BR-HD50 future?

[John Mitchell]

Just wondering if anyone has heard anything form JVC yet... with the imminent 4th quarter release of the 200 and 250 and the new 720P60 format I thought they would require a new deck? Is this the case and if so I wonder why JVC hasn't been publicising it the same way as the cameras. Perhaps some info will pop up in Tokyo.

[Tim Dashwood]

I'm guessing the deck is already able to play back 720P60, especially since they had it hooked up to the new encoder box at NAB.

Besides, the deck DOES NOT have a MPEG2 encoder built in, only a DV encoder. You cannot input analog HD and encode it to tape with the BR-HD50, but you can lay a pre-encoded m2t stream to tape via firewire.

When I have a chance I will create a 720P60 stream and attempt to record it to the deck (I managed to do this a while back with the HD100) and then play it back.

[Jiri Bakala]

Speaking of the deck...anyone out there using it with AXP 5.x? I tried and in DV mode it's not very problematic but in HDV I had a hard time capturing. The question is whether it's strictly a problem with Avid or a combination of Avid and the firmware version of the deck. Can anyone confirm the current/latest firmware version? Furthermore, could a JVC rep provide info on the procedure for updating said firmware?

Thanks.

[John Mitchell]

Originally Posted by Tim Dashwood

I'm guessing the deck is already able to play back 720P60, especially since they had it hooked up to the new encoder box at NAB.

Besides, the deck DOES NOT have a MPEG2 encoder built in, only a DV encoder. You cannot input analog HD and encode it to tape with the BR-HD50, but you can lay a pre-encoded m2t stream to tape via firewire.

When I have a chance I will create a 720P60 stream and attempt to record it to the deck (I managed to do this a while back with the HD100) and then play it back.

Thanks Tim - I wondered if the new JVC format would be encoded into the same 60P stream, in which case it should work over firewire. However will it decode the information correctly to analogue YUV and HDMI? Probably as the camera can output the full 60P stream over component.

I wanted to know as it doesn't make sense to buy this deck if there is a newer model imminent. Your tests will certainly put my mind at ease, thanks.

[Jack Walker]

For what its worth, at Cinegear in LA last month, I asked the marketing rep from the east coast (a VP of some stripe) this exact question about the BR-HD50.

He said that the decision had not been made yet regarding the deck. On questioning he acknowledged these three possibilities:
--an add on to the deck (he said something was shown at NAB in this realm)
--an upgrade to the deck
--a new deck

The new camera has a new encoder, so I presume that if the deck is to encode analog input, it would also need a new encoder.

However, since I believe the 60p is put on the tape in the same space (with a 12 frame GOP), reading a tape may require firmware update of some kind -- but I have no idea.

When I asked point blank if my BR-HD50 was going to be obsolete because a new deck was coming out, his salesman instinct took over: "The Br-HD50 is going to be a very valuable item for many, many years to come!" (The quote is not exact, but the thought is, thoug the real quote had a much more arrogant tone.)

[Tim Dashwood]

Originally Posted by Jack Walker

The new camera has a new encoder, so I presume that if the deck is to encode analog input, it would also need a new encoder.

The deck doesn't have an analog HD to mpeg encoder. This is probably one of the reasons JVC introduced the SA-HD50U encoder/decoder that can feed the BR-HD50U via firewire. It is probably better to be modular like this. Why spend that kind of money ($8995 for the encoder) when most of us have no use for an analog to mpeg encoding deck.

Originally Posted by Jack Walker

However, since I believe the 60p is put on the tape in the same space (with a 12 frame GOP), reading a tape may require firmware update of some kind -- but I have no idea.

I'm sure the deck will probably require some firmware updates in the future(as someone mentioned JVC did recently for Avid compatibility) but the deck outputs 720P60 on the component outputs now, so I doubt any update is needed for 720P60 playback.

I'm encoding a 720P60 test now.

[Tim Dashwood]

So I completed my 720P60 test and the deck seems to support the format.

I created a 720P60 file with black slug and applied the TC generator effect set for 60P TC.

I then exported as a quicktime and created a 720P60 mpeg2 setting in compressor 2. I couldn't manually set the closed GOP frame value, and it seems to be set to 1/2 second (30 frames) by default. However, I don't think the decompressor cares what the GOP is.

I then used DVHSCap to output the stream via firewire. The deck then went into "HDV-HD60P" mode, the "60" LED on the front of the deck lit up and the stream started playing out to the deck. I hit record and managed to record a bit of the stream to tape.
When I played back the clip from tape it didn't switch over to HD60P mode quick enough for me to watch the short (10 second) clip I had encoded. I should have exported more of it, and I probably shouldn't have recorded onto a test tape with 720P24 on either side.

So...
I had a second go at it with some JVC 1080P footage that comes with the SRDVD100 player. (The same demo material they used at NAB on all of the monitors and projectors) I used Mpegstreamclip to downconvert the 1080P to 720P60 and created a 720P60 ts stream again.

This time it worked perfectly and the footage looked great. HDV-HD60 mode, recorded and played back.

So, it seems the BR-HD50 deck is already 720P60 capable, and my firmware is only version 1.02

[John Mitchell]

Tim - good news indeed. Did the deck playback the stream over component and HDMI?
BTW - with everything else you do for this forum and your usual workload, I just wanted to offer a huge thank you for doing this test.