A Good HD and Digital Video Primer!

[TechnoticMedia]

High Definition video is becoming the next big thing. Many people still do not have a clear understanding of the different formats, and the ways to record the footage. I have put together some information for you guys that will help when chatting about high defintion with your friends.

First let me start with the frame sizes...

480i - Standard Defintion Footage, Interlaced. Pretty much what you see on TV and your regular camcorders.

480p - Stardard Definition Footage, Progressive. Looks better than 480i but it is still standard defintion footage. Progressive means that the entire frame is drawn every time, instead of 1/2 the frame (odd or even fields).

720p - The first in High Definition frame sizes. This assumes a 16:9, or widescreen aspect ratio, and contains about 1280x720 pixels in the frame.

1080i - Even better High Definition frames. The resolution here is 1920x1080. Some TV's support this by using pixel shift technology, while others can display a true 1920x1080 resolution.

1080p - The best quality high definition available currently. It is the progressive version of 1080i. Currently TV's that support 1080p are slightly more expensive but they look gorgeous.


Consumer Recording Formats:

DVD - Standard Definition only. Capable of 480p. Can create a 24P disc to save space and for the "film-look."

Blu-Ray Disc - New optical disc format developed by sony for storage of high definition movies. Using a 405nm laser to read and write data, this disc has the capaibility to hold 50GB of data on a dual layer disc, which translates to 9 hours of HD playback.

HD-DVD - Backed by the DVD Forum, and spearheaded by Toshiba, it is another optical disc format capable of storing high defintion movies. Also using a 405nm laser, this disc has a capacity of 30GB on a dual layer disc, 5.4 hours of HD playback.


Digital Video Formats:

Digital Video (DV) - Created in 1994 as a standard definition format. Seen in many consumer devices as MiniDV.

DVCAM - Sony's professional version of DV. Uses similar cassettes as DV and MiniDV but moves the tape faster for less dropouts. Standard Definition.

DVCPRO - Developed by Panasonic for Electronic News Gathering and has even less dropouts than DVCAM.

DVCPRO50 - Doubles the DV coded bit-rate to 50Mbit/s and uses 4:2:2 color sampling instead of 4:1:1. Mostly used as a higher-quality Standard Defintion.

DVCPRO HD - Uses a coded bit-rate of 100Mbit/s and also uses 4:2:2 color sampling. Uses downsampling techniques to store 720p and 1080i footage.

HDV - Developed by JVC and Sony. Uses MPEG-2 Compression techniques to store 720p and 1080i footage on standard MiniDV tapes. Uses 1440x1080 pixel frames for 1080i.


Frame Rates:

60i (50.94) - Your standard video framerate. 60 "fields" interlaced per second. Looks like home movie footage.

30p (29.97) - 30 full progressive frames per second. Same "frame-rate" as 60i, except its progressive, so it looks much better.

24p (23.976) - A way to achieve a film look with digital video, using 24 progressive frames per second. Film is turned around 24 frames per second.

[slwrthnu]

but hd-dvd has a 51gb disc and blu-ray has a 200gb disc!!

[TechnoticMedia]

Personally, I like Blu-Ray because of the extra storage capacity, but its still up in the air as to which standard will come out on top.

[slwrthnu]

blu-ray is sick. but with sonys rep i dunno if it will survive in the consumer world.

[mikecentola]

I actually try not to own anything sony. None of the equipment is sony.

[xceebeex]

Originally Posted by TechnoticMedia

Personally, I like Blu-Ray because of the extra storage capacity, but its still up in the air as to which standard will come out on top.

LG is working on a Hybrid setup which will play both HD-DVD and Blu-ray. Thats the answer IMO that way the consumer can choose which format they want to buy.

[GranMassaX]

i think blu-ray will win. It's getting a big push since the ps3 is a blu-ray player. Besides the battery recall, what other reason does the consumer have to doubt sony? ........And dont even say Beta-Max

[mikecentola]

Originally Posted by xceebeex

LG is working on a Hybrid setup which will play both HD-DVD and Blu-ray. Thats the answer IMO that way the consumer can choose which format they want to buy.

That was released at CES. So its out, but it has nothing really to do with the format war on the other side of things. When we create HD productions, we're not going to create it on both types of disc.

Originally Posted by GranMassaX

i think blu-ray will win. It's getting a big push since the ps3 is a blu-ray player. Besides the battery recall, what other reason does the consumer have to doubt sony? ........And dont even say Beta-Max

I also think that Blu-Ray will win. It has been getting a big push from the PS3, but if you ask any of the retailers now, almost every store has PS3's, and no Wii's. People are scared of the price-tag, so in reality, until the price of HD-capable players comes down, we won't see a clear lead in the format war.