http://benderydt.com

Ik ben er nog altijd van overtuigd dat de Sony XDCam EX op dit moment de meest interessante min-of-meer-betaalbare camera is, maar als je hem wil gebruiken voor (godbeware) huwelijken of concerten, of andere dingen waarbij er veel lichtflitsen te verwachten vallen, kijk dan eerst even naar deze testbeelden op FreshDV.com.

Ik had al eens gezegd dat ik niet meer over camera’s ging schrijven, maar ik kan het toch niet laten. In ieder geval, als je binnen dit en een jaar op zoek bent naar een min-of-meer betaalbare Prosumer HD-camera, kijk dan eens naar de net aangekondigde Sony XDCAM EX (+/- 6.500 EURO).

Voordelen t.o.v. andere camera’s in de categorie onder 10.000 EURO:

• Manuele Fuijon lens (niet verwisselbaar)
• 1/2 inch CCD’s (t.o.v. 1/3 inch voor alle vergelijkbare camera’s) met volle 1920×1080 resolutie. CMOS technologie.
• Progressief en interlaced, 1080 en 720 lijnen. Variabele framerate, slow motion in 720p.
• HD-SDI uitgang
• Tapeless workflow op basis van PCI ExpressCard kaarten met de mogelijkheid om in de nabije toekomst beelden rechtstreeks op XDCAM disk te schrijven

Als ik Panasonic zou zijn zou ik heel hard vloeken. De nieuwe Sony-camera is in alle opzichten beter dan de Panasonic HVX-200: betere lens, betere CCD’s, betere tapeless technologie (PCI ExpressCard t.o.v. PCMCIA), betere workflow, enzovoort. Camera’s zoals de JVC-HD 200 en Canon’s XLH1 houden wel het voordeel dat de lens kan verwisseld worden, maar een extra lens is vaak even duur als 2/3 van de aankoopprijs van de camera. Het verschil tussen 1/3 inch en 1/2 inch CCD’s is qua lichtgevoeligheid en scherptediepte echt wel groot en heft mijns inziens de bezwaren over een vaste lens op. En het is van Sony, wat als grote voordeel heeft dat het binnen afzienbare tijd door alle NLE’s ondersteund zal worden in tegenstelling tot bijvoorbeeld JVC…

Ongeveer een maand geleden schreef ik dat jullie wel meer zouden horen van de film. Wel, ik heb er zelf nog niet veel van gezien. Het probleem is dat we de beelden nog altijd niet in een bruikbare vorm op de computer hebben en dat we geen deck of camera hebben waarmee we de tapes kunnen afspelen. Geïnteresseerden kunnen deze thread op dvinfo.net doorlezen. De korte inhoud gaat als volgt: een JVC HD200 camera en Final Cut Pro werken niet echt goed samen. Het probleem kan overal zitten: bij de camera (bij opname) of bij het capturen (we hebben alle beelden ingeladen maar ze zijn niet bruikbaar): de computer kan een probleem hebben gehad, de deck (JVC BR-50) kan niet de juiste firmware hebben gehad of er kan een probleem met een schijf geweest zijn…

In ieder geval heb ik nu nog maar een paar shots kunnen bekijken. Van monteren is helemaal geen sprake. Wordt vervolgd…

A year and a half ago, I wrote:

In the last year, a lot of cheap (or not so cheap) HD video cameras came onto the market. These cameras are targeted towards consumers or professional users at the bottom of the scale (”prosumers”).

This was ment to be the introduction to a detailed overview of all prosumer HD cameras. As you may have noticed, that overview never came around, mainly because I got bored with specs and prizes and endless internet discussions about pixels. However, people keep asking me what camera to buy. Well, based on Barry Green’s recent comparison between a Panasonic HVX200 and Canon XH-A1, I’d say that if you really need an HD camera buy the Canon XH-A1.

More »

for people living in Europe.

Chances are big that you’ve crossed some heated discussion about the 24p capabilities of different cameras if you’re looking for a new camera yourself. This is just a quick note to let you know that 24p doesn’t matter at all in Europe.

Americans are used to material with to 2 different frame rates: film originated material at 24 fps and video at 30 fps (interlaced or progressive). Of course, the NTSC system can not display 24 frames per seconds, it’s strictly 60i. Therefore, 24p material gets subjected to what they call 2:3 pulldown. That is one frame will be split over two (2) fields or three (3) fields alternively. Adam Wilt has a very nice explanation here. I’ve never seen the result of this 2:3 pulldown process but I imagine it looks pretty strange.

Anyway, the important thing to notice is: Americans can immediately distinguish film originated material from straight TV because of the strange cadence that’s associated with film. Now every filmmaker want his stuff to look like a movie, not some sitcom. That’s why there’s a big demand for cameras with a 24p capability. This is what a 24p capable camera ideally does: it aquires images at 24p and adds the 2:3 pulldown when the footage is written to tape. Advanced 24p capable cameras add some special kind of pull down (2:3:3:2) which makes it easier to reclaim the original 24 frames. Being the first with a cheap 24p capable camera, the AVG-DVX100, was the big breakthrough for Panasonic in the USA.

