New HD100 NAB Info! at DVinfo.net

Steve Gibby · April 20th, 2005, 07:15 PM

Analog component out – I spent half an hour with a JVC engineer at the JVC booth. His statement was that the analog component output was uncompressed 4:2:2 at 720p60. The camera is thus a good candidate for hard lining into a truck or studio. I checked around NAB for options for converting the analog 4:2:2 720p60 video to HD-SDI. The two converters I found were a) Miranda HD Bridge DEC ($4k). Their engineer agreed that a smaller, less expensive camera-mounted version should be something they should develop for cameras like the HD100. b) A new prototype made by a Japanese competitor of Miranda – marketed by G-Met Solutions (L.A). It was a non-working mockup about the same size as the Miranda box, and sitting next to a Z1.

Firewire output – Only 720p24 and 720p30 are output through the Firewire bus – no 720p60. The output from the Firewire is obviously after MPEG2 compression. No 720p60 Firewire output to the Firestore FS-4 is possible. Bummer!

ACM-12 ½” to 1/3” Step Down – ACM-12 will reportedly be made by Fujinon. I asked the engineer at JVC and an engineer at the Fujinon booth about the JVC-published diagram that shows three Fujinon ½” SD lenses (S20x6.4, S17x6.6, S14x7.3) as usable on the HD100. They both concurred that those lenses (and two Canon lenses listed) should be usable on the HD100. The echoed the assessment of Focus Optics on the situation: the ½” lenses should have adequate resolution capability, and when used, they will have narrower depth of field, narrower degree of coverage, and be slightly more sensitive to light (faster). When I specifically asked about using the S20x6.4, a lens I own, the Fujinon engineer commented that the 20x uses comparable glass to the new Fujinon 16x that comes stock on the HD100. The 20x image might be slightly softer, but if you were shooting 24p, that might not be a bad thing. Bottom line: legacy ½” SD lenses can be used effectively on the HD100. Link: http://www.jvc-victor.co.jp/english/...hd100/sys.html

Third Party Accessories for the HD100 – An engineer at Century Precision Optics stated that Century would be making a wide-angle converter for the new Fujinon 16x. He also agreed with me that a 1/3” 2x extender should be produced by Century. I checked out the Avel Link Network Media Player. At about $250, it is an affordable pathway for display and distribution of HDV footage in MPEG2TS, WM9, and Divx4. Many more manufacturers voiced their interest in producing accessory gadgets for the HD100.

Tripod plate and adapter – Unfortunately, the tripod plate and adaptor costs a whopping $965 suggested retail. My guess is that if someone is buying an HD100 camera package, this is the first place to grind down the price of the package. It’s a sturdy setup, but a steep price.

That’s my final bunch of tidbits. Hope this helps in everybody’s decision process. For me, it’s out of here tomorrow morning for home - the beautiful California Central Coast!

Glen Vandermolen · April 20th, 2005, 09:27 PM

Wow, Steve, terrific report! You asked questions I wouldn't have begun to consider.
Bummer about the tripod plate and adapter price. It does drive the price of the camera up. After all, you have to have these items. I would venture to guess any of the new HD (or HDV, whatever) cameras would have equally priced plates and adapters. Anyone know this info for sure?

Now, is there any particular reason 720p60 is preferable to 720p24 or 720p30? In layman's terms, please. Does it look better? Is the color more true? Does it capture objects in motion better?

And my own little rant: What's the big deal with shooting at 24p? I understand the easier conversion to 24-frame film masters, but so far none of the HD cameras' 24p look has dazzled me, even on the high-end production models. In my opinion, they all looked jerky and artificial, especially when you pan the shot -not at all like the smooth motion of film. I'm sorry, but none of them looked like film. They looked like HD video, which is just fine with me (except for the jerky look).

Again, this is just my opinion and does not reflect the values and opinions of sane people.

Steve Gibby · April 20th, 2005, 10:28 PM

Glen-

The camera, with lens, is already alot for your money. It would be great to have them throw in the plate base and V-mount adapter as standard package equipment, but it isn't happening.

24p get alot of buzz, but unless you're planning on outputting your production to film, or airing it digitally in theaters or festivals, 24p is a specialty frame rate. 30p has much less "judder" than 24p. With the proprietary JVC motion smoothing filter, 30p looks very smooth. 60p is preferrable to 24p and 30p for any productions that have high-motion subjects, and/or require use of slow motion sequences. In the HDV format, color information is the same regardless of the frame rate - 4:2:0. On the HD100 analog component output, uncompressed 720p60 in 4:2:2 chroma is output. 4:2:2 is preferrable if there is alot of compositing to do in post.

