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Posted by Toby on 09/26/06 01:39
<mv@movingvision.co.uk> wrote in message
news:IF1L6TElkBGFFwOz@movingvision.demon.co.uk...
> >
>>No John, I don't have any vested interest in Panasonic. MII was a
>>disaster;
>>I supported Sony all the way in those days. I was not a great fan of SX,
>>but
>>it did have its nice points. When my company went DVCPro 8 years ago I
>>cringed, but I've been reasonably happy with the format. I reason I've
>>shot
>>about 2000 hours with very few problems--and very few dropouts--although I
>>was seeing quite a number on some tapes we shot in Kinshasa recently (a
>>very
>>inhospitable environment). I also think Digibeta is great, although the
>>tapes are too big...
>>
>>As I said, CBS Tokyo is finding their XDCams a disaster. There are nice
>>tings about them for sure, but they are huge power hogs and getting data
>>off
>>the disk with their inadequate software I am told is maddening. Going to
>>non-linear is a big pain as well, as importing the files is only
>>marginally
>>faster than 1:1, so you have to use proxies. If you're interested I'll
>>talk
>>to them and get a list of bitches. There are definite teething problems.
>>BTW, do you have a vested interest in Sony?
>>
>>I think that Panasonic's decision to go flash memory with P2 was much
>>smarter for the long-run, although they have also dropped the ball with
>>their method of dumping the files to disk. But you can plugs those cards
>>into a reader, or hotplug the disks with dumped data and you are ready to
>>edit at full resolution immediately; and they are truly random read and
>>write, as opposed to Sony's discs which are sequential write and thus
>>files
>>can't be erased. And the P2 cams are usable in rough locations where head
>>bounce kills the Sonys, even with their 16 second buffers. When the card
>>prices come down a little bit more and they get up to their projected 64
>>and
>>128 gig cards--5 slots hot-swappable--it's going to be hard to beat that.
>>
>>I think that Sony Professional has dropped the ball--my NBC colleague
>>thinks
>>the same. Their consumer stuff is great, though, I find the little Sony Z1
>>a
>>great camera, except for a few points--much better than the Panasonic
>>offerings unless you need real 3223 24p for film transfers, but XD? No,
>>sorry, not my cup of tea.
>>
>>I did like the Varicam, we got beautiful footage from it, and it has some
>>useful features--including the ability to shoot 25fps for PAL conversions
>>and other nice motion effects--not like Sony pandering to the amateur
>>market
>>with assignable buttons on the handle and intervalometers...
>>
>>Sony may get their software act together, although s/w seems to be one of
>>their major weaknesses, and perhaps they'll pull XD out of the fire, but
>>with HDDs going for $1 a gig there is no advantage to storing data on
>>writeable plastic disks, especially since they can't be selectively
>>erased.
>>So I think that XD will ultimately prove to have been a mistake, and I
>>wager
>>we'll soon be seeing Sony recording to silicon or directly to HDDs.
>>
>>You missed the earlier thread, apparently, with PTravel, in which we were
>>discussing the rate of visible dropouts on DV. Everyone agrees that life
>>is
>>orders of magnitude better now than in analog days, but the discussion
>>centered around whether DV copying could truly be considered lossless, as
>>is
>>generally claimed. A number of us argued that while near perfect, DV
>>copying
>>was still going to be subject to data corruption from mechanical
>>exigencies
>>(tape and/or transport problems) that even the sophisticated error
>>correction algorithms in use would not be able to compensate for, and so
>>the
>>marketing claims of "perfect copies" had to be taken with a grain of
>>salt.
>>In fact a number of manufacturers now claim "near lossless", which is more
>>honest.
>>
>>I thought it was interesting that IBE (International Broadcast Engineer),
>>"The Industry Standard" they claim, writes about industry concern with
>>dropouts from digital tape (although as others pointed out, they refer
>>specifically to Mpeg2-encoded material, in which dropouts can be much more
>>egregious because of the interframe compression). My point is that while
>>extremely rare, dropouts do occur with DV, and apparently often enough
>>that
>>they are a topic of concern among broadcast engineers. Sorry if you didn't
>>understand the context of the post.
