros including lens. Now whether they will make the price Pound for Euro I don't know. It would be fantastic news if they weren't as that would make the 330 very affordable indeed.

Simon

If your thinking of the 330, allow extra money for the larger viewfinder, the 1" one on the 330 is pretty grim.

I got an update from "someone in the know" who said it may be about UKP 13k with lens but had some concerns over the longevity of the format - his advice was to wait a while to see the takeup of XDCAM before committing...

I'm waiting to see what sky are going to choose as there run of the mill shooting format. I know they have been equiping studios with SR, but would expect a cheaper general purpose format for HD news and sports. As they have very close ties with Sony and a big investment in Sony kit my guess is that they may adopt XDCAM HD.

Off topic I notice that the Sky EPG listing now include National Geographic HD!!

Graham, its a bit odd that someone would say to wait and see what the takeup of XDCAM will be. The format is already very popular and quite widespread. Sky already use SD XDCAM. Remember that there is also a 2/3" XDCAM HD on the way too.

Since Sky already use XDCAM and have the infrastructure in place it wouldn't surprise me if they upgraded to XDCAM HD.

Incidentally Alister, good to see you here! I hadn't noticed you before on these forums. But I like your company website.

The last I'd heard was that Sky had only bought a limited number of XDCAM units - partially because SX units are no longer available, and partially to trial XDCAM. I don't know what the results of their trial are, but AFAIK Sky still predominantly use SX in the UK.

Hi Simon
Yeah - I thought it was strange as well - I was up for buying one! I think he's concerned that it may go the way of Betacam SX. He was suggesteing that P2 is going to be the format of choice, but how long will it be before you can do 2 hours on a P2!!
Anyhow, I love your work on the website... Are you going to upgrade to XDCAM HD?

80 Minutes on HD on P2 cards (16GB)
 

You'll get 40 minutes on the newly announced Panasonic HD camera (AJ-HPC2000) this camera accepts five (5) P2 cards. That's with five (5) 8GB P2 cards installed but I read that the 16GB P2 cards will be announced at NAB 2006 so it looks like you'll get 80 minutes record time on the new P2 HD camera when its released!

The new XDCAM HD is HDV, not 4:2:2 anymore. Doesn't mean it will be bad or anything, but aside from recording media, not an across the board comparison for those currently using XDCAM SD.

In 50hz mode, any fps less than and including 25p is full rez, but any fps higher, is half rez.

In 60hz mode, any fps less than and including 30p is full rez, but any fps higher, is half rez.

That's because it's basically a 1080i50 or 1080i60 camera, so it's not surprising it can't support 50p or 60p full rez. I couldn't get any answer on the vertical rez of the 30p or 25p though, whether it's interlaced filtered or not, and whether that's switchable.

This info came to me direct from the Canadian product manager.

Graeme

Thanks Graeme, makes sense. Sounds a lot like the Canon HD in the way it approaches HD resolution. (no flames please, hehehe).

Maybe P2, but let's also not forget the Infinity. One advantage of both is that no deck is needed for NLE capture, just plug in to the PCMCIA or CF slot and transfer to harddrive. And the Infinity has the option of consumable media as an alternative. Seems to me that if possible there's a lot to be said for waiting, and seeing which way others jump. And the longer things go on, the more attractive solid state seems for acquisition.

I've seen the occasional XDCAM on the road, but tape still seems to make up the overwhelming majority of 2/3" cameras in daily use. Even saw a Beta SP camera used the other day!

Let me see if I undterstand this. If the F350 is shooting at the 1080 24p mode then it is full rez. with true progressive. If I overcrank to lets say 48fps then it is half rez?

Yes, overcranking to 48fps is half rez. All frame rates for progressive > 30fps are half rez, as are all above 25fps in PAL modes. 24p would be a 60hz based mode, hence 48fps, being greater than 30fps must be half rez.

Graeme

Hi Graham, thanks for the compliment! :)

Upgrading to XDCAM HD is certainly in the back of my mind. However I am awaiting to see the lye of the land. I want to know if Sony are going to make any announcements or comments about a 2/3" version at NAB. And I also want to see what the RED guys have up their sleeves.

Certainly if I knew I could make the money back from HD production an XDCAM HD would be a good purchase. But looking at it from mainly a DVD producers point of view I'm not sure I could justify it right at this moment. Definitely keeping one eye open to the possibility though.

Not sure about the over-cranked footage, I would defer to Graeme on that info, but I had my hands on a XDCAM-HD camera for a couple minutes and was able to download the footage off the disks. We shot 60i and 24p and those frame-rates are definitely full-res.

Jason Rodriguez
Post Production Artist
Virginia Beach, VA

Jason,

I would love to see those clips! Any chance you can upload a few samples? If not, how did the image look? What lens did they have on the camera? Canon AF or Fujinon? Also, was it the F330 or F350 that you played with?

Seen it today myself. I got to say this is the sort of thing I want as a minimum, the sort of codec quality I wished that HDV consumer had.

