hmm look at this...


Panasonic
AG-HVX200 DVCPRO HD P2 Camcorder
Unveiling at NAB 2005, the AG-HVX200 is the professional video industry's most anticipated technology breakthrough. This revolutionary, hand-held P2 camcorder provides 1080i

<-----ok this is weird it says 1080i above..and then...

and 720p recording with the production proven image quality of 100 Mbps DVCPRO HD. The AG-HVX200 records on a P2 card in 1080 in 60i, 30p and 24p; in720 in 60p, 30p and 24p; in 480 in 60i, 30p, and 24p either in DVCPRO50 and DVCPRO.

<_---it says 1080p/24 so it does both ? i and p???

Exactly, that's the information that we'll have to wait for. From people who see the thing or read it in several official places, rather than one single posting where it's possibly a typo.

Shit, I'm using an XM2, so damn, 720P is good enough for me.

Aaron

<<<-- Originally posted by Graeme Nattress : Pixelsshift is real, but I'm hard pressed to see any benefit from it. Any type of sampling, which is what a CCD is doing to the image, relies on mathematical sampling theory, and according to that, you can't represent a signal with more frequency than half the sample rate. I'm at quite a loss to see how PixelShift gets around this requirement or creating aliassing problems.

If anyone has any links to any nice mathematical papers on the subject of pixel shift, I'd be very happy to read them.

Graeme -->>>

See the original feature explanation for the XL-1 camera. Pixel shift is done ONLY on the green ccd because that's what our eyes are most sensitive to with respect to resolution. So, this fools us into seeing a higher resolution image. It works pretty good imho. If I can find the original Canon blurb on pixel shift, I will post it.

Forget mathematical papers. On paper, bumblebees and helicopters shouldn't fly, but they do!

-gb-

But I am a mathematician by training....

AFAIK the Canon used pixel shift vertically, not horizontally like the FX1. Unfortunately, although it's debateable about the mathematics of bug flight, sampling theory is tried, tested and true, wether it be digital audio or video, and you can't just magic it's bounds away. I'm still trying to find a good paper on this subject, and it seems that although pixels shift can add some extra resolution, it cannot add anywhere near the amount of resolution that Sony try to add with their camera, as measurements of that camera's actual resolution show. And that's why I'm keen to learn more about the imaging chips used by this camera.

Graeme

<_---it says 1080p/24 so it does both ? i and p???
It does:
1080/24p
1080/30p
1080/60i

720/24p
720/30p
720/60p

Kurth I don't think this is a false alarm. Panasonic would be stupid to let that happen. I VERY much doubt they would play a hand that proved untrue. I believe you ARE seeing a revolution greater than HDV. There will always be room for the Varicam. It's a 2/3 inch camera! That makes a lot of difference. The larger format - thus better sensitivity and signal to noise ratio combined with the more expensive processing and high end lenses really makes the Varicam stand out. I am sooo very glad that Panasonic listened to the customer base rather than go with HDV like everyone else. One of the smartest movies a company could ever make.

In any case we will know for certain soon enough. Personally I take the official announcement to be proof enough but for skeptics NAB is just around the corner :).

Buckle up. It's gonna be one hell of a ride!

Anyone want to buy an FX1? :D

Seriously, I can't wait to see the specs on this camera.

As for noise, I wonder what the possibilities are for shooting 60p and using some kind of adaptive noise averaging down to 24p? This camera, with it's much more flexible shooting options, should give endless possibilities for doing fun things to help get around tricky situations.

Graeme

Graeme, why not just shoot 24p then? Do you mean for a slow mo or something?

Aaron

I'm thinking if there's low light, you could shoot more frames per second than you need, and use some post processing to adaptively lower the noise level. I found when doing so Varicam 60p to 24p conversions, that the noise level seemed a bit lower....

I'm just thinking out loud on the possibilities for this camera....

Graeme

I think he means literally taking 60 frames and averaging them together to get 24p. The benefit being a higher signal to noise ratio. I'm not sure if it would work with averaging images that aren't the same though. I know it works in still photography but in that case the scene doesn't change (usually).

EDIT: Gah, hate it when that happens :P

Better get to work on those filters, Grahame! I'm going to need them on my new 23 inch HD iMAC! *L*

One good thing about using pixelshift is that you can user larger photodiodes, lowering overall noise and greatly enhances smear suppresion, considereing the small sensor size (1/3"-1/2")

Here is a blurp from a Panasonic brochure:
http://panasonic.andersholck.com/spatialoffset.gif

The Panasonic AJ-HDX400 has a 1280x720 60p CCD block and supports 1080i, using some clever upressing...

