[TAML] Re: Help: Digital "insert" for film slr camera?
- From: Peter Schaff <schaffpa@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: TeamAmiga Freelists <teamamiga@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Team Amiga WNT <taml@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, teamamiga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 7 Nov 2006 07:08:15 -0800
Dave,
Sorry for the delay. Hope this gets through OK. Each list has it's
own way.
On Oct 31, 2006, at 8:05 AM, Dave Haynie wrote:
On Mon, 30 Oct 2006 02:09:26 -0800, Peter Schaff
<schaffpa@xxxxxxxxxxx> jammed all night, and by sunrise was heard
saying:
On Oct 27, 2006, at 1:38 PM, Dave Haynie wrote:
<snip>
And the 20x is certainly nice.
BTW, the 480 has a 2x digital setting which is actually useful,
although there is certainly visible degradation.
That's a decent option. In some of the more camcorders, they're
using
multi-megapixel sensors, so digital zoom with sensible limits
could be
used without dramatic results (it probably makes you color suffer a
bit,
but resolution could be maintained through 4x, maybe even 8x
digizoom,
depending on the actual sensor).
With a larger sensor, you could go a bit digital, but then you need
to because of the shorter zoom.
While true, don't assume that because you get more pixels, you get a
larger sensor. Thing is, you're not likely to use a super zoom,
effective or otherwise, in dim light. So it's somewhat reasonable to
believe that an 8:1 cropping of your camcorder's 4Mpixel sensor (or
whatever) isn't so bad (you need 1/3Mpixel for the 720x480 DV frame)
Oh, that would explain why the 480's 290k isn't as sharp as some I've
seen. I'm sure that's not the only reason, but resolution capability
isn't a compromise I like.
..
you're affecting light quite a bit, and color somewhat (with enough
pixels on your sensor, you lose the color-error fringing effects of
the
Bayer pattern, or variation, used on all single-sensor cameras). I
still
don't use the digital zoom at all, but if I did ever shoot in DV/DVCAM
mode and needed a longer lens, I'd give it a try.
It's where "because we can" and "bigger better faster more" meet.
Forget
about the fact that my '510 has nearly twice the pixels of your
'480,
but only goes to 320x. If you could go to 320x in 2000, it only
stands
to reason that by 2005 you should have 900x. I suspect that novices
see
the number and weight that as some useful metric, because they don't
know any better. Numbers confuse regular people, but ad-men love
'em.
Sad but true. That "huge" 990x on the front of the 480 looks
"great". ;)
So think about it.. you have a 20x optical zoom, so to get 990x
that's a
49.5x digital zoom after you're at the maximum optical range.... it
just
me, or does that not leave ANY significant number of pixels left
for the
image?
With 290k effective pixels (somewhere around 620x465?) to work with
that's 13x10 pixels at 49.5x. Why didn't they just make it 50x?
Maybe it's the psychological factor (990x looks "bigger" than
1000x)? Well you can see simple shapes. 8^D
Just looking at the plugs, it doesn't look to me like shorting is
possible. Perhaps a circuit isn't properly protected against
surges? Comments?
USB also runs power through the connector; it is under program
control, but you get 100mA @ +5Vdc (minimum 4.5V) always, 500mA
if you ask
nicely. The power on Firewire 30Vdc, which sounds like an issue.
However, if
you're using a camcorder, you almost certainly use the 4-pin
compact FW connector, not the large 6-pin connector. There is NO
power on the
4-pin connector, just the two differential pair that make up
Firewire. So
this guy's full of crap.
I suspected as much. Good to know your take here, Dave. Still, I
will probably be a little more vigilant about static, which really
isn't too much of a problem here.
Static CAN be an issue, but USB and Firewire ports usually have some
kind of ESD protection device. I use a little SOT-23-6 chip on some of
the USB gear I've done for Nomadio, which includes both protection and
the usual USB bus termination resistors and capacitors. I suspect they
have a similar thing for Firewire... it's a natural for anything with
these kinds of volume. Doesn't mean you should invite static, but it
does mean that the hot-plug stuff pretty much works as expected,
without
fear of killing your gear (there are probably some environments
static-crazy enough to make you exercise caution, but if you're in
one,
you probably know it).
That's reassuring. The fellow that mentioned it had killed 3 Sony
camcorder FW ports that way. At least his conclusion was incorrect.
Of course, as I observed when I bough the '510, it didn't actually
matter, as long as some kind of 8mm survived. Once you're on
Firewire,
DV and D8 are identical... Sony was smart to build D8 on top of DV,
logically. Of course, I wouldn't buy a D8 machine today, but
that's at
least driven by the fact that there are no D8 camcorders still
available
at the level of the '510, much less what I was looking for.
According to Popular Photography (is it still "popular"?), the last
D8 of any kind is just now rolling off the assembly line.
They've been "Popular Photography and Imaging" for quite some time. I
guess that lets them discuss things like Camcorders, though they
typically don't do a great job (well, compared to actual video
magazines).
I'm not at all surprised that Sony's finally giving up on D8, it's
basically served its purpose. Many of the tapes shot back when 8mm was
king have rotted by now, etc.
