melgross said:
On the contrary, the "standard" has not finished evolving. In the latest edition of DV magazine there is an article about Panasonic's new camera that has been expected at the NAB. In the article they mention that Panasonic has not been happy about DVC's data rate, which they say is too low, "bit-starved" they call it. They've been hinting at a camera that records at a higher rate.
What? You are talking about DVC, I was talking about HDV, they are totally different. Sure each standard "evolves" slightly, but it is transparent from the user endpoint, and doesn't change the overall way you use it. I would be interested in reading on how HDV is evolving and what tweaks they have planned in the future for it, if you have any info on that. To me evolving is a huge step, like DV to HDV, they are both totally different, but yet HDV evolved from DV. HDV is in its infantcy, and will not be evolving into someting new anytime soon, fall of the face off the planet, maybe, but not changing too drastically in the near future.
As FCB is responsible for the interest in HDV (their words, not mine), and Apple and Panasonic have been cooperating on this front, it's not too difficult to see Panasonic coming out with a higher bit-rate HDVCam, and Apple supporting it.
What? Panasonic is not a part of the HDV consortuim, at least as far as I know, they back DVCPRO HD, and that is what their
new camera just annouced today supports, not HDV. It will be a while, if ever Panny comes out with a HDV solution.
If that happens, and it has a better visual impact (HDV has been accused of being "just good enough", then we might see others support it as well. Noise right now is a big problem with HDV, a higher bit-rate will help to lessen this.
HDV is by no means the best out there, but it is BY FAR the most affordable, and does a decent job. Higher bitrates are a hardware solution for down the road, perhaps the next generation camera's will encode in H.264, which from the user endpoint will be transparent, especially with FCP 5 and its ability to edit the native long GOP MPEG2 streams. But that is a tweak, not an evolution since it still maintains the same method of recording of HDV.
It's going to take another year before this shakes out.
It's going to take longer than that, panny's came won't even come out untill the end of this year . . . face it, HDV is the only viable lost cost HD solution. People were scared of DV when it first came out and thought it would fail, and look now, it's taken over.
The P2 idea is interesting, but won't get popular until the cost comes down.
Yup, I agree with you here, P2 is a great idea, I use tapeless aquisition taping seminars and the such, straight from my DV cam through FW to my powerbook to an external HD, works great. I captured about 40 hours of footage straight to drive, saves that additional 40 hours of capturing. It would be great to use the new panny cam with HD, but unfortunately (or furtunatly) the bitrate of DVCPRO HSD is 100Mbps, which hard drives are too slow to capture, so for you, the panny is better since it has higher bitrate, and is has true 4:2:2 color space, where as HDV does not.
As far as playability goes, being able to play it back on a high-end machine does not qualify it as being actually widely usable. Lack of viable playback right now is acknowledged as being the biggest problem with HD.
I never said that it would make it widely useable, and IMHO the biggest problem with HD is lack of content, stemming from lack of viable playback. Apple is at least trying to get HD on DVD to the few people that do have the hardware, at least they are trying.
There is also a good article on HDV starting on page 48. It can give the arguments that we don't have the ability to type out here.
Why don't you read it and then come back.
I don't suscribe to that magezine, so I can't read it. I am not saying that HDV is the best, all I am saying is that is the best PROSUMER HD option out right now, and with FCP 5 it will make it a pleasure to use to use HDV given its shortcomings.
