Thoughts on Video Formats

[2Dogs]

When MiniDV camcorders were introduced, the NTSC versions used 4.1.1 sampling. This throws away much of the colour information, but its use was no doubt determined by the capabilities of domestic hardware to deal with the data stream.

To my mind, this is a great shortcoming. The 4.1.1 sampling gives rise to some pretty nasty artefacts. The one that bugs me most is a kind of shimmering effect, almost as if there's a layer of clingwrap, when panning across a detailed surface such as a lawn (or in my case the back yard, which could hardly be described as a lawn!)

In order to reduce these unwanted effects, we are advised to limit the use of motion and rapid changes in the image. Taken to it's limit, a video might be reduced to a slideshow of images. In my opinion, this defeats a central purpose of video - which is to record movement.

Of course since the introduction of MiniDV camcorders, pc technology has advanced in leaps and bounds, and even the humblest pc can handle a 3.6Mbps incoming data stream.

Although I'm sure that it would now be possible for domestic pc's to deal with a 4.2.2 sampled SD DV, there's probably no chance that domestic camcorders will be made using such less lossy sampling, and it's reserved for professional broadcast equipment.

In the near future, expensive and over-elaboate, anachronistic magnetic/mechanical tape transport mechanisms will surely be replaced with more reliable hard drives with far less moving parts - or even solid state drives, with no moving parts at all.

Whilst such advances might present the opportunity for manufacturers to introduce 4.2.2 sampling or better, the sad fact is that they are very unlikely to do so, and are in fact going in the opposite direction. The first hard drive DV camcorders seem to be a retrograde step, using mpeg2 compression for storage, and for some really odd reason, using miniature hard drives rather than faster, greater capacity mainstream 2.5" drives. One could argue that these devices are aimed at a particular low end or convenience segment of the market - but why are there no better performing mainstream units?

In addition, we now see almost a repeat of the MiniDV phenomenon in the form of the HDV standard for high definition consumer camcorders. Again, as in the case of MiniDV, the storage format and consumer editing capability lags behind the CCD development. But the HDV standard (for ordinary consumers at least) will be here to stay, and will be probably be "as good as it ever gets". We'll never have access to lossless HD video.

So, for the masses - higher resolution quilting artefacts, aliased edges, moire patterns, and all kinds of other effects, and an increasing gap between professional and domestic equipment performance.

Doesn't make sense to me!