This is what Jan Crittenden said in other thread: "While I cannot disscuss how this camera works, I can discuss the concept of the data remaining in the DVCPRO HD signal once the extra frames have been removed. DVCPRO HD has 100Mbps at 60 frames of information. The compression on each frame is equal and the same, d optimized for the compromise of intraframe compression. If we look at the fact that there is 60 frames per second and there is 100Mbps, we have a formula. If we only use 24 of those frames, then we are using a little over 1/3 of the data or about 40Mbps. When working with FCP over firewire, you can reduce the data load from 100Mbps to 40Mbps just by casting off the exta frames. Interestingly enough when working in DVCPRO50 and you remove the pulldown of 2:3:3:2 you are roughly at 40Mbps as well. Do these two look anything alike? No. The size of the image is much larger on the DVCPRO HD."

This makes sense. But DVCPRO HD so far covered only 1080i and 720p. At 1080i, bit rate is 100 Mbps, if it is 50i or 60i. If this camera keeps this high bit rate at 25p and 30p, and most likely will, Sony, watch out. You had monopoly on 1080p with 150,000 USD camcorder, plus in Europe with F750, is around 100,000 euros, equipped.

If this camera has decent CCD chips, there is no reason to think otherwise, we have total breakthrough in indie filmmaking.

P2 SM card seems expensive? Who cares? Your next step costs 10x more and does not send data over firewire to FCP.

cheaper cards,,,,,30 min cards,,,not 4 min cards. The HDX200 for $4,999 with about 2 hours worth of cards would be a good deal. The Panasonic ad does say affordable. $1,700 for a 4 min P2 card is not affordable.

I think we're beginning to forget just how great a deal this is even with expensive cards and a 10K camera ;). We can't have everything! But damn if Panasonic hasn't given us a lot!

Come on Bob!

We know definitely 720p 24p at a good data rate is guaranteed. That would be good enough. But now the possibility of freaking 1080p for under 10k (+ card 11.5 k. What are you waiting for? Ain't gonna be better than that for a while. And you better find a way to get one, because every struggling filmmaker out there is going to. And then you'll be lost in all the competition of low budget / high quality films.

Must think positive. Must think . . . MOOOVIEEEEEEEEE.

Really? This will be the only camera that will make movies? It's a good camera but the memory is the problem. It will work for some and not others. I really don't think this camera was made for struggling filmakers. Struggling filmakers are going to use whatever they can. I'm still waiting to see what this camera is going to do...in a few days we will know more.

Methinks that a bad movie made on HD will not be more successful than a good one made on SD. It will just be a sharper bad movie.

P.S. Guys,

I'm hardly trying to knock on anyone, I'm just chew'n the fat, so keep that in mind that I wuv everyone here. That said . . .

No, I'm not saying it's the only camera that will make movies. I'm saying it's the only one in that price range that will give us complete and total access to a tool that lets us actually compete with the big boys. Things like Blair Witch or Clerks or El Mariachi or Open Water were a lot closer to winning the lottery type films than they were quality movies. Yes, they were good . . . for being a micro budget "indie" movie. That's the catch. They stood out amongst other micro budget films according to the status quo. But look at the picture quality. And personally I think luck was really the reason they were successful. That and each had a gimmick.

IMHO, man, El Mariachi and Clerks, AFTER being cleaned up by the studios looked and sounded like absolute CRAP. The stories were terrible. The Rodrigez and Kevin Smith's films have gotten much better, but at first . . .

Open water was a pretty lame flick in my opinion too. Interesting up to a point but then just draged and when projected in theaters looked nothing like a real movie.

Blair witch was cool the first time I saw it because I saw a bootleg copy before the film came out, so the tape was really bad, which gave it that extra home movie look. But in the theater I personally thought it came across as cheezy. It did, however have a good story.

The thing the movies all had in common is a gimmick. Blair Witch was the best gimmick. Great marketing like it was supposed to have really happened. Mariachi and Clerks were gimmicks because back then it was very very very hard to make a movie on such budgets, and they were towted as "super micro budget" indie films. Open water was a true story gimmick, because . . . wow! You mean this actually happened.