Hope this helps!

Thomas Smet · April 20th, 2005, 11:48 PM

Does anybody know if you can get uncompressed SD from the component jacks? A lot of my work is still SD and I am sure it will be for a little while yet. Besides uncompressed HD takes some pretty massive hard drive bandwidth. Uncompressed SD is a lot easier to handle right now.

Steve Gibby · April 21st, 2005, 12:02 AM

I believe the JVC engineer today said that it is only uncompressed 720p60 that is available form the analog component out.

David Gomez · April 21st, 2005, 08:39 AM

"Firewire output – Only 720p24 and 720p30 are output through the Firewire bus"

I am assuming when recording in SD that we would get 480i firewire output and not upconverted to 720p30? Is that correct?

Thomas Smet · April 21st, 2005, 09:02 AM

Well now that kind of sucks if that is true. Who is really going to be able to use 720p 60p uncompressed? You would need a massive raid for that bandwidth. The only thing that would work is in studio shooting

Markus Bo · April 21st, 2005, 09:17 AM

I am quite interested in that cam and I hope to test it soon over here in Europe. But there is one thing that makes me a little bit nervous. What about 25p? For standard television reports and news we have to use it here.

Thanks to all the guys who have been in NAB putting their testimonials in here, great job!!!!

Markus

Patrick Bower · April 21st, 2005, 02:54 PM

See http://tinyurl.com/an3cg for UK specification

Brian Langeman · April 21st, 2005, 08:16 PM

I was looking at the camera at NAB too, and I was sure that it had an SD recording mode. I now also recall them displaying the camera on a SD monitor with SD output I think. And if it can also record in SD, then why wouldn't it be able to output SD through firewire?

Barry Green · April 21st, 2005, 08:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brian Langeman

I was looking at the camera at NAB too, and I was sure that it had an SD recording mode. I now also recall them displaying the camera on a SD monitor with SD output I think. And if it can also record in SD, then why wouldn't it be able to output SD through firewire?

It certainly can... can't it? Is someone saying it can't? Because JVC clearly says on their promotional materials that it produces great standard-def video...

Brian Langeman · April 21st, 2005, 08:40 PM

Steve, who started the thread with all the info, said that their's only 720p24 and 720p30 output through firewire.

Barry Green · April 21st, 2005, 08:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brian Langeman

Steve, who started the thread with all the info, said that their's only 720p24 and 720p30 output through firewire.

Yeah, but that's referencing HD. All modes of SD should be output through the firewire.

What Steve was confirming is that there will *not* be 720/60p put through the firewire, and he's correct. In fact, there will not now, nor ever be, any way for this particular camera to record 60p -- not to hard disk, not to tape, not through firewire to an external recorder. Won't happen, because the NTT MPEG-2 encoder chips in the camera can't support 60p, even though 60p is part of the HDV spec.

So no, no 60p of any type.

But you should definitely get 480i out of the firewire port.

Brian Langeman · April 21st, 2005, 08:57 PM

ahhh I see. sorry for the misunderstanding. It all makes perfect sense to me now.

Axel Mertes · April 22nd, 2005, 03:24 PM

Hi guys,

as far as my infos are, the camera will do 24p/25p/30p over FireWire and to tape and to disk recorder.

It will do 50p/60p at the same time on its YUV outs (as the slower frame rates are done from these frames internally).

I expect to be able to convert the YUV HD out to HD-SDI AND SD-SDI using the Blackmagic Design MultibridgeHD / Multibridge Extreme models. That gives you all you need for best quality recordings on either MAC or PC platforms, in theory up to dual link HD-SDI - but I suspect the D/A convertes in the camera will be more than 8 bit (unfortunately). If otherwise, THIS would be the best feature of the camera at all.

By the time the camera hits stocks, the BMD Multibridges should be finally available. They are unfortunately 19", but on-set recording requires either a PC/MAC with disk array or any HD / SD tape recorder, all of them "unhandy" and large to justify the use even of a 19" converter.

Smaller converter would be the AJA HD10A, which does YUV to HD-SDI. But I strongly believe the Multibridges (www.decklink.com) is the MUCH better option.

