Not exactly what you are talking about … but for what it’s worth here is what I’m doing. I make video art, essentially non-narrative in the conventional sense, or that’s my goal at least, and I come from still photography currently using a 5 megapixel still camera. I also shoot video using a Sony PDX 10 always in 16:9 but I most often use the video camera like a still camera in that I frame a scene and shoot with minimal movement, perhaps a bird passing through, or a ripple on the water, whatever. I load Vegas, set the properties to HD 720 30p, and sometimes to HD 1080 30p, drop images and DV footage onto the timeline, add movement to the still images using the appropriate Vegas tools after setting the aspect to match output, add music (actually I most often begin with music) and render as HD 720 30p or 1080 30p. I’m not helping the DV footage but the still images are quite stunning when viewed on my Dell UltraSharp 20 inch LCD compared to rendering to DVD specifications.

I desperately want a HD video camera, a real one that is. Might have to wait a while until the price is better, but in the meantime, yes, rextilleon, we need to learn how to shoot DV. But it is quite amazing what can be done in Vegas with HD equivalent and better still images. I also want a HD projector!

Netkoala,

"AVI is nothing but a bunch of jpegs gausian blurred together.

I think you meant, or at least you should have said, "MPEG is just a bunch of JPEGs merged together" AVI is a very versatile standard that lets you specify whatever codec you may like, or you can have no compression at all if you can handle the huge file sizes and bitrates.

JPEG, on the other hand, does suck, because it uses DCT math (discrete cosine transforms) instead of the wavelets that are used by JPEG-2000. And MPEG, which inherited the same DCT disease, suffers the same mathematical limitations as JPEG and hence also sucks.

The industry has been doing an incredible amount of foot-dragging delaying the acceptance of JPEG-2000 and here, toward the end of 2003, acceptance is still slight despite the huge superiority of JPEG-2000. But when you have warehouses full of billions of dollars worth of digital cameras and other equipment with JPEG DCT crap thoroughly embedded in their firmware, you don't want people to hear how much better JPEG-2000 and wavelets are.

At least with JPEG-2000 there is now hope for still pictures. But for some reason MPEG has not reinvented itself to use modern math and wavelets and it stays mired in the miseries of ancient DCT math. We definitely need a smart new high quality compression technology for video, especially with HDTV waiting (and waiting and waiting) in the wings. But apparently corporate greed has kept that from happening so far.

I have seen some satellite TV movies that were riddled with MPEG-2 artifacts. I can't believe how the industry has stalled, messed around, procrastinated and delayed the HDTV transition.

But Netkoala, I think it was MPEG-2 that you meant to trash rather than AVI. AVI can be as good (or bad) as you make it. MPEG-2 is stuck with DCTs and that ain't good. HDTV isn't even half baked yet. Hopefully something like wavelet technology will ride to the rescue for HDTV. A lot of us want good big picture video.

-- Seeker --

IMHO I speculate that if you took the mpeg4 compression on a newer prosumer streaming camera and married it with the HD pixels (1080p) on a HD prosumer camera (only one as far as I know), you would get a better result than AVI.
i.e. the more pixels would out perform more than the loss introduced in compression. .... (double the pixels ??)
Say, make things equal, and use 1/3 inch chips for the test, either 1CCD or 3CCD.

But this is speculation, mpeg2 is the format used.
I would find it difficult to agree that AVI could beat HD and mpeg2 format in a side by side comparison.

And VV can render HD 1080.
Is there anything this software cannot do ?

3K for a prosumer HD 1/3 inch chip camera, now that rocks.
I RESPECT the fact that AVI takes up all my disk space, but it is less than 800X600 for a single frame.
With HD you are producing quality where mums and dads are producing stuff that can go broadcast, or in theatres.

Like I said , IMHO

netkoala, I agree with the sentiment of your post.

Just steer away from associating D1 video resolutions with AVI files. None of AVI, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, MJPEG, Wavelet, WMV or QT are restricted by size. Some of the formats infer a certain size and some don't even have a wrapper.

DV is held back by the DCT.
Still cameras are likely to arrive with HD movie capabilities for the lowest starting price. Just that focus/white-balance/iris/shutter controls are invariably poor. My stills camera captures a nice progressive 640x480 at 15fps, or 320x240 at 30fps onto a microdrive, and this cost my credit card company US$750 three years ago.