WOW!!!!!!!!!!

Unreal!!!!! I can't WAIT to see this puppy!! When is it scheduled to ship?? Any insider news?

- ShannonRawls.com

P2 cards....

P2 cards.....

P2 cards.....

PLEASE BE AFFORDABLE.....

PLEASE MAKE 2-HOURS WORTH OF RECORDING AFFORDABLE.....

ALL A BRUTHA NEEDS IS 2-HOURS.....

I WILL BE HAPPY TO GIVE YOU $6,999.99 FOR THE CAMERA AND 2-HOURS!!!!!

P2 cards.....

P2 cards......

P2 cards.....

*smile*

- ShannonRawls.com

Great stuff isn't it?! :D

You could (theoretically) use this camera for years - much longer than an average electronics life span.

I think there will be options for hard disk recording (I believe Panasonic has something on their website a while back) so that should hold most people over until P2 enters their budget range I would think. Hope I'm not wrong!

"The Panasonic AJ-HDX400 has a 1280x720 60p CCD block and supports 1080i, using some clever upressing..."

Is this confirmed?
Is there a link to this info?

"You could (theoretically) use this camera for years..."

Ha! Who are you kidding? We'll all be drooling over the new SuperExtremeHighDefinition camera that will come out NAB 2007. (2009 for Canon.)

Kevin

<<<-- Originally posted by Luis Caffesse : [i]Is this confirmed?
Is there a link to this info? -->>>

The Aj-HDX400 is a full size camcorder.

The new small one is the HVX200.

Isn't it HVX200?

Quite true Kevin :D. I'm talking pragmatically though. With SD there was a limit to how far you could go. With this however, improvements will surely be made but this should last about as long as the XL1 I would think a good 6 years maybe?

Honestly though, where do we go next? I can't even begin to imagine what Panasonic will be releasing a few years from now. Do we go scope? Greater latitude? Larger chips? More pixels? HD3D?

Nah. The equipment becomes so good and owned by everyone, that we all start getting less excited about it and more focused more on good writing and good ideas.

A man can dream...

Kevin

(PS-On a serious note, this is all very much following what happened in the audio world over the past 15 years. In mid-80's I was so thrilled to be recording on 4-track recorders...than 8-track recorders. Now? It's not about the equipment at all. Anyone can record a technically decent signal into a computer. BUT, is music any better than 15 years ago? I sure don't think so...)

> If you start with a 4:4:4 image and use pixel shift
> you will end up with an image at 4:2:2 no matter
> how it is encoded.

Yep. So... who cares if pixel shift is used when it's going to be encoded at 4:2:2 anyway? I don't. Especially if, by using pixel shift, better sensitivity and s/n is obtained, not to mention an easier to make (read: less expensive) sensor array.

Now the only thing I want is to have an option to pop a hard drive into the P2 slot instead of solid state memory. Should be much less expensive.

"The Panasonic AJ-HDX400 has a 1280x720 60p CCD block and supports 1080i, using some clever upressing..."

Well that would get us to 1920 x 1080 with pixel shift. You get 1.5X the luma pixels with pixel shift. This would give us a 1080i/p image with 1920 x 1080 luma pixels and only 1280 x 720 chroma pixels or a 3:2:2 natural image. The codec would then bring that down to 1920 x 1080 for luma and 960 x 540 for chroma or 4:2:2I guess that isn't that bad. It sure beats 4:1:1.

Even if the new Panasonic camera uses pixel shift for 1080i/p that sure beats the SONY Z1 trying to jump up to 1920 from only 960.

Even for those who love pixel shift you have to admit starting with 1280 instead of 960 pixels is much better when trying to get to 1920.

"The Aj-HDX400 is a full size camcorder.

The new small one is the HVX200."



That's what I get for not reading carefully.

Boy is my face red!
:)



"It's not about the equipment at all. Anyone can record a technically decent signal into a computer. BUT, is music any better than 15 years ago? I sure don't think so..."

That is true, as a blanket statement.
Music overall may not be better than it was 15 years ago, but I guarantee you there are people recording incredible music today that would not have had the means to do so 15 years ago.

So, you are right, these technological leaps don't automatically equal better content, not at all. But I'll bet that out of the thousands of cameras that are sold this year, at least one person will make something interesting, genuine, and possibly brilliant. And that same person may not have done so if they couldn't afford it before.

I'm a bit worried about no mention of 3ccd's... And more, I'm really worried about the lens- One of the things I liked most in my DVX was the fantastic LEICA DICOMAR lens it had- the colors, the sharpness, the amazing detail and, again, the Colors where what sold me- a million time better than the plain sony lens of my PD-170...