It is way safe to say, that if the pure quality of the films (well, maybe not for blair witch, because it was supposed to look bad) were 4 or 5 times better, it only would have helped. There's only 2 or 3 slots a year for small indie films to make it to theaters commercial theaters. There are many more for bigger-looking, higher quality films. It's hard enough getting your flick picked up when it looks great. It's expodentially harder if it looks small and meek.

That's why I say in filmmaking reality, yes there are other cameras we indie filmmakers can shoot on for only 10 to 12 k, but then, not really.

I think it will be a awesome camera for alot of things.

Laurence, just out of curiousity, what did you think about 28 days later?
Thanks,

<<<-- Originally posted by Laurence Maher :
Must think positive. Must think . . . MOOOVIEEEEEEEEE. -->>>





90%+ of productions in the world have nothing to do with filmmaking. Those that are actually making movies that are for true release and not in somebody's homemade garage theater are in a niche group when compared to the volume of EFP, ENG work that goes on in the world every minute of the day.

Panasonic wants this camera selling to all markets of production, whether it's your film, a cooking show in the middle the woods or Chris Hurd riding a his horse wearing a pink dress. Now that's entertainment baby! :-O


I like the price $4,999 for HVX200,--- P2 4gig $500. Volume, Volume, Volume think Volume sales.

Michael Pappas
http://www.Pbase.com/ARRFILMS

cheaper cards,,,,,30 min cards,,,not 4 min cards. The HDX200 for $4,999 with about 2 hours worth of cards would be a good deal.
This is... a simply amazing statement.

A Sony Z1, which shoots 4:2:0 1080i only, is $4999 -- and a screaming deal and a breakthrough, at that price.

With this new Panasonic, you're talking about 720/24p, 720/30p, 720/60p, 1080/24p, 1080/30p, 1080/60i, plus 4:2:2 color sampling, in a frame-discrete codec, PLUS digibeta-caliber DVCPRO50 for SD use, plus revolutionary P2 memory cards, and you think it's not worth a dime more? That it's only a good deal at $4999?

Considering the next-lowest-cost 1080/24p camera is $100,000?

I think this camera would be a good deal at $25,000. I'm glad it's not $25,000, but I think it would be a breakthrough at $25,000. At $10,000 it's a steal, for what it is. Obviously it won't be affordable for some. But neither is a Mercedes, neither is a Cadillac, neither is a Honda Accord. But cutting the price of 1080/24p acquisition from $100,000 to under $10,000 qualifies as a "good deal" no matter what.

Agreed. It's a hell of a good deal even if it's over $10K.

<< or Chris Hurd riding a his horse wearing a pink dress. Now that's entertainment baby! >>

Real entertainment would be Chris Hurd riding his horse going Godiva. Now that's what you call a horror movie.

Mathieu,

About 28 days later,

Story for me started out really cool, but after they got to the soldier barracade, it wasn't as enjoyable because I felt it started using very obvious and typical horror plot. So many horrors have some bad guy whose amazingly stupid that starts running the show because he's a bully, and the good people are now stuck between a rock and hard place, or better said, between a dangerous bully and a lethal monster. That was kind of lame. I thought it started awesome, though. The one cool thing that happened once they got to the barricade was the guy in the hole mentioning that it was probably just England with monsters, and a quarantine has trapped them inside.

Sound was fine.

