Cannon 3 chip HDV samples up and why I think 1080i is stupid

[Hulk]

You can have a look at Canon's 3 chip HDV camcorder samples here:

http://usa.canon.com/app/html/See_The_Difference/hd_3ccd.shtml

They look quite good I think. For some reason they label the highest quality one "1080p" when from the interlacing artifacts I see it is obviously 1080i.

Furthermore I am now thinking that the 1080i format is plain stupid.

Where are the monitors that can display natively 1080i? Who has a device that can scan 1080i? Just about nobody.

Plasmas? No
LCD's? No
Front Projection? No
Rear Projection? No

All of the HD monitors on the market today are progressive.

What is the point of 1080i? I'll tell you what I think. Marketing. Plain and simple. 1080 is bigger than 720 so they push it. Like the wizard in the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain they don't want you to notice that little "i" at the end of the 1080. Uh, don't worry about that.

Okay so if I'm shooting still images only in that case 1080i will look like 1080p. Great. Great I can shoot some nice slideshows. I can do that with MUCH better quality with my digital camera. You'll notice all of the most impressive scenes in the Canon samples are stills. The motion scenes have way too many interlacing artifacts for me to be impressed.

Deinterlacing? Never looks that good in my opinion. You can never recover the image that was lost due to the staggered 1/60 of a second field based shooting. You can blend it, interpolate it, ignore it, whatever... but you can't get it back. Once that moment in time goes by it's gone.

And if you downconvert 1080i to 720p from what I've seen all is you get is *about* 720p native quality. Jeez you can get that by natively shooting 720p and with many cams get 60fps too. And all that bandwidth going to the 1080i signal could have gone straight to the 720p encode, making for a better picture.

It's just stupid. They released a format that no one can view natively strictly for marketing purposes. And for semi-pros as well as consumers.

At least with NTSC 480/60i our television sets was the standard AND THEN the video format followed.

If that was the case today we'd be seeing ALL progressive HD cameras with resolutions of 1366x768 or whatever it is many flat screens are and now more and more a full 1080p.

Am I not getting something here?

I for one am not buying a 1080i format camcorder when I jump to HD. No, I will only buy a camera that will do progressive.

[Jerry Jones]

Correct.

Agree 100%.

1080i is stupid.

Sure it can look good enough.

But that doesn't change the fact that it is stupid.

The problem, however, with the ATSC digital TV standard specifications is that they only include a 30 frames-per-second option for 1080p:

http://support.gateway.com/s/CsmrEltrncs/DigitalTV/Shared/2517984faq42.shtml

Yes, marketing is part of the reason for 1080i.

But the other reason has to do with the broadcast industry infrastructure and their lack of bandwidth.

The reason they just didn't come up with a 1080p at 60 frames-per-second was that they couldn't conceive of cameras and recording devices that would support the bandwidth and they couldn't conceive of broadcasting that much data.

But I suppose H.264 changes the situation in that one should be able to reduce bandwidth using the greater compression efficiency and come up with a pure H.264 solution that would allow for 1080p/60 acqusition - editing - distribution.

Even Panasonic's extremely expensive AJ-HDC27H "VariCam" only does up to 720/60p:

http://tinyurl.com/yxwnvp

The base suggested list has dropped from about $67,000 to $45,000, which would suggest that Panasonic may be getting ready to introduce 1080p acquisition.

But, yes, your post hits the nail on the head.

We're only now starting to see 42" flat panels that can even support 1080p.

Until now, most 42" monitors (and smaller) have only supported 720p.

I don't think even the old interlaced, flat HD tube-TVs support 1080i, but I could be wrong.

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Jerry Jones]

Forgot to clarify:

There is also a 24 frames-per-second option for 1080p.

That's used by Hollywood.

I don't think it would be ideal for fast-action sports, however.

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Jerry Jones]

On balance, however, those samples do look good.

That Canon XH G1 -- especially -- would be nice to have.

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Hulk]

Jerry,

I wish manufacturers of reasonably priced HD camcorders would concentrate on 720p. Bandwidth and CPU editing overhead are both lower. It IS a significant jump in quality from 480i but not so much that most computer systems from the last year or two can't handle it.

