"If you take a look at the V1U announcement above you will see that it clearly states the pixel number as 1080X960"

If you look at the Sony page the word they use is 'effective'.

This does not automatically bear any relation to the arangement of physical pixels.

The number to remeber is 1MPixel.

Similar to the pixel count one would expect in a 720p system.

Edit, Working out the aspect ratio is not useful without more information and without taking into account of the clearvid pixel arangement. A square grid as you have calculated would be 8:9 not 9:8. This is meaningless maths though and my money is on square pixels tilted 45 degrees in a 16:9 arangement for mathematical reasons allready posted.

I just attended the press conference where they announced the V1, and Hugo Giaggioni (Sony CTO) gave a technical presentation about the sensors. I really haven't been following all this, so maybe it's old news to you? But I've sent a lot of info to Chris which I'm sure he will eventually put online.

In the meantime, you might find the following to be of interest:

Thanks Boyd, you are a saving my sanity.

That is how I guessed they were counting them, and the problem is, its not self consistant. If you use the method in one direction, you get 960x1080, if you use it in the other direction, you get 1920x540 for the full sensor.

Either interpretation is true, and neither is indicative of the performance, its just a convenient method to make people think they can compare the performance directly with the FX1 and its siblings.

Edited, I had X and Y the wrong way round, thanks Heath!

Here's another one:

Thanks Boyd, you are a saving my sanity.

That is how I guessed they were counting them, and the problem is, its not self consistant. If you use the method in one direction, you get 1080x960, if you use it in the other direction, you get 540x1920 for the full sensor.

Either interpretation is true, and neither is indicative of the performance, its just a convenient method to make people think they can compare the performance directly with the FX1 and its siblings.

I think you mean 960x1080 and 1920x540; it's horizontal, then vertical.

heath

This kind of reminds me of a bayer pattern where every other green pixel is interpolated. In this case pixel 1 and 3 are real pixels while pixel 2 takes a chunk from 4 different pixels. So does this mean the luma resolution is kind of on par with what a single chip camera would do?

a single cmos camera may have a 1920x1080 chip but every other green pixel is interpolated from the bayer pattern. This leaves you with 960 true green pixels.

In the 3 cmos camera you start out with 960 but because of the way the pixels are lined up you get an interpolated result equal to 1920.

I would think the results would be somewhat close except for the chroma which would be better then the bayer pattern chroma.


If this new method works so well I wonder how it would have looked if they used a 960x540 chip instead of a 960x1080 chip? The vertical resolution could gain just as much as the horizontal. I'm sure it wouldn't have been as good and I am glad they went with a 960x1080 chip. If the vertical is doing the same clearvid interpolation isn't that like a 1920x2160 oversampled source?


One question. How are the in between pixels formed? Is it a (1+1+1+1)/4 blend or some other way the pixel shows up. If a single pixel is pulling in 4 different points of light which one would it use?

"IMHO there hasn't been a great film made in the last decade"

Wow, finally someone has reached the old geezer stage of "it was all better back in the day" phase...film opinions are like....uhh....noses, of course, but c'mon...

How about

"Amoros Perros"
"Requeim for a Dream"
"Traffic"
"Sixth Sense"
"American Beauty"
"Fight Club"
"Mullholland Drive"
"Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"

Hell even
"Y tu Mama Tambien"
"Elephant"
"Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon"
"Lord of the Rings"
"GhostWorld"

Not too mention all the great docs....

I've seen most every film that came into the USA from the late-50's

Well, mostly the overseas films that are brought into the States are ones that distributers think will appeal to US audiences. Hence why they look very similar to US output.

http://www.hdvinfo.net/articles/sony/firstlookv1u.php
My question, how are you certain that the pixels are square and not wide like the Z1?

I'm not certain at all.

The problem is we have drawings and a pitch specification. Plus, I've never seen a CMOS chip that did not hve square pixels. And, in many cases, the chips have equal X and Y resolutions.

They certainly could be diamond pixels laid into a 16:9 array.

... Neither is indicative of the performance, its just a convenient method to make people think they can compare the performance directly with the FX1 and its siblings.

You were certainly correct about the HOW, but I think given that Sony is using ClearVid tek -- there's no way they can avoid not comparing the resulting resolution with that of previous products.

It seems you are saying ClearVid is a way of getting good test numbers and do not represent the real-world. This is the same argument I made about pixel-shift. And, I was proven correct as dynamic testing showed a significant drop from static tests.

The FX7/V1, unlike the FX1/Z1, will measure the same under static and dynamic tests. But, I agree with you, that as soon as Adam Wilt turns it to a diagonal, EITHER resolution will decrease or aliasing will increase, or BOTH.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: a camera must have sensors that have AT LEAST the number of pixels as the recording format. There is no way to get the missing pixels if they are not there.

However, given that Sony is not supplying camcorders with 1440x1080 pixels -- although I suspect they supply such CCDs to Canon -- the question is will testing reveal ClearVid CMOS to perform better than pixel-shift CCD technology. And, Sony clearly will have to compete with Canon and JVC.

Respectfully, I would suggest that it doesn't matter a hoot who goes to the cinema -- a movie is a movie no less if a viewer chooses to watch it at home on their big screen surround sound set up.

Same as a book is a book, whether you buy the hardcover or the paperback, the film industry has been forced to review a release model that saw a rigid theatre first, followed by 'second string' release to other options -- the theatre is no longer the necessary step beyond the launch; highly successful, very good films have had only 'limited' theatrical release in a handful of key cities, primarly to ensure that reviews and street buzz got started -- the dollars then generated from DVD, cable and other distribution are not just 'cream', as they once were, but now bread and butter.

