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THE WAR ALREADY LOST

By Steve Turner   Thu, Sep 30, 2010

Many years ago, before most of you were born, there was a technical battle waged over videotape formats. It was the Betamax versus VHS battle and it was lost by the better side. I’ve never recovered. The victory was driven not by technical merits but by ill informed sales people and Sony’s mistaken policy of limited licencing to other manufacturers.

Fast forward to 2010 another format was has come and gone without much of fight at all. It ended before I realised it was on. It’s not the Blu Ray versus HD DVD battle – I didn’t care about that at all. It was a codec war between the really cool easy to use HDV codec and the nasty pain in the rear end AVCHD format. Like 20 years ago it looks like the poorer performer has won the day.

HDV came along with the arrival of the first high definition domestic cameras and then grew into the professional market. It’s easy to use and requires no more grunt or space than the SD miniDV format that came before it. It runs at 25mpbs but will not tax the most basic PC or laptop. It is lossy but careful editing minimises any loss and I never have any issues. It’s 1440x1080.

AVCHD also appeared in the domestic market. This time it was the arrival of the new gen hard drive and solid state cameras. The compression is higher than HDV allowing a slower 17mbps and roughly the same storage space. The problem is that it needs a grunty computer to play and editing is an issue. My big concern too is that I can actually see the difference in picture quality. New cameras have boosted the rate to 24mbps and it’s better but not much.

AVCHD works by minimizing the amount of information it gets from each frame. Where possible it will not record the frame but copy the last one until there is enough movement to justify a new frame. Every 15 frames it will create a full frame. So if you have a static landscape most of the frames are not “real”. They are copies. So if you edit and recompress the loss will get visible pretty quickly. Also the computers brain gets a workout sorting the info. Adobe has only just released a version of Premiere that can cope and it took a whole new engine to do it. Also you’ll need a specific video card to get anywhere.

At the start it seemed AVCHD would only infect the home domestic market. Most home snappers will not edit so it wouldn’t matter. Slowly though the infection spread up into the prosumer then professional market and here we are.

So what to do? Recently there was much emailing back and forth between the Auscam scribblers. The end result was a surprise revisiting of the Cineform codec, previously looked at a few years ago. Cineform converts the lossy AVCHD into full frame 10bit 4:2:2 pictures. The only price is the files size quadruples from 14gig/hr to 60gig/hr. With huge cheap hard drives that isn’t an issue anymore.

I downloaded the free trial of Noeoscene HD and it worked a treat. You can convert files directly off the camera or from any hard drive, card or USB source. The full 1920x1080 clips will play happily on any PC or laptop and can be edited easily in an version of Premiere Pro since CS2. The best bit is the cost is only US$129. I have bought to just deal with the cameras I test and the possibility of needing to edit AVCHD in the future.

So where did HDV go? There are still solid state recorders that do HDV so the change from tape to flash is OK. Sony sell add on recorders with their HDV cameras but there are no new cameras and no more development. HDV by the way is the world’s most used professional format. Kind of like Beta became the professional choice even after VHS won the day. Digital Beta is still in use today. No professional version of VHS made it. So the HDV versus AVCHD battle is over. Bugger.

 

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Comments(6):

HDV

Thursday, October 21, 2010 John

Have hope Steve. I transferred a Umatic tape today (back to HDV of course) and found from the owner of the Umatic that he gets a transfer every week. That's 30 years old so HDV has a way to go yet. And the only time Sony was right with tape formats is when they invented Betamax.

HDV still rocks

Thursday, March 03, 2011 David

I have had sales staff smirk at me because I confess to still using an 'old' Sony Z1. I love the camera, I am very familiar with it and it's totally reliable. I recently lost AVCHD clips while reviewing the NEX-VG10E which I have never done with tape. I like the security of having an archive of tapes. Just in case... I also recently dubbed 9 hours of U-matic tape from 1981. It came up remarkably well for old analogue tape recorded at the beach during a hot summer. My new super i7 with SSD C-drive and 8GB RAM can play back AVCHD at Preview quality (ie not good or best)but not if I add any video FX or transitions. HDV plays back perefctly at FULL>Best quality preview. Change for change sake is not always the wise move! And I use Cineform on a daily basis because of the excellent picture quality and performance in multi-layer compositing. It's remarkable value. David S imaginACTION

HDV

Tuesday, March 15, 2011 Bob

Hi Steve, You got me into this 5 years ago with a Canon HV20 which we still use as a VTR for Export to Tape and the results are excellent.I now use Canon 5D mark IIs H.264mov and convert out put to HDV/mpeg-2 for Export , however also blu-ray. The HV20 is being repaired by Canon but, is still used, it will not die here.The anamorphic 1440 x 1080 is still very good.

HDV v AVCHD H.264mov

Tuesday, March 15, 2011 Bob

All is not lost yet. I have been converting H.264 mov 1920 x 1080p via Premiere Elements 4 to Microsoft avi HDV mpeg-2 uncompressed which seems to retain the quality from the Canon 5D Mark II imported into Premiere Pro 1.5.1 for Export to tape using Sony PHDVM63DM. You would be hard pressed to see the difference between 1440 x 1080 and 1920 x 1080P on a Sony Bravia 46" HD monitor.

HDV v H.264 1920 x 1080 p

Wednesday, March 16, 2011 Bob

Just thought this 'QUOTE" may be of interest, and yes we finally Export to tape using HDV/mpeg-2 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I nearly did not buy the HDVideoPro Feb 2011 edition in Australia as it was $15.00 and this type of magazine is usually a waste of time and full of ads. However, the INDIE EPIC caught my eye as we use 2 x Canon 5D Mark II 's, but the more interesting article was Like a Rolling Stone, what a great piece of writing by Michael Guncheon which described what was going on with video from the 5D's. We have solved this problem with better Canon Lenses, better camera panning techniques etc plus better computers, better video cards and better T V's and better software. But, his explanation shone a lot of light on the old problem. It now never happens, we are getting very smooth productions from these cameras and superb stills, which is really our business, let alone the HD 1920 x 1080p video which is broadcast and cinema quality. Thanks , for a very good article. Regards, Bob & Louise Dix Freelance Video & Photo Imaging/Craft Design 17 Barrymount Crescent TOOWOOMBA Q 4350 Australia Phone :61+ 07 46322996 Bob: Mobile : 0405728925 Louise: Mobile : 0439186228

Still love it!

Monday, May 16, 2011 Frank

Well, I ain't gonna change any time soon. I love my Sony FX1 to death and the Canon HV40 is as good as you said it would be, Steve. But to increase the life expectacny of both, I just purchased a Focus Enhancement's FS-5 100GB HDD recorder that will attach to the firewire outputs of both cameras - one at a time, of course. Now I don't even have the issue of real time capture. However I will confess to using Cineform NeoScene even with HDV. It captures, splits into clips and converts to 4.2.2 as mentioned by Steve and my PC thinks it is toast and jam to edit. And visually, who can tell the difference? Certainly not me on a 42" HD screen. So - why would I want to move at this time? Frank McLeod