Sony NEX-VG10 AVCHD E-Mount Lens Camcorder

[Adam Gold]

Originally Posted by David Bankston

I can't imagine how many camcorder sales Sony loses each year because of this confusion.

Um, my guess is "none." Pros understand the difference and know how to work with it, and consumers don't care -- they just know it works.

[Graham Hickling]

That's a harsh call to say the LL review is babbling nonsense.

Plus, to add to the confusion, what on earth is this about?: "There is no 720p24 .... in the BD/AVCHD world"

BD spec:
1920×1080 59.94-i 16:9 2D encodes only
1920×1080 50-i 16:9 2D encodes only
1920×1080 24-p 16:9
1920×1080 23.976-p 16:9
1440×1080 59.94-i 16:9 (anamorphic) MPEG-4 AVC / SMPTE VC-1 only
1440×1080 50-i 16:9 (anamorphic) MPEG-4 AVC / SMPTE VC-1 only
1440×1080 24-p 16:9 (anamorphic) MPEG-4 AVC / SMPTE VC-1 only
1440×1080 23.976-p 16:9 (anamorphic) MPEG-4 AVC / SMPTE VC-1 only
1280×720 59.94-p 16:9
1280×720 50-p 16:9
1280×720 24-p 16:9
1280×720 23.976-p 16:9
720×480 59.94-i 4:3/16:9 (anamorphic)
720×576 50-i 4:3/16:9 (anamorphic)

[Steve Mullen]

".. what on earth is this about?: "There is no 720p24 .... in the BD/AVCHD world" "

My god, you caught me!

[Bill Koehler]

Originally Posted by Vaughan Wood

Pretty good observations Dave.

Unfortunately for Sony, Panasonic hasn't been standing still either, and judging by the phenomenal interest in the AF100, I think Sony has REALLY missed the boat on this one. Only time will tell, but by the end of the year, I think Sony will definitely be on the back foot for quite a while.

Cheers,
Vaughan

I disagree. Reason? They are targeted at two very different demographics. The NEX-VG10 at $2K USD is targeted at the keen amateur. But even the keen amateur is rarely running XLR mics much less HD-SDI + external recorders and/or monitors, ND filters, etc. etc. etc. The Panasonic AG-AF100 on the other hand, at $5K USD, is targeted strictly at the professional videographer and has the feature set to prove it. And this is where you live so this is what appeals to you.

[Andy Wilkinson]

I agree with you Bill. I had a hands on with the Sony yesterday at the ProVideo 2010 event here in the UK. It is definitely a "rich kids toy", no way a pro camera (but I'm sure there are/will be some lovely films made with it).

Now the Panasonic sure looks much more of a professional tool in every way (...although the codec still worries me a bit).

[Steve Mullen]

Actually the shallow the DOF the fewer the background details that need to be compressed and so more efficient the compression so the less load on the codec.

[David Heath]

Originally Posted by Steve Mullen

So for the intended consumer market, calling it 50i/60i makes a good deal of sense.

The straight truth is that it is 25/30psf, and the lamentable fact is that the term psf is so little used or even widely understood. At the same time it is both of i25/30 and p25/30 - and at the same time it's neither of them. It's psf25/30, end of story.

What that means is that the pictures look like p25 in terms of motion rendition, it behaves like i/25 in terms of equipment compatability. Steve, I agree with pretty well all you say, but if I bought a camera marked i/25 (50i) I'd expect 50Hz motion rendition. In this case, I'd get 25Hz.

David quoted the following sentence earlier: "......some of these cameras (such as the VG10) really aren't recording 60i, they're capturing 30P and placing it in a 60i "wrapper" ". "Psf" is the simple way of saying "capturing 30P and placing it in a 60i "wrapper" ".

[Robert Young]

Originally Posted by Steve Mullen

Unfortunately, for the non-consumer buyer, all will not be well. We'll notice the odd motion from 25fps and 30fps. We'll wonder how much quality will be lost when our NLEs needlessly perform interlace scaling for FX. Alternately, if we drop the clips in a 25p or 30p Sequence, we'll be pained that each clip will be erroneously deinterlaced.