I won't present a list of the 'good ones' from the last ten years, beyond saying IMHO there have been good ones -- if you really do like films, it is a shame to stop seeing them for arbitrary reasons, and even more of a shame to buy into a misleading and pointless argument that 'adults don't go to the cinema' anymore. It doesn't matter who goes to the multiplex -- it just matters that films get made, and their audience gets to see them, however they chose.

Cheers,
GB

Excellent points, Geoff, and I fully agree with you right down the line.

However, we have now drifted far off course of the original topic of this thread. I'm tempted to break out this portion of the conversation and move it to our "Awake In The Dark" forum where it's more appropriate. Meanwhile, we really should try to steer this thing back to the subject of the HVR-V1E... somehow.

Well, mostly the overseas films that are brought into the States are ones that distributers think will appeal to US audiences. Hence why they look very similar to US output.
Late 1950s foreign films are big because of Janus Films and their division, Criterion.

heath

Would it not be possible to live capture via HDMI with the Blackmagic Intensity to get full 1920x1080 4:2:2 colour space uncompressed images?

http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/intensity/techspecs/

Or with Convergent Design's HD-Connect MI?

http://www.convergent-design.com/CD_Products_HDConnectMI.htm

I've said it before and I'll say it again: a camera must have sensors that have AT LEAST the number of pixels as the recording format. There is no way to get the missing pixels if they are not there.I used to think so, too, but then I was made to feel like an idiot when proponents of spatial offset (aka pixel shift) explained its benefits. It came down to the putative compromise between pixel density and light sensitivity. What is rarely said, however, is that, all other things being equal (that is, chip designs and manufacturing processes/materials), larger pixels will yield greater sensitivity. But the technology is improving all the time. I fully expect the third-inch version of the ClearVid CMOS sensors (predicted to be used in the Z1 successor) to have a higher pixel count and greater sensitivity -- and yield a greater resolution -- than those of the third-inch CCDs used in the Z1 or HVX200.

"I used to think so, too, but then I was made to feel like an idiot when proponents of spatial offset (aka pixel shift) explained its benefits."

You were most likley told the overlapping pixels argument. This is a lie.

In terms of resolution, a pixel shifted sensor array behaves more like a mosaic sensor. To get higher luma resolution you must throw away some chroma resolution with post processing.

To get a 4:4:4 1920x1080 image you need 3x1920x1080 pixels in total.

No magic wand can avoid the fact that Sony are using a sensor with enough pixels to make a (good) 4:4:4 720p image and calling it a 1080 line camera. The only question is what aspect of the picture is going to suffer as a result.

Would it not be possible to live capture via HDMI with the Blackmagic Intensity to get full 1920x1080 4:2:2 colour space uncompressed images?

http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/intensity/techspecs/

That topic will be covered in my upcoming HDV@Work Newsletter.

http://digitalcontentproducer.com/

Steve Mullen
"Sony HDV Handbook"
www.mindspring.com/~d-v-c

Panasonic HVX200 (SD 24P resolution with pixel shift to achieve 720P)
JVC 100 (720 60P resolution)
CANON H1 (1080i resolution, BUT no real Progressive framerate)
Sony V1 (720 24P resolution with interpolation to achieve 1080P)

We can assume that, at least for the time being, its not possible from any manufacturer to produce a 1080 24P camcorder with full resolution sensor at the sub $10000 market. And since neither Canon, nor JVC have opted for one, its not another market trick from Sony and Panasonic to protect sales of their high end cameras.

Probably, either the sensor and/or the circuit needed for the extra bandwith, are very expensive for the asking price.

Does anybody has any suggestions about the reason of this limitation-besides of course the cost factor.

Sony V1 (720 24P resolution with interpolation to achieve 1080P)

Where did you come up with 720? The sensor is 960x1080, like the FX1 and Z1, NOT 720. Yes, the HVX's sensor is 960x540, but it does a very nice job going to HD.

heath

I was on the assumption that the sensor of the FX1/Z1 was 1440X1080 with rectangular pixels instead of square in order to achieve 16:9. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Panasonic manages to extract from an SD 16:9 sensor (960X540=518400) through pixelshift, a HD 720P (1280X720= 921600) image with a factor of 1.77 or the 1080P (1920X1080= 2073600) spec with a factor of 4.


Sony, from an almost square sensor(960X1080= 1036800, which is very close in resolution to the 720 spec of 1280X720= 921600) with the diagonal placement of the pixels attains the 1920X1080 with a factor of 2. In any case Sony uses double the pixels (although not all of them because of the square shape) so it is possible to produce a better picture compared to Panasonic.

Writing all these it dawned to me that Sony did something ingenious which also explains the strange decision to use 1/4 inch chip in the V1 instead of 1/3 inch chip which even the A1 incorporates.
The almost square sensor of 960X1080 are two SD 16:9 chips from the consumer models glued together and turned 90 degrees. Thats huge economies of scale for Sony, because he didn't have to develop a new sensor from scratch.

Part of the reason for a camcorder to use fewer pixels while using pixel shifting to compensate for that is because having to many pixels on the chip would sacrifice the low light capabilities of the camcorder. It would have been a very big mistake on Sony part if they used 1.6MP per ¼ of an inch chip.


-EDIT-
I erased this part because it was already explained in another section.