Nobody ever watches footage at 24 fps outside the cinema in Europe. Film shown on TV or DVD is shown at 25 fps. This is a 4% speedup but I doubt anyone really notices. Since there isn’t any frame rate difference between film and video, there’s no incentive at all for a 24p capable camera. You just don’t need it, not even in the unlikely case that your movie will be printed to film. You can always slow your footage down from 25 to 24 fps, but you can’t display 24p footage on any TV nor put it on a DVD. The European version of the above mentioned DVX100 didn’t even have a 24p capability (and it didn’t do as well as the American version since the rest of its features were comparable to other cameras).

There is an important distinction between progressive and interlaced capture though. If you’re looking for the most movie like camera, you need one that’s capable of progressive capture. You can however convert interlaced footage to progressive with tools like Nattress film effects or DV Film maker or Compressor. The results are passable. Be warned that not everybody likes the choppy look of progressive material.

On an unrelated side note, it has been confirmed that Panasonic’s new HVX200 camera has 960×540 pixel CCD’s which it upsamples to 1280×1080 in 1080p mode. I think that this partly explains the low resolution of the camera as observed earlier. I don’t think there’s any use in using the camera out of 720p.

Lots of people have been saying that Europe would learn from the HD experience in America and choose one, and only one, HD format as opposed to ATSC which defines about 18 different formats. The question has always been: which one? 720p50 or 1080i50?

Well, this being Europe, the answer is what I would expect: both formats are allowed. While the EBU is all for 720p50, the reality is that:

1. Europe’s first HD station, Euro1080, broadcasts 1080i only.
2. Sky HD in the UK broadcasts 720p and 1080i.
3. EICTA, an assocation of the mayor European consumer electronics manufacturers, announced an HD TV and HD Ready logo program. The minimum requirements for an HD Ready TV display are: being able to display 720p50, 720p60, 1080i50 and 1080i60. An HD TV labeled HD receiver must support 720p50 and 1080i50 in the form of an MPEG 2 or MPEG 4 AVC compressed stream. I don’t know why they didn’t include 720p60 and 1080i60 in the HD TV requirements, nor do I know why the receiver must be called HD TV and the display HD Ready.

I believe that the logo program by EICTA is far more important than whatever the EBU has to say. The EBU is primary a union of the old, once state owned, now heavily subsidized, national broadcasters. Commercial TV stations take no part in it, although they will most likely spearhead the HD revolution since the national broadcasters are obliged to reach the largest audience possible in the most economical way.

Another believe of mine is that 1280×720 is not a big enough step above PAL’s 720×576 resolution, especialy since most TV’s are 16:9 now and thus have a 1024×576 equivalent square pixel size. 1080 line displays will sell a lot easier. Remember, HD isn’t even born over here. I’ve yet to meet someone with an HD (Ready) TV.

Recently, a “shootout” with 4 affordable HD cameras and 2 not so affordable HD cameras was conducted by Adam Wilt, Barry Green and others. The camera’s included were: a Canon XL-H1 ($10000), JVC HD-100 ($5500), Panasonic HVX-200 ($6000 + storage costs) and a Sony Z1 ($5000). The not so affordable cameras were a Sony F900 (CineAlta) (+ $50000) and a Panasonic Varicam. Adam Wilt’s write up can be found on DV.com (registration required, look for an article called “Four Affordable HD Camcorders Compared”). Barry Green’s take and subsequent responses can be found in this 43 page thread.

I’m not going to repeat everything written about the shootout but I’ll point out some things that interest me instead. Number one being resolution: the 4 affordable camcorders all have 1/3 inch CCDs. They’re trying to create a 1920×1080 pixel image out of a 4.8×3.6 mm imaging area, and it seems they’re hitting the limit of what affordable lenses can do at the moment. It doesn’t surprise me that the Canon and JVC come out at the top. Both have interchangeable lenses. Canon is a well respected lens maker and the JVC has a Fujinon lens. Even though, the Canon tops out at 800 horizontal TV lines and 700 vertical lines, the JVC measures at 700 H and 700 V (it’s only recording at 1280×720), the Sony at 550 H and 700 V and the Panasonic trails at 550 H and 540 V (Adam Wilt’s numbers, with reserve about the Panasonic). This means that the image from the Panasonic could very well be recorded at DV resolution, the Sony would lose some vertical resolution if we did and the Canon and JVC would lose some more. But they’re nowhere near the CineAlta’s > 1000 H and > 1000 V numbers. No wonder people call them half HD or 1.5 SD cameras.

