HDV Blogs

Absolutely not. If you have a computer that can edit DV, you have a computer that can edit HDV. HDV in 1080i format is the same bitrate (25Mbps) as DV is. However, depending on the system, you may experience choking on the system, depending on whether you’re editing Transport Streams or with an intermediary codec such as the Cineform Connect HD codec.

The JVC cameras are 720p. This means they have 720 lines of horizontal resolution, displayed/shot in progressive frames. The Sony cameras have 1080 lines of horizontal resolution, shot in interlaced frames. The resolution of the JVC camera is 1440 x 720p, and the resolution of the Sony cameras is 1440 x 1080i. (when viewed at aspect ratio, the Sony actually displays 1920 x 1080i. A 1440 anamorphic image yields a 1920 display)

Blu-ray discs can hold more data than HD DVDs. Both discs look like DVDs but pack data more tightly and can process more video faster.

Originally Syndicated via RSS from HD DVD News RSS Feed

Blu-ray discs can hold more data than HD DVDs. Both discs look like DVDs but pack data more tightly and can process more video faster.

Originally Syndicated via RSS from HD DVD News RSS Feed

Minimum Configuration:
To play 720/24p video with stereo sound:

-Windows XP
-Windows Media Player 9 Series
-2.4 GHz processor or equivalent
-384 MB of RAM
-64 MB video card
-1024 x 768 screen resolution (4:3 screen) or 1280 x 720 (16:9 screen)
-16-bit sound card

Recommended Configuration:
To play 1080/24p video with 5.1 surround sound

-Windows XP
-Windows Media Player 10
-DirectX 9.0
-3.0 GHz processor or equivalent
-512 MB of RAM
-128 MB video card
-1920 x 1440 screen resolution (4:3 screen) or 1920 x 1080 (16:9 screen)
-24-bit 96 kHz multichannel sound card
-5.1 surround sound speaker system

For Mac OS X:

-Avid’s Xpress Pro HD, Supports a wide range of HDV formats/standards, but no support for true 24p HDV.
iMovie HD Universal binary, current version does not support 24p HDV

-Final Cut Express and Final Cut Pro 5 Latest version of FCP5.1 does not support direct HDV 24p, however will work with transcoded 24p footage (I.E. HDV 24p > Apple Intermediate Codec 24p)

-Lumiere HD Lumière HD (beta) for Final Cut Pro 5. First available software to edit HDV on a Mac with Quicktime based Non Linear Editing systems. This is the only Mac based application (other than FCP) which allows for back to tape in HDV encoding (Including JVC’s 24p ProHD). No Universal Binary version and crash-prone when ran under Rosetta with MacIntel based systems.

-MPEG Streamclip 1.7 for Mac now a Universal Binary and supports automatic 3:2 pulldown (Converts 24p to 29.97), this program can only perform basic edits such as cutting, copying, pasting and trimming, but is available free of charge, and has excellent tools for exporting, demuxing and converting video, for example from HDV format (usually with the .m2t extension) to MPEG-2 (.mp2) format. MPEG Streamclip can handle most MPEG container formats (including ts, ps, vob, dat, mpg, and mp2) which adds to its usefulness.

-HDVxDV’s [1] Soon to be Universal Binary (Beta version of Universal Binary has been in use for months and works great with MacIntel systems), this program loads in HDV (Including JVC’s 24p ProHD) and transcodes to whichever format the user wishes to cut in. Timecode support is innacurate. Does not allow for back to tape in HDV.

Although HDV and DV share the same tape format and the same recorded datarate, they use completely different video-compression technology. The DV codec is strictly an intraframe (spatial) compression. Each DV video frame is recorded as an independent picture, with a fixed bit allocation and uniform placement on the videotape. The HDV codec is based on MPEG-2 video compression, which employs both intraframe and interframe (temporal) techniques. Interframe compressors store only a fraction of the frames in a video as independent pictures — called key frames — and encode the remaining frames as changes relative to them. Consequently, HDV frames vary in size depending on their prior and future neighbors. In HDV 1080i, one in every 12 (PAL) or 15 (NTSC) frames is a key frame.
MPEG-2 video enables HDV to achieve a much higher compression ratio than DV, but at the cost of motion-induced artifacts in scenes of complex-motion. The artifacts are a limitation of the compression technology and bitrate allocated to the video bitstream. Motion artifacts are imperceptible for static shots and gentle pans, but become increasingly detracting as motion complexity increases. For example, a moving riverbed may exhibit regions of picture breakup, depending on its portion of the total screen area. It is important to view these limitations in the proper context. For the DV-codec to approach the spatial-quality of HDV, it would require more than four times the storage space.
Dropouts or errors in the compressed video bitstream affect HDV much more severely than DV. This is an unavoidable characteristic of interframe compression. Since frame data affects multiple frames (and not just the one it originated from), a dropout will impact all dependent neighbors. Frame-accurate editing is also made more difficult by the MPEG-2 codec. Any modifications to the video-sequence require the surrounding group of frames to undergo a complete (and lossy) decompression/recompression cycle.
For all its limitations, HDV can look quite stunning on a consumer HD display. Although free of motion-induced artifacts, DV tends to look fuzzy when scaled up to HD resolutions. Subjectively, most observers are willing to accept HDV’s visual artifacts in exchange for a more detailed picture.

