NEO HDV vs. HD

[Garrett Low]

What are the main advantages of going from NEO HDV to NEO HD? I shoot with a Canon XH A1 and and HV20 and exclusively use the HD mode. I do shoot some 60i but mostly shoot 24F.

Will NEO HD give me a noticeable improvement in pictrure/color quality? I shoot a lot of stage shows so there are usually a lot of variation in lighting and very colorful costumes.

Also,is the Cineform RAW only when you capture from the camera so since I don't have the ability to send out uncompressed video is this something that I couldn't take advantage of?

Thanks,
Garrett

[David Taylor]

Garrett,

Neo HDV supports 8-bit I/O precision and up to 1440 (HDV) horizontal resolution.

Neo HD supports 10-bit I/O precision and up to 1920 ("standard" HD) resolution. Also, if you have need for cross-platform work, Neo HD also comes with our Mac version, although this will be ending relatively soon.

Regarding quality, take a look at the example here: http://www.cineform.com/products/ProspectHDUpgrade.htm. This was originally put together as a comparison of Aspect HD to Prospect HD, so the Premiere features don't apply. But the visual quality does apply - Prospect HD and Neo HD share the same codec.

In post, if you need to push the images, 8-bit precision can introduce banding, whereas with 10-bit precision it is virtually eliminated.

CineForm RAW is only a recording format from a camera with a Bayer sensor.

[Garrett Low]

So if I did jump up to NEO HD, when I capture or convert to Cineform AVI would my HDV resolution be automatically converted to1920x1080? And, is it like the HDLink I use now where I can save the m2t file (HDV format) and have the conversion done to a 1920x1080 avi file? Also, are the files for NEO HD larger than for NEO HDV?

Thanks,
Garrett

[David Newman]

If you product 1920x1080 files, the output will be bigger, but that is a user option. NEO HD has all the features of NEO HDV, but adds 1920x1080 and 10-bit I/O and resizing.