Hey guys, these JVC engineers where in my office and made an interview, month back. And believe me: Nearly ALL of the ideas we gave them are covered in the JVC HD100. We have never before felt some much that a company listened to what we said. Wonderful!

I believe it had been said many times already, but I want to add that the JVC had true three 1280x720y resolution. That means it transports 2764800 pixels per frame to tape. The Sony does have three 960x540y chips resulting in only 1555200 pixels total information, just 56.25% the pixels of the JVC. And the Sony guys up-res this pattern to create 1440x540y = 2332800 pixels, or even they say its finally 1440x1080y = 4665600 pixels (given it runs double rates at interlaced mode).

Why do I elaborate on this?

Well, consider you need to compress 2.7 Mpixels per frame vs. 4.6 Mpixels per "full" frame. What would do this to "artefacts" due to compression ratio? Keep in mind both utilize almost the same 19 MBits on the tape for the HD data (the rest is sound, PCM-sound / trick-images, timecode etc.).

I will never understand why Sony up-samples lower res CCD pixel data to higher res pixel bandwidth and send it through (then less effective) high compression schemes. Panasonic captures high resolution data, sub samples to lower pixel rates and then stores (in loved 24p mode) 3:2 sample copies of those frames, in other words: Excessive compression first, and the wasting 60% bandwidth with useless copies. In fact: DVCPRO HD stores 960x720y pixels @ 40 MBits including sound.

Consider the newly announced 50 MBit HDV stuff compared to this...

Has anyone ever looked at a resale D-VHS title? Have you ever seen this unbelieveable image clarity, nearly no compression artefacts visible. Well, thats HDV running at ~25 MBits - nothing else, ITS THE SAME. HDV is very capable. And I believe JVC has good MPEG2 encoders, as most of the D-VHS titles for sure have been encoded with JVC high-end encoders. So I do not expect the Sony HDV MPEG2 encoder chips doing miracles with those nearly two times more pixels they try to handle.

I am quite sure that the JVC HD100 will look great compared to the Sony when analyzing artefacts.

Regards,

Axel

April 20th, 2005, 07:15 PM	#1
Steve Gibby Major Player Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Southwest Utah & worldwide Posts: 398	New HD100 NAB Info! Analog component out – I spent half an hour with a JVC engineer at the JVC booth. His statement was that the analog component output was uncompressed 4:2:2 at 720p60. The camera is thus a good candidate for hard lining into a truck or studio. I checked around NAB for options for converting the analog 4:2:2 720p60 video to HD-SDI. The two converters I found were a) Miranda HD Bridge DEC ($4k). Their engineer agreed that a smaller, less expensive camera-mounted version should be something they should develop for cameras like the HD100. b) A new prototype made by a Japanese competitor of Miranda – marketed by G-Met Solutions (L.A). It was a non-working mockup about the same size as the Miranda box, and sitting next to a Z1. Firewire output – Only 720p24 and 720p30 are output through the Firewire bus – no 720p60. The output from the Firewire is obviously after MPEG2 compression. No 720p60 Firewire output to the Firestore FS-4 is possible. Bummer! ACM-12 ½” to 1/3” Step Down – ACM-12 will reportedly be made by Fujinon. I asked the engineer at JVC and an engineer at the Fujinon booth about the JVC-published diagram that shows three Fujinon ½” SD lenses (S20x6.4, S17x6.6, S14x7.3) as usable on the HD100. They both concurred that those lenses (and two Canon lenses listed) should be usable on the HD100. The echoed the assessment of Focus Optics on the situation: the ½” lenses should have adequate resolution capability, and when used, they will have narrower depth of field, narrower degree of coverage, and be slightly more sensitive to light (faster). When I specifically asked about using the S20x6.4, a lens I own, the Fujinon engineer commented that the 20x uses comparable glass to the new Fujinon 16x that comes stock on the HD100. The 20x image might be slightly softer, but if you were shooting 24p, that might not be a bad thing. Bottom line: legacy ½” SD lenses can be used effectively on the HD100. Link: http://www.jvc-victor.co.jp/english/...hd100/sys.html Third Party Accessories for the HD100 – An engineer at Century Precision Optics stated that Century would be making a wide-angle converter for the new Fujinon 16x. He also agreed with me that a 1/3” 2x extender should be produced by Century. I checked out the Avel Link Network Media Player. At about $250, it is an affordable pathway for display and distribution of HDV footage in MPEG2TS, WM9, and Divx4. Many more manufacturers voiced their interest in producing accessory gadgets for the HD100. Tripod plate and adapter – Unfortunately, the tripod plate and adaptor costs a whopping $965 suggested retail. My guess is that if someone is buying an HD100 camera package, this is the first place to grind down the price of the package. It’s a sturdy setup, but a steep price. That’s my final bunch of tidbits. Hope this helps in everybody’s decision process. For me, it’s out of here tomorrow morning for home - the beautiful California Central Coast! __________________ Steve Gibby, RED One SN 0008, 2 others. Epic M SN 0008, 2 others, Canon 5D. Linked In - Steve Gibby Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/stevegibby/