Image was great the first time I saw it because I saw it in letterbox on a very small television, and I made the mistake of being blown away with the fact that it was shot on the Canon XL-2. But then I saw it on a large TV and instantly noticed the huge degredation in picture quality. I'm sure that if I saw it in the theater, I would have considered the picture quality way sub-standard like Open Water, and would have viewed it as one of those movies that was good for an "indie", type. Of course, there are many a moviegoer that saw the flick and didn't notice too much because a lot of the general public are kind of like cows and didn't notice, or they did notice and were dumb enough to think that it was a "style" for the film as opposed to a film shot on a substandard camera due to money concerns. Incidently, the director himself stated he chose to shoot on that camera because it gave him the look he was going for. Personally, I don't belive that. I think it was for money concerns and he had to come up with an excuse. If he was telling the truth, I think the guy was fairly stupid, for the film would have been far more powerful shot on 35 or with pro quality 720p or 1080p, or super 16. He said something about how he wanted to give it a "documentary" look, which I thought was kind of stupid, as it may have had a documentary level image, but did not have a documentary shooting style. The shooting style was pretty Hollywood-esque. I heard the movie was 3 million, and if it was, I don't see why he didn't why he didn't use a better camera, but maybe he wanted that look and to each his own.

The reason this movie made it to major theaters in my opinion had little to do with the finished product and much to do with the fact that it's the director who did well at Sundance with the infamous Train Spotting, and then I think did well with Shallow Grave, and maybe some other successes. I.e., the man was already in the door. A relatively established director making a blood and guts horror is usually an automatic sell to the studios. It also had an established English actor for a supporting role. (The father of the little girl). So it was likely to make good money in England.

Overall, I didn't knock the film. It was fun to watch and had infinitely more plot than the typical Hollywood horror. I listened to the commentary and was really surprised to here just how much of the movie was shot with common stage lighting and then was completely "re-lit" later in post-production with high-level fx computers. Fasinating.

Bottom line relating to this thread:

IMHO, if this 10k camera had been out at the time, and this guy had a limited budget or whatever, he would have been a fool not to just stick it on the bill, that measly 10- tops 15 - k with a lot of storage, and shoot the hell out of that thing. Even at his established level, I really personally think he would have been a fool. Now that this camera is coming out, I think any truely passionate filmmaker (or videographer for that matter-as soon enough HD TV will be household common/ and any way you look at it, your stuff will beat the heck out of the competitor cameras) that has little money but can SOMEHOW afford this camera would be a fool to not get one. That statement does not apply to people who just can't afford it. It also doen't apply to people who have the budget for say, 35mm. But it DOES apply to all those who could sell a few things here, who could cut corners for a while, or who could put in a few extra hours at work to make up the difference. As I've said before, what do most people pay for a car? What did most people pay for there stereo or home theater system? What do most people pay for the food they eat each meal as opposed to toughing it out with .50 cent cans of tuna, low-cost / high quantity and energy pasta or bread, and cheap-o canned vegetables for a while (which can all be bought at your grocery store right down the street). A couple of meals at chili's could buy you food for a week. It's not as tastey at all, but it's better for ya and might enable you to buy that camera. You'd be surprised just how far only a few months of cut-backs can go.

For people who just want to make a home movie, or a cable access show, no, this camera is not needed. But if your looking to be a professional and compete against others in a professional market, and you're one of the people questioning the price of the hdx-200, take a moment to think where some of your money goes. THAT will tell you if you honestly can't get one, or if you just tell yourself you can't.

I quote the grand master of my karate style . . .

"There is a limit to your abilities, but there is no limit to your effort."

Again, nothing personal about this, just my opinion, and that opinion only counts for one vote out of millions.

"Incidently, the director himself stated he chose to shoot on that camera because it gave him the look he was going for. Personally, I don't belive that. I think it was for money concerns and he had to come up with an excuse. If he was telling the truth, I think the guy was fairly stupid"

the director had stated before , during after the movie his reason for the 'looK" etc ... the budget was more then 3million.
if you don't believe the director ( very independent director that chooses only projects he wants to personally make ) who can one believe ? this was during a time when many directors made a project on mini dv - from Cus Van sant to spike lee = perhpas it was the "in " thing ?
now looking at the list of his movies i just don't see how one can associate him with "fairly stupid" ??

It was also shot on the XL1 not the Xl2 :). VHS res on the large screen!

Yeah it was a totally awful looking film. But it entertained me enough.

