reasons for HD?

ok, this whole "HD" thing is making me a bit nuts. lets just say that you shoot in proper HD or HDV. and once youve edited your program you have to deliver to your client. on what format do you deliver it? and what if they only have SD presentation gear? is there a downconversion process?

given the relatively small installed base of HD presentation gear, im finding it kinda hard as an industrial / corporate producer to give a crap - but im sure there is a TON that im not understanding...

im sure one of our powerful gurus on th emountaintop can clear this up...

<<<powerful gurus on th emountaintop>>>

Do you have any idea how hard it is to get good Starbucks up here?

<<<this whole "HD" thing is making me a bit nuts.>>>

And this is different from everybody else how?

There are some very powerful people at the tops of large corporations that are staying up nights trying to figure out the same thing.

Have you noticed the two extremes are spreading? We're going to shoot in 1080i 24P and deliver on a cell phone. Oh and we want the sound exported as a Ring Tone.

Koz

HD is nuts. It's completely cart before the horse. There's no HD delivery mechanism, very few people have an HDTV and even when they do, it's usually not high enough resolution to show the full detail. Then there's HD broadcasting which occurs at such low bit rates that it looks like garbage.

Things will improve when we get an HD disc player in people's homes, but that's now being screwed up with a format war....

Graeme



[www.nattress.com] - Plugins for FCP-X

ok, so then why are we wasting our time and money (unless sponsored by a big corporate machine like discovery channel) dinking with it and with what [feels like] and interim technology like HDV????

Years ago a young rich collage kid showed me a brand new, newly introduced Sony VX 1000. I sneared and asked, "Yea, but is it broadcast quality?" I was shooting and editing on 3/4" decks, humble pie tastes pretty good.

To me HD or HDV, (yes I know they are different things) is the train coming down the tracks if your ready or not. I've had clients begin to ask me if I shoot in high def. And the down converted image from HDV, the ones I've seen, kicks the snot out of my XL1. Thats why I'm dinking with it. I also am in a spot because my XL1 needs new heads and I can't justify spending that kind of money in a technology that to me is going away. BTW, Sony has discontinued making the VX 2100.

kevin

Boys and boys,

It is all about the FCC mandated date for cessation of analog television transmission and the hearlding of MPEG-2 video and AAC audio transmitted over those airwaves.

It was originally set for 2006 but industry pundits are balking and the FCC may move it to 2007 or 2008.

The bottom line to me is it will come and we will have to be able to deliver a 1920 x 1080 images for broadcast.

You can choose to be behind the curve or ahead of it. Either way it is taking chances that you will choose the right stuff.

Anyone see that Sony just announced another HDV camera? HVR-A1U. It has a 1/3" CMOS image sensor that does true 1920 x 1080. Looks more like a PD-150 and is priced about the same.

ahh, good point kevin. and my next question is what is that downconversion process? can you shoot hdv and make a tape dub to dv? or is this something you do in post after the FCP step

on a side note, i think the xl2 kicks the snot out of the xl1. and ive always hated the sony vx line - i think all sonys sub $20k cameras look consumerish

do we have any other opinions on the quality jump from xl2 to any of the hdv cameras? better sharper whatever, i kind of like the look of the xl2's image and ive heard some various "artifacty" issues with hdv cameras...

HDV really lacks a true pro workflow, although this can be got around by buying expensive HD cards. You can't monitor back through the deck which is a major pain, and the only HDV decks you can get are pretty poor compared to what is available for boring old DV. The Sony deck is just a camcorder without the lens - ouch.

The new little Sony HD camera does not do true 1920x1080, and from the footage I've seen, looks as low rez as the Z1 and FX1. It has a 1920x1080 CMOS Bayer pattern chip, and a rolling shutter so that when you pan, straight objects go diagonal. The camera is a bottom loader making tripods a pain, so I'd place it in the strictly consumer category.

The only HDV camera that looks even remotely decent is the new JVC, and that's limited to 720p24 and 720p30.

The FCC mandate is for digital broadcasting, NOT HD broadcasting. What is needed for HD acceptance and take up is an optical disc product for the home for distribution, but that's caught up in a format war - what a disaster.