So no 25 or 50 frame rates then!

Steve, there will be a PAL version for Europe, Australia and New Zeeland with 1080/50i, 108025p, 720/50p, 720/25p, 576/50i and 576/25p. No 24/30/60.

I know NAB is only two weeks away, but can anyone point me to anything besides speculation to support that this camera will NOT have a tape drive? Every bit of news I read (jan, etc) seems to say that it will. Isn't DVCPRO-HD a TAPE format?

It surely will have P2. But still we do not know, how many P2 cards it will take of. And regarding the question of a tape drive or a (built-in) hard disk drive - no comments from Panasonic until now. But also they have not disclaimed anything. So we have to wait... DVCPRO-HD is not a tape format, but a format of recording. There is no determined specification regarding the recording medium.

John,

This isn't exactly speculation.

EVEN IF there were a tape transport on this camera, you won't be shooting DVCProHD onto tape. The tape transport would probably only work with DVCPro.

MiniDV tapes don't have the strength needed for the higher tape speeds of DVCPro50 and DVCProHD (Jan talked about this on here about HD specifically).

Also, Jan has mentioned that the DVCProHD tape transports require 16 recording heads, which are not only expensive but also take up a lot of space. So, if this camera had an HD tape transport, it wouldn't be anywhere near as small as it is, and neither would the price.


edited to add:

Okay, in case those points weren't enough to disuade people from thinking this cam might have tape, here is what Jan had to say in another thread. (http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=39453)

" ... this little camera will not record to tape, rather to memory, P2 cards. No moving parts except those in the lens."

But maybe there will be a (MiniDV) tape drive for DVCPRO25 - that would be possible. We will see...

So, if this camera had an HD tape transport, it wouldn't be anywhere near as small as it is, and neither would the price.

If the alternative is paying $1,700 for four minutes recording on a P2 card, surely paying $2,000 for a tape transport would be a bargain?

I don't understand why people complain about the price of tape heads if they're willing to pay $400 a minute for P2 cards... unless those HD tape head are going to cost you $20,000.

The P2 recording times are not that great yet. Don't want to get into the doc guys or event guys who shoot forever (hard drive will work hopefully).

But I don't think most people understand. If you use your camera a lot, you'd be paying that much for tape stock anyway over the course of years.

So your just paying for it up front, but in the end it's going to cost you the same.

"paying $2,000 for a tape transport would be a bargain"

A DVCProHD tape transport would cost roughly $6400 for the record heads alone. So you're talking about probably doubling the price on this new camera, as well as the size.

I doubt we'll be spending $6400 on P2 cards.


Also, a 4gb card will hold about 5 minutes of 720P60 footage.
The data rate is cut by 60% when you shoot 24P (to 40mb/s). So, on a 4gb card you can fit roughly 13 minutes of 720P24 footage.

And again, prices will drop for P2. New prices will probably be announed at NAB. Panasonic knows what they're doing.

The camera won't be available for months probably, so we can't make many judgement based off the cost of P2 cards today. What matters is the cost of P2 cards when the camera is released.

Who has not seen the p2 card reader picture at dvxuser ? Sorry I'm tooo lazy and it's too early to go looking for the link but it's there . It's got its' own hd - now why can't a p2 slot adapter to p2 slot adapter be made and problem solved. It's about the size of firestore 4 w/o 3rd party interface problems. And no one has mentioned if it's got firewire ?

Actually I posted on here about Firestore supporting DVCPRO HD with the FS4 and Jan said that they had been made aware of the camera ahead of time and that they were thinking of supporting (I guess based on customer demand). I infered (or assumed, if you will--and I'm fully willing to take the repurcussions of that assumption) that it thus has firewire on it.

You realized if it has the tape recorder it looks there wont be place for the P2 slots? Just look the size of JVCs tape, they could´nt possibly put something more there than a needle button... So on one side the LCD and in the other, P2 slots (It´s discussed if one or two?). No moving parts... Uncompressed audio... my money pig looks scare... Maybe it´s because of the hammer i´m holding.

But i would like to know how they´ll (p2 slots) be shaped. Anyway i think i´ll be using 720p nearly all the time for storage sake.

Could it be improved in the future via firmware to record 1080 60p?

I'm with you Ivan, until computer processor speeds get better and whatnot (and I can afford them, since this camera will take just about all the cash I have set aside for equipment for the next year or so) I'll be shooting 720 30/24p pretty much exlusively... but I can go HD!

<<<-- Originally posted by Robert Niemann : But maybe there will be a (MiniDV) tape drive for DVCPRO25 - that would be possible. We will see... -->>>

What does DVCPRO25 = too in other cameras? Normal DV or something like DVCAM?

