Bit streams for various HD formats:

19.7 JVC HD1/10 Camcorder (MPEG2)

8.1 Broadcast 720p 24 HDTV: 1280x720 24fps (MPEG2)
10.2 Broadcast 720p 30 HDTV: 1280x720 30fps (MPEG2)

28.2 D-VHS HD mode (MPEG2)

36.0 Blu-Ray HD DVD format (MPEG2)
40.0 Panasonic HD Varicam at 24p (fps)
50.0 Varicam at 30p

185.0 CineAlta at 30p or 60i

375.0 D-5
440.0 CineAlta SR

1,500 (approx.) Thomson Viper

Order is ascending according to quality; format with similar picture quality are grouped.

What is interesting is that the new JVC HD camcorder seems to have the lowest quality despite having double rate of same resolution broadcast. This appears to be due to low quality MPEG2 encoder.

The most promising is the new Blu-Ray format. Sony is already selling a blu-ray recorder in Japan. Because of a high bit rate, advanced MPEG2 compression and, superb decoder and encoder, the picture seems to rival the older Varicam system.

Sony is coming out with 2 SD camcorders based on the blu-laser system, with 25 - 50 Mbps rate. Let's hope that they come out soon with an inexpensive blu-ray HD DVD camcorder

I would also like to see Panasonic come out with a significantly lower cost HD camcorder. If they would forget the slow motion of Varicam, DVCPRO50 could be modified to record the signal from the Varicam type camera head, since only 50 Mbps would be needed. The Varicam records 60p at 100 Mbps. At 30p the effective rate is only 50 Mbps.

It could have a fixed lens. HD lenses are expensive. SD lenses can be very inexpensive. 720p lies in between the resolution of HD lenses, which handle 1080p, and SD lenses, which handle 480p. HD lenses are hand made. Panasonic could contract Fuji or Canon to mass-produce a good zoom lens for 720p.

If Panasonic would produce a camcorder like this for $25K, we would have a quality affordable HD acquisition tool that would be good enough for film production.

Now we have the JVC 720p HD camcorder at $4K. The next step is Varicam for $80K, with lens. I think that we'll soon see products that will be filling up the gap.

Thanks for the information. I have 1 question: is MPEG 2 the future for consumer HD?

MPEG2 is more modern/effective than DV compression, more modern/effective than compression on HD Varicam, etc. DV will eventually be replaced accross the line, from consumer to pro, with MPEG2 HD. Low end HD will eventually be MPEG4. D-VHS is MPEG2 and has a superb HD image, HD DV uses low grade MPEG2 processors so its image is faulty. MPEG2, contrary to popular opinion, is not of low quality; however some systems use low quality MPEG2 processors, which degrade the quality.

Steve,
What a concise, informative post. Thank you so much for taking the time to share that. (And thank you also, Joseph, for additional explanations

Steve Bell wrote:
40.0 Panasonic HD Varicam at 24p (fps)
50.0 Varicam at 30p

JC:This is incorrect. The Varicam records 100Mbs in any frame rate.

185.0 CineAlta at 30p or 60i

JC:There is only 140 available for video. and the color is sampled at 3:1:1 instead of 4:2:2 as in the Varicam.

I would also like to see Panasonic come out with a significantly lower cost HD camcorder. If they would forget the slow motion of Varicam, DVCPRO50 could be modified to record the signal from the Varicam type camera head, since only 50 Mbps would be needed. The Varicam records 60p at 100 Mbps. At 30p the effective rate is only 50 Mbps.

JC:50 Mbps is DVCPRO50 and we do have a camcorder that does 24P at 50MBs but it is a Standard Definition Camera. The Varicam is a High Definition Camera 720P/60.

If Panasonic would produce a camcorder like this for $25K, we would have a quality affordable HD acquisition tool that would be good enough for film production.

JC:While it is not HD, the AJ-SDX900, which debuted at NAB2003, could very well pass for the low cost HD. Output the 480P and upconvert to HD and it looks pretty amazing.

Now we have the JVC 720p HD camcorder at $4K.

JC:The heavily compressed nature of this camera is probably not tuned for the production market as the GOP is fairly long.

FWIW,

Jan Crittenden
Product Manager, DVCPRO, DVCPRO50
Panasonic Broadcast & TV Systems

Can't get better than the "horse's mouth"! Thanks very much, Jan.

