Utility Offers Import of AVCHD on G5's, G4's

I read about a nifty looking utility in a Final Cut Express review at macworld.com. Voltaic is the missing link for PowerPC users who want to cut AVCHD footage.

The need for this utility arises from Apple's refusal to support AVCHD on PowerPC Macs--only newer Intel Mac's can convert AVCHD footage to something that you can edit. This applies to both iMovie '08, Final Cut Express, and Final Cut Pro. Voltaic lets PowerPC users convert their AVCHD footage to AIC (Apple Intermediate Codec.) AIC is supposed to be similar to ProRes 422 with the main difference being that AIC is 8-bit and ProRes 422 is 10-bit. Also, Voltaic offers a workflow for cutting AVCHD footage recorded onto DVD's, which Apple isn't supporting now.

So what's AVCHD? If you don't know, you can check out these older posts:
AVCHD Support in FCP
AVC: More Format Wackiness
AVCHD Is a Pro Format

While we're on the topic of AVCHD, Canon has announced a couple of new camcorders, which record in AVCHD using flash memory, as well as a replacement for the popular HV20. Here's the news on that:
"Canon Debuts First High Definition Solid State Camcorders: HF10 and HF100"
"Move Over HV20, Here Comes the Canon HV30"
These flash memory camcorders are really small, and I have hopes that Canon's new camcorders will produced some good looking high-def video. I got to play around with Sony's AVCHD flash memory camcorder the HDR-CX7 recently--could be a decent B-Cam and its size makes it inconspicuous and good for travel.

Camcorderinfo.com's annual list of the best consumer cameras CamInfo Selects 2007 saw Canon take home the top honors. The HV20 was the best camcorder, and the HG10, which records AVCHD to a hard drive, was also honored. Apparently Canon's cameras do a better job of encoding video into AVCHD than either Sony's or Panasonic's camera. This isn't good news for Panasonic because unlike Sony and Canon, Panasonic is trying to use AVCHD in cameras marketed to Pros.

Sony Officially Names Removable-Lens Cams & Announces New HDV Products (Updated)

Information is trickling in today about Sony's big new steps in HDV. First off, the new cameras that I mentioned in September now officially have names HVR-S270 for the shoulder-mount and HVR-Z7 for the handycam size. Lots of stuff coming along with it too. How about a new deck, the HVR-M35. The main feature addition seems to be 24P and 30P recording on this deck as well as HD-SDI output and more support for JVC and Canon HDV recordings. There's also a flash memory recording unit for both of these cameras the HVR-MC1 that records to Compact Flash in HDV, DVCam and DV.

Unfortunately, the only official announcements are from Europe and Japan and not for the US market. The Japanese I can't read (help from my Japanese readers?) and the European models don't have 24P support (they are all about 25P over there.) Official announcements from both Europe and the U.S. are out. Here are links to more info available now:

"SONY UNVEILS NEXT GENERATION OF PROFESSIONAL HDV PRODUCTS"
Official U.S. press release on these products. Also includes link to those super hi-res photos of the deck and the 2 cameras.

"Sony refreshes HDV line- HVR-S270U and HVR-Z7U"
Good coverage here with some analysis from the IEBA Tech Thoughts blog.

Sony: The Next Generation Of HDV Products
Sony's Europe page on the new products

Frank's thought on HDV
Info on HVR-S270, HVR-Z7, and HVR-M35

More on Sony's New DV-Compatible HDV Camcorder and Deck
StudioDaily has US-focused info including some comments from Sony and prices:
HVR-S270U $10,500
HVR-Z7U $6,850
HVR-M35U $5,540

These products should be in the States in February '08.

Seems like Sony's HVR-Z7U is really very competitive with it own PMW-EX1. The $6,900 PMW-EX1 doesn't have an interchangeable lens and doesn't record to tape but has larger 1/2" sensors and the variable-bit rate 35 Mbps recording mode. The HVR-Z7U has 1/3" sensors but interchangeable lens and with the HVR-MC1 can record to flash memory as well as tape. I'm not sold on the solid-state memory recording as the only media for a camera personally.

The new cameras come with 12x lens with optical image stabilization.

I'll need to keep up with this. I'm not really sure if there is some new flavor of HDV that Sony is using for progressive-frame support. The V1 has 24p but records to 60i using 2:3 pulldown. Makes for easy compatibility but tricky to post as native 24p. (Update: This just got easier with the FCP 6.0.2 release.) I'm puzzled by the 24p and 30p modes for the HVR-M35 deck (which are visible on this photo) and what that means for these recordings compatibility with over Sony gear, like the HVR-M15, HVR-M25, and HVR-1500. Any difference in posting progressive recordings from this new gear? This progressive support on the deck may just be for displays, as 99% of HD displays (e.g., LCD & plasma) are progessive and not interlaced, so why send those display an interlaced image. The progressive displays have to have de-interlace, which causes a loss in vertical resolution.

Update: after thinking this over, I think a more likely benefit of the 24p and 30p playback mode is for using HD-SDI to capture and dub footage. HD-SDI signals support progressive video at 24, 25, 30 fps, as do capture cards like the Kona LH and Kona 3. So it seems like this opens up the option to capture without having to use your computer to remove pulldown to get to progressive video clips. Or it could be to dub footage to formats like HDCAM. Well, really I'll probably have to wait until this deck comes out, hopefully in February, to find out.

Update: There's a PDF of a brochure out for the European cameras and deck that make it clear that they can record in a progressive frame at 25 frames per second. Similary the HVR-M35E can record and playback 1080 progressive frames at 24 fps, 25 fps, and 30fps. So I'm guessing when more details emerge about the American models that we will see a different flavor of HDV that is 24fps, true progressive with no pulldown added. Canon is doing this with the HV-20, and the HVR-M35 is supposed to support tapes from that camera. So what happens if you try to put one of these tapes with 24fps footage into an older deck like the HVR-M10 or HVR-M25 or even the HVR-1500? I'm guessing you are in trouble. Also the HVR-S270 can record 4 channels of audio--a first for the HDV format. Will older decks support this format?

Sony V1U and 24fps

"Editing the V1's 24p in Final Cut Pro: A Workaround"

The Sony V1U is the first HDV camera to shoot real 24 frames per second with 1080 lines of resolution. There's no native 24fps editing of this format in FCP (yet.) In the mean time, this article describes a workaround to edit in true 24fps mode your 24fps HDV 1080 footage. Basic description of the issues with pulldown and removing pulldown is in the article too
[via FresHDV]

UPDATE: HD for Indies has this post "Working with 24p for Canon HV20". Apparently, Compresor cannot reverse telecine fromt the HDV codec. Its reverse telecine won't work with interframe compression schemes. Thus you have to transcode the HDV footage to AIC (Apple Intermediate Codec) or ProRes 422 to get get Compressor to reverse telecine.

Consumer HD Cameras

Camcorderinfo.com does a great job of reviewing consumer and prosumer camcorders. Check out their "The Great HD Shoot-Out". It seems like the consumer HDV cameras are performing well. They like the new Canon HV-20. They say it has a great image and nice performances features like true 24fps. They also like the Sony HDR HC-7. Panasonic and JVC are trying out some new formats--AVCHD and MPEG-2 respectively--with not as much success as Sony and Canon. For pros, it looks like these cameras could be useful as a cheap B-cam or when something small and/or inconspicuous is desired.