The problem with having a year of HD, is that no one really cares if their TV is a little bit sharper.
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What happened to the "Year of HD"?
- Thread starter Preacher85
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With iMovie HD, FCE HD, and H.264/Quicktime7 Apple has prepared us for the Year of HD, but that year isn't 2005. The Year of HD will definitely come, but it will be ushered in by a wide selection of HD camcorders at all price points.
We need HD-DVD (BluRay), affordable HD camcorders, wider adoption of FireWire 800 (is FW400 fast enough?), and dual core processors for encoding to H.264 (not to mention playback).
Hi-resolution LCD screens are not the gating item. What use have I for iMovie HD if I cannot capture my Kodak moments on HD? What will I be editing without an HD camcorder I can afford?
We need HD-DVD (BluRay), affordable HD camcorders, wider adoption of FireWire 800 (is FW400 fast enough?), and dual core processors for encoding to H.264 (not to mention playback).
Hi-resolution LCD screens are not the gating item. What use have I for iMovie HD if I cannot capture my Kodak moments on HD? What will I be editing without an HD camcorder I can afford?
A "little bit" sharper? I've seen stunning demos of 720p and 1080i next to run of the mill NTSC. You are right, though, that most people think NSTC is good enough; they don't really see a problem with it. That will change just as surely as when people thought a 100MHz processor was good enough. After decades of stagnation with NTSC, change will be slow.broken_keyboard said:
jayscheuerle said:
The process is the same for HD as it is for SD. No consumer is going to get their hands on production quality HD footage anymore than they've gotten their hands on production quality SD footage. It kinda goes like this:
1. Bob shoots/edits a big budget movie in production quality HD.
2. Bob's movie gets super-crushed into DVD-quality MPEG-2 so people can watch it at home on regular DVDs.
2a. Bob's movie gets crushed (but not quite as much) in an HD DVD format (h.264 or whatever) so people can watch it at home on HD DVDs.
3. Bob's movie gets crushed (more so than on HD DVD) so it will fit on broadcast, cable, and satellite TV channels.
The only place a consumer is going to see a non-super compressed HD image is at the movies.
What some people seem to be forgetting (or are too young to remember) is that when DVDs came out you could NOT play them on ANY computer w/o a dedicated, hardware MPEG card. It probably wasn't until 2000, if not later, that regular computers could playback DVD smoothly via software only. Computers today are to HD probably about the same as computers 7 or 8 years ago were to SD.
There are lower quality HD formats (like HDV) that can be handled pretty much just like MiniDV.
I hope that answers your Q.
ksz,
If you get into HD formats that are too big to get digitized via FW400 then you've entered the, "If you have to ask, you can't afford it" price range.
Lethal
Hopefully ATI and NVidia will be building specialized hardware H.264 decoders into their cards, including the mobile chips. Building in encoders would be even cooler, but I'm not holding my breath on that one. So far, I'm underwhelmed at the quality of much of the H.264 video I've seen. Yes, it is an improvement over other streaming codecs, and yes, you can see more detail. But look at any of the clips on the Apple QuickTime site. They all have very obvious and distracting compression artifacts (mostly of the "blocky" variety in continuous-tone areas, similar to what you see with high JPEG compression). I'd like to see some H.264 clips in the compression they'll be using for high-def DVDs.LethalWolfe said:
Oh yeah!
Personally, I can't wait for High-Definition whitespots! We're talkin' crisp, clear, white blotches baby! No blurry white blobs like last time. I'm talkin maximum resolution spots!
Seriously, this is gonna be sweet.
Capt Underpants said:Oh yes that was a great year.
It took them until September of 2003 to get an Aluminum 15" powerbook.
And I mean... who could forget the overheating issues with the first revision 12" powerbooks, or the white spots on the 15" powerbooks.
Personally, I can't wait for High-Definition whitespots! We're talkin' crisp, clear, white blotches baby! No blurry white blobs like last time. I'm talkin maximum resolution spots!
Seriously, this is gonna be sweet.
In the context of applications like iMovie HD and FCE HD, I'm referring to consumer HD formats. There are 2 HD prosumer cams on the market today from Sony and JVC. Others are surely coming, but until new models debut with prices below US$1K I think consumer-level HD video editing will continue to be a non-event. We've got the software, but the rest of the pieces are missing.LethalWolfe said:ksz,
If you get into HD formats that are too big to get digitized via FW400 then you've entered the, "If you have to ask, you can't afford it" price range.
As was I. You asked if FW400 was enough or if there needed to be a move to FW800, and I was trying to say FW400 is enough. It's even enough for some professional applications.ksz said:
Actually Sony has 2 HDV prosumer cameras (FX1, Z1U) plus 1 coming soon (A1U), JVC has 2 plus 1 coming out this summer, and Panasonic has a prosumer DVCProHD camera coming out before the end of the year.
HiRez said:
For the file size the quality is amazing. Compare the HD h.264 trailers to the full screen regular trailers. An HD trailer encoded like the non-h.264 would be massive. Huge. Ginormous even.
