Understanding HD with Avid 22

4
Chapter 4

HD formats
HD formats Understanding HD with Avid 23

D6
Tape formats for high definition television now
The D6 tape format uses a 19mm ‘D-1 like’ cassette to
span a wide range of qualities and prices. These
record 64 minutes of uncompressed HD material in most
cater for the recording needs of digital of the current HDTV standards. The recording rate is up to
cinematography, mainstream broadcast and 1020 Mb/s and uses 10-bit luminance and 8-bit chrominance
programming and, most recently, the prosumer and records 12 channels of AES/EBU stereo digital audio.
market. The latter is addressed by HDV and has The only D6 VTR on the market is VooDoo from Thomson
enabled a huge expansion of HD use. and it has been used in film-to-tape applications.

D7-HD
D5-HD
See DVCPRO HD
This is an HD version of the D5 half-inch digital VTR format
from Panasonic and has been widely used for HD mastering.
It records on a standard D-5 cassette shell for over two hours DVCPRO HD (a.k.a. D7-HD
with a wide selection of video formats: 1080/60I, 1035/60I,
1080/24P, 720/60P, 1080/50I, 1080/25P and 480/60I. It can
and DVCPRO 100)
slew a 24Hz recording to use the material directly in 25/50Hz This is the HD version of Panasonic’s DVCPRO VTR
applications – useful for European replay of movies. There hierarchy. DV and DVCPRO record 25Mb/s; DVCPRO 50
are eight discrete channels of 24-bit 48kHz digital audio to records 50Mb/s; and DVCPRO HD records 100Mb/s. All
allow for 5.1 and stereo mixes. use the DVC intra-frame DCT-based digital compression
scheme and the 6.35mm (1/4-inch) DV tape cassette.
Panasonic uses a proprietary compression scheme to reduce
the raw HD-SDI 4:2:2 component digital video data rate of In the recording format, video sampling is 8-bit, 4:2:2 and
up to 1240Mb/s. The D5-HD compresses video 4:1 (8-bit 1080I as well as 720P formats are supported. There are
mode) and 5:1 (10-bit mode). eight 16-bit 48kHz audio channels. The recording data rate
means that considerable video compression must be used
to reduce around 1Gb/s video and audio data. Video
www http://www.panasonic.com compression of 6.7:1 is quoted.
A feature of DVCPRO HD camcorder range is the VariCam
Also see HD VCR formats at: that offers variable progressive frame rates for shooting
from 4-60Hz in one-frame increments.
www http://videoexpert.home.att.net

www http://www.panasonic.com/pbds/index.html
HD formats Understanding HD with Avid 24