Scary, though my oldest 8mm is only about 6 years old, and it seems
fine. Transferring them to DVD takes more time than I have so I
picked up a LiteOn DVD Recorder ($110 at Costco). It has a DV input
for this purpose so I'm hoping the quality will be good enough. I
can always go back and edit as I have time. At least the tape rot
won't be an issue.
How would I go about putting DVD content into iMovie? I assume I'd
have to put it back to DV format. I realize we're in Mac territory
here. Perhaps Quicktime Pro would do it?
And with most of the consumer DV camcorders
shrinking to smaller than half the P&S still cameras on the market,
they're at a disadvantage.
Plus, just how many camcorder formats can you back? Sony's got DV,
DVD,
HDV, hard drive, AVCHD on hard drive, AVDHD on DVD... they really
didn't
need MicroMV, and they don't need D8 anymore, either. And who knows,
they may offer a solid-state camcorder before too long; there's almost
enough storage on a big card for consumer-level AVC recording (well, a
big SD or CF card is actually larger than a 3" DVD, but those really
don't store enough, IMHO... then again, professional cinematic 35mm
film
loads run around 10 minutes, so whadda I know?).
Tape still seems to be the most reasonable compromise for consumers.
DVD is hard to import as it's in mpeg(all?), but then I'm not really
up to speed on the bleeding edge of Mac.
Glad I got
one when I did. Must remember to digitize all my tapes soon.
There will be used ones on eBay for years :-) The '510 I bought years
ago was from a prosumer-type guy who was upgrading to DV, even
then. The
price was low and the model number high, I figured it would do the
job...
didn't actually expect it to become my #1 camera for five years.
I wonder how he liked his DV. Sounds like you lucked out.
Curiously, it was the D8 that got me interested in Sony. I always
figured they were a little overprice, proprietary, and maybe a
bit too
consumery. But damn, that '510 worked and worked, and I never had a
problem with transfers or anything else.
Yea, Sonys seem to keep going. Our receiver is 6 years old now, a
TC158SD "portable" cassette deck from 1976 that is still my best deck
(semi-pro) after 20 years of use in a car(!) The VU meters are faded
to oblivion, but it still works great. The one think I'll probably
never get from Sony and that's a DVD player.
I bought mine from a weird Japanese company called IOData... but I
wanted something weird, eh (real HD output, even without any
significant
market for pre-recorded DVDs in that format), networking, etc. It
tends
to be the case that the big guys, like Sony, Panasonics, JVC, etc. are
slow to release the "must-haves" that have grown up in the multi-
format
DVD world: MP3, DiVX, etc. The off-brand companies seem to see this
as a
way to sell more players... works for me.
The LiteOn recorder is DiVX5/VOD compatible (registration required -
DRM stuff - phooey). Besides downloading and playing DRM movies,
what can I do with DiVX?
I have DiVX6 on the Mac. I see they're doing full HD 1920x1080p with
5.1 mp3 surround (?!). They offer a "short" movie (500MB) to show
this off. If I download this, can I record it on the LiteOn and play
it through the HDTV somehow?
Wow, I'm downloading it now and Comcast is letting me do between 600
and 950 MB/sec! Sweet. Varies a lot depending on who else is on,
and it is the wee hours here. Broadband is a whole new world. It
looks like under 20 minutes for this 571MB file (avg 635 MB/sec).
Heck, that's nearly what I paid for (6 Mbps).
DiVX HD is impressive. This 10 minute animated movie is tack sharp,
detailed, and smooth (24 fps). I've very impressed with the codec.
For a 2-hr movie, that would be 6 GB, including sound. About the
same as DVD.
Speaking of HD, we got our HD DVR (Motorola DCT-3412 I) installed a
week ago. So far we've had 3 total crashes (M$ "enhanced" -
Washington State is a test bed), and after a few hours on the same
channel, we have to switch channels to get the sound back. But
generally it works fine.
I miss the Dish Favorites system (at least on the 501). You could
get All Channels, Subscribed Channels, and 3 personalized "Favorites"
lists. The Motorola has a master list of All channels and one
Favorites list. Both are customizable but it takes awhile with 200+
channels. Not as flexible. The HD only gives about 20 hours of HD -
more would be better. The controls take some getting used to, and
they could have made better use of the extra resolution for the Guide.
I was disappointed that HD channels showing regular SD just put bars
on the sides as well as top and bottom. Makes sense for widescreens,
but we don't have one. It's like having a 27" set. There's a
tempting "HD Zoom" button on the remote but it doesn't do anything.
As the Sony is limping (it has other issues) I'll reserve judgement
except to say that it's similar to Dish on SD, and HD looks good,
although Annie says she's not as impressed as when she first saw the
set at Sears (we bought it off the floor). And of course there
aren't as many channels as Dish. We have HBO and Starz HD, lots of
local channels, including 3 or 4 PBS variants, including a classical
music channel, all in HD.
The LiteOn also does mp3, mpeg4, DVD Dual (new to me, I think it
means +/- rather than DL?), XviD, AC3 (has coax out), LPCM, etc. The
manual is impressive and will take a lot of study to see what can be
done with this box. Besides compatibility, I wonder how this
compares with the Pioneer DV-434. Perhaps this progressive scan
player would be better?