Aaron

I believe what he said was that he liked the look of it for what he was doing, but that was really a by product of the fact that the prosumer cameras were extemely fast to light in low light, and he could monitor a lot of them all at once and know that what he was seeing was what he was getting, which was vital for the London scenes at the beginning, because he couldn't close of the London streets for more than a few minutes (mostly at dawn) for that abandoned look. So, no he's not stupid, just aware of the difficulties of making what he wanted to make and looking for out of the box ways to solve his problem.

And some people might yell why didn't he shoot on HD - but that wasn't really an option at the time. He shot 28 Days Later in the summer of 2000 (it took 2 years to find an American distributor, must not have been that easy a sell) at which time there were only 2 1080 24p HD cameras in the world, and they were both in Sidney. So he made do with what he had.

It's easy to point fingers and say this guy should have done that and that guy should have done this. But the fact is, the guy you're talking about is an extremely experienced director with a large budget behind him who knew what he was doing, not some naybob with his first video camera. If he had wanted to shoot 35, he certainly had the money to do so - but like any good director, he picked the format that worked logistically with the schedule and budget he had.

What is "going Godiva" mean Chris?

michael

Trust me Michael... if you don't know... then you don't want to know.... you'll be much better off that way with your sensibilities preserved intact.

As in Lady Godiva.........

"I think this camera would be a good deal at $25,000. I'm glad it's not $25,000, but I think it would be a breakthrough at $25,000. At $10,000 it's a steal, for what it is. Obviously it won't be affordable for some. But neither is a Mercedes, neither is a Cadillac, neither is a Honda Accord. But cutting the price of 1080/24p acquisition from $100,000 to under $10,000 qualifies as a "good deal" no matter what."

Barry, I'm seriously starting to wonder if you aren't shilling for panasonic. Why do you repeatedly state that 10K is a great steal of a price. Pricing is all psychologically motivated, so what something is worth may have nothing to do with what it costs to make. So stop hammering out that 10k is a great price, when many can't afford 10k and are hoping that it will be a lot less. If this is supposed to be a breakthrough, then it better be a breakthrough for all, and not just those flush with cash. And incidentally, cutting the price from 100k to 10k doesn't necessarily qualify as a "good deal no matter what". Definitely technology has changed and advanced far more rapidly in general than it has in the video camera industry, where we wait forever for change to occur and pay for it through the nose until it does. The manufacturers have been taking our money without shame for as long as the video camera has been around. So stop your rhetoric. It's getting lame.

Hey, to each his own. Depends on what you plan on doing with it.

But before you go calling me a "shill" and say my "rhetoric" is "lame", just put it in context. If you wanted to shoot 1080/24p, you had exactly one choice for that: the Sony CineAlta, at $100,000. For just the body. If you want a lens, that's extra. Viewfinder? Pile on some more. Oh, and if you want to play the footage back, you'll probably want a deck.

By the time you get set up, you're looking at $150,000.

Panasonic's created something that'll let you shoot 1080/24p for under $10,000. With no need to spend extra for a lens or a deck.

How can you call that anything other than "revolutionary" and a "steal"? I mean, it's absolutely a steal. I mean, do you know what it costs to even RENT a CineAlta for a day? One day? Around $1100-$1200. You could buy this camera and its P2 cards and whatever's included in the $10k price for the cost of renting a CineAlta for a week or two. How is that not a screaming bargain? If you wanted to, you could buy it at $10k, use it for a month on your production, then sell it on ebay and probably still get $8,000 for it. So you'd get a 4-week "rental" for about $2,000. Or about the same amount of cash it'd cost to rent a CineAlta for TWO DAYS.

Obviously some people won't be able to afford it. But there are a lot of video professionals who will be able to make their money back on this camera in maybe two months' time. It is ridiculously cheap for what it offers.

You could say that there are people who can't afford it, but that doesn't mean it's overpriced! If you can put it to work, it will pay for itself in short order, and by that standard, it's probably going to be the CHEAPEST video camera on the market. Buying it on speculation would be foolish. But buying it to put it to work -- it's sounding like an incredible value. Ask anyone who owns a production company that's pulling its own weight if they'd be interested in a 1080/24p, 1080/60i, and 720/60p camera for under $10,000 -- I think you'd find that every one of them would agree with me, that that caliber of equipment at that price would qualify as a screaming bargain.

