FCS2 and HD and the EX at full quality?

[Kevin Shaw]

Originally Posted by Evan Donn

No, the arithmetic tells me that 4:2:0 full raster XDCAM is the correct method for producing cleaner green screen, as it has roughly 40% more pixels per color channel than 4:2:2 DVCPro HD and three times the pixels per channel of 4:2:2 DVCPro50.

Not only that, but having 1920x1080 pixels on the sensors in the EX1 will offer four times the amount of data to start from compared to the HVX200 with 960x540 sensors. The EX1 will record as many color samples per frame as the HVX200 has pixels on its sensors, so it should be at least similar for green-screen work. If you want to compare the EX1 to more expensive HD cameras with similar sensors and 4:2:2 recording that might be a different story, but for the price the EX1 should be a fine tool relative to any competing alternatives.

[George Johnston]

Quote Evan Donn "Also, my 3 year old G5 has SATA - Apple hasn't used IDE for several years so your Blu-ray drive should work just fine. It sounds like you don't just need to find a new guru, you need to throw out everything yours has been telling you and start over with your research."

Evan the SATA connections are for the hard drives, the Pioneer BDR-202BK uses SATA connections this won't fit any Mac optical drive bay ATA connector that I know.
I have just found out that there is no HD workflow in DVD Studio 4 for HD video as yet and Toast will only allow you to produce a DATA disc onto Blue Ray.
To clear things up I am not comparing a Sony EX 4.2.0 against Panasonics 4.2.2 I am only stating a fact about 4.2.2 in general...that it is at the price range of the HVX200 better for green screen and yes I have not worked with XDCAM which I assume has 4.2.0 and may work just as well.

[Evan Donn]

Originally Posted by George Johnston

Evan the SATA connections are for the hard drives, the Pioneer BDR-202BK uses SATA connections this won't fit any Mac optical drive bay ATA connector that I know.

Quoting from apple's developer specs here:

http://developer.apple.com/documenta...0906_arch.html

The Mac Pro comes standard with one 7200 rpm, 3 Gbps Serial ATA (SATA) disk drive and three additional 3 Gbps SATA slots for adding hard disk drives...

In addition, the Mac Pro has two unpopulated 3 Gbps SATA buses for expansion.

SATA is SATA - it doesn't matter if the standard optical drive uses IDE, you just need to run an SATA cable from your pioneer drive to one of the two unused SATA buses on the motherboard.

[Barry Green]

Originally Posted by Evan Donn

No, the arithmetic tells me that 4:2:0 full raster XDCAM is the correct method for producing cleaner green screen, as it has roughly 40% more pixels per color channel than 4:2:2 DVCPro HD

Not sure how that math works?

XDCAM EX, at 1920x1080, has a color resolution of 960x540 (518,400).
DVCPRO-HD 25p/50i, at 1440x1080, has a color resolution of 720x1080 (777,600).
DVCPRO-HD 30p/60i, at 1280x1080 has a color resolution of 640x1080 (691,200).

In either case, the DVCPRO-HD color sampling is significantly more. But if considering interlaced footage (which, frankly, nobody ever should) ;) then it becomes far more complex because interlaced 4:2:0 chroma is not a straightforward proposition at all.

Besides, all the math and measuring can go away once we get someone like Jim Arthurs to put both units side by side and deliver actual, final images rather than posturing based on mathematics which may or may not yield discernable results in the final images.

[Gabe Strong]

Originally Posted by Barry Green

Not sure how that math works?

XDCAM EX, at 1920x1080, has a color resolution of 960x540 (518,400).
DVCPRO-HD 25p/50i, at 1440x1080, has a color resolution of 720x1080 (777,600).
DVCPRO-HD 30p/60i, at 1280x1080 has a color resolution of 640x1080 (691,200).

In either case, the DVCPRO-HD color sampling is significantly more. But if considering interlaced footage (which, frankly, nobody ever should) ;) then it becomes far more complex because interlaced 4:2:0 chroma is not a straightforward proposition at all.

Besides, all the math and measuring can go away once we get someone like Jim Arthurs to put both units side by side and deliver actual, final images rather than posturing based on mathematics which may or may not yield discernable results in the final images.

Barry, I think the HVX 200 has 960x540 chips, so my guess is that the EX would be similar for greenscreen work (of course this is all just a guess....mere speculation until we see the EX footage in person.) Of course if you are using a DVC PRO HD camera that actually HAD 1440 x 1280 or 1280 x 1080 than the DVC PRO HD footage may be significantly better. Of course we also have the upcoming HD XDcam that is 50mbit with 4:2:2 color sampling as well if we want to compare higher end cameras. I think what will be interesting to many is to compare the Sony EX to Panasonics HVX 200.....the two handheld HD cameras. As I said, my GUESS is that the tradeoffs that Sony has made (MPEG style encoding) are offset by the tradeoffs that Panasonic has made (low resolution chips).

[Kevin Shaw]

Originally Posted by Barry Green

Not sure how that math works?

XDCAM EX, at 1920x1080, has a color resolution of 960x540 (518,400).
DVCPRO-HD 25p/50i, at 1440x1080, has a color resolution of 720x1080 (777,600).
DVCPRO-HD 30p/60i, at 1280x1080 has a color resolution of 640x1080 (691,200).

