In Part 3 of Videosystems ongoing “Just What is 1080?” article series, Steve Mullen dives right into the Sony XDCAM HD system, as well as current and forthcoming MPEG-2 Profiles.

Steve makes a good case for the XDCAM capabilities over standard 25Mbps 1080i HDV:
“The real value of XDCAM HD comes with 35Mbps (31Mbps video) where MPEG-2 motion artifacts should be eliminated. Further, the ability of optical disc recording to use VBR rather than CBR encoding increases image quality for difficult scenes.”

He then goes on to predict Sony’s next move with XDCAM:
“The next likely step for Sony is 4:2:2 color sampling using the Profile@High1440 (422P@H-14) codec. Naturally, when encoding additional chroma detail, the recorded data rate must increase to avoid MPEG-2 artifacts. Up to 80Mbps is supported by 422P@H-14, which means Sony will be able record at up to 70Mbps. (The maximum recording capability of XDCAM optical system is 72Mbps.)”

“Sony can be expected to introduce this theoretical XDCAM HD system when double-density blue-laser drives ship. By waiting for these drives, recording times for 4:2:2 XDCAM will remain identical to those of the current XDCAM HD.”

An excellent read. And if you’ve been following the recent HVX200 biaxial-pixel-shift news, you’ll pay heed to Steve’s predictions. He was one of the only (the only?) professionals that spot-on predicted the true HVX200 native resolution back when Panasonic was hemming and hawing around releasing actual specs.