Kevin Shaw
July 12th, 2006, 09:45 AM
Why wouldn’t AVCHD be replacing HDV? Isn’t AVCHD a much better compression? Or could you prove to me that HDV is much better.
In the long run AVCHD may replace HDV, but don't expect it to happen overnight. First someone has to actually ship some cameras and software has to be upgraded to process the resulting footage, then we have to assess how well all that works. We're still barely able to work with HDV effectively due to the heavy level of compression, and AVCHD will be an even bigger challenge in that regard. The fact that AVCHD is 'better' in the sense of being more compressed may not work in its favor here, just as not everyone considers HDV better than less compressed recording solutions.
AVC makes more sense for now as a delivery codec than a recording one, but we'll see what happens once AVCHD cameras become available. It's going to be tough to beat the convenience of recording an hour of HDV on an inexpensive miniDV tape, unless someone releases an AVCHD camera recording to those same tapes - which so far is not being proposed. And until we actually see AVCHD cameras in operation it's just speculation whether they'll outperform HDV, even though in theory that should be possible. Having a more efficient codec doesn't necessarily ensure better results, especially in inexpensive cameras depending on real-time encoding chips.
In the long run AVCHD may replace HDV, but don't expect it to happen overnight. First someone has to actually ship some cameras and software has to be upgraded to process the resulting footage, then we have to assess how well all that works. We're still barely able to work with HDV effectively due to the heavy level of compression, and AVCHD will be an even bigger challenge in that regard. The fact that AVCHD is 'better' in the sense of being more compressed may not work in its favor here, just as not everyone considers HDV better than less compressed recording solutions.
AVC makes more sense for now as a delivery codec than a recording one, but we'll see what happens once AVCHD cameras become available. It's going to be tough to beat the convenience of recording an hour of HDV on an inexpensive miniDV tape, unless someone releases an AVCHD camera recording to those same tapes - which so far is not being proposed. And until we actually see AVCHD cameras in operation it's just speculation whether they'll outperform HDV, even though in theory that should be possible. Having a more efficient codec doesn't necessarily ensure better results, especially in inexpensive cameras depending on real-time encoding chips.