He was probably comparing XDCAM EX at full resolution to DVCProHD at the commonly used 720p resolution, which has only 960x720/2 = 345,600 color samples per frame. Plus as I mentioned before, the most relevant camera to compare to the EX1 is the HVX200, which can't generate more color information because it starts with only 518,400 data points on the sensor. Any further color information recorded in 1080p mode on the HVX200 has to be 'made up' by interpolation from the sensor data, and that's not useful as far as real recorded resolution is concerned.

But then since DVCProHD is an I-frame codec and XDCAM EX isn't, some of the EX color advantage could be lost for subjects with a lot of motion, which of course is one of the drawbacks of a GOP-based codec. I've also heard a rumor that the internal video processing on the EX1 may be less advanced than some other inexpensive HD cameras, so if true that would be another leveling factor. But any way you look at it the EX1 should be a fine camera compared to anything else in its price range, and we'll probably have to look long and hard to find situations where the footage it produces isn't satisfying. We'll know in a few more weeks...

[George Johnston]

Thats good news about the 2 spare SATA ports... so we only need Apple to give us an HD workflow out of DVD Studio Pro 4 and we are laughing.

[Evan Donn]

Originally Posted by Kevin Shaw

He was probably comparing XDCAM EX at full resolution to DVCProHD at the commonly used 720p resolution, which has only 960x720/2 = 345,600 color samples per frame. Plus as I mentioned before, the most relevant camera to compare to the EX1 is the HVX200, which can't generate more color information because it starts with only 518,400 data points on the sensor. Any further color information recorded in 1080p mode on the HVX200 has to be 'made up' by interpolation from the sensor data, and that's not useful as far as real recorded resolution is concerned.

Sorry about that, I knew I should have sat down and done all the math again on this before posting numbers - I was going over this last week with someone and what I was confusing was luminance res between the two formats. I wasn't aware of DVCProHD cameras which used a 1440 horizontal res though - that would help close the luminance gap a little.

The HVX uses pixel shift though, correct? In that case it's not purely interpolated info, but it's true you are starting with a lot less information in all three channels.

In any case, if you're currently happy keying SD DVCPro 50 material then I stand by my argument that there's no reason to dismiss XDCAM because of it's 4:2:0 color space - I just double-checked my math on that comparison and the number still stands at 3X the pixels in the chrominance channels, not to mention 6X the pixels in the luminance channel - we're talking about a huge difference simply due to the jump to HD. The fact is that just about any of the current HD formats store enough info in each channel to equal or exceed 4:4:4 SD.

The comparison between DCProHD and XDCAM is not as cut and dried - you trade luminance res with one for chrominance res on the other, but the total numbers are much closer and my guess is both will perform about equally well when it comes down to real world use.

For me the biggest stand out feature of this camera is the combination of a 1/2" imaging system and a handicam form factor - there simply are no other cameras on the market that combine both of these, so I currently don't see any competition for this camera... but that's just me. Some see the small form factor as a negative but I prefer it - I can't stand big cameras.

[David Heath]

Originally Posted by Barry Green

But if considering interlaced footage (which, frankly, nobody ever should) ;) then it becomes far more complex because interlaced 4:2:0 chroma is not a straightforward proposition at all.

Agreed. On the face of it, it may seem strange that a sub sampling system was devised that was assymetrical, but it dates from the time when video was interlace, period. One way of dealing with the interlace was to keep colour samples for every line, and save data by reducing the horizontal chroma resolution - hence 4:2:2.

But go to progressive formats and that all goes away. Then 4:2:0 becomes a much more logical choice. (Assuming 4:4:4 is out of the question!)

[Thomas Smet]

Originally Posted by Barry Green

Not sure how that math works?

XDCAM EX, at 1920x1080, has a color resolution of 960x540 (518,400).
DVCPRO-HD 25p/50i, at 1440x1080, has a color resolution of 720x1080 (777,600).
DVCPRO-HD 30p/60i, at 1280x1080 has a color resolution of 640x1080 (691,200).

In either case, the DVCPRO-HD color sampling is significantly more. But if considering interlaced footage (which, frankly, nobody ever should) ;) then it becomes far more complex because interlaced 4:2:0 chroma is not a straightforward proposition at all.

Besides, all the math and measuring can go away once we get someone like Jim Arthurs to put both units side by side and deliver actual, final images rather than posturing based on mathematics which may or may not yield discernable results in the final images.

But George said he prefers to shoot SD at 4:2:2. That is only 360x576 chroma samples compared to 960x540 for the EX.

If George were to take any form of 4:2:0 HD and down convert in software he would end up with something even better then 4:2:2 SD. In fact I sometimes capture HDV tapes as uncompressed SD by letting the camera down convert through component. This doesn't look as good as software down conversion but it is super fast and easy and pretty darn close to a perfect 4:2:2 SD.

[Boyd Ostroff]

Originally Posted by Greg Boston

Guys, let's dial it back a little bit.
George, with all due respect, your thread title promotes FUD

Thread title has been changed... I replaced the "beware!!!" with a question mark.