Rapidly changing technology can make last year’s great idea into a slumdog, and that is certianly the case with HDV. The 2009 show seemed to be a sort of catch up year, in that innovations of recent years are now very usable and ready to work.  RED for example: a few years ago the camera was a prototype. This year the accessories were out in big numbers.  3D is big. More on that in years to come.  It’s cool, but the technology has to develop to attract an audience.

NAB camera report

My favorite camera is from Silicon Imaging. Slumdog Millionaire Shot with the SI-2K Cinema Camera. The SI-2K series combine a DCI-spec 2K sensor with CineForm’s revolutionary Visually Perfect® CineForm RAW™ codec. All that- embedded Intel Core 2 Duo powered architecture. It delivers a direct-to-disk recording platform with unprecedented image quality, 11-F stops of dynamic range, an intuitive 7” LCD touchscreen interface that is off the charts, sharp OLED electronic viewfinder option, IT-friendly connectivity, battery powered operation, and up to 4-hours of continuous shooting on its hot-swap 160GB notebook hard drive. My friend Steve Waterford of ZennaTek has already invented an ingenious waterproof housing that has interior climate control and lens clearing airflow for housing lens.  This partial submersion bag is for taking it to the extreme.

Please note: There is no up-side benefit to my company if you shoot a specific camera.  In fact; I’d like to see all ocean videographers using HDV please. This is my NAB 2009 review of cameras I personally would deploy underwater.

Must-read article for filmmakers.

First there’s this note on 4K - On a theater screen project 4 boxes; two white and two black checkerboard. Double it to four of each, then 16, etc.  Before you get to 4K the screen is total gray and you can’t perceive a box much less a pixel.  So the 4K pixel madness is about stuff you cannot see.  Like musical frequencies only dogs can hear, sort of overkill. Creative Cow called them “marketing pixels’ in  New Visions with John Galt of Panavision taking COW readers inside ‘The Truth about 2K, 4K and Pixels,’ separating ‘real’ pixels from ‘marketing’ pixels, as he explores the world of 2K, 4K and advanced imaging acquisition. This article is a “must read” article for my college students.

HDV is livin’ the Slum, without the dog, or millionaire

If you purchased HDV in the last year, you’re not going to like this. I have spewed negative news about HDV and the prosumer-Sony love affair with for years, argued my point in video forums from underwater to outerspace.  Every shooter wants a Sony (logo) camera from reputation. During the analog era Sony reigned with Beta/SP.  To some, name recognition is a valuable persona and Sony is one of our world’s most recognized brand.  But I’m talking missing the mark with a format. First, comprehend the HD broadcast standard and why it was established to appreciate the line in the sand between real HD and HDV. I don’t have time. Neither do you. The exit ramp is on the right - HDV will only be found in consumer cameras of the future as Sony, Canon move to AVCHD.  JVC is capturing ProRes-HQ through their amazing lenses. Got to be a story to watch. ProRes it the work-around capture format for HDV, and it works but why introduce a format conversion to the capture process?

Sony Professional HD camera systems are spectacular, but don’t be lulled into an illusion by a logo, or the word of other users because misery loves company. Buy a camera because you’ve look through the viewfinder and considered the workflow.

Where's the camera? In the last century.

In the new standard as in the old, 4:2:2 color sub-sampling is MANDATORY.  Good news for the XDCAM, the imager begins as a full RGB signal with 4:2:2 sub sampling.  At the sensor a 4:2:2 signal can be taken from the camera’s SDI port as uncompressed HD.  Record that signal- now you’ve got something.  Everything beyond the SDI port is sub-standard. Period!  Once compressed to MPEG-2 it’s all over; all of the sub-sample depth is discarded.  That’s why the data rate is so low.  35Mbps is simply an inadequate data rate to encode that amount of visual information without blocking - unless it’s a talking head! DV is 720 x 480 yet has the same data rate as HDV. Could that possiblly make sense in physical science?  And then there’s that Intra-frame vs. I-frame compression which really separates HDV from the broadcast standard. The very nature (and I do not mean Nature) of HDV is rooted in MPEG-2 Long GOP. That’s a playback format for DVDz, not capture. HDV has improved over time.  Bottom Line - The standard is only going UP not back down, so if you ever expect your content to broadcast you need to figure it out. Don’t allow marketers to make your decision.

Click for detailed view

Sony sort of took their Cine-Alta, HDCAM and other marks and glued them on the HDV models.  To me that’s a RR emblem on the hood of a VW, with one exception.  You can actually take the signal out of the camera prior to MPEG compression.  Works for live with a switcher or deck, but that’s a massive data rate to capture on an uncompressed signal. You can’t get that on a mini-DV TAPE.

Stop the spin, tape is dead (and not GREEN).

Next up AVCHD - Canon and Sony are working AVCHD into their product line as a means to end and opt-out of HDV.  AVCHD is MPEG-4 (H.264) which is a quantum leap forward. From the beginning I have been impressed with DVCPRO, Panasonic’s INTRA-frame compression, where each frame is compressed but not referencing the prior frame, much less 15-frames.  This is why the HDV data rate is a lowly 35Mb/s while DVCRO-HD is 100Mb/s.

Who wants to continue using the technology of the last decade?  Exit- stage right!

the 'book by it's cover' rule applies here

P2 is still top of the line at Panasonic including the VariCam studio line, but they released several AVCHD cameras that record and archive to SDHC memory cards. Who the hell comes up with the model names?  This HMC40 weighs nothing.  I don’t think there is any medal in the unit. This is an AVCHD format based camcorder that uses MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 high profile encoding, which provides a near doubling of bandwidth efficiency. You’ve got to read it all, but this just blew me away; it features a full resolution 2-megapixel imager that produces 1920×1080 images with high mega sensitivity. The camera captures 10.6-megapixel resolution directly onto the SD card as a JPEG image.  <—- $3,000.00 I’ll take two!

Three grand is NOT the most important part. Using just one 32GB SDHC memory card, a user can record three hours of full resolution 1920×1080 video and audio in PH mode, four hours at HA mode and 5.3 hours at HG mode. In the HE mode, the camera can record up to 12 hours of 1440×1080 HD content – all on a single 32GB SDHC card. In addition, a free transcoder, available for download at http://www.panasonic.com/avccam, will convert AVCHD files to DVCPRO HD P2 and downconverted DV files for use with most existing professional editing packages.

Here’s the most important part. AVCHD can be archived to BluRay.  No here’s the most important part. That BluRay disc can play in a BluRay player on your giagantic tv set in your beautiful home, wait for it, wait for it, IN FULL HD RESOLUTION!   Your home videos on your tv in HD.

Now that is the most important part.

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