"Ask anyone who owns a production company that's pulling its own weight if they'd be interested in a 1080/24p, 1080/60i, and 720/60p camera for under $10,000 -- I think you'd find that every one of them would agree with me, that that caliber of equipment at that price would qualify as a screaming bargain."

I agree whole heartedly Barry.
If this camera can deliver what it promises, it will pay for itself faster than virtually any other piece of gear I have ever purchased.

Last time I shot HD on a 2 day shoot, I spent 1650 on a camera package. I spent 160 on DVCProHD tape stock.
And who knows what else....

All of those costs keep my profit margin too low for my comfort. I was really hot about shooting HD a year ago, and now I find myself not pushing it nearly as hard...because of what it cost me.

This camera could change that.
And pay for itself in the blink of an eye.

Laurence, about 28 days later: I saw it on the big screen, and sometimes you could ofcourse say it was DV, but at other moments it really wasn't so bad. (At the time I wasn't very busy with resolution and stuff, but I could see it was DV, but still I think they did a great job)

And I also think the least you can say about the film, or Danny Boyle, that they tried to take the best out of the XL1, a camera which is now nearly 6 years old or so.
(btw: I found that the story took a dive down to after they came with the soldiers, but I still appreciate it)

And for the rest of the thread: I have to agree with Bary too. This camera is way out of my budget (I don't even have a budget now) but looking at the price/quality relation of this camera... we should be very very very grateful to Panasonic for giving us this!

Thank you, Panasonic ;-)!

To Anthony Gratl:

<< Barry, I'm seriously starting to wonder if you aren't shilling for panasonic. >>

Hello hello, we will have none of that sort of trash talk around here. I realize you are new to this board, but you should have read the forum policies that you agreed to when you registered.

<< Why do you repeatedly state that 10K is a great steal of a price. >>

Beacause... it is a steal of a price, as has been clearly explained.

<< So stop your rhetoric. It's getting lame. >>

Stop your flaming. It's getting lame. I'll warn you just this one time; do it again and you're out of here. Thanks in advance,

Of course you realize on the other end of things, that your margins definitely won't change, at least not for long, because it won't take too much time for others to figure out that they too can get this cheap little camera and be shooting 1080/24p, and do it lower than you can because for whatever reason, they're overhead is lower, they're still living with mom and dad, etc.

So cheap stuff isn't necessarily better, whether it's performance, or even for business in general.

"So cheap stuff isn't necessarily better, whether it's performance, or even for business in general."

I completely agree with you Jason.
Although I could easily see my margin on HD work becoming equal to my margin on SD work due to the fact that I could own the gear, and it would eventually pay for itself. That's what's happened with the SD production I've been doing, and now my overhead is virtually nothing (except tapestock, which will eventually go to zero when I'm shooting solid state.)

I agree, cheap isn't better.
And I don't expect to get a Varicam at under 10K.

But quite honestly, most of my HD clients don't need Varicam quality. They're just looking for something higher res than SD. So far this is sounding like a great solution.

Not a magic bullet, but better than the options I've had.
That's all I meant.

And of course one thing that is must be kept in mind when comparing this to a CineAlte or a Varicam is that those have 2/3" chips and this camera will almost certainly have 1/3" chips. And that will have an impact on your image quality in comparison with those 'bigger' cameras. It's a great deal, and sounds like a great camera, but it is not, by itself, going to put you into Varicam territory either.

Oh Chris, how about a hint. How bad can it be?

I should be glad Chris... You acutally care about my sensibilities staying intact. 8-)

Michael Pappas
http://www.pbase.com/ARRFILMS

<<<-- Originally posted by Chris Hurd : Trust me Michael... if you don't know... then you don't want to know.... you'll be much better off that way with your sensibilities preserved intact. -->>>

>>What is "going Godiva" mean Chris? <<
Michael he means 'naked' as in the way you are born. (Now that you will have that image stuck in your head for the rest of your life....) but you asked for it, hehehe

I guess we could all just 'hang around' to see what shows up aye?