-Ken-

Notes on Jan Crittenden's comments:

Varicam records at 60 fps at 100 Mbps. The image has to be converted by frame converter that discards 60% frames in 24p and 50% in 30p. The final stream is 40 and 50 Mbps.

CineAlta brochure states 185 Mbps at 60i. Although CineAlta is 3:1:1 and Varicam is 4:2:2, the Varicam has such a small bit stream that in actuality it is more compressed in both luminance and chroma.

Sony IMX is SD and when transfered to 35 mm, it look about as good as Varicam HD

Heavily compressed nature of JVC HD? It is using MPEG2 -- a more modern and effective compression method than Varicam. If Varicam is 40 Mbps at 24p and the JVC is 20 Mbps a 30p, the end result should theoretically not be that different.

Sorry folks this is a little long. I hope you don't mind.

<<<-- Originally posted by Steve Bell : Notes on Jan Crittenden's comments:

>VARICAM records at 60 fps at 100 Mbps. The image has to be converted by frame converter that discards 60% frames in 24p and 50% in 30p. The final stream is 40 and 50 Mbps.

Steve, this is somewhat misleading. In my earlier post, I didn’t understand exactly where you were going, and now I think I do. If I made the next leap then, I would say that DVCPRO50 or IMX would offer the same quality as DVCPROHD, and this is simply not true. What you are discounting is the amount of information in the frame itself. DVCPROHD is a High Def signal.

>CineAlta brochure states 185 Mbps at 60i. Although CineAlta is 3:1:1 and VARICAM is 4:2:2, the VARICAM has such a small bit stream that in actuality it is more compressed in both luminance and chroma.

Yes, the brochure says 185Mbps at 60i but that figure includes all the overhead for the signal, the actual payload is 140Mbps for the video. However as you so eloquently point out on the DVCPROHD, the data rate drops on the HDCAM signal as well in 24P mode to 110 Mbps. Now just because the data transfer rate goes down, it does not mean that the product is even more compressed, no, the frame size stays the same.

I was not saying that the VARICAM is better than the Sony, but that your assumption that the reduction of the transfer bit stream to 50 or even 40 Mbps and that therefore it is equal to an SD signal is just incorrect. HDCAM is a 1080i or P signal, with the majority of work being done in the 1080/24P domain, and the VARICAM is a 720P/60 signal with variable frames rates from 4-60; different features and functionality. The size of the frame does not vary, just the transfer rate.

DV is defined in IEC 61834, and the compressed data is formatted into 80 byte DIF Blocks that are in turn formatted into 150 DIF Sequences (80 X150 = 12,000 Bytes) that are formatted into a DIF Frame of 10 Sequences (for 525) or 12 Sequences (for 625 since there are more lines). For 525 this equals 120 kB per video frame, and at 8 bits/byte and 29.97 frames (not fields, because this is a frame based compression system) it equals about 28 Mb/s. First, why not 25? Because there is space in the DIF structure for 2 channels of audio (~3 Mbps). There is also some Ancillary data space for metadata (called V Aux), and so the "real" video bit rate is 25 Mbps. One can extrapolate that DV50 is 240 kB/ frame and DV100 is 480 kB, and have 4 channels and 8 channels of audio respectively.

Notice there is no time element in these last numbers. This is because the compression ratio is fixed per frame, and it is frame rate that sets the data rate. This is a constant bit rate system (CBR), and is only slightly different from Sony's SX and IMX formats where MPEG is operated at a GOP of 1 or 2 and "forced" into a CBR mode so that the resultant can be recorded on tape. This should not be confused with "transmission" or DVD compression system, which are variable bit rate. These systems take advantage of long GOP sequences to get a lower average data rate while allowing high rates for I frames and fast motion sequences. (Check out HD broadcast of color bars. Since nothing changes or moves, only about 600 kb of the 19 Mb is used!)

Therefore, one can see that IMX at 50 Mbps will also have a frame size of about 240 kB per frame, although since it is MPEG there needs to be a little bit stuffing space since MPEG is never really CBR. (It always needs a little head room.) The real point here is that it and DVCPRO50 are only 50 Mbps when "running" at 30 frames per second. Like wise, DVCPRO100 is only 100 Mb/s when doing 1080i 60 field or 720P 60 frame. (Recall that 1080 is a ~2 megapixel image and 720 is ~1 megapixel image, so there is a 2:1 ratio that is the compensation for the 1080 30 frame / 720 60 frame in "information.")

