Panasonic, Sony jointly develop HD rec format

TimTyler wrote on 5/16/2006, 3:25 PM
http://broadcastengineering.com/newsletters/hd_tech/20060515/

Panasonic and Sony last week announced specifications for AVCHD, a new high definition digital video camera recorder format.

The AVCHD format allows for recording and playback of high-resolution, digital HD images using 8cm DVD media. Preparations to license the format to other consumer electronics companies are underway. The companies will promote the format as the HD digital video camera recorder format best suited for the HD era.

The AVCHD is an HD digital video camera format for recording 1080i and 720p signals onto 8cm DVD media by using highly efficient codec technologies. The format employs an MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 codec for video compression and Dolby Digital (AC-3) or Linear PCM audio codec.

Comments

TimTyler wrote on 5/16/2006, 3:27 PM
To me, this pretty much nullifies any 'Panasonic made it difficult for Sony to implement the DVCPRO HD format into Vegas’ argument that arose in this forum last winter.
Quryous wrote on 5/16/2006, 3:43 PM
Panasonic also plans to expand their offering of ACVHD to SD Memory Cards. Solid State all the way? Or tape, too?

http://www.panasonic.co.jp/corp/news/official.data/data.dir/en060511-6/en060511-6.html
Xander wrote on 5/16/2006, 4:00 PM
And people complain about editing MPEG-2!

Kind of negates the need for HD-DVD and Blu-ray too. Just think what you could fit on a 12cm DVD using the same technology?
rmack350 wrote on 5/16/2006, 5:07 PM
"To me, this pretty much nullifies any 'Panasonic made it difficult for Sony to implement the DVCPRO HD format into Vegas’ argument that arose in this forum last winter. "

How so?

Rob Mack
farss wrote on 5/16/2006, 5:31 PM
Indeed,
and personally I find it quite amusing after pointing out what a dinosaur DVCPro XX was and that it's about time Panny entered the 21st century only to be told by the True Believers that all forms of temporal compression secretly encode 666 into your video.

And now Panny and The Evil Empire (aka Sony) are holding hands and jointly developing a new standard. If Apple can switch to Intel then anything was possible.


But all jesting aside. This as I understand it will initially target consummer level camcorders, take disk and play it folks. I don't think being able to edit the footage is a major factor in their plans.
I'm far from up on H.264 but my gut feeling is that it's a content delivery not transport optimised system. If they were looking to build a system / standard for real HiDef acquisition then MJ2K would seem the more logical choice.

Bob.
Quryous wrote on 5/16/2006, 7:51 PM
Interesting contrast:

This thread started with an announcement on Broadcast Engineering . Com

http://broadcastengineering.com/newsletters/hd_tech/20060515/

Yet, DVD certainly makes it sound low end. Interesting.
rmack350 wrote on 5/17/2006, 9:56 AM
Doing a little digging on the panasonic site, I see one mention that this is a consumer format. Not much, really.

I just don't see how this has any bearing on the support of DVCPro HD.

Aside from that, you can assume that Vegas will have to deal with the avchd format, especially because it's a consumer format.

Rob Mack
TimTyler wrote on 5/17/2006, 1:11 PM
To me it just displays that Sony and Panasonic CAN work together.

Months ago in the forum, Vegas' lack of exsisting or planned DVCPRO-HD support was partially attributed to 'the inability for Sony and Panasonic to share'.
rmack350 wrote on 5/17/2006, 5:23 PM
Well, first off, I have no idea why Vegas doesn't support the format. I can't remember if Sonic Foundry supported DVCPro 50 either.

I'd assume it was a dollars and cents decision and that Panasonic wanted too much for the license.

Of course, I suppose it might mean that Panansonic's and Sony's consumer video divisions can get along better than their broadcast divisions.

Rob Mack