HD For Indies

Adam Wilt's discussion of DVCPRO HD codec (and some other codecs)

Among other things, he talks about the rumor that 1080i50 will have a higher horizontal resolution than the 1080i60 model - that DVCPRO HD 1080i50 might be 1440x1080, instead of 1080i60's 1280x1080. So even better for the indie moviemaker crowd since it would capture more detail. The next question is whether it will truly be PAL (which stands for Phase Alternating Line) and skip every other field for color data. In other words, is it going to be 4:2:2 like it's NTSC cousin or 4:2:0?

Sony (totally unbiased source, right?) has this article on film vs HDCAM resolution

Steve Mullen's excellently detailed write-up on the Sony HDR-FX1

In short, this is the best in-depth article on the camera I've seen so far. Nice job Steve!

Some interesting bits:

-he talks about how the sensors on the CCD array are double width, to give the 1920x1080 output from the 960x1080 CCD array

-he talks about how the green pixel sensors are offset, halfway between the red and blue pixels, thus increasing effective resolution...sometimes...depending on color and stuff....to give an effective resolution of 1440 (1.5x the ostensible 960 pixel resolution)

-he talks about how the CCD chip has micro lenses to focus the light coming towards the chip directly and only on the portion that measures light - this is way clever, and helps the camera's light sensitivity

-he talks about how the FX1 uses an elementary stream, not a transport stream of MPEG-2, and thus won't record directly onto D-VHS tape. Bummer.

-it's 4:2:0

-he talks about the Pro model WILL have XLR connectors, and he has photos to prove it

-he discusses the CinemaFrame 30 mode, and how it's decent quality

-he discusses CinemaFrame24 mode, and how it drops every 5th frame, so movement will have an uneven flow, a stutter to it. Ick.