April 20th, 2005, 10:28 PM	#3
Steve Gibby Major Player Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Southwest Utah & worldwide Posts: 398	Glen- The camera, with lens, is already alot for your money. It would be great to have them throw in the plate base and V-mount adapter as standard package equipment, but it isn't happening. 24p get alot of buzz, but unless you're planning on outputting your production to film, or airing it digitally in theaters or festivals, 24p is a specialty frame rate. 30p has much less "judder" than 24p. With the proprietary JVC motion smoothing filter, 30p looks very smooth. 60p is preferrable to 24p and 30p for any productions that have high-motion subjects, and/or require use of slow motion sequences. In the HDV format, color information is the same regardless of the frame rate - 4:2:0. On the HD100 analog component output, uncompressed 720p60 in 4:2:2 chroma is output. 4:2:2 is preferrable if there is alot of compositing to do in post. Hope this helps! __________________ Steve Gibby, RED One SN 0008, 2 others. Epic M SN 0008, 2 others, Canon 5D. Linked In - Steve Gibby Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/stevegibby/

April 21st, 2005, 12:02 AM	#5
Steve Gibby Major Player Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Southwest Utah & worldwide Posts: 398	I believe the JVC engineer today said that it is only uncompressed 720p60 that is available form the analog component out. __________________ Steve Gibby, RED One SN 0008, 2 others. Epic M SN 0008, 2 others, Canon 5D. Linked In - Steve Gibby Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/stevegibby/

April 21st, 2005, 02:54 PM	#9
Patrick Bower Regular Crew Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: London, England Posts: 126	Does 25p (and PAL DV) too See http://tinyurl.com/an3cg for UK specification

April 22nd, 2005, 03:24 PM	#15
Axel Mertes Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Frankfurt / Germany Posts: 46	50p/60p recording will work... Hi guys, as far as my infos are, the camera will do 24p/25p/30p over FireWire and to tape and to disk recorder. It will do 50p/60p at the same time on its YUV outs (as the slower frame rates are done from these frames internally). I expect to be able to convert the YUV HD out to HD-SDI AND SD-SDI using the Blackmagic Design MultibridgeHD / Multibridge Extreme models. That gives you all you need for best quality recordings on either MAC or PC platforms, in theory up to dual link HD-SDI - but I suspect the D/A convertes in the camera will be more than 8 bit (unfortunately). If otherwise, THIS would be the best feature of the camera at all. By the time the camera hits stocks, the BMD Multibridges should be finally available. They are unfortunately 19", but on-set recording requires either a PC/MAC with disk array or any HD / SD tape recorder, all of them "unhandy" and large to justify the use even of a 19" converter. Smaller converter would be the AJA HD10A, which does YUV to HD-SDI. But I strongly believe the Multibridges (www.decklink.com) is the MUCH better option. Hey guys, these JVC engineers where in my office and made an interview, month back. And believe me: Nearly ALL of the ideas we gave them are covered in the JVC HD100. We have never before felt some much that a company listened to what we said. Wonderful! I believe it had been said many times already, but I want to add that the JVC had true three 1280x720y resolution. That means it transports 2764800 pixels per frame to tape. The Sony does have three 960x540y chips resulting in only 1555200 pixels total information, just 56.25% the pixels of the JVC. And the Sony guys up-res this pattern to create 1440x540y = 2332800 pixels, or even they say its finally 1440x1080y = 4665600 pixels (given it runs double rates at interlaced mode). Why do I elaborate on this? Well, consider you need to compress 2.7 Mpixels per frame vs. 4.6 Mpixels per "full" frame. What would do this to "artefacts" due to compression ratio? Keep in mind both utilize almost the same 19 MBits on the tape for the HD data (the rest is sound, PCM-sound / trick-images, timecode etc.). I will never understand why Sony up-samples lower res CCD pixel data to higher res pixel bandwidth and send it through (then less effective) high compression schemes. Panasonic captures high resolution data, sub samples to lower pixel rates and then stores (in loved 24p mode) 3:2 sample copies of those frames, in other words: Excessive compression first, and the wasting 60% bandwidth with useless copies. In fact: DVCPRO HD stores 960x720y pixels @ 40 MBits including sound. Consider the newly announced 50 MBit HDV stuff compared to this... Has anyone ever looked at a resale D-VHS title? Have you ever seen this unbelieveable image clarity, nearly no compression artefacts visible. Well, thats HDV running at ~25 MBits - nothing else, ITS THE SAME. HDV is very capable. And I believe JVC has good MPEG2 encoders, as most of the D-VHS titles for sure have been encoded with JVC high-end encoders. So I do not expect the Sony HDV MPEG2 encoder chips doing miracles with those nearly two times more pixels they try to handle. I am quite sure that the JVC HD100 will look great compared to the Sony when analyzing artefacts. Regards, Axel

