New JVC cameras

[Glen Vandermolen]

Originally Posted by Randy Johnson

F11 @ 2000 lux! sounds like were back to the DV days finally!

What does F11 @ 2,000 lux mean, exactly? How does this compare to the HM600's competitors?

[Mark Donnell]

Craig - the 650 looks like an interesting camera. I've always been a Panasonic P2 person, but I'm willing to consider switching. For me, the final needed spec is 1080 p 60, preferably at better than 28 Mbps. I know that this is asking a lot, but for sports, many of us need 60 fps. I'm sticking with 720p 60 until a good 1080p 60 option arrives. I have read that both the US and Europe are looking at 1080p 60 for a future-proof television standard - JVC could be a leader in this format.

[Zach Love]

I'm with Mark, I'd love to see 1080p60 on this. If not there is still the AC130 / AC160 out there. For me, 1080p60 isn't a deal breaker, but just one more feature it would be nice to have.

Originally Posted by Glen Vandermolen

What does F11 @ 2,000 lux mean, exactly? How does this compare to the HM600's competitors?

Roughly it means that you light a scene with 2,000lux & to get the f-stop, you close the iris down to for proper exposure. The higher the f-stop, aka the more the iris is closed, the less light the camera needs, the more sensitive it is & the better it will perform in low light.

I believe I've seen the 1/2" CMOS EX1 quoted for F10. Panasonic's new 2/3" MOS HPX600 is rated at F12.

If HM600 / HM650 provide a clean picture at F11, then we might have the best performing low light 1/3" HD camera (please correct me if I'm wrong).

All I can say is: Witch craft; typo; or the HM600/650 is going to be the next leading camera in this class on the market.

[Glen Vandermolen]

If the camera's sensitivity is accurate, that's very impressive! Especially considering it has 1/3" chips.

[Randy Johnson]

When a company prints the low light performance like f11 @ 2000 lux thats very promising. when the camera are not good in low light they usually just say .5 lux but thats with 1/30 sec. 30 db gain and or some special low light mode that is only usable if no one moves. F11@ 2000 lux is what my old Panasonic DV 200 was rated at which is the best camera I ever owned.

[Bernd Eller]

Originally Posted by Mark Donnell

I have read that both the US and Europe are looking at 1080p 60 for a future-proof television standard.

May I ask where you found this information? For the US, I am sure it is correct. But 1080p60 as television standard in Europe is highly unlikely as Europe uses 50 Hz, not 60 Hz. All I heard is that the European Broadcasting Union (representing 74 TV stations in 56 countries in Europe, Africa and Asia) is thinking about 1080p50 as a future format for HDTV, but 60p would be really strange.

[Mark Donnell]

You are correct, Bernd. For Europe, it will be 1080p 50, but US cameras that do 1080p 60 almost always do 1080p 50 in their European versions. Sorry for the failure to fully explain - I keep forgetting how international DVInfo.net really is. One reference for this information is Wikipedia, under the "1080p" title. I have also seen references from other sources.

[Stephen Crye]

@ Craig Yanagi;

Craig, I was VERY impressed that you took the time to return my call! That shows that JVC is a company that really cares about customers. I had tried to reach the persons in your position at Sony and Panny for many months with no success.

I must echo what others are saying about the GY-HM600U. Please, please find a way to give it 1080/60p! JVC has six months to work on this. I will keep my $5K parked and ready for at least a few months, waiting with bated breath for good word about this. Every other aspect of your new cam looks perfect, almost as if you were reading my mind - except for the lack of 1080/60p.

I posted the details of my latest test/rejection (a Panny AG-AC160) in my quest for my first "pro" camera here:

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/digital-...ml#post1729328

Thanks again, keep up the excellent customer interaction - it IS a way to win and keep customers.

Steve

[Stephen Crye]

Originally Posted by Zach Love

I'm with Mark, I'd love to see 1080p60 on this. If not there is still the AC130 / AC160 out there. For me, 1080p60 isn't a deal breaker, but just one more feature it would be nice to have.

Zach, you might want to check out my post below in the other thread.

I had my eye on the Panny AG-AC160 for months, finally bought one after very serious research. Unlike you, I simply MUST have AVCHD 2.0 with the 1080 50/60p, having gotten a taste with a Sony NX70 that I bought and then rejected for reasons related to terrible image quality. The Panny AC160 arrived yesterday; I did not need to test it for more than 2 hours to realize it was not worth the price, despite all the great features and the promise of 1080/60p with the firmware update due in late May:

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/digital-...ml#post1729328

I realize your mileage might vary, but I was shocked and saddened. I had such high hopes. There were other problems than just those mentioned in my post above.

Steve

[Stephen Crye]

Originally Posted by Mark Donnell

Craig - the 650 looks like an interesting camera. I've always been a Panasonic P2 person, but I'm willing to consider switching. For me, the final needed spec is 1080 p 60, preferably at better than 28 Mbps. I know that this is asking a lot, but for sports, many of us need 60 fps. I'm sticking with 720p 60 until a good 1080p 60 option arrives. I have read that both the US and Europe are looking at 1080p 60 for a future-proof television standard - JVC could be a leader in this format.

Although a lot of cameras that use the original AVCHD standard do 1280x720/60p at up to 24 Mbps, the new AVCHD 2.0 standard specifies 1080 50/60p at up to 28 Mbps. It is possible to double the frame rate with only a 4 Mbps increase in data because of the way h.264 encodes differences in frames. In most cases, the actual change in detail between two frames that are separated by only 1/60th of a second is not very large. All this is a big part of the reason that 1080 60p is doable with AVCHD but not with the MPEG-2 broadcast standard codecs such as the ones used by Sony XDCAM or Canon XF100 - 300.

