HPX500 is 1080p or not?

[William Reliford]

This forum is a great resource! I have another question and my research on this question has brought me many confusing answers. Is the HPX500 1080p or not? Information on the HPX500 indicates it is 1080i/60 but has been quite flakey in indicating that is 1080p/30. Or perhaps I am reading way too much into this. I remember reading one source mentioning that the HPX500 imaging sensors actually capture 1080i/60 but the camera's recording system records that signal as 1080p/30 and thus "faking" 1080p/30.

Thanks for your help all.
William

[Chris Hurd]

Originally Posted by William Reliford

Or perhaps I am reading way too much into this.

Bingo.

1080i60 = 1080p30.

It's the exact same amount of data.

The sensors are native progressive if that helps.

[Jeff Heywood]

I don't think "faking 1080p" is quite the right way to put it. I'd say it embeds the 1080p30 stream in a 1080i60 stream. There is no goofiness with the final progressive pictures.

[Chris Hurd]

Unfortunately the terms "fake" and "true" are both grossly overused and poorly misrepresented in this particular industry. There are various ways to accomplish something. As Jeff points out, there's nothing wrong with the way this camera does progressive.

[Jan Crittenden Livingston]

Hi,

The HPX500 captures and is able to record progressive images, be they recorded as 1080, 720 or 480. There is no trickery or fake progressive here, it is a true progressive picture. In the 1080 modes, the 24 frames will need to be extracted but these days, in most NLEs this is quite easy, like check a box on the import window.

If you look at the brochure for the HPX500, you will see that it does show and talk about the Progressive images. This is the source I would believe over all others.

Hope this helps,

Jan

[William Reliford]

I guess where it is confusing to me in the brochure is this:
1080/30p (over 60i)
What does "over 60i" mean?

[David Heath]

Originally Posted by William Reliford

What does "over 60i" mean?

I suspect it really means 1080psf/30 - "progressive, segmented frame". Which means a true progressive frame with the lines re-ordered, so instead of 1,2,3,4,5,6 etc a single frame becomes two fields 1,3,5 etc then 2,4,6 etc.

The data in the lines isn't changed or processed in any way (as with de-interlacing) so the true progressive nature of the pictures are maintained, it's just the order in which they are sent, and simple reordering losslessly reconstitutes the original. The reason is to make it compatible with a 1080i/30 signal from the point of view of a monitor etc.