New Low Cost HD Formats

[Guest Ultra Definition]

I read Steve Mullen's comments regarding pre-NAB press meetings he had with JVC and Sony. Here's what I remember:

 

JVC will be showing a prototype HDV camcorder that will have 3 CCDs and should come to market probably later this year.

 

Sony claimed that their XDCAM is capable of recording 80 Mbps, which is roughly the DVCPROHD level, and 2x bigger stream than effective Varicam stream after frame conversion to 24p.

 

Sony people were using among themselves the term HDV2. They said that HDV does not have to be limited to 25 Mbps or to the published standards. (Note: Sony is the inventor and original lisensor of DV.)

 

No details were given and Sony, Panasonic, JVC, Sharp, and Canon basically agreed on blackout on any lower end HD camera news. Reason: There is Summer CES and because of that they want any HDV type camera announcement as late as possible. So we'll have to wait for NAB.

 

What I think:

 

Sony finally made the CineAlta SR available. CineAlta F900 uncompressed signal can now be fed to CineAlta SR VTR, creating images that will be close in quality to CineAlta SR. By moving CineAlta into the 440 Mbps range, after MPEG4 encoding, Sony cam now come out with a bunch of cheaper quality HD cameras without infringing on their digital cinema series.