Lethal
Are these models available in the US? That's the market that's relevant to me. I see that Sony has only 1 shipping HD prosumer cam (3 CCD) and a new model coming out mid-July for a retail price of $2000 (1 CCD).LethalWolfe said:
I also see that JVC has only 1 prosumer HD cam on the market right now.
Finally, I see that Panasonic has no prosumer HD cams on the market right now.
Post references as I am interested to check out the specs and prices (again, US market only).
jayscheuerle said:
HD is just like 1920x1080 pixels while NTSC is 720x480. Other than that it's pretty much the same (though I don't know if HD is interlaced or not). To play it on an HD tv you'd burn it to DVD (something like 30 minutes can fit on a DL 8GB DVD) or hook it back to your HD camcorder and output. I believe some companies make HD VHS tapes.
What's really holding back HD is camcoders. HD camcorders are still like $5000 and rather large. Most people getting camcorders want small and sexy, not huge and look like it escaped from the 80s.
LethalWolfe said:As was I. You asked if FW400 was enough or if there needed to be a move to FW800, and I was trying to say FW400 is enough. It's even enough for some professional applications.
Actually Sony has 2 HDV prosumer cameras (FX1, Z1U) plus 1 coming soon (A1U), JVC has 2 plus 1 coming out this summer, and Panasonic has a prosumer DVCProHD camera coming out before the end of the year.
For the file size the quality is amazing. Compare the HD h.264 trailers to the full screen regular trailers. An HD trailer encoded like the non-h.264 would be massive. Huge. Ginormous even.
Lethal
Regular encoding in .h264 would be too large to download. There is a reason the film industry is going to at least 30GB optical media. The current compression of the QT trailers would get you 2 hours on a 8GB standard DVD.
While the sheer number of SD/HD formats is confusing, one thing is not: there is a little letter i or p next to the format names that tells you whether it's interlaced (i) or progressive scan (p).7on said:
E.g. 1080i is interlaced, 720p is progressive. And to get your juices flowing, there is 1080p!
ksz said:
Yes, all are US prosumer models (either currently out or slated to ship before the end of the year).
Sony: FX1 (Fall '04), Z1U (Spring of '05), and A1U (Fall of '05, CMOS camera instead of CCD)
JVC: HD1 (IIRC: winter '03), HD10 (IIRC: winter '03), HD100 (summer '05)
Panasonic: HVX200 (Fall '05)
All the cameras are HDV w/the exception of the Panny which can do DVCProHD.
If you google the company & model number you should be able to find info on them.
7on said:
HD can be 1920×1080 or 1280×720, interlaced or progressive, and a variety of frame rates.
HDVHS was an early HD attempt by JVC to court the hi-end home theater crowed. It's pretty much as dead as laserdisc.
Actually you can get a consumer Sony HDV camera for less than $2000 (I think the list price is $1700) and it looks exactly like a MiniDV camera. That was the logic w/creating HDV was to create an HD format that could be crushed to fit onto MiniDV tapes in order to save money.
And the prosumer size HDV cameras are no bigger than other hand-held prosumer cameras. Panny's HVX200 is also the same form factor even though it records to DVCProHD. That's cause it can record to solid state memory cards (Panny's P2 cards).
Lethal
If you're talking about the HDR-HC1, it retails for about $2000 in the US. Still not exactly consumer level, but more affordable considering. And it's a little bigger than the standard MiniDV camcorders. We're getting there.LethalWolfe said:
i knew it wouldnt be year of HD. sure more and more shops are stocking HD products but they're a good 200% more costly than their non-HD counterparts. next year might be though, when Sky unveil their HD broadcast service... but seriously this is the UK. old mrs. Rita Sullivan down the street won't be getting a HD TV until the BBC start broadcasting it. maybe the gadget junkies and the yuppies (who will get a HDTV and not actually use it to its full potential). but not yet. Apple dont have the power to change that yet.
thats when the UK will go HD. and im comfortable to wait.
thats when the UK will go HD. and im comfortable to wait.
iSight HD! That will probably be the next update when it does happen. It probably will require some future Intel CPU to handle it or G5 to G5 chats.
I guess it is possible we will see a 720p model this year but I highly doubt a 1080p model will be seen for at least a year or two. Remember that much of the world are still on dial-up or very slow "high speed" connections, not to mention the processing power required to process H.264 in real time...
HiRez said:
I watched the batman beyond trailer, and it looked fantastic, I was blown away at the quality.
theappleguy said:I guess it is possible we will see a 720p model this year but I highly doubt a 1080p model will be seen for at least a year or two. Remember that much of the world are still on dial-up or very slow "high speed" connections, not to mention the processing power required to process H.264 in real time...
Not to mention the price tag on a HD iSight. Look how much HD video cameras cost.
It's about that price in Japan, based on ~current exchange rate.LethalWolfe said:
It's a little smaller than I thought it was after seeing that pic. Still bigger than the low end ones like the HC32, 42, 90, etc. But I guess about the same size as the high end consumer models.LethalWolfe said: