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MillimeterTest Drive: Affordable HD Formats, Part 2
Sep 22, 2008 12:00 PM, By Jan Ozer
Figure 5. At the same data rate, HDV shows macro-block artifacts while AVCHD is smooth and clear.
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With DVCPRO HD out of the picture, I could start encoding my files progressively and start dialing down the data rate to make the MPEG-2 that fuels HDV and the H.264 behind AVCHD start feeling some pain. My rational was that I could keep downloading and encoding files from the Internet all day and still not see a significant difference at each format's full encoding parameters. However, by reducing the data rate, I could simulate the performance of the respective formats when shooting particularly challenging footage, as well as clear up an internal debate as to the superiority of H.264 over MPEG-2.
Accordingly, I produced two videos at 5Mbps using MPEG-2 at 1440x1080x24fps and H.264 at 1920x1080x24fps: Michael Hastings’ great shot of the space shuttle launch (see Figure 5) and the second the Corben clip shown in Figures 3 and 6. In the first clip, HDV shows significant blockiness as the camera tilts upward following the space shuttle, while AVCHD remains clear.
Figure 6. Ditto in this shot. No question which format you’d prefer.
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In the second clip, HDV again shows severe blockiness. AVCHD looks a bit smudged, while remaining clearly preferable to its MPEG-2 based competitor. This is particularly interesting because although I produced the AVCHD clip at full resolution (1920x1080) and the HDV clip at 1440x1080, the per-pixel bit rate of the HDV clip was 25 percent higher.
The bottom line is that a full-resolution AVCHD camera should produce better video than an HDV camera because the underlying compression format is superior. Every camera is different, of course, and optics play an obviously major role, but if all other factors are equal, AVCHD should do better.
Figure 7. I don’t often use all eight cores this efficiently, but it’s nice to know they’re there.
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One final shout-out. As late as I was on this project, I would still be working right now if not for the stunning performance of the eight-core HP xw8400 workstation I use as my primary workstation. At one point, I had RedCine converting 4K footage to QuickTime and Carbon Coder batch-encoding multiple HD clips, and I expected to see smoke coming from the machine. But like the proverbial Energizer bunny, it kept going and going. If you’re working with HD footage—affordable or not—you’re going to need an eight-core system.