HDCAM in its pixel count (SD and HD), bit depth (10- or 12-bit), and
colour resolution (component or RGB). Its applications
Sony’s HD camcorder version of the popular Digital Betacam. include high end HD recording, editing and as a mastering
Introduced in 1997 at ‘near DigiBeta’ prices it was the first format. HDCAM SR is probably the highest quality HD tape
more affordable HD format. Now the expanded range includes recording system available. Practical recorders at any higher
still lower priced models. HDCAM defines a half-inch tape bit rate use hard discs or flash memory.
recording format. There is also a range of studio recorders
Besides working at the 440Mb/s rate, called the SQ mode,
and players as well as options for down conversion to SD.
HDCAM SR also offers an HQ mode with recording at
In the camcorder, the camera section includes 2/3-inch, 2.1 880Mb/s to offer lower compression 4:4:4 RGB or two
million pixel CCDs to capture 1080 x 1920 images. The 4:2:2 channels.
lenses have compatibility with Digital Betacam products as
well as accepting HD lenses for the highest picture quality.
The recorder offers up to 40-minutes’ time on a small HDV
cassette making the package suitable for a wide range of
HDV is a low cost system for shooting and recording HD. It
programme origination, including on location. A series of
defines video formats, a compression scheme and uses DV
steps, including 4.4:1 intra-frame compression, reduces the
recording and familiar DV, or MiniDV, cassettes. HDV is
baseband video data rate to 140Mb/s. The format supports
available in two standards HDV1 and HDV2 but, unlike DV,
four channels of AES/EBU audio and the total recording
they use MPEG-2 long GOP compression to squeeze the
rate to tape is 185Mb/s. HDCAM effectively samples video
HD video into DV-sized data. 4:2:0 colour 8-bit sampling is
at 3:1:1 with the horizontal resolution sub-sampled to 1440
common to both standards. The two channels of 16-
pixels. It fulfils many HD needs but is not an ideal medium
bit/48Hz audio are compressed (4:1) with MPEG-1 (Layer II)
for Blue Screen work.
to 384 kb/s.
Video formats supported by HDCAM are: 1080 x 1920
HDV1 is 1280x720 progressive scan format with frame rates
pixels at 24, 25 and 30 progressive fps and at 50 and 60Hz
of 60, 50, 30 and 25Hz. JVC’s ProHD adds a 24Hz frame
interlace. Material shot at 24P can be directly played back
rate. The luminance sampling rate is 74.25MHz. The video
into 50Hz or 60Hz environments. Also, the ability to
is compressed using MPEG-2 six-frame GOP compression
playback at different frame rates can be used to speed up
to produce a recording data rate of just 19 Mb/s. In this
or slow down the action.
standard a 63-minute MiniDV cassette records 63 minutes
See also: CineAlta of HDV and, with critical data interleaved over all the
recorded tracks, dropouts are minimised.

HDCAM SR HDV2 is a 1440x1080 interlaced scan format with frame

rates of 60 or 50Hz. The data rate is 25Mb/s after applying
HDCAM SR can record either 4:4:4 RGB or component MPEG-2 15-frame GOP compression. Note that the pixel
4:2:2 HD video at a net video rate of 440Mb/s. It uses mild count is not in the usual 16:9 pixel/line ratio, but the
MPEG-4 Studio Profile (ISO/IEC 14496-2:2001-1) ‘visually pictures themselves are. So here luminance sampling rate
lossless’ compression and records onto 1/2-inch tape is 55.7MHz and the pixels are not square but are stretched
cassettes. The Studio Profile addresses the need for high to an aspect ratio of 1.33:1. This is the same luminance
resolution; it is I-frame only and so easy to edit, and scalable sampling as is used in HDCAM.
HD formats Understanding HD with Avid 25

ProHD
ProHD is JVC’s adaptation of the HDV 720P recording mode
that adds 24-frame progressive scan 24P – but not for the
1080-line format. This is useful of productions seeking a
film look or wishing to output to film or D-cinema as it
avoids the never-perfect process of deinterlacing. Apart
from adding 24P, ProHD uses the same compression and
bitstream format as HDV.

XDCAM HD
Sony’s XDCAM HD records 1080I 4:2:0 HD at bit rates of
18, 25 and 35Mb/s onto Professional Disc media (Blu-ray).
The 25Mb/s is a constant bit rate to give users a bridge to
HDV, and the other two rates are variable. 18Mb/s allows
for a recording time of two hours, and the other two allow
for 90 and 60 minutes. User can mix the different bit rate
on the same disc. As with HDV, long GOP MPEG-2
compression is used.
 Understanding HD with Avid 26

