IBC: Sony announces HVR-V1e

[Brent Ethington]

Originally Posted by Paulo Teixeira

If I were to make a choice between this and the Z1u, then it would have to be HVR-V1 and I earnestly don’t see why someone would choose the Z1u over this. I’d even get this over the XH-G1 but that would still be a very hard choice to make. The 3 CMOS chips should allow for a much better picture than all of the other HDV camcorders as long as there is lots of lighting.

it will be interesting to see how the image quality compares to the new Canon models G1/A1- if the sensors in the V1 are similar to the FX7, then the pixels are still stretched/shifted to get to 1440x1080 resolution for writing to tape (whereas the Canon is native)

[Barry Green]

Originally Posted by Michael Struthers

4:2:2 HDV?? That can't be right, can it?

It's not. The V1 processes the signal internally at 4:2:2 1920x1080, but what gets recorded on the tape is standard HDV, so it gets downrezzed to 1440x1080 and chroma gets subsampled to 4:2:0 before being recorded.

[Barry Green]

Originally Posted by Lynne Whelden

It evidently uses the same slo-mo recording as the Sony HC3 does. Gives you three seconds of true slo motion by recording at a faster tape speed, I think.

Well, not exactly. It cuts the resolution of the frames to 1/4, so it's 240 lines of res. 4x as fast sampling, 1/4 as much resolution, so it all nets out the same. The motion is sampled at 4x as much temporally, but into a matrix that's 1/4 as large spatially.

Here's an example of what the feature looks like on the HC3.
http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content...tion-Video.htm

The V1 reportedly uses the same technique but doubles the size of the memory buffer so that lets it record longer.

[Brent Ethington]

Originally Posted by Barry Green

It's not. The V1 processes the signal internally at 4:2:2 1920x1080, but what gets recorded on the tape is standard HDV, so it gets downrezzed to 1440x1080 and chroma gets subsampled to 4:2:0 before being recorded.

Barry - are you saying the sensors are 1920x1080? or are they smaller, then scaled up to 1920x1080 and then down again? given that the still picture resolution is only 1.2MP, I'm guessing the native sensor resolution is not 1920x1080...

[Heath McKnight]

I'm not sure, either. I'm curious about the white papers.

hwm

[Tony Tibbetts]

So is it safe to assume the US version will have 24p?

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by Evan C. King

Stu that's the "e" model you're talking about. So the american "u" model probably shoots 24p!

That's not automatic. Putting 25p into 50i is EZ, but 24p into 60i using the one frame into two fields approach doesn't work.

CineAlta uses 24p into 48i.

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by Barry Green

They're not. They're 4:3 960x1080. They get uprezzed to 1920x1080 for internal processing. Then the image gets scaled down to 1440x1080 for recording.

Berry are you sure? That would require a 2X horizontal scale to get to 1920. Not only would that cause a huge quality loss -- of what value is a 1920 image than is than decimated back to 1440 for encoding?

[Marvin Emms]

Oh, ClearVid. Joy.

Why do I get the nasty feeling Sony are just swapping one bit of video snakoil, faked progressive modes, for another, the clearvid 45 degree rotation scam.

Let me take a wild guess that while resolution measured strictly on the vertical and horizontal axes will be reasonable for a camera of this type, real world performance will be significantly worse due to the poor resolution on the diagonals.

[Steve Connor]

OK here's the good bit - the camera has an HDMI output - this will feed out from the camera head before the HDV compression. Blackmagic have just announced new HDMI capture cards

http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/intensity/.

You do the math!

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by Heath McKnight

And yes, there is HDMI output:

HDMI is NOT HD-SDI output!

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by Steve Mullen

Berry are you sure? That would require a 2X horizontal scale to get to 1920. Not only would that cause a huge quality loss -- of what value is a 1920 image than is than decimated back to 1440 for encoding?

I think this is the coupling of two correct statements into something not fully true.

Sony's DSP has always been CAPABLE of 1920x1080 processing. That's why the A1 could use higher rez CMOS chips.

So yes, the DSP can work at up to 1920, but I don't think that proves the 960 is uprezzed to 1920.

More interesting -- the DSP can run at 1080p.

Which certainly indicates that the CMOS chips can drive a full frame of 1080 lines into the DSP at 25Hz. Which means the CCDs must be able to run at 25p and 50i.

Which means the USA model will do 30p and 60i.

The two Sony sites are not running now, so I had to find the PDF. So I can't find the statement that it can switch between Region 50 and 60.

USA news is under wraps for a bit longer.

Once again no EDIT button present.

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by Steve Mullen

That's not automatic. Putting 25p into 50i is EZ, but 24p into 60i using the one-frame-into-two-fields approach doesn't work.

That's why CineAlta uses 24p into 48i.

This requires a CCD that can run at 50Hz/60Hz in interlace mode and then at 25Hz/30Hz in progressive mode.

To get 24p, the entire video system nust be able to be clocked at 30p/60i and at 24p. I doubt that will be the case, but if it is done then two more things must be done.

Pulldown must be used to get the 24p into 60i.

And, then NLE must remove the pulldown to get back to 24fps.

Bottom-line -- this would require a very different USA model. I don't think Sony will go this way. They never have.

If the model could be switched into Region 50, then one could shoot at 25p. But, in the USA that requires a different infrastructure. Possible, but not simple.

Sorry -- once again no EDIT button.

-------------------------
Steve Mullen
My "Sony HDV Handbook" is available at:
www.mindspring.com/~d-v-c

[Steve Connor]

Originally Posted by Steve Mullen

HDMI is NOT HD-SDI output!

Yes that's obvious even to non techie people like me, but it's better coming out HDMI from the camera head rather than going to tape as you avoid the HDV compression.

[Yasser Kassana]

Actually this camera doesn't look that promising. However, I MIGHT get a chance to test it soon and post results. So be patient...