To come to Varicam, think of each frame as a clump of data that has no time element. When frames are shot at 60 fps, each frame is "new" and the data rate is 100 Mb/s. When shooting at 24 frames the 2:3 sequence repeats a frame in that cadence so the data rate on tape is still 100 Mb/s. If one extracts the pure 24 frame, the data rate becomes approximately 40 Mbps, but each frame contains the same amount of information (picture quality) as ones shot at 60 fps. This is true for any frame rate, since the compression is independent of frame rate.

>Sony IMX is SD and when transferred to 35 mm, it look about as good as VARICAM HD

An SD signal does not have the detail that an HD signal does, does not matter how you slice it, it just is not there. Will you be able to make a quality blowup from the IMX, I am sure you can, I have seen it from a PD150 and a DVX100. Will it look as good as the blowup from the VARICAM? With the talent behind the camera being equal, no. Will the IMX look okay, sure, but you cannot invent resolution or dynamic range.

>Heavily compressed nature of JVC HD? It is using MPEG2 -- a more modern and effective compression method than VARICAM. If VARICAM is 40 Mbps at 24p and the JVC is 20 Mbps a 30p, the end result should theoretically not be that different. -->>>

Actually the DV algorithm and its derivations are newer than the MPEG2 algorithm. The JVC HD Camcorder is compressed to 19.4 Mbps which is a transmission data rate, suitable for distribution/broadcast of video signals. That is not to say that MPEG2 is not a very clever compression algorithm, it is.

The way it works is that it works in Groups of Pictures. The first picture in the sequence is called the I frame, then there is a number of frames called B frames, and then there are the P frames. P= Predictive, B= Bi-directional. So what happens is that the I frame has all the information, the B frames carry only the differences from the I frame and the P Frames gets a little more but still not as much as the I frame. Now the heavier the compression, the longer the GOP. This means that no frame can stand alone, except the I frame, and in order to edit this you will have to edit at the I frames or completely uncompress it so that each frame stands alone. In general when working with this heavy of a compression scheme, the results might be fine for family pictures but certainly not for a commercial client.

Let's go back to the uncompressed 8 Bit HD signal at 994 Mbps and compress it to 19.4 Mbps. That is a lot of compression. I would be willing to bet that there is a lot of prefiltering being done so that the compression does not have to be as heavy. The signal structure is 4:2:0 Color Sampling and thus really fails to have the color that a 4:2:2 signal would have. While I am sure that the little JVC single chip camcorder is nice, I think the GOPs and the color separation from a single chip may get in the way of it being a viable production tool. I can assure you that even the IMX product can surpass the picture quality from it. There is more to evaluation of a format than just looking at the data rates.

I actually feel that all too often people get tied up in the numbers and forget about that which really gets them the work and that is the pictures that one can create with it. A buddy of mine just took Best New Digital Cinema Feature at the Cinequest Film Festival held in San Jose. It was running against other entries, which were shot with the CineAlta and a couple of other SD cameras. He shot it with the AJ-PD900, a Standard Def 60P camera, up converted to 720P and had a soft-pull added. It really is a well-shot film. And that takes me back to the talent part of the equation, no amount of numbers will make up for the lack of talent in making the camera do what you want it to.

Best regards,

Jan

Jan,

Thanks for all this information. You're the product manager for DVCPRO and DVCPRO50. You guys have the Varicam camera that records 60 fps at 100 Mbps. How about making one as I suggested -- forget te slow motion so that the DVCPRO50 will be able to handle the stream, use slower CCDs since you'll only need 30p max, add a fixed lens that handles 720p max, and we'll have an indie movie camera for 1/2 the price of Varicam. Or have 2 versions, 1/2" with a fixed lens and 3/4" with an interchangeable lens. How about two other models with less features -- one with (3) 1/3" chips, one with one 1/3" chip. You guys moved very well into Sony's territory with your DVX, JVC came out with the HD DV model. You know what Sony is working on and what they'll do. They'll have out this year a blu-ray MPEG2 HD camcorder that will make the JVC look like a toy.

