Update below, concerning 4:2:2 vs. 4:2:0
And another update (below), with some interesting chroma charts culled from the DVXuser thread.

“…check out this tech paper my friends at Panasonic gave me”, says “Tosh”, the once-embattled and entirely fictional friendly face on Panasonic’s HVX200 propoganda informational blog.

Despite the obvious corporate rudder behind the blog and the controversy that once swirled around it’s psuedo-creator, this info looks to be rather interesting. Perhaps there is hope for the defperception blog as an information source after all. And I have to hand it to them, the blog name is pure genius. But I digress…

Here’s a quick summary of the info that seems relevant to me. I’m no camera engineering genius, so I hope someone more technically strong on the design end of things has a chance to dissect this info, and soon.

*Panny HVX design team determined that 1920×1080 native pixels would not gather enough light, due to the individual pixel size on a 1/3″ imager (which, while the standard at this price point, is still relatively small as CCD’s go). So they chose to use 960×540 native res, and then spatial shift both horizontally and vertically to obtain a 1440×810 effective resolution. They call this Advanced Progressive Technology or A.P.T, it’s a 1/2 pixel biaxial shift.

*Panasonic goes on to state that interlaced CCD capture equals only 70% of progressive CCD imagers, and since their CCD is progressive, the HVX effective resolution compares very favorably to all the other competing cameras in this arena. They describe the competing cameras as Companies A, B, and C. Apparently “Tosh” is scared of being sued. Wuss.

*Due to the native res of the chip, the camera must capture 4:2:0 colorspace into a 4:2:2 codec (DVCPROHD). But since it’s doing all this analog before scanning a 1080p signal to the DSP, I’m a little confused by what might be gained or lost. Perhaps someone smarter than me could clarify…

UPDATE: Did some reading on the DV.com Forums, and ran across a post aptly entitled “Is the HVX really 4:2:2 color space???” Graeme Nattress made a few comments on the chroma capabilities of the HVX200. I’d link directly to the post, but the DV.com Forums don’t ever seem to link properly, due the whacked out URL’s their forum software spits out.

Quothe The Graeme:
“It’s probably close to 4:2:2 in 720p, and closer to 4:2:0 embedded in 4:2:2 in 1080p.”
He goes on to state the HVX chroma probably equates to approx 3/4 of 4:2:2 in 720p, and then explains further:
“It could very well do about 4:2:2 in 1080p on certain colours, and on other colours it could do about 4:2:0, and the rest of the colours are somewhere inbetween. When you start pixelshifting, you start getting results that are image dependent.”

UPDATE: Here’s a handy dandy little comparison chart culled from the DVXuser thread on this subject, it compares 4:2:2 (DV50), 4:2:0 and 4:1:1.

*The article makes a pretty big deal over the new DSP chip, a “14 Bit A/D conversion with a 19 Bit DSP system”.

Props to DVGuru for catching this news.
There is also some discussion at DVXuser on the topic.

Many are saying “oh, that explains the slightly soft image”, “Steve Mullen was right”, and “oh great, here come the pixel count police”. But as Josh Oakhurst stated in our recent interview, “…budgets and workflows should determine camera choices instead of the other way around. Smart camera operators and talented editors should be more valuable than equipment with a special feature.” Words to live by, folks.

One of the DVXuser posters makes an interesting point…since the biaxial shift requires different colors in the image to offset and gain effective resolution, a dark image or an image without much green chroma would tend to go softer than one that was more evenly color balanced. Of course this issue would affect other cameras that use pixel shift to gain res, but it’s something to consider anyway.

Regardless of your opinion of the camera, these new specs should spark some heated and informative discussions on the various forums, blogs and news sites. Good Times…