I fear what is happening to music will happen to video. Most people think mp3 at 128kbit compression is good enough. Now I think people are starting to think most the HD broadcasts and even HD disc playback is "good enough" too. I guess it's too much to ask for a nice clean HD signal.

[Jerry Jones]

I wish manufacturers of reasonably priced HD camcorders would concentrate on 720p. Bandwidth and CPU editing overhead are both lower. It IS a significant jump in quality from 480i but not so much that most computer systems from the last year or two can't handle it.

I agree.

I would add that it would be nice if they could use an intraframe codec for camera recording so that we wouldn't have to work with long GOP MPEG formats.

I wonder why they couldn't come up with a DV-like compression scheme that yields great 720p quality.

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[wkulecz]

To me 1080i is clearly better than 720p/30 unless you never watch sports or are confned to viewing on a computer monitor.

720p/60 or 1080p/60 is what we really want.

--wally.

[Jerry Jones]

The new JVC GY-HD250 here:

http://pro.jvc.com/prof/attributes/features.jsp?model_id=MDL101625

...supports all kinds of 720p frame rates, including 60 frames per second recording.

It's a tape-based camera, but if I could afford one, I'd go for it anyway.

This is what I was hoping for when I bought the early JY-HD10, which turned out to be a major disappointment.

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Jerry Jones]

On the other hand, my first nod would go to the solid-state card-based Panasonic AG-HVX200:

http://www.panasonic.com/business/provideo/hvx200microsite/index.asp

It also supports all kinds of frame rates in 720p mode.

I'd love to have one of these.

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Jerry Jones]

By the way, there's an interesting review in DV MAGAZINE's May 2007 issue.

The review is about the 720/60p-capable JVC GY-HD250.

The author, Robert M. Goodman, mentions that Apple and Avid do *not* support 720/60p (but may do so in future software updates).

They only support 720/24p or 720/30p.

That got me curious.

Does Ulead MediaStudio Pro 8 support 720/60p?

I checked the list of available HDV templates in Ulead MediaStudio Pro 8.

Guess what?

There is no 720/60p.

So I went ahead and selected the 720/30p template, which is obviously designed for the obsolete JVC JY-HD10/GR-HD1 camcorders.

Next, I attempted to adjust the frame rate upward to 60 frames per second in the template adjustment menu.

Guess what?

You can't.

There is no 60 frames per second option.

So, apparently, Ulead MediaStudio Pro 8 doesn't support 720/60p!

Another interesting note.

I owned the JVC JY-HD10, which was a 720/30p HDV camcorder.

There seemed to be a problem with motion.

The workaround was to reduce the shutter speed:

When shooting HD, the camera captures 30 progressive frames per second — half the temporal rate of 720p HD broadcasts. The NTT “SuperENC” MPEG-2 decoder/encoder chip is primarily responsible for the low frame rate. Some shooters will like the low rate because it is close to 24fps, thereby providing what they consider a “filmic” look. Others will dislike the look, as rapidly moving objects — or non-moving objects when one pans too quickly — appear as “double objects.” The name for this visual artifact is “eye tracking,” and it is generated within our eyes. The double images are not recorded to tape. Our eyes create the artifact from moving objects within a series of images where every frame is repeated — as it is when 720p30 is converted by the camcorder to 720p60 for display. (Just as when film is projected using a double-bladed shutter.) Although the artifact can't be eliminated, you can minimize it by locking the shutter-speed at 1/60 second — a speed equivalent to a film camera set to a 180-degree shutter. JVC recommends locking a 1/30 shutter speed that masks the artifact by creating so much motion blur — from the very slow shutter — that the two objects blur into one. While I prefer the former solution, my testing showed that any shutter speed from 1/30 to 1/60 second is equally acceptable.

SOURCE: Article by Steve Mullen http://tinyurl.com/2ojg4f

I suspect these new consumer camcorders...

...the Sanyo HD1/HD2, Canon PowerShot TX1...

...the ones that shoot 720/30p probably suffer from the same artifact.

So -- if they allow you to manually reduce the shutter speed -- then you might be able to overcome this "eye-tracking" issue.

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net