>>
>>I'm not a Luddite, I love digital. But I'm interested; why would my post
>>about dropouts in DV make you think I have a vested interest in Panasonic?
>>DVCPro is as digital as XD, except that it uses tape instead of discs. If
>>you want to claim that XD is superior because of random-read, then P2 must
>>be a step better because it is random-read and random-write.
>>
>>Me, I'm waiting for the HDD cameras to go pro, although flash is probably
>>better for rough rides.
>>
>>Toby
>>
>>
>
>
>
>
> Thanks for providing a very substantial missive Toby. Clearly you are very
> much a professional operator. I'm also a working multitasking producer and
> don't have the time to follow on with a depth and breadth of discussion
> that your post deserves. however I would say that much of the drop out and
> glitch presented on DV and HDV material is down to poor equipment
> management, or cack handedness, as I've said before. I'm able to relate
> entirely objectively to these issues because in all honesty I have about
> as much hands on experience with these formats as anyone. HDV glitches,
> where they occur are magnified due to the long GOP Frame. A lot of folks
> are unaware of the HDV monitoring drop outs that are indeed only
> monitoring issues and not recorded to tape. Compared with Beta SP for
> example these format can almost be regarded as drop out free !
>
> My company has used Z1's in some pretty harsh environments without
> reliability problems. One of our intrepid cameraman down in the South
> Atlantic and Antarctica brought back some eighty hours of HDV shot on an
> early FX1. That camera did finally succumb after a soaking in salt water
> but still managed to record well enough afterwards. (Monitors packed in
> but not quite to the extent that they were totally useless). From my so
> far more limited experience with the JVC 101 with standard issue Fujinon
> lens, I have found it to have no better pictures than the Z1. The Z1 is
> better at motion handling too despite the many astonishing assertions to
> the contrary. Adding 35mm lenses to the JVC via the adapter option starts
> to make comparisons somewhat moot since the cost differentials are
> increased exponentially. Perhaps the HD hardened Carl Ziess lens fixed to
> the front of the Z1 is not as good as other lenses that cost more, and
> often many times more, than the whole Z1 itself, but really it's not so
> poor that anyone but squinty eyed camera nerds notice. The other
> consideration is 1080i versus 720p. Once one is able to differentiate the
> arguments expressed and published by the supporters of either camp that
> are not tainted by self interest and misleading engineering assertions,
> especially the ones that bring the progressive scan monitoring issue into
> the equation, or merely consider the current limitations of transmission
> bandwidths (720p uses less of it) one might consider that 1080i can be
> de-interlaced very successfully whereas 720p can not be converted to match
> 1080i.
>
> One thing I'm not arguing with though is that these compact HDV's, even
> the Canon HDV with it's arguably higher performance, can not match HDCAM,
> Varicam or DVC PRO HD, even though they are being seamlessly cut with
> these formats everyday. It will be interesting to see how the HDV version
> of the DSR 450 performs. We've yet to see HDV behind a 2/3rd" chip set and
> proper lens.
> --
> john
Thanks too for you long post John. Don't get me wrong, the rate of dropouts
on DV streams is really negligible compared to even the best analog
equipment, and the cameras and decks are much cheaper due to the fact that
heads and transports can be built to much looser tolerances. As far as I am
concerned digital video formats--all of them--are light years better than
the best analog formats of yesteryear in just about ever way imaginable.
I am very interested in your impressions of the JVC vs the Sony Z1. Some of
my news colleagues have said that the JVC has reliability issues, but I am
very interested in it for the lens. Much as I liked the Sony Z1, I have a
real problem with the electronic focus and iris of the lens. Never mind the
quality of the camera itself, as an operator who always uses manual iris and
relies on the precise and crisp mechanical focus ring of your standard-issue
2/3" camera lens, I find the Z1 maddeningly difficult to operate when I have
to follow focus and adjust iris at the same time, or even follow focus in
the tele end of things. The JVC looks to have a pretty standard lens (It's a
Fujinon 16x I believe). How do your operators find this camera? If the
picture quality is anything like the Sony it is certainly a camera I would
consider.
Best,
Toby
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