I had a 1st-gen one
from them that started misreading disks after about a year or so.
And our PS2 met the same fate after a couple of years (however, Sony
did fix it for free and it's worked fine since). We have Diskman and
Walkman stuff that refuses to die.
I've had three Sony audio amps. My old one is still chugging along
just
fine, amplifying audio in the kids room. The second one, a pretty
expensive (US$650 in the day) surround amp kept blowing out its rear
channels. I had it serviced three times... when I brought it in the
fourth time, the Clerk at Best Buy told me to go pick another one,
same
or less original value -- this one had activitate the lemon policy on
their extended warrenty (which I only got because Liz had a coupon
for a
free extended warrenty... I mean, electronics don't usually go bad).
Speaking of Sony reliability, I forgot to touch/knock on wood after
saying how good it was. The next morning the Sony HDTV wouldn't fire
up. I almost never get extended warranties, but by some miracle, I
got a 4-year extension on this box and it's good until 7/07. Happy
camper here. They've ordered 3 boards(!). Repair guys are a lot
different these days. He has GPS to locate addresses and was on the
phone with a Sony tech for the hour he was here. Sure glad I have
that warranty!
So I got another Sony... I don't know, there was something I like
about the
way they did their amps. I have a Pioneer which sounds fine, but it's
annoying to set up and control, and I've had issues with others.
Probably so long ago it no longer applies... I'd start fresh if I ever
replace this one (won't likely be soon, though of course, 7-channel
sound is on the way, and I already have 7 speakers set up in my media
room).
I was surprised that DVD players came down as quickly as they did.
Were they thinking end-of-cycle would sooner?
The combination of "because we can" and competition... it was clear
enough, early on, that DVD would do for video what CD did for
music. In
particular, the media companies were playing ball, pricing DVDs at
levels most consumers found reasonable (maybe a buck or so more
than VHS
tapes, for dramatically more value). So there's this big new market
about to explode, and you don't want to be the guy with the
too-expensive player not getting in on the shift up. After everyone's
replaced the VHS deck, the rate of sales probably drops, unless you're
successful at convincing users to upgrade to better features.
Much of the "because we can" comes from the fact that DVD was based
on a
number of already-mature technologies, like drive mechanisims, MPEG-2,
etc.
Thats true. VHS was more probably more complicated to build. Still
it was interesting to watch VHS player prices fall to 1/4 after DVD
came out. Is SVHS dead now? I don't remember having seen one
lately. I do have some SVHS tapes I need to move to DVD so I hope
ours holds out a bit longer.
And that was intentional, as it was with CD. I think Blu-Ray/HD-DVD
is less so in some areas: for example, AVC decoding hardware is pretty
new this year, blue lasers have been in the lab a long time but only
recently long-lived enough to use in a consumer product. So there
could
be more new technology to pay off... plus the spectre of a format war;
users are buying the expensive ones today, but at a slower rate than
they would have with a single format.
Was it Warner that came up with a disk that can hold both HD-DVD and
Blu-ray?
I'll probably be in wait-and-see mode for an HD camcorder for awhile
yet. But with HDTV taken over, I have a hunch they will come in a
big flurry shortly.
The latest analog switchoff date is in February of 2009, but it's
pretty
easy to see HDV taking over before then. Part of the reason is that
they've been close anyway: many new DV camcorders have larger sensors
(consumers insist on using them for stills, 1/3Mpixel stills just
don't
cut it, etc), so it's much the same silicon there. You obviously
need a
much more aggressive encoder chip, but they're being paid for in
today's
run of $1000 HDVs, just as last year's $2000 HDVs made those possible.
And every HDV camcorder is still a DV camcorder, so there's no format
issue.
That's good news, didn't know that.
I've never used EP. Image quality is marginal at the faster speed.
There's no "EP" mode in digital; that's analog VHS. I think SP mode on
VHS looks like crap (I do still own two SVHS decks, haven't used
either
in a very long time), so you can imagine what I personally think of
EP.
On DV, SP and LP mode are identical in quality
Interesting. I hadn't thought of that but it makes sense. I'll have
to give LP a try, though I suppose that would make it more likely to
"rot" sooner.
(in fact, so is DVCAM).
The difference in tape speed is really a reliability thing (in DVCAM,
there are other features, such as hard audio sync lock, which are not
part of the DV spec)... you're more likely to have a dropout in LP
mode
than SP mode, but if you need that 1.5 hours. They didn't bother with
such a thing in HDV... and you can get 83 minute tapes.
--
Dave Haynie
Sorry for the triple post, I'm just testing...
- Peter Schaff
2.3GHz dual core G5 PowerMac, 4GB, 250GB x2, OS 10.4.8, SoftRAID
Dual 1GHz G4 MDD PowerMac, 1.5 GB, 80GB x2, OS 10.2.8
iMac: 600MHz/768MB/40GB/10.2.8
3400C PowerBook, OS 9.1
Brother HL-1870N laser, Epson R340 inkjet, Minolta 2430DL color laser
Epson 2450 scanner, DAC-100 A/D
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