There has been a lot of concern and confusion over the difference between 1080i and 1080p. This stems from the inability of many TVs to accept 1080p. To make matters worse, the help lines at many of the TV manufacturers (that means you, Sony), are telling people that their newly-bought 1080p displays are really 1080i. They are idiots, so let me say this in big bold print, as far as movies are concerned THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 1080i AND 1080p. See, I did it in caps too, so it must be true. Let me explain (if your eyes glaze over, the short version is at the end).
For clarification, let me start by saying that there are essentially no 1080i TVs anymore. Unless you bought a CRT based TV, every modern TV is progressive scan (as in LCD, Plasma, LCOS, DLP). They are incapable of displaying a 1080i signal as 1080i. So what we’re talking about here mostly applies to people with 1080p native displays.

Movies and almost all TV shows are shot at 24 frames-per-second (either on film or on 24fps HD cameras). All TVs have a refresh rate of 60Hz. What this means is that the screen refreshes 60 times a second. In order to display something that is 24fps on something that is essentially 60fps, you need to make up, or create new frames. This is done using a method called 3:2 pulldown (or more accurately 2:3 pulldown). The first frame of film is doubled, the second frame of film is tripled, the third frame of film is doubled and so on, creating a 2,3,2,3,2,3,2 sequence. It basically looks like this: 1a,1b,2a,2b,2c,3a,3b,4a… Each number is the original film frame. This lovely piece of math allows the 24fps film to be converted to be displayed on 60Hz products (nearly every TV in the US, ever).

This can be done in a number of places. With DVDs, it was all done in the player. With HD DVD, it is done in the player to output 1080i. With Blu-ray, there are a few options. The first player, the Samsung, added the 3:2 to the signal, interlaced it, and then output that (1080i) or de-interlaced the same signal and output that (1080p). In this case, the only difference between 1080i and 1080p is where the de-interlacing is done. If you send 1080i, the TV de-interlaces it to 1080p. If you send your TV the 1080p signal, the player is de-interlacing the signal. As long as your TV is de-interlacing the 1080i correctly, then there is no difference. Check out this article for more info on that.

The next Blu-ray players (from Pioneer and the like) will have an additional option. They will be able to output the 1080p/24 from the disc directly. At first you may think that if your TV doesn’t accept 1080p, you’ll miss out on being able to see the “unmolested” 1080p/24 from the disc. Well even if your TV could accept the 1080p/24, your TV would still have to add the 3:2 pulldown itself (the TV is still 60Hz). So you’re not seeing the 1080p/24 regardless.

The only exception to that rule is if you can change the refresh on the TV. Pioneer’s plasmas can be set to refresh at 72 Hz. These will take the 1080p/24, and do a simple 3:3 pull down (repeating each frame 3 times).

Short Version
What this all means is this:

• When it comes to movies (as in HD DVD and Blu-ray) there will be no visible difference between the 1080i signal and the 1080p signal, as long as your TV correctly de-interlaces 1080i. So even if you could input 1080p, you wouldn’t see a difference (because there is none).

• There is no additional or new information in a 1080p signal from movie based content.

• The only time you would see a difference is if you have native 1080p/60 content, which at this point would only come from a PC and maybe the PS3. 1080p/60 does have more information than 1080i/30, but unless you’re a gamer you will probably never see native 1080p/60 content. It is incredibly unlikely that they will ever broadcast 1080p (too much bandwidth) or that 1080p/60 content will show up on discs (too much storage space and no one is using it to record/film).

So all of you people who bought 1080p displays only to be told by the companies that you had bought 1080i TVs, relax. The TV will convert everything to 1080p. Now if you bought a TV that doesn’t de-interlace 1080i correctly, well, that’s a whole other story.

The world of Xbox Live is getting a little bigger this fall. On September 29th, Microsoft will officially be launching South Africa into the brave new world of next-gen console gaming.

Originally Syndicated via RSS from HD DVD News RSS Feed

The world of Xbox Live is getting a little bigger this fall. On September 29th, Microsoft will officially be launching South Africa into the brave new world of next-gen console gaming.

Originally Syndicated via RSS from HD DVD News RSS Feed