Graeme



[www.nattress.com] - Plugins for FCP-X

<<<There's no HD delivery mechanism, very few people have an HDTV and even when they do, it's usually not high enough resolution to show the full detail.>>>

In 19[xx] when the first radio / television / color television / hidef television broadcasts were transmitted, there were four receivers in the whole city capable of receiving the broadcasts--generally all owned by employees of the company doing the tests.

The broadcasts were all uniformly terrible, boring, unstable, and tended to end before the engineers wanted them to. Some were responsible for small fires in the transmitter / receiver and there was no shortage of people watching all this and laughing their a** off.

Mark my words. This stupid radio thing will never catch on.

Koz

""The FCC mandate is for digital broadcasting, NOT HD broadcasting""

So you are saying that digital broadcast is NOT HD broadcasting? Why then is the FCC mandate requiring digital tuners in new TV sets? For Standard Definition - digital?????

"ahh, good point kevin. and my next question is what is that downconversion process? can you shoot hdv and make a tape dub to dv? or is this something you do in post after the FCP step"

From what I've read you can make a tape dub to DV and do it a software way as well. I'll let you know for sure in about 2 weeks. Thats when my Z1 is to show up. And I know opinions will always fly about, but from what I've seen of the footage, the Z1 downconvert looks great and the HDV looks great. At this point I always like to quote my local golf pro when asked about the latest and greatest new driver or whatever, "it ain't the arrow, its the indian shooting it!".

Kevin

>>""The FCC mandate is for digital broadcasting, NOT HD broadcasting""

So you are saying that digital broadcast is NOT HD broadcasting? Why then is the FCC mandate requiring digital tuners in new TV sets? For Standard Definition - digital?????<<

The advantage of digital broadcasting is more bandwith. Not all digital broadcasting is HD, and the quality of the HD is variable. If you transmit SD, you get more channels. If you transmit HD, you get less competition. Here is OZ we got less competition, and you can go to any number of HD owners chatrooms and hear them complain about the variations in quality from channel to channel.

The government wants the lower channels free as soon as possible so they can sell the frequencies. No more of this "giving away" stuff. The licenses will go up for sale and help the US out of its financial pinch.

You can put four standard def digital broadcasts in a channel and still have some room left over for other services. Stations getting greedy and only doing standard broadcasting will be forced to divest three of the channels. Only if you broadcast at least *some* HiDef which takes up the whole channel will you be allowed to keep everything.

Look for Public Service HiDef shows broadcast at 3 AM. The United Way campaign will look wonderful in 16:9 HiDef.

Oh, and stop smoking.

Koz

Of course, Digital broadcasting has nothing to do with quality, but everything to do with compressing the hell out of the image so that they can put more and more channels of rubbish over the airwaves.

Graeme



[www.nattress.com] - Plugins for FCP-X

Just wait untill SHDTV (twice as wide and high as regular HDTV) and UHTV (twice as wide and high as SHDTV), which are being developed in Japan right now, (yes there are cameras apparently) become standard.



David at Movies Rock in Toronto
[www.tofcpug.com]

HD is all relative to screen size and viewing distance. There's very little point in HD unless your TV is big enough (or projection screen) or you sit close enough.

I'd think the vast majority of people don't have room for a TV big enough to do justice to HD, and would be better off with higher quality SD broadcasts, and indeed, higher quality programming. Where I see the big need for HD and Super-HD is in movie making.

Graeme



[www.nattress.com] - Plugins for FCP-X

Dipping my toes into HD.

Heck for years I shot HD...it was 35mm...

Seriously, though...

I also produce a fair number of corporate things. I have found more and more of them have 16x9 plasmas for kiosks, convention booths and the like. All of them are being fed a standard def signal. I just finished shooting a meeting for distribution around the happy planet. Rest assured I didn't shoot it in HD as there would be no way for anyone to watch it and the workflow would introduce issues that would be a silly devotion of otherwise useful time. I did shoot it with two cameras...a Sony DSR250 and a Sony HDV set in DV mode. I like the native 16x9 chips.

I have shot some HDV footage for a new venture, but my clients are not asking for HD. (Me to CEO...yes those are your nose hairs. No, before we didn't see them in such glory. They are rather impressive. Thanks to HD, the backlight really makes your ear hairs stand out, too. )