5
Chapter 5

SD formats
SD formats Understanding HD with Avid 27

D5
Standard definition has a wide variety of digital
Introduced by Panasonic in 1994 this records uncompressed
tape formats to suit everyone from consumers
625 and 525-line 4:2:2 10-bit component digital video onto
to broadcast professionals. Recent trends include the same half-inch cassettes as D3. Being component it uses
more compact formats and lower costs. Many in post production and, as it has lower costs than D1, is still
of the HD tape formats have their routes in SD in use today. The format also has provision for HDTV
including HDV that uses the widely used (SD) recording by use of about 4 or 5:1 compression (see HD-D5).
DV format.
Digital Betacam
D1 Launched in 1993, ‘Digibeta’ superseded the analogue
Betacam formats and costs much less D1. It provides good
Digital tape format to record SD uncompressed 4:2:2 video and audio quality and run time up to 124 minutes.
component digital 625 and 525-line video onto 19mm 720 x 576 or 720 x 480 4:2:2 component SD digital video is
(3/4-inch) cassettes. Introduced by Sony in 1987 it was DCT-compressed to a bitrate of 90 Mb/s (about 2:1
relatively expensive and used for high-end work where compression) plus 4 channels of uncompressed 48 kHz
multi-generation quality needed to be maintained. It is PCM audio.
not widely used today.

DV
D2
Launched in 1996, DV (IEC 61834) defines both the codec
Introduced in 1988 by Ampex, this records uncompressed (video compression system) and the tape format for the
digitised composite PAL or NTSC video onto 19mm first SD digital tape format for the consumer and prosumer
(3/4-inch) cassettes. Although it used less data, and so less markets. Features include intra-frame compression for
tape, than D1, and was good for analogue transmission straightforward editing, an IEEE 1394 interface for transfer
replay, the signal suffered from all the original restrictions of to non-linear editing systems, and good video quality
PAL and NTSC. It was little use in modern post production compared to consumer analogue formats.
and would have to be decoded for any digital transmission.
The format is little used today. Variants include the DVCPRO series and DVCAM. Also,
much of HDV has its roots in DV including the MiniDV
tape, but not HDV’s use of MPEG-2 compression.
D3
Introduced by Panasonic D3 is similar to D2 in that it DVCAM
records composite PAL or NTSC video onto cassettes, the
D3 ones being 1/2-inch. As it has the same benefits and Introduced by Sony, DVCAM is a professional variant of the
drawbacks as D2 and is not widely used today. DV standard that uses the same cassettes as DV and MiniDV,
the same compression scheme, but runs the tape through
50 percent faster making it more robust with fewer
errors/dropouts.
SD formats Understanding HD with Avid 28

DVCPRO (25 and 50) XDCAM

Panasonic created the DVCPRO range for professional Sony’s camcorder that uses Professional Disc media. It
applications of the root DV technology. Also known as records Sony’s MPEG IMX (MXF compatible) format, 8-bit
DVCPRO 25, DVCPRO is identical to the DV format for I-frame (only) MPEG-2 at 50, 40 or 30 Mb/s – claiming
recording, and uses a 25Mb/s recording stream. There are Digital Betacam quality with the highest bit rate. The rates
two tracks of 16-bit, 48kHz audio and video is sampled at give 45, 57, and 68 minutes recording time respectively.
4:1:1 for both the 576/50I and 480/60I versions. Some models can also record the 8-bit DVCAM format
with 5:1 compression and 4:1:1 sampling for the 480/60I
DVCPRO has a hierarchical structure that doubles the data
system (NTSC) and 4:2:0 for 576/50I (PAL) system. DVCAM
rate. The next step up is DVCPRO 50 with 50Mb/s from the
recording time is 85 minutes.
tape that allows reducing the video compression and the
use of 4:2:2 sampling to give the better image quality See also: MXF
required for studio production. Four 16-bit, 48kHz audio
tracks are provided.

HD-CIF
See Common Image Format

P2
Solid-state recording system from Panasonic that records
DV, DVCPRO and DVCPRO HD video onto flash memory
to offer advantages of speed and reliability over tape, but
at a high cost and with shorter run times. Currently
available P2 cards offer up to 8GB storage – enough for
about 40 minutes of DV, 20 minutes of DVCPRO 50, and 10
minutes of DVCPRO HD. But the random access and ‘loop’
recording possibilities mean this space is more useful than
the equivalent length of tape. The workflow may include
in-camera shot selection and very fast data dumping to
hard disc storage for editing.