XL2 means we are going in the right direction
 

Hi all. As many of you must know, the Canon XL2 is the buzz of the day. I just wanted to mention that the fact that the new prosumer flagship camera has native 16:9 would indicate that we who have invested in the PDX10 were correct about the importance of this feature. When you acquire in 16:9 today, the resulting video is going to retain it's value for a longer time than if it were 4:3, because tommorow's TV is 16:9. Hope now Sony gives us a proscan 16:9 option in the price range to compete.

More on the XL2 here:
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...threadid=28840

Ignacio, I couldn't agree with you more. And I will be very interested to see the reaction to all this from some of the rather well-known "experts" who have argued passionately that nobody wants or needs 16:9, and fire back barrages at those who disagree by quoting statistics on the number of 4:3 tv sets in the world. Sure there are more, but that WILL change. Maybe not overnight, but it's inevitable. There was certainly a time when the same argument could have been made for the CD, the DVD, the LP record, the pocket calculator... even the automobile. And once change takes hold the old technology all but vanishes surprisingly quickly. And the great thing about all this is that Canon built the camera. If it had been Sony these same people would just claim it's a way for them to sell more widescreen TV's!

Another prevelant agument against 16:9 states that Joe Public hates letterboxed video. I don't doubt this, because I hear it frequently myself. However, the tables will turn here as well. Everybody who buys a new widescreen TV is going to quickly tire of watching 4:3 video that has been cropped, stretched or pillarboxed on their fancy new set.

And as my final exhibit... I went to Wal*Mart on Monday and saw they now feature two different models of (CRT type) 30" widescreen TV's - I think a Toshiba and a Samsung. They were both selling for a bit over $700. Six months ago they did not sell anything but 4:3 sets.

Now, if we could only get the camcorder manufacturers to provide component video output instead of just s-video. Sheesh, even the cheap DVD Players and $120 TV sets feature these nowadays. Take a look at your PDX-10 video fed to a widescreen LCD via component and A/B it with s-video. The difference is striking....

> Take a look at your PDX-10 video fed to a widescreen LCD via
> component and A/B it with s-video. The difference is striking...

You know of a way to do this? Oh... you mean through Firewire with something that has component outputs. It's still being DV encoded and decoded. So, in the same line with your resolution tests, we continue to discover that DV25 is really not that bad after all.

I was led to believe that component and Y/C should be of very similar quality. Perhaps the component outputs and/or inputs on the devices you are using are better (better impedance matching, better AD/DA) than the cam's S-video output... a few weeks ago I monitored some footage on an old Sony DVCAM VTR, so old that it didn't have firewire. It had a monitor connected through a single BNC connector. I was also feeding the monitor with the camera through S-video. Guess which one looked better with the same footage, the semi-pro sub-$2K camera, or the old $10k (when it was new) Sony VTR? Not surprisingly, the VTR. Don't ask me why. I imagine it might be because of the DA converters, I could see color banding on the S-video output from the camera that was not visible from the VTR's output, and the VTR output seemed also to render a somewhat wider contrast range. Of course if I had checked for dotcrawl the S-video should have been better, but the overall image looked more natural from the VTR.

Uhhmm, sorry for the off-topic.

That screwball JVC HD camera (I still personally think they are worthless) has component out. But - if you record HD and use the component outputs, that's actually component SD - as in no longer HD. But at least you would have it on tape in a (highly) compressed HD format for archiving? I suppose with a real (3 chip camera) you could get Betacam like results from DV tape stock? I am still confused about that cameras market position and what they were trying to do with it but that's a whole list of other threads.

Point is, at least 2 JVC HDV cameras have component outputs.

Sean

I suppose I could do a few screenshots of s-video vs. component on my monitor and you could be the judge. But it might have something to do with how my monitor processes the different types of inputs I guess. I do see quite a difference though, whatever causes it. And yes, I'm using a Sony DVD recorder to transcode firewire to component.

Yeah, I had taken note of the component output on the JVC cameras before. I just find it curious that many cheap consumer devices like TV's and DVD players are now featuring component in/out but our expensive camcorders do not.

Boyd,
I haven't talked with any of the Engineers yet but my guess is there is a cheap way to do component and a "right" way to do component. I am betting, on cameras like ours, they would rather do right than cheap.

Just a guess at this point but very little of the "pro-sumer" level camera or deck gear has component.

Sean

the real reasons why 16:9 is in vogue are:

1) more filmmakers (i.e the highest market for prosumer cameras) want 16:9 for film/widescreen

2) European markets for footage.

3) DVDs are already widescreen and so is the DVD gear and TVs.

So yes, 16:9 is here to stay.

Does point 2 have to do with the enhanced 16:9 being used in some PAL countries? There is an extension to PAL (analog) that enhances resolution without going digital and is backwards-compatible with SD PAL.

not really. With point 2, it's really because the larger (i.e higher paying) countries in Europe broadcast in 16:9.

What that means is for documentary makers/filmmakers who want to sell to them, they must also deliver in 16:9.

Documentary makers, etc.... want to sell their shows to as many territories as possible to make $$$.

As for the specifics, it's not really a technical need, as opposed to selling to a new market opportunitiy.