Take the whole pro SD market from Sony by replacing it with quality HD. Use the Varicam quality as a basis. Steal the SD pro market from Sony by introducing the following HD products for the following target prices, witch will be achievable since everyone will be replacing their SD gear with yours:

Current Varicam with lens.............................$80K
DVCPRO50HD with 720p lens........................$40K
same with 1/2" chips ....................................$20K
same with 1/3" chips ....................................$10K
same with one 1/3" chip ...............................$5K

The features will go down with the prices also.

You'll win the hearts of all the young independent filmmakers. You'll be their friend that cares about them. Sony will be the Jacko promoter that makes B movies and Play Staion toys, and cares least of the independent filmmaker.

If Matsushita or Sony does not start making some quality low cost HD stuff soon, there will be son others to fill the vacuum. The blu-ray burners will be available this year. Making good suitable CCD or CMOS sensors is no longer a problem. All you need is a little bit of off-the-shelf electronic parts between the sensor and the burner to make your SX900 and Sony's IMX overnight obsolete.

Please share us thought on what I said.

Regards,

Steve

Hi Steve,

I have responded in converrsational style by interspersing aswers or ideas in where I see they may fit.

<<<-- Originally posted by Steve Bell : Jan,

Thanks for all this information. You're the product manager for DVCPRO and DVCPRO50. You guys have the Varicam camera that records 60 fps at 100 Mbps. How about making one as I suggested -- forget the slow motion so that the DVCPRO50 will be able to handle the stream, use slower CCDs since you'll only need 30p max, add a fixed lens that handles 720p max, and we'll have an indie movie camera for 1/2 the price of Varicam. Or have 2 versions, 1/2" with a fixed lens and 3/4" with an interchangeable lens.

I think you should take a look at the AJ-SDX900. It does 24P, 30P and 60 in DVCPRO50 or 25. It will up convert to 720P or 1080i extremely well. It does address the market you are describing. Part of the expense of working in HD is not the camera, it is the edit system. With this camera and a DVCPRO50 deck equipped with Firewire and hooked up to an FCP4 system, you can have the entire production package for under $50,000. You will be able to edit in true 24P domain, with all the controls over the image like there is in Varicam. Some of the folks at NAB were very surprized to learn that the pictures they were looking at were not done on an HD camera.

>How about two other models with less features -- one with (3) 1/3" chips, one with one 1/3" chip. You guys moved very well into Sony's territory with your DVX, JVC came out with the HD DV model. You know what Sony is working on and what they'll do. They'll have out this year a blu-ray MPEG2 HD camcorder that will make the JVC look like a toy.

Currently there are technological barriers to the recording systems that allow use to put High Def recording onto a small camera and make it a viable production machine. It has to create frame independent material otherwise it is of no value to the production person. That said, I think that if we watch the Solid State Memory camera that we introduced this year at NAB, with delivery next year, this is a way for HD to end up on a small camera. As SD Memory goes up, so does the viability. See www.panasonic.com/pbds/subcat/nab/press_03/03_06.html# for a white paper on the subject.


>Take the whole pro SD market from Sony by replacing it with quality HD. Use the Varicam quality as a basis. Steal the SD pro market from Sony by introducing the following HD products for the following target prices, witch will be achievable since everyone will be replacing their SD gear with yours:

Well we are working on it, and right now the line up is as follows. I took the lenses out of the chart because lenses are very personal. I have had customers spend as much for the lens as they did for the camera. I think the Panasoic story just keeps getting stronger as we keep saying the same thing, DV, DVCPRO, DVCPRO50, DVCPROHD.

Varicam DVCPROHDw/o lens..................................................$63K
SDX900, 24P, 30P 60i DVCPRO50/25w/o lens........................$25K
DVX100 1/3" chip ................................................................$3,795

>You'll win the hearts of all the young independent filmmakers. You'll be their friend that cares about them.

And I think that is what we are doing. But trust me that isn't where it ends, it is just where we are.

>Making good suitable CCD or CMOS sensors is no longer a problem. All you need is a little bit of off-the-shelf electronic parts between the sensor and the burner to make your SX900 and Sony's IMX overnight obsolete.