They had some local footage, and I did a close inspection, sizing for a cinema field of view from 1/4 from the front seating. They had some HDV footage (a Z1 I think) of a well lit rodeo (some noise, but I don't think enough to worry codec performance too much) so I compared to that on true HD monitors. Footage from the HD XDcam turned out to have smooth and cleaner picture, better latitude and motion etc, but the colour in the greens did not look quiet perfect (on any camera). At this field of view, the picture looked good enough for cinema, not high end cinema, while the HDV looked suitable for basic cinema quality. It was what I expected from the HDV, but the HD xdcam was what I hoped from HDV.

Please note, I have been involved in RAW uncompressed digital cinema camera projects here, but I am not implying the XD camera is anywhere near the quality of uncompressed RAW.

I questioned some the reps, though they did not know any figures, but suspected that the variable bitrate could go 50Mb/s. This undoubtedly would be what has led to the superior picture quality (apart from newer 1/2 inch chip).

As a contrast, I was speaking with a local guy that does shooting for the international market, and uses Digital beta, he was also closely examining footage and did not find it good enough for himself.

At current prices, five 16 GB P2 cards would cost you at least $18,000, or about as much as the camera itself. That may be fine for major TV networks and a few corporate video producers, but the pricing rules out most independent videographers. Compare that to XDCAM HD discs which cost about $20/hour for full-quality recording, and it's easy to see which is the more practical format for the next 3-5 years or so. If we could get XDCAM HD in a sub-$10K camera with a fixed lens and 1/2" sensors, that would be more useful than anything else proposed so far.

AFAIK, the variable bitrate maxes out at 35mbit/s, but can go lower to give you more record time. Makes sense.

Graeme

The Sony Rep/or Pro dealer, gets a bit confusing now, told me that it was only the average, that it does go higher, which makes sense. So which is true? At 35Mb/s for 60 minutes equals around 15.75GB+, on a 25GB disk (?) that doesn't help, as the maximum doesn't max out the disk.

Anybody?

I wish I knew. We're both going of what Sony have told us, but we're not speaking directly to the Japanese engineers. From their FAQ: "Recording time is over 60 minutes at 35 Mbps". You've got to leave room for thumbnails and proxies too though on the disc space calculations.

Graeme

Interesting, thanks for the res info Graeme. Its luck then that I have more use for speeds like 22fps than higher framerates. Although I think I could put up with half res slow mo for short shots.

Still a bit of a shame though.

It is a shame, but 60i still gives good slowmo, 50% with the right tools.

Graeme

Yes, that extra 9GB+ is enough for another 18Mbps stream of proxies. What resolution are the proxies that might give us an idea? In any case it doesn't matter, well find out eventually, but it looks good.

I seriously think some manufacturer should bring this quality to a sub $5K camera. They seriously don't sell enough PRO gear compared to what such a prosumer camera could sell. I would finally be happy enough with DV with such a grade of variable compression.

Here's hoping the Z1/FX1 replacement will have it on a hard drive, or a JVC. The 1/3rd inch chips on the prosumer version would still give them the market segmentation like what they enjoyed between the pro DV cams and the prosumer DV cams.

Sony claims the disc subsystem has a maximum transfer rate of 72 Mbs, double the average 35 Mbs high quality MPEG mode. I wonder how high it acually goes and how it compares to DVC Pro 100. I'm also wondering if the HD-SDI output is uncompressed 4:2:2 for studio work directly connected to an NLE? This would be helpful when pulling chroma keys.

The 35mbps rate should be, extrapolating what we see with HDV, as good as HDCAM - no reason why it shouldn't be. The SDI output would be uncompressed.

Graeme

You really think it is that good?

I saw some footage on a decent monitor at Videoforum and it looked pretty good, but I would be very interested to see a HDCAM XDCAMHD side-by-side.

Do you think 35Mbps is Sony's replacement for HDCAM? I'd have thought they would go a little higher, 50Mbps 4:2:2 or so.

I'm sorry but I don't understand why should be? Isn't it 140 Megabits to HDCAM?

But quality isn't a function of the datarate. It's a function of how good the compression scheme is.

Well, HDCAM is 3:1:1 which is ever-so-slightly better than 4:2:0, but so much better you'd easily notice. 35mb/s MPEG2 is not totally transparent, but should reduce to a very low level the artifacts we see with HDV at 25mb/s. Given MPEG2's inherent efficiency advantages over the simple codec used for HDCAM, it should look pretty darn good.

It will be hard to compare exactly to HDCAM as that's usually coming off a superior camera, with bigger sensors etc. though.

I think you'd have to get into heavy analysis or post production effects to throw up a difference, but in my experience, both DVCproHD and HDCAM are too compressed to do too much with in post - I'd expect XDCAM HD to be very similar in that regard. Think of it as a news ENG HD Camera, not a digital cinema camera and you'll be fine.

Graeme

Or more likely a factor of

quality = (data rate) * (efficiency of codec) / (the nature of what you're shooting and how the codec reacts to it)

All other things like chip size, lens, and image processing remaining constant.

Graeme