BBC approved Canon XF300 & XF305 for Indie Companies
 

BBC Guidelines site: BBC - Commissioning - Producing High-Definition TV

Approved HD Cameras & Settings
. . .
* For use by Independent productions only:

Canon XF 300E & 305E
Red One
Sony PDW 800 & 700



P.S. There is an amusing slip of the pen in the text - Cannon.

They seem to have sorted their list out a bit now, so that all the Panasonic cameras (old Varicam, HPX 2000, 2700, 300 and 3700 and the HDX900) are all fully approved.
As far as I know the only distinction between cameras on the fully approved list and the those for indies is down to archiving and internal workflows, and nothing to do with quality.
Steve

Panasonic must not be happy that their 1/3" chip "broadcast" camera with AVC-Intra is not approved. Canon looks as if they had an inside track on this as the camera is barely out and is added next to a RED One and a PDW-800.

Alan Roberts was impressed how well it compared to a 1/2" camera ( an EX something I'd assume),

And Barry Green was impressed by the HPX370 vs the EX1. These acceptance things are often a bit odd and up for debate.
Steve

I don't understand why the EX1/EX3 isn't listed as it is approved (or at least it was?) by the BBC. DV Solutions have been buying them and using them on many, many productions with NanoFlashes. Perhaps it's not listed as you have to combine it with a NanoFlash. I think there is a little bit of politics going on behind the scenes. I wonder what Sky's take on this is, as they are following the BBC's guidelines, which are supposed to follow the EBU's, which state sensors 1/2" or bigger. Before I get shot down, I'm not saying that the Canon should not be approved, it's clearly very good,, but all the testing must have been done with prototypes and I find it hard to believe that there has been a lot of out in the field. It took the BBC a year to officially approve the PDW-700 and even longer for RED.

Slightly OT, I saw some of the kit Simon King is using on his latest Shetland Islands shoot today. A Canon 5D Mk2, a camera that Alan Roberts felt was not worth evaluating beyond a zone plate due to severe aliasing. Nothing makes any sense any more. Have to admit I will be doing some shooting with a 550D at the weekend, but it's just for some specific ultra shallow DoF shots and it's not for broadcast.

Could it be that the 5DII is just being used for stills which is after all what it is designed for?

It's noteworthy that the new Canon cameras are far & away the cheapest on the BBC approved list by a factor of 5X.

It could also be used for time lapse.

I suspect the BBC has also been looking for a possible replacement for the Z1, a workhorse used by director/camera, video journalists and researchers on quite a few of their SD productions.

why not PMW350
 

What is the problem in approving PMW350 ? Can anyone comment ?

The 5D mkii is brilliant for interviews. I've used it with a zoom h4 and it looks as good (if not better) than an extremely expensive broadcast set up. The camera does have shortcomings in some other areas, but is certainly broadcast quality for the right jobs.

As far as the other issues raised here go. The BBC like 50mbs which is why the Ex1 is only considered acceptable with a nanoflash. Not sure what their gripe is with the 1/3 panasonics.

Even so, the fact is i know many people who've had stuff on the BBC shot on Z1's and even PD150's. If they like the film and it's well shot the rules are often broken. But the fact that this Canon is getting a thumbs up from the start will make it a hugely attractive option for many. I doubt too many people would want to fork out an extra 2 grand for a nanoflash and an EX1 with more expensive media and inferior lens now this thing's turned up.

Well done Canon. The first 5K camera to tick all the beeb's boxes.

I'm not sure, but I suspect it has something to do with the MPEG-2 long-GOP 35mbs 4:2:0 capture format. It can be argued it's still HDV, although some don't see it that way.

It ISN'T HDV and any argument saying it is is factually incorrect. It is far more robust. I plan on testing 35Mb VBR 4:2:0 against 50Mb CBR 4:2:2 as it may prove to be more robust than that just without the 4:2:2 colour.

Even with a 4:2:0 codec, I've intercut a PMW350 with PDW700s and various HDCAM recordings and found the PMW350 gave the best image.

Having said that, the codec is probably what the Beeb don't like. I guess it will become acceptable though, much as DVCAM did despite initial reservations.

Well HDCAM is 3:1:1.

The actual resolution of the 5DII isn't as good as you might think. The images look very sharp which isn't the same thing. However aside from the 'film look' & shallow DOF possible with the 5DII the other advantage that it does have over most 'proper' video cameras is that you can use the extremely good Canon 'L' lenses or almost any other 35mm stills camera lens from Nikon, Zeiss etc some of which are simply exceptional lenses.

Nigel

No doubt the resolution is "not as good as i think", but with the L - glass it looks like a very expensive set up to me, and other's i've shown it to. That's more than good enough for me.

Exactly. Saying it and HDV are the same thing is comparable to saying rough table wine and finest champagne are also one and the same thing, just because both are alcoholic drinks produced from grapes via a fermentation process!
Whilst I agree that the 35Mb codec is pretty robust, theory suggests that the 50Mb version should be even more so. At first sight, it should seem that because 4:2:2 is 33% more pixels than an equivalent 4:2:0 codec, it should need an extra 33% higher bitrate to remain the same compression standard.

In practice, that's not true for two reasons. Firstly, the luminance channel is allocated a higher relative bitrate than chroma, and secondly doubling the number of chrominance pixels doesn't even need the chrominance bitrate to be doubled. It's possible to interpolate the extra chroma pixels from the 4:2:0 ones to a reasonable accuracy - the extra bitrate is then only needed to correct the interpolation, not define the samples from scratch.

So of the 15Mb difference between the two codecs, a lot less than the 12 Mbs that simple theory would suggest is actually needed to give 4:2:2 - the rest is available for general compression improvements.

That's not compressed using MPEG, therefore it has better quality. China Central Television shot exclusively on HDCAM back in 2005-2006 and it's all been accepted into the BBC Motion Gallery.

In the BBC's mind, P and B frames are the enemy. GOPs are the enemy. Low-bitrate Intra frame only is simply unacceptable, but single digit to 1 compression ratios are absolutely fine.