You have made it sound simple but it is not that simple and off the shelf today, it is nigh impossible. Technology is always moving forward and at Panasonic, we have routinely shared advances and the benefits of those advances with our customers. As an example we are delivering a DVCPRO50 camera and Deck to the market place for virtually the same as it cost for a DVCPRO camera and deck in 1996. Advances in technology allows this sort of thing to happen. Do I expect a palm sized camcorder next year that does HD? No but maybe 4 years when the size of the SD card gets large enough that it can accomodate HD, frame independent footage.

Blu-Ray is a distribution format not a production form, that is why Sony's current introduction is using a Blu Laser but is recording frame independent images in either IMX or DVCAM. The SD Memory card is not subject to any moving parts, environmental concerns nor does it care if I record DVCPRO, DVCPRO50, or DVCPROHD. This is the technological breakthrough that will change the way we work and the expectations we have.

Please share us thought on what I said.

Best regards,

Jan

does panasonic plan to introduce any low end type of cameras that can accomodate in stock/standard form 35mm lenses without a magnification issue. I find it astounding how fast all the electorinics and formats are moving, but not with the time and tradition mounting of smaller lenses and so on.

I understand there are technical barries with ccd size and so on, but would it not be viable to make some device to refocus of picture through the lens onto a smaller ccd than 35mm.

The mini-35 for the xl1s, while being a fantastic piece of equipment, is just stupidly expensive for what it is. I don't care how advanced and how laborous the technology was to produce, my car has a lot more technology than it does and only cost a bit more, and i dare say my car provides a lot more.

This of course lends itself to the idea of mass production forces prices right down, that is where i can see panasonic or any manafacturer, that if that becomes the standard lens mount for a variety of cameras, well that would have to force the prices down a lot i imagine.

Anyways, that is what i am incredibly interested in, for example your dvx100 looks like a really nice SD package, i mean you get a whole lot of camera for far less than the 25k price of the real next leap up. But wouldn't removing the lens from it, and putting a mount, for example so i could use my canon EOS lenses on it without magnification, in mass production end up leveling out the price to about the same, because the unit saved money on providing no lens.

Well, thats my question.

Zac

My thoughts: 50 mm lens is a 50 mm lens. It is a normal focal length in a 35 mm still camera and a long telephoto when used with a CCD chip. After the image passes thru the lens, you're stuck with the depth of field characteristics. P+S solves this by using the rotating mate screen where the image is of the same size as on 35 mm film camera. The video camera then takes pictures of the screen. The only solution is to use the same system as P+S, which when mass produced could probably cost less than $100, or use a large CCD. It would be certainly nice for Panasonic or some other company to mass produce something like the P+S system.

I really appreciate that Panasonic is taking this time to talk to us here. However, I see the problems that there are two companies that have the pro market pretty much for themselves -- Matsushita and Sony. They are trying to sell themselves as the independent filmmakers' friends: The “good uncle” Bill Gates of the camera industry. They have the technology to produce quality HD camcorders for under $10K, that the independent filmmaker needs but they act as the bad Microsoft; they want to make sure that we all buy as much of their SD stuff as possible because we will have to buy their HD gear later anyway because SD is now going the way of B/W TV and the way of silent film. They want us to buy a B/W camera in the era of color TV and a silent camera in the era of talkies. They know that we'll have to buy their color camera and their sound camera later anyway. Will we waste our money? Of course! Will our hard earned money go into their pockets? Of course!

OK Panasonic, I give you the benefit of doubt. You have some nice products. What is however missing is the tool that the independent filmmaker needs. A photographer can buy a $1000 camera and can make professional pictures that he can display, and sell, anywhere; he can make living with his $1000 camera. An independent filmmaker would need to buy nearly $200,000 worth of HD production and postproduction gear to make a film that can be projected to a decent screen size. One of he pieces of equipment he needs is your Varicam camera that now costs $80,000 with a lens. Since JVC, who has a lot less resources than Panasonic, can come out with a bad $4,000 HD camera, why can't Panasonic come with a good HD camera for $10,000?

You created the low end pro market with quality VHS products. Sony had the Beta that time but instead concentrated on improving their ¾” format. They lost that market that time totally. Do it again! Sooner or later these products will need to be made. Do it way before Sony does it. Be our friend. Let Sony be the bad uncle. Tell your friends in Japan how the independent filmmaker thinks and what he wants, what he needs. Corner this market. Be my hero!