NO....NO. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

That's not funny. I shouldn't have asked. Damit..Damit...Damit.

Chris, you warned me and I didn't listen...............

Michael Pappas
http://www.PBASE.Com/ARRFILMS




<<<-- Originally posted by Joe Carney : >>What is "going Godiva" mean Chris? <<
Michael he means 'naked' as in the way you are born. (Now that you will have that image stuck in your head for the rest of your life....) but you asked for it, hehehe

I guess we could all just 'hang around' to see what shows up aye? -->>>

Hi guys, first time poster here:

Well, so many questions about this camera...but the possibilities are absolutely mind boggling! Of course, like many, I'm very intrigued but apprehensive about the whole P2 leap. My main gig consists of shooting and editing an outdoors program with a mix of action coverage, interviews, and product reviews/tests. This camera would be an absolute dream if I can at least get 15-20 min. continuous shooting at full 100 mbs quality HD. I think I can deal with card swapping to some degree, but just not every 4 min (of footage)...that's a no go. A typical 1/2 hr program is shot with at least 3-5 hrs of footage, (sometimes much more, sometimes less), so by my rough calculations, I will need about 30 gigs of HD storage per hour of footage (100 mbs), so a 160GB or higher FireWire
drive could substitute for tapes. Yes, more expensive than DV tape(in comparison to HDV) and of course, WAY less than DVCproHD stock, but much less hassle and immediate accessibilty if a re-edit is called for. Long term archival is questionable, but who knows with Blu-ray and HD DVD, it may be fairly cheap and reliable...or not. One thing I do know is I've had more than my share of problems with tape, as I shoot in often very adverse conditions where it constantly calls for camera covers and the like. P2 may be great for these kinds of shoots, but not if the recording times are absurdly miniscule. Firestores would be a great interim step if Panasonic chooses to let Firewire output be live and streamable to an external device, but my fear is that they'll handicap this in order to establish P2 dependancy, even if it means inhibiting camera sales because of this glaring issue.

That said, I don't fault Panasonic for trying something new. Two 8 GB cards at the current 4GB premium might work, but it certainly gives one pause to reflect on that kind of investment in TINY media...and yes, it is MEDIA! Still, I love the fact that it bypasses the need for a deck, at least in my situation. THAT is a good thing!

Ah well, so many things to grok. Can't wait for NAB!

"This camera would be an absolute dream if I can at least get 15-20 min. continuous shooting at full 100 mbs quality HD"

Well, you may have to wait a short time, but it will undoubtedly happen.

Panasonic has said they hope to have a 16GB P2 card out for NAB 2006. That would give you roughly 20 minutes of DVCProHD at the full 100mb/s.

When you consider that this camera won't even be available for roughly another 5 or 6 months (i'm guessing here), then it's really not that far away. You're looking at roughly 8 or 9 months after the release of the camera.

Of course, now I'm just in pure 'speculation' land.
Either way, exciting times we're in, aren't they?

And Jan mentioned that 8gig cards will be out this August :)

Exciting times indeed. The HVX could be the final push for guys like me into the full-time HD realm. Yes, it's no Varicam, but it's also alot of things the Varicam isn't...which is great!

Incidentally, I find this mix of frame-rates is a great feature for me. I need my action footage more often than not to feel "live" and "real", therefore 60p will do quite nicely. I would use 24p or 30p whenever I wanted a "cinematic" look, but then again, why not process 60p with magic bullet or Nattress and have the option of keeping the 60p look if you changed your mind? I have no desire to shoot 1080i despite the higher res, because interlace is something I've always wanted to be rid of, it's just that interlace is pretty much all video ever was for so long.
I think future uprezzing algorithims will do a very nice job with progressive images, and be much less artifact prone.