I wonder what people will think of footage shot with any of these cameras once they’re used to real 1080i material shown on a native 1080 line monitor. That doesn’t mean the footage shot with these cameras isn’t better than DV at all - it is - but I think most viewers are a bit too optimistic considering almost all HDTV’s sold right now are in the 1386×768 range. — Side note: I don’t talk about 720p because I don’t believe it’s going to make a dent in Europe at all. It’s too close to PAL resolution and thus won’t be enough of an incentive to get people to buy new TV’s — IMHO, if you’re buying any of these cameras aside from the Canon, don’t do it for the HD factor but because you can deliver a sharper SD sized image. It’s the only thing that makes sense in Europe anyway.

Next up is gain. Adam Wilt measured the 6 cameras at somewhere between 320 and 160 ISO. The Sony Z1 trailed the pack at 160 ISO and the Panasonic HVX-200 leads at 320. Various people commented on how the Panasonic is somewhat noisy and the Sony being the cleanest of them all. Some people even start talking about cinematic noise vs. video noise, but the truth is that you can’t rely on gain numbers and sensitivity numbers at all. To me, the Panasonic HVX-200 and older Panasonic DVX-100 shots I’ve seen look like they’re shot with about 6 to 12 dB of gain. They’re not, but I think Panasonic is willing to boost the output of the CCDs a far bit more to be able to be the low light sensitivity champion. The sad thing about this is that you can not turn this “boost” off, so you’ll always have some kind of noise in your picture. Truth to be said, Canon does offer a -3 dB mode that does exactly that.

Last but not least is Depth of Field (DOF). 1/3 inch cameras offer such a large DOF that it’s very difficult to create “cinematic” images with them. That why a lot of people are turning towards 35 mm adapters. A 35 mm adapter consists of a moving groundglass, a lens for a 35mm stills camera projecting an image on the ground glass and a macro lens to be able to focus your camera on projected image. It’s a bit like filming a movie projection. Trouble is, said adapters cause you to lose a lot of light (about 1.5 to 2 stops, people talk about 60 ISO equivalent for an Canon XL2 with a $10000 P+S Technik Mini35 system) and most of the footage shown is really soft. I’ll be trying one later this year, but I think most of the resolution you win with these affordable HD cameras will be downright lost once you put a 35 mm adapter in front of them.

Another thing that I found remarkable is the fact the JVC-HD100 behaved a lot better than what you would expect from its modest tech specs. It looks like JVC is a bit under the radar for most people considering a camera purchase, but I have to say that I’m really impressed by the JVC-DV5000 we use at school. In fact, if you’re looking for a sub $10000 camera in Europe and you don’t mind the weight and heft of a real broadcast camera, try the JVC-DV5000 or 5100. You’ll have better low light performance, a real broadcast lens and you look professional too.

In the past month I’ve been working an article that starts like this:

In the last year, a lot of cheap (or not so cheap) HD video cameras came onto the market. These cameras are targeted towards consumers or professional users at the bottom of the scale (”prosumers”). This page tries to give a comprehensive overview of the different cameras and their characteristics.

It’s not finished yet, but Mike Curtis has beaten me on speed anyway. So, if you’re interested in a shiny new “cheap” HD camera, go read his article for an overview of the market in the next couple of months.

A couple of remarks: the Panasonic HVX-200 looks like the camera to beat, but it isn’t out yet, nobody knows the exact tech specs and only a few have seen footage shot with it. The same goes for the Canon XL-H1 although that one will be on the market sooner. Please remember that Mike Curtis’ overview is written from the perspective of indy film makers. If you’re looking for run-and-gun, ENG or documentary camera, the Sony Z1 or the more expensive Canon XL-H1 will be hard to beat. The JVC HD-100 needs attention to get good images out of it (manual focus and iris) and has lousy low light performance. Battery perfomance is awfull, it won’t record 720p60 or 720p50 and there’s also the split screen issue. Panasonic P2-media is expensive and holds only 8 minutes at highest quality. You will have to fiddle with hard disk recorders and/or laptops if you shoot hours of footage a day with a Panasonic HVX-200.

Especially for European users, I’d like to note this:

• The Sony Z1, JVC HD-100 and Canon XL-H1 are multiformat cameras, PAL and NTSC compatible. All others have a specific PAL or NTSC version.
• The Sony FX1e doesn’t have a fake 24 p (CF 24) solution in Europe (although you wouldn’t want to use it if it existed).
• The Canon XL-H1 will need a factory modification (meaning €€) before it will record 1080i50.
• According to this post the Panasonic HVX-200 won’t be having a 24p feature in PAL countries.
• The JVC HD-100 comes in two versions in Europe, a HD-100 without firewire input and a HD-101 with.
• The state of HD in Europe is immature. HD television sets are rare and it’s not decided yet whether the HD broadcast standard will be 1080i50 or 720p50. The EBU leans towards 720p50 but the only European HD station is 1080i50. One of the biggest selling points for a Sony FX1 or Z1 is that it’s a damn good 16:9 DV cam. You can always edit in DV with it, even if you shoot in HD.

Update 2005-10-18:

According to this page, the Canon XL-H1 will be delivered as a 50 Hz camera in Europe (1080i50 and a pseudo progressive 25p solution called 25F) with the option to add 60i, 30f and 24f recording.