We'll worry that if we upload an interlace file to Vimeo, will they automatically deinterlace it causing a loss in vertical resolution. And, we'll ask "should we deinterlace when making 720p25/720p30 for the Net."

For me, these are the operative questions regarding 30psf.
I can use a native 60i sequence, mix VG10 and CX550 (60i) and if going out to BR, I'm not concerned. But what happens to a VG10 60i sequence when it gets "deinterlaced" for web?
One work around for me, if I use Cineform DI, the CF converter can be instructed to "interpret" the raw footage as 30p. It will simply reassemble the fields into the original 30p frames without applying any deinterlacing algorhythm. There may also be a way to have CS5 "interpret" the raw footage to 30p without deinterlace. I haven't tried that yet. Anyway, as 30p, I feel more confident that no matter if going to web, BR, or DVD, there'll be no unanticipated tampering with the images.
But, I feel like there are still many unanswered questions at this point.

[Simon Wyndham]

All you have to do is tell your NLE that the footage is progressive. Easy. No de-interlacing required. Have people forgotten that any SD camera that records 25p or 30p is also recording to PsF? It was never a problem then, and it isn't a problem now.

[Robert Young]

Originally Posted by Simon Wyndham

...Have people forgotten that any SD camera that records 25p or 30p is also recording to PsF? It was never a problem then, and it isn't a problem now.

Hmmm...
I hadn't forgotten, I just never knew that to begin with.
That is what I suspected re CS5- just open a 30p sequence and drop the psf onto it.
However, if you allow CS5 to open a default sequence based on the footage, it will be 60i.
Seems like that would be the smartest way to handle VG10 footage, rather than an interlaced sequence.

[Simon Wyndham]

There's slightly more to it then dropping the footage onto a 30p or 25p timeline. If you do that the NLE might assume that the footage is interlaced and perform a deinterlacing algorithm on it. I say *might* because depending on the system it may or may not understand that the footage is already progressive.

For example I always had to tell both Vegas and FCP that my XDCAM SD footage was progressive. So you will need to set up a 25p or 30p timeline, but make sure that the individual clip properties are set to progressive or no field order.

As David said;

At the same time it is both of i25/30 and p25/30 - and at the same time it's neither of them.

So it actually doesn't matter if you use an i or a p timeline. If you use an interlaced timeline you will still see progressive, and if you use a progressive timeline, as long as you tell the NLE that the footage has no field order, you will also see progressive.

The key is the encoding at the end of the chain (to BluRay or DVD), to make sure that the compressor knows what it is receiving, and setting the output accordingly.

[David Heath]

Originally Posted by Simon Wyndham

Have people forgotten that any SD camera that records 25p or 30p is also recording to PsF? It was never a problem then, and it isn't a problem now.

Whilst true, there are caveats to that, Simon.

It's quite true that an SD camera is unlikely to record progressive directly, and extremely likely to record it as psf. If the editing software then reconstructs the original progressive, fine, but if you were to simply display it on an interlace display with no further processing, you'd get horrible 25Hz "twittering" on horizontal or near horizontal lines.

For that reason, if the psf pictures are likely to be viewed directly via an interlace system, it's very desirable to line average the original progressive image. That obviously softens the vertical resolution, but it's a small price to pay for getting rid of the line flicker. If psf is simply being used as a carrier, the destination being an NLE which will reconstruct true progressive, you obviously don't want line averaging.

[Robert Young]

Originally Posted by Simon Wyndham

There's slightly more to it then dropping the footage onto a 30p or 25p timeline. If you do that the NLE might assume that the footage is interlaced and perform a deinterlacing algorithm on it. I say *might* because depending on the system it may or may not understand that the footage is already progressive.