P.S.
Sorry, Jan; I just noticed that you responded to my previous post. Thanks. Thanks for bringing out that $25K camera. You’re filling up the gap between DVX and Varicam. I think that a lot of us would like to see the Varicam picture quality come down in price, with less features. You said that the recorder is a limiting factor. Your $25K camera has a recorder that has a bit rate that is enough for the Varicam quality if it did not shoot at 60p, but at 30p. I disagree that blu-ray is a distribution system only. Sony already announced burners and their main use is a storage technology; their new optical IMX/DV cameras too use the blu-ray technology also. As to the HD lens. Yes, if the 720p camcorder costs $60K, $25K 1080p resolution lens is not that much of a deal, but if you’re an independent filmmaker with an always too tight budget, and you could have buy a $25K 720p HD camcorder and had a choice of $25K hand assembled 1080p resolution lens, or another one, with the same zoom range, that was mass produced and only resolves 720p, but would cost $2.5K, which one you’d be more likely to buy? That is my point! I would like to know not about cameras that fill the gap between DVX and Varicam, but between JVC HD10 and a new low cost Varicam without the slow motion capability. Thanks for your posts. Steve

<<<-- Originally posted by Steve Bell :
<SNIP>
It would be certainly nice for Panasonic or some other company to mass produce something like the P+S system.>>>>

It would be nice, but according to the grapevine, the *HD PS Technik*
adapter doesn't yet measure up. According to tests done at Stratton
Camera in Detroit, HD has such good resolution that you SEE that
spinning glass adaptor that makes it work . . . argh!

>(SNIP) They have the technology to produce quality HD camcorders for >under $10K(SNIP)

I don't know about that. I assume you're guessing?

>(snip) why can't Panasonic come with a good HD camera for $10,000?

I think Canon has a real chance to knock some socks off here. But it
may be Olympus or some other "still" camera company that does it.
That said, the limiting factor here is GLASS. The new HD PS Tecknik
adapter doesn't work because with HD resolution, YOU CAN SEE THE GLASS,
. . . EVEN SPINNING. NTSC works because NTSC resolution is so poor that
you do not see the glass adaptor.

SO, you can have a cheap HD camcorder body that rocks, but a good
glass isn't cheap, and unless a lens manufacturer like Canon, Cooke, or Zeiss
(maybe the Russians) come out with a _real_ lens for $3K, all the resolution
in the camera's chip set is only going to show you what a crummy lens you
are shooting through.

That is a real issue in bringing a low cost HD camera to the market IMO.

PS. I thought the Varicam had the ability to take HD SDI out and record
the signal 10 bit on a Panasonic D5 machine? I think that would boost the
mbps over 100 . . . yes?

I'm not quite sure why a corporation would have a vested interest in selling sophisticated equipment at bargain prices just because indie filmmakers want to be able to make films cheaply. It takes millions in R&D to develop these technologies, and only a limited number of units are sold before the cameras become semi-obsolete. Maybe this is just the capitalist in me coming out, but shouldn't we be celebrating the fact that it is now possible to shoot a feature that be screened to hundreds of people at a time on a camera that costs under $4000, cut on a full-featured edit system that costs the same, using maybe $100 worth of tape stock? This just wasn't possible a few short years ago (I'm not referring to a specific camera here, this model has been proven over and over again with various DV cameras).

Why would a filmmaker have to spend $200K on a camera? Why not rent? That's the way it's been done for years.

If you want to make a quality film, you have to put some money on the screen. Not just in equipment, but in resources and hopefully paying the people who are helping you fulfill that vision. Again, for an investment of under $10,000 you can own everything to make a "no budget" film; for maybe $100,000 you can make a great little film but you'll have to rent a Varicam or a Cinealta. The savings in filmstock and processing are massive in a budget that small, and if you don't intend to strike film prints, you're in good shape. Prior to the digital acquisition reality, that same $100,000 wouldn't have gone nearly as far (i.e. shooting on film).

Pretty soon the cost of tape stock, the camera and NLE are going to be FAR less
than lighting (home depot work lights), props (salvation army) and catering (McDs) ;)


Soon we will hear the wail of the producer,
"How can I pay a good DP or actor $50 a day when
that exceeds my post production budget?" :)