I will need about 30 gigs of HD storage per hour of footage (100 mbs)
Actually, you'd need about twice that. At 100mbps, you get about a minute per gigabyte, so 60 gigs of HD per hour. If you were shooting 720/24p, you get about 2.5 minutes per gig, and at the full 100mbps rate (1080/60i or 720/60p) it's about 1 minute per gig.

<<<-- Originally posted by Barlow Elton : Hi guys, first time poster here:

Well, so many questions about this camera...but the possibilities are -->>>

Welcome Barlow, and good post. I agree, the time for tape to die is nigh - well it's been nigh for a while, and it's good to see Panasonic doing something about this. Without sounding too sycophantic, I've grown to really like Panasonic. I admired them with the revolutionary DVX, and now I think I'm going to admire them more with this new camera. For someone like me thats reason enough to hold out on buying something else, and also reason enough on putting up with some of the limitations (Re recording time) that we might see.

Thumbs up to Panasonic - let's hope they stay up after NAB ;)

Aaron

Can someone tell me what the actual pixel resolution is of the DVCProHD formats? Are they square pixels and so 1080 means it's 1920, or something else?

Aaron

How can one edit this stuff on a PC or Mac?

If the HDV 25mb/s makes a dualie PC struggle, what kind of system would be required to edit 100mb/s HD!?!?

<<<-- Originally posted by Carl Merritt : How can one edit this stuff on a PC or Mac?

If the HDV 25mb/s makes a dualie PC struggle, what kind of system would be required to edit 100mb/s HD!?!? -->>>

If your dualie PC is struggling with DV25, there's something wrong....Sure you're not editing off floppy disks? :)

I edit a couple of streams of DV25 in realtime without too much problem, and I'm usually doing something stupid like having all streams on the same drive which will definately kill it.

What software you using?

Getting stuff off the drive should be fine, I mean DVCProHD is 14megabytes a second - easy peasy for a drive these days.

Aaron

Thanks for the correction Barry. I guess I was underestimating by quite a wide margin. I've worked with DVCproHD material on a BlackMagic/FCP setup, and the 1080i/24p material (HDCAM SDI conversion) was about 32 GB for 50 min. of material. In quoting 30 gigs per hour, I was mentally adding the 720p/24p stuff, which would probably be 1/3rd the material, but I was still off for sure.

250 GB FW drives are pretty dang cheap now. That's about 4 hrs of 720/60p. In addition, I think we'll see 1TB single drives in the not-too-distant future. HD archival seems pretty feasible now.

<<<-- Originally posted by Aaron Koolen : Can someone tell me what the actual pixel resolution is of the DVCProHD formats? Are they square pixels and so 1080 means it's 1920, or something else?

Aaron -->>>

Final Cut Pro tells me that 1080i DVCProHD is actually 1280x1080, but when I view the clip in QuickTime player, QT says it's 1920x1080. I'm pretty sure Panny uses a horizontal pixel stretch in order to achieve the HD spec resolution. A tradeoff for sure, but still looks wonderful for the data rate employed. HDCAM 24p converted to this format is amazingly good, considering the multiple gens of compression.

720p is allegedly 960x720, again, stretched horizontally.

If your dualie PC is struggling with DV25...
Dude, he said HDV, not DV! Just because they have the same bit rate, it does not mean they have the same complexity. HDV is long GOP MPEG-2...

MPEG2 is hard to edit precisely because it is MPEG2. You should be able to edit a real frame per frame format with much more ease.

<<<-- Originally posted by Emre Safak : Dude, he said HDV, not DV! Just because they have the same bit rate, it does not mean they have the same complexity. HDV is long GOP MPEG-2... -->>>

My bad, I definately misread there. My understanding though is that you don't edit MPG2 native, most people convert using Cineform Intermediate or some such. Then you have no problems - apparently.

Aaron

<<<-- Originally posted by Aaron Koolen : <<<-- Originally posted by Carl Merritt : How can one edit this stuff on a PC or Mac?