In CS5, if I drop the 60i psf on a 30p timeline, it previews normally on a big HDTV monitor- no loss of horizontal rez, no artifact, twitter, etc.
However, I can highlight multiple clips in the project window, activate the pull down menu, select Modify>Interpret Footage>Conform to Progressive (no fields). On preview, it looks exactly the same as the unmodified psf.
So, I'm not sure exactly what PPro is doing- Is it really conforming to 30p automatically when the psf goes on a 30p sequence, or is it just providing great previewing capabilities?
The clip properties window for individual clips gives framerate as 29.97 for both i and p footage, and makes no reference to field order. No help there.

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by Simon Wyndham

There's slightly more to it then dropping the footage onto a 30p or 25p timeline. If you do that the NLE might assume that the footage is interlaced and perform a deinterlacing algorithm on it. I say *might* because depending on the system it may or may not understand that the footage is already progressive.

For the non-consumer there certainly more. Vegas Pro and FCP do need you to re-tag all clips as progressive or they will deinterlace each clip when used in a progressive sequence.

FCE and iMovie do not offer that function. The clips will be deinterlaced -- although I sell software the re-tags interlaced AIC to progressive.

Premiere Elements can only make a progressive Project if you choose H.264 DSLR setting. (But, AVCHD may not playback -- needs to be confirmed.) If you make an AVCHD Project you can only have an interlace sequence but it appears dropping clip into a sequence MAY change the sequence to progressive (Premiere may look within the data stream) -- BUT during export the sequence is assumed to be interlaced and deinterlaced if you make 720p30.

EDIUS and Vegas Movie Studio I need to re-check.

Sony, by marketing as 50i/60i saves the consumer from all this complexity. They can just use it. Of course quality is VERY likely to be lost.

Were Sony to market it as 1080i60/30fps or 1080i60/30p -- they would confuse every kid at Best Buy, most every consumer buyer, and a number of "pros." The fact I still need to re-check NLEs says its not obvious the exact workflow needed for each one.

PS: Media Composer claim the clips are progressive when they are imported to DNxHD for use in a progressive project.

[Simon Wyndham]

For that reason, if the psf pictures are likely to be viewed directly via an interlace system, it's very desirable to line average the original progressive image.

Yes, the twitter could be an issue with direct viewing. Although when I used to edit SD I also had a very nice consumer CRT (a JVC) that had a progressive mode on it that would combine the two fields from PsF footage. Shame none of the pro monitors I came across at the time could do this! There were probably other consumer displays that could do this too, since many DVD manufacturers failed to correctly set the progressive scan flag on their discs. So TV and DVD player manufacturers had to find a way to properly combine the fields automatically. My TV required me to manually tell it to do so though.

For the non-consumer there certainly more. Vegas Pro and FCP do need you to re-tag all clips as progressive or they will deinterlace each clip when used in a progressive sequence.

FCE and iMovie do not offer that function. The clips will be deinterlaced -- although I sell software the re-tags interlaced AIC to progressive.

In the case of the consumer software the PsF footage can be happily edited on an interlaced timeline. There would be no loss of info. The issue then really comes when it gets to final encoding. But in actual fact it shouldn't make much difference.

Lets say that you have 1920x1080 50i PsF footage and you edit it in your NLE on a 50i timeline. No deinterlacing or loss of line info takes place in that case. Now you want to output a 1920x1080 sequence for Vimeo or YouTube. Conventional wisdom says that you need to deinterlace interlaced footage because of the weird combing effects when shown on a progressive display. However in this case it doesn't matter because the footage really is still progressive. No combing will be seen even if you don't perform any deinterlacing. You'll see both fields at the same time as you should.

As David said, there could be an issue on interlaced displays, but to be honest I never really had any issues, certainly no more so that with interlacing itself! Although camera setup did help. But if you are going out to DVD or BluRay then the encoder does need to know that it is receiving progressive scan footage (even if you output from the NLE timeline initially in a 50i file). Although having said that I have heard that a lot of players these days ignore the field flag and do their own interpretation of whether footage is progressive or not due to the unreliability of the manufacturers in the past.

One of those things that is complicated yet simple at the same time!