It would still be nice to get this camera shoot in PRO25 then later buy the cards when they get cheaper.

Like DVCAM :)

Also shoots 50mbps SD!

4GB SanDisk Compact flash $299 at fry's. It's amazing how memory prices are dropping. P2 is going to reflect this market. Panasonic is smart, they are not going to shoot their own foot over P2 cards......

<<<-- Originally posted by Luis Caffesse : [i
I doubt we'll be spending $6400 on P2 cards.


Also, a 4gb card will hold about 5 minutes of 720P60 footage.
The data rate is cut by 60% when you shoot 24P (to 40mb/s). So, on a 4gb card you can fit roughly 13 minutes of 720P24 footage.

And again, prices will drop for P2. New prices will probably be announed at NAB. Panasonic knows what they're doing.

The camera won't be available for months probably, so we can't make many judgement based off the cost of P2 cards today. What matters is the cost of P2 cards when the camera is released. -->>>

Err... Just a question...

If Firestore is implemented with dvcproHD or 50 codec, what denies other people with ohter cameras to record the image in this codec? Does it recognize the camera is being used?

I know if its 4:1:1 won´t get more info, but if working for different TV agencies with different systems (DVCPRO, DVCAM) you could record for them this way... Is it possible?

The Firestore doesn't apply a codec -- it just records the data file sent over the Firewire connection with a codec already applied.

GB

Ups.... let it go quietly...

ehem..hem...ehem...

So... Was it one or two P2 slots?... ;D

hi Michael - the cool thing about the 720/24p@13 minutes for a 4 gig card is , is that's about like run time on a 16mm 400 mag- wow , that's a drop in media size for comparable quality - from a 400ft. mag to the size of a cf card in 10 years. Sure will beat the used Aaton market to death , considering the cards can be reexposed ....and reexposed....and reexposed....and , they say 50,000x.If I trust your storage numbers , then I could go for 5 4gig p2 cards @ 300 each w/o even blinking.If , and it's a big if, the camera is reasonably priced - like lower than halfway between 10k and a z1. Panasonic must be listening. Also , we haven't seen anything about cine gamma , have we ?Kurth

If the new camera does not have firewire...

I was thinking today that if P2 cards work in a cardbus slot of a laptop then would cardbus expansion cards made for laptops work in a P2 slot? You could then add a firewire cardbus card to the P2 slot and have a live firewire network feed from the camera. You could also stick in a gigabit cardbus adapter as well. I don't know if the camera will be smart enough to use those cards or not but it could open up a lot of options for us to not record on P2.

Think about it, there's no practical way for it NOT to have two slots (at least)... one of the big advantages of P2 is hot-swapping on the fly, which requires... yep, at least two card slots.

Other Panasonic P2 cams offer options for SDI, FireWire and USB 2.0. I'd be very surprised if the HVX didn't have FireWire or USB 2.0.

I am sure it will have USB2 since that is the one of the main ways of editing with P2. Other P2 equipment can be used as an external hard drive when using USB2.

As for the 2 slot thing I am not so sure. If everything is true about the camera so far Panasonic will have to cripple it somehow when compared to the other high end P2 gear. If it did only have one slot the camera would still be very usefull for film people. Swapping the cards would only be needed for those who need to shoot for a long time without stopping. For mini DV users this is already an issue with events over 1 hour. Eventually we will have P2 cards that can fit 1 hour of HD. At that point having 2 slots will not be a crucial as it is right now.

One thing is for sure if it does only have one slot at least the swapping should be much faster than it is with tape. You should (in theory) be able to swap cards in 10 seconds.

Can anybody who has used the current P2 gear confirm this?

"If everything is true about the camera so far Panasonic will have to cripple it somehow"

Have we really become this cynical after years of crippled prosumer cams?

I guess so.
:)


I have to go with Chris on this one.
A 1 slot P2 camcorder would be much more than just crippled, it would be on it's deathbed.

The biggest obstacles Panasonic has when it comes to convincing people to switch over to P2 seems to be price and recording time.

Price drops are expected at NAB.
And as far as recording time goes....with 2 P2 slots, you could theoretically shoot forever.
That makes for great marketing fodder.
I doubt Panasonic would pass up that opportunity.

Trying to keep things in perspective...

We are fortunate that we live in a time where we have an embarrasment of riches. Between Sony, Panasonic, Adobe, Apple and others.. none of us will have an excuse to not achieve our dreams.

Just pick your tools, don't waste time worrying about what someone else has, and start creating.

really.