I personally have been very pleased with the footage produced by the AVCHD 2.0 cams I have used. It is a LOT better at capturing details and motion. I benefited tremendously from just shooting everything in 1080/60p, because I never knew when something would happen that lent itself to a touch of 2.5x slo-mo in post. I also have completely given up on 720 - the images are just too soft when I render to BluRay, or even to YouTube!

@ Craig Yanagi - again, I urge you to put your engineers in the basement, throw them pizza and not let them out until the new GY-HM600/HM650 supports AVCHD 2.0! With it, your new cam will sweep the ENG world. Without it, it will seem old and tired the day it is born.

FYI:

AVCHD INFORMATION WEB SITE

Steve

[Tim Polster]

Just a few thoughts:

I would be interested to see the visual difference once footage goes to Blu-ray between 720p60 and 1080p60. I have been very pleased with 720p60 as a shooting mode. Anything broadcast on US television is 720p or 1080i. Tell me a Sunday Night Football broadcast is soft!

This is territory where the quality of the cameras & lenses and the quality of the encoding is going to play a major part in the process right next to the format. I would rather have a high quality 720p camera & lens than an o.k. quality 1080p60 camera.

Stephen, If you are unhappy with your 720p footage, you might get some mileage out of examining or improving your encoding process. I purchased TMPGenc and my finished output is a lot more detailed compared to my previous encodes from the Edius timeline.

[Eric Olson]

Originally Posted by Stephen Crye

Please, please find a way to give it 1080/60p!

Since delivery is 1080i or 720p the main advantage of 1080p is having source that will hold up better when further processing is done in post. The main difficulty when color grading and chroma keying 4:2:0 1080i footage is that the UV color planes have a resolution of 960x270. A modern camera priced $4000 or more should do better. Either 4:2:2 1080i or 4:2:0 1080p possess 960x540 resolution color.

If engineering constraints dictate a maximum recording datarate of 35 mbps, I would suggest JVC consider a 4:2:2 1440x1080i60 recording mode or 4:2:0 1440x1080p60 mode.

[Stephen Crye]

Hi Tim;

Thanks for taking the time to reply, I was beginning to worry that this thread was dying ...

Sure I would rather have a great 720p can than a bad 1080p cam ... but I would also rather have a great 1080p cam than a great 720p cam.

I'm a total focus-freak. It comes from all my years as an amateur astronomer. I'm the kind of person who will get up in a movie theater and bang on the projection booth door to get them to fix the focus. I see things that don't bother other people. Edge coma and aberration that no one else sees drives me nuts. I've had better than 20-20 vision all my life, and even with age-related deterioration in close-focus ability, my distance vision is still very sharp.

The difference between the best 1280x720 image and the best 1920x1080 image is instantly apparent to my eye. No amount of encoding techniques can impart more information to a 1280x720 image; the raw data is just not present.

I don't use broadcast signals as any kind of a standard of comparison. None of them are up to what I can get on my Samsung TV or my large computer monitors when I either play high-quality commercial BluRays (such as Avatar) or what I render myself. Not that I watch much football, but I can state that *anything* coming from broadcast looks soft by my exacting standards. I can take a project shot in 720 and compare it to a project shot in 1920x1080 and the difference is stark.

However, there is no need to go through all those steps to see the difference. Just connect the HDMI output of any cam capable of 4:2:2 10-bit to a large, high-quality monitor. 1920x1080 blows away 1280x720.

In any event, I'm not the only person who can see the difference and wants 1080/60p. There is real demand for AVCHD 2.0, and that demand drove Panny to engineer the firmware update for the AC160 to support 1080 50/60p. All of the early reviewers of the JVC GY-HM600 are puzzled by the lack of 1080/60p

Steve

[Tim Polster]

Stephen,

Your enthusiasm is very positive. Wanting to get the best image is always a great pursuit. But, after reading your last post, I think there is some mixing of ideas going on.

I would first say that if your exacting standards are to be on par with finished Blu-rays like Avatar or Inception, a $6,000 1/3" chip camera is not even in the same conversation. To put these two goals together is a mis match. Same goes for broadcast signals. To say that the signals coming from NBC Sports or ESPN are soft in the midst of wanting 1080p60 on a 1/3" chip camera is bordering on absurd imho.

Sure 1080p offers more detail at the tradeoff of more compression to handle the larger amount of info. But that is kind of beside the point. The Blu-ray standard maxes out at 1080p24. Some recent players might playback 1080p60 but nowhere near the level that one could safely delivery a purchased product.

So in reality we are looking at 1080p60 footage delivered in 720p. The real comparison is original 720p shot footage vs 1080p shot 720p footage.

I know this is kind of a downer post, but I come across a lot of folks who still have never seen Blu-ray or high definition.

[Eric Olson]

Originally Posted by Tim Polster

To say that the signals coming from NBC Sports or ESPN are soft in the midst of wanting 1080p60 on a 1/3" chip camera is bordering on absurd imho.

There is no reason a 1/3" chip camera can't deliver full 1920x1080p resolution. In fact, the greater depth of field which comes from a smaller sensor size should lead to uniformly sharper images. While sports broadcast over highly compressed satellite feeds is lower quality than the recording formats of the new JVC camcorders, it still makes sense to offer higher resolution 4:2:2 1080i and 4:2:0 1080p formats.