HD DVD is out in 4 camps that I know of: short format high speed DVD MPEG-2 at c. 28Mbps; Standard def with 2nd stream in the mux to put in the spacial differences on players that support this HD patent; WMV9 DVD, making a compromise between the better compression of M$ codec and that of the programm length that would fit a DVD-9; Blu-ray/FMD, neither a DVD but with a similar user base challenge to the earlier.

Eventually compressing video will become laughable, even at SD rates. Moore's law makes that a few years off to be a possible consumer video format (prerecorded videos etc). Today it would be as clumsy and as special interest as LaserDisc.

HDV formats do compare well to DV when both are shown on Standard Def TV. Clearly 19Mbps MPEG-2 HD will sometimes not show as well as 25Mbps DV, but the subject of the video plays as much part in this as the physics/maths.

I'd like to see HiDef in my personal archives, be it MPEG-2 or otherwise. Europe is a good decade away from being an HD "island", but EU programme makers are adopting HD for sports events and memorable occasions.

16bit-RGB (48bits per pixel) hidef or academy film resolution AVIs with no compression are quite feasible. You don't get many of those as frames on a Win98 Fat32 file system (4GB limit)!

To say an AVI compares poorly, is like saying that the mail you receive from the postal service is always US-letter format, and always a bill. It just seems that way, same for AVI, 720x 480/486/576 = D1, purely incidental.

Well, yeah, but i need to over simplify it all to understand it.

What about the TV guys. Those cameras have 800+ horizontal lines, and save to I do not know what format.

Can you convert AVI DV vids to display on TV by NBC ABC etc ?
Do they convert to 24p and give you a frown for using an inexpensive camera ?
Do they edit in something besides AVI ?

I was just thinking that HD is now where you can turn around to NBC/ABC and say I got video-age and treat me with respect.

But perhaps AVI was always good enough.

And film making, it seems that everybody can do a Blair Witch project with HD and nobody can say it was amatuer equipment, but again perhaps AVI is good enough.

You know it could be $2k camera are doing AVI well enough and I ought to get out there and create and stop looking for the technical barrier or at the $6k cameras even.

First;
NTSC DV is 720 x 480, PAL is 720 x 576. Larger than you were thinking.
Second, your speculation on MPEG is wrong. MPEG can't approach the quality of most codecs in an avi wrapper due to the color sampling scheme, unless you are talking about very high end MPEG encodes, not suited for delivery and hardware dependent.
Third, have you looked at the JVC? They sent us one for review. The review was not published nor written for very good reason. Remember what mom said? "If you can't...." etc. It's got the pixels, that's for sure. My neighbor has a Formula One car body. No engine though. Similar situation.
HD at the prosumer level is MPEG. Just TRY doing any serious editing with it. Not only is it slower than tar going uphill on a cold day, it CAN'T be color corrected without artifacts, and sure as heck can't be keyed on due to the sampling scheme. That's a basic fact.
Real HD cams start around 40K and go up from there. (plus glass of course)

As a few people have tried to say earlier. AVI and Quicktime are basicly the same. They function as wrappers, which means that you can have just about any compression CoDec inside the AVI file or you can go completely uncompressed. Also, the size can basicly be any size that you specify inside the AVI header. The only limitations come from what your program will allow or perhaps what bandwidth your hardware can dish out.

From what I understand, MPEG-4 is a wrapper of sorts also, but I'm not sure what kind of imposed limitations are built into it. I know there must be some kind of stardard to it due to the fact that there are hardware Mpeg-4 players our there.

Perhaps Mpeg-4 could support wavelet compression CoDecs. I don't know.

But, back to the AVI discusion. The DV compression codecs that most home video cameras use, is what would be limiting the quility compared to studio cameras, not the AVI wrapper.

JBJones

netkoala we are trying to correct your terminology only because, although all this techno blurb is difficult to get down to the level. Where a question is asked using these terms, it is a job to give a valid response without some expectation that all parties are on the same sheet.

DV is what you see broadcast, not always only sometimes.
Digital media is invariably tape when broadcast, where it isn't it has been brought online from tape. Tape formats in broadcast start at 25Mbps and go through 280Mbps and beyond.