April 20th, 2005, 09:27 PM	#2
Glen Vandermolen Space Hipster Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Jacksonville, FL Posts: 1,596	Wow, Steve, terrific report! You asked questions I wouldn't have begun to consider. Bummer about the tripod plate and adapter price. It does drive the price of the camera up. After all, you have to have these items. I would venture to guess any of the new HD (or HDV, whatever) cameras would have equally priced plates and adapters. Anyone know this info for sure? Now, is there any particular reason 720p60 is preferable to 720p24 or 720p30? In layman's terms, please. Does it look better? Is the color more true? Does it capture objects in motion better? And my own little rant: What's the big deal with shooting at 24p? I understand the easier conversion to 24-frame film masters, but so far none of the HD cameras' 24p look has dazzled me, even on the high-end production models. In my opinion, they all looked jerky and artificial, especially when you pan the shot -not at all like the smooth motion of film. I'm sorry, but none of them looked like film. They looked like HD video, which is just fine with me (except for the jerky look). Again, this is just my opinion and does not reflect the values and opinions of sane people.

April 20th, 2005, 11:48 PM	#4
Thomas Smet Trustee Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Milwaukee, WI Posts: 1,719	Does anybody know if you can get uncompressed SD from the component jacks? A lot of my work is still SD and I am sure it will be for a little while yet. Besides uncompressed HD takes some pretty massive hard drive bandwidth. Uncompressed SD is a lot easier to handle right now.

April 21st, 2005, 08:39 AM	#6
David Gomez Regular Crew Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: Atlanta Posts: 50	"Firewire output – Only 720p24 and 720p30 are output through the Firewire bus" I am assuming when recording in SD that we would get 480i firewire output and not upconverted to 720p30? Is that correct?

April 21st, 2005, 09:02 AM	#7
Thomas Smet Trustee Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Milwaukee, WI Posts: 1,719	Well now that kind of sucks if that is true. Who is really going to be able to use 720p 60p uncompressed? You would need a massive raid for that bandwidth. The only thing that would work is in studio shooting

April 21st, 2005, 09:17 AM	#8
Markus Bo Regular Crew Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Ingelheim (Rheinland-Pfalz) Posts: 140	I am quite interested in that cam and I hope to test it soon over here in Europe. But there is one thing that makes me a little bit nervous. What about 25p? For standard television reports and news we have to use it here. Thanks to all the guys who have been in NAB putting their testimonials in here, great job!!!! Markus

April 21st, 2005, 08:16 PM	#10
Brian Langeman Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Leamington, Ontario, Canada Posts: 25	I was looking at the camera at NAB too, and I was sure that it had an SD recording mode. I now also recall them displaying the camera on a SD monitor with SD output I think. And if it can also record in SD, then why wouldn't it be able to output SD through firewire?

April 21st, 2005, 08:40 PM	#12
Brian Langeman Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Leamington, Ontario, Canada Posts: 25	Steve, who started the thread with all the info, said that their's only 720p24 and 720p30 output through firewire.

April 21st, 2005, 08:57 PM	#14
Brian Langeman Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Leamington, Ontario, Canada Posts: 25	ahhh I see. sorry for the misunderstanding. It all makes perfect sense to me now.