If the HDV 25mb/s makes a dualie PC struggle, what kind of system would be required to edit 100mb/s HD!?!? -->>>

If your dualie PC is struggling with DV25, there's something wrong....Sure you're not editing off floppy disks? :)

I edit a couple of streams of DV25 in realtime without too much problem, and I'm usually doing something stupid like having all streams on the same drive which will definately kill it.

What software you using?

Getting stuff off the drive should be fine, I mean DVCProHD is 14megabytes a second - easy peasy for a drive these days.

Aaron -->>>

Oh, okay.
When I read some info from Adobe about editing HDV with PPro they said my system could struggle to edit and won't necessarily playback realtime - so I figured the DVCPROHD would kill it.

But there's a huge difference -- HDV, while having a lower data rate (25mbps vs. 100mbps), is grouped into groups of 15 frames. If you want to access any particular frame, you have to start at the beginning of the group and uncompress each frame until you get to the one you're looking for.

Whereas with an intraframe codec like DVCPRO-HD, you just seek to the frame you want, and uncompress it. It should be much, much, much more responsive to edit than HDV is.

With HDV, it seems like most editing programs are going with the "intermediate codec" approach, such as Lumiere, CineForm, or Apple's AIC. There they convert from the HDV codec into a more-suitable-for-editing codec. I believe CineForm's has a 2-frame GOP, meaning the most it would have to search for a particular frame would be through two frames, as opposed to the 15 frames of raw HDV data.

Awwwwwwww man,

Well, I guess it's a shame to hear the awful truth sometimes . . . which incidentally is . . .

. . . now I know the 28 Days Later director was doing nothing more than being stupid. People for years have had to set up clunky film cameras and shoot something inside of minutes for an infinite number of reasons; dawn or sunset shots, can only close the road so long, planes in the air, cranky kids, constant traffic, bad weather, money reasons, you name it. Hell, even I did it. I had to steal all sorts of shots with a 16mm camera to make my first feature on the streets of Dallas. We had entire scenes with the hero running around trying to catch this girl in a car. I had about a 15 k budget and I'm doing this. You say this director had OVER 3 mill?

Of course as you said, the situation may have gone far past stupid . . . to the ultimate level of doing "the IN thing". Ya, man, Spike Lee and Steven Sodenberg did it (Sodenberg with that EXCELLENT, EXCELLENT, INCREDIBLE film called FULL FRONTAL - Wow, what an achievement!) . . . so of course we should all do it and it would be really COOL.

Give me a break. If you make a movie, do it to satisfy yourself or your crowd, not the god awful status quo of the Hollywood elites. That status quo has been taking a severe toll on the quality of movies. Cinematographers trying to make every flick of ever genre look like a music video, or directors ordering to their editors to not have any shot in the film last over 4 seconds because it gets to boring for audiences? What the hell? (Oh, and p.s., I used to like Spike Lee, but now I think his films have transended into total self-absorbtion and instead of making deep meaningful films, he uses what's left of his talent to never stop screaming about what is politically correct).

By the way, I'm not shocked that it took the 28 Days guy 2 years to sell his film. Personally, I think if he shot it on 35, he would have sold it immediately. Even the money-grubbing distributors consider higher resolution/better image quality important. They know a film on mini DV could projected to a big screen could kill the picture.

Again, all just my opinions.

And I also started a new thread in the totum poll to talk further about this, because I figure this isn't the right place for it if you want to keep the conversation going. The thread is called "Whether or not 28 Days Later being shot on Mini DV was good or bad".

My .02 on 28 Days. I think he shot it the way he did not just because of closing streets.

I think he did it for the way he wanted to tell his story. He wanted to get into the idea that his guy is a lone in the world.

I think the film was good and bad as a movie.

Like I said just my .02, plus also he did sell it.

<<<-- Originally posted by Laurence Maher :

Again, all just my opinions.

And I also started a new thread in the totum poll to talk further about this, because I figure this isn't the right place for it if you want to keep the conversation going. The thread is called "Whether or not 28 Days Later being shot on Mini DV was good or bad". -->>>

Offcourse, no offence or something taken :-)