MPEG-2 can be 4:4:4. As a DVB stream the MPEG-2 PES streams with each "PID" and headers holding all sorts of data, DOCSIS;EuroDOCSIS;MPEG-4;audio;text;MHEG;interactive-TV;firmware. This is where MPEG-2 is a wrapper too. Much of this is delivery, but not delivery in the public domain of physically handled media.

Taking HD footage from an HDV camera, via miniDV or DVHS, will probably not win much favour with the broadcaster. Sure, if you are on good terms with them, they'll pay an interest and say "hand of the the DV, DigiBeta, SX, IMX tape and we'll sort it out". They might well restripe the timecode and if it is DV, place it into a tape format that is 720x486.

If you want to get into HD on a budget and win, you'll still need all the other killer things to win through (story, on camera talent, lighting, audio, set/scene, shots, etc). It isn't that it is unremarkable that HD capabilities run in at under $3000 for the camera. Just that this is a first cut at this technology, and XL2, PD150 and DVX100 cameras are just some of the more mature of the old brigade, if you are setting your reputation by your work.

If full size DV tape (oversped) were supported and HDV was 40-80Mbps, then more people would stand up and watch. Many suspect that hard disc and solid state storage will converge with HD.

Sure, the US government want through ATSC to serve HD through obligation. SD at 59.94 fields/sec with or without a telecine is still where the business end is at.

Buying into HD cameras right now is almost as much of a speciality as 150fps slow motion filming. You go into it when you have your Standard Def arsenal and when the target deserves this product tuning. A similar revolution hic-cupped with 3D technology for video cameras.

Wouldn't mind an HDV camera from Santa, but would have a job recommending one to a videography business serving non-broadcast clients. Let alone broadcast.

Desktop video (NLEs), print (journalism, advertising) and multimedia (games, DVD, web) blends some of the edges in making decisions on kit.

At least you are getting some interest with this thread!

There's some really good advice in here. The technical stuff though is just that, very interesting to technocrats like myslef but the good advice is about all the other parts of a production which seem to get consistently overlooked.
Fro my two bobs worth I'd say if you cannot figure out how to make it look good in 25Mb DV don't even think about HiDef. Think of it this way, whatever looks poor at one definition looks even worse at a higher definition.

It's just the way our brains work. Something shot on 70mm has got to be so much better than something shot on DV. We can see every minute detail, every mistake is many times more obvious and our brains are trying that much harder to find it.

DV is an ideal format to learn on, if you can workout how to make it look good is a good starting point, I'd say if you cannot figure that out give up. I know that's being harsh but what I'm getting at is if you've got a good story, know how to put all the ingrediants together, script, cast, lighting, music etc within the limitations of DV then you've got a starting point. If you cannot make it work at DV res why is it going to work at a higher definition where everything is so much more critical. Here the technology doesn't hide defects it exposes them.

Just my two bobs worth.

Fro my two bobs worth I'd say if you cannot figure out how to make it look good in 25Mb DV don't even think about HiDef. Think of it this way, whatever looks poor at one definition looks even worse at a higher definition.
Great point, Farss. Too many people forget HD is so damn much more than just the resolution. It's an:
HD Monitor-5K$
RAID capable of more than 120MBps with 6 times the storage for DV 10K$
Hardware card/capture tool 5K$
Deck to print with 30K$

Plus a whole lot more learning about lighting, on-set editing suite, (for cost effectiveness) and how to manage the center points of resolution.
HD for now, is a big buzzword thrown around about who has the biggest johnson. yeah, Vegas does HD. And better than most HD capable apps. But it's slow, tough going. The bigger story is in 24P. For any number of mediums.
But all due respect, if you don't understand compression, codecs, avi vs MPEG, etc, don't even consider thinking HD for a while. You'll get frustrated, angry, and probably spend a lot of cash on tools that you'll wish you hadn't, and end up losing money on Ebay or wherever you sell it.

I have JVC GR-DVF21U. I capture trough firewire. One day I went to the beach and just turn camera on pointing at waves. It did come out with very good resolution in ntsc dv format. The camera capture stereo sound in 48kHz dual track. The sound of the ocean is very good. Very relaxing video.
I did experiment(I capture and edit in AVI DV). I supersample to HD 24fps.
I set my monitor to res of 1280X1024 and watch the video. Did not notice much of loosing of quality.The HD is new to me so I got question.
Does have to be special HD monitor to view HD clip.?
Does supersampling to HD make the clip HD.?
I have LCD SyncMaster 172N monitor.