Isn't this something that all fixed panel TVs do now? Convert all signals to the screen's native resolution? If I had a 1080p TV, I'd rather have it making the conversion from interlaced to progressive than the camcorder itself...

rbf2000

I think JVC needs to increase the size of the sensor before making any other "improvements" to their GZ line. "3-CCD" and "Full HD" are great for marketing (everyone thinks these features are what make a great camcorder), but image quality isn't measured in these terms, and the tiny sensor simply doesn't provide the same quality as other consumer cameras out there that use bigger sensors.

liquidsoapdispenser

It sounds to me like they have just included a motion-compensation deinterlacer on the playback circuitry. It's still interlaced, and interlaced video must still die.

kc2idf

@rainfever:

It's a progressive scanning upscaler built in?

FrankenPC

I'm still baffled at how 1080i = 1080p...

rainfever

Canadianco:

1080 is the number of horizontal scanlines.

Usually unspoken, but 1920 is the number of columns of vertical pixels.

In 1080i, 540 scanlines are sent in 1/60th of a second, then the OTHER 540 scanlines are sent in the next 1/60th of a second. Those two intervals of 1/60th of a second add up to 1/30th of a second, and that is the final rate at which 1080i produces a single full image of video.

In 1080p, all 1080 scanlines are sent in 1/60th of a second. This is twice as much information in the same time as 1080i; or in other words, in the time it takes 1080i to draw one full image, 1080p is capable of giving you two completely different images.

There's more to this - one issue is that not a lot of content is available at 1080p; movies, for instance, would be properly represented at 1080p/24 or 1080i/48. Naturally, 1080p-capable camcorders would change this situation such that plenty of 1080p content would be available. Amateur videos and the like.

Another is that because 1080i presents first the odd lines, then the even lines, and because these lines can actually be from 540-line images taken at different times, not just screen positions, visual distortion of moving objects is a lot more of a problem with 1080i. Something one wants to keep in mind with a handheld camcorder, certainly.

Another very important issue is that no matter what mode is in use, "lossy" compression is used to encode the signal, and the more lossy it is, the lousier the image will be. This is known as the "bitrate." Blueray will present 40 or so megabits when sending 1080p (more if count the sound); some other sources will produce only a fraction of that. Naturally, if the signal contains less image information, the resulting image will be less true to the original.

So far, 1080p recording hasn't come out in affordable camcorders (and this thing is no exception, it records in 1080i) and my position is that the appropriate thing to do here is wait. Within a year or two, all the decent models will do 1080p, and that's when it'll be time to buy. Until then, they're offering consumers less performance than HD is capable of, and there's no technical reason to put up with that. If you've got a baby coming or something, maybe you'd want to jump so you can have the best recording possible at the moment, but otherwise, just hang on. Something considerably better that works with all the good TVs out there is on the way. Count on it. When full 1080p recording and playback becomes available, that's the time to start paying attention to the advertised bitrates -- because that's what separates the bad from the good from the great here.

If you want a mental shorthand that is fair to keep HD properly organized in your mind, think of 1080i as "half HD" and 1080p as "full HD." That's exactly correct in terms of how much image information you get, and implies (correctly) that 1080p can get you twice as good an image when fully implemented in BOTH recording and output. Just keep in mind that bitrates are important too, and that we're talking about absolute maximum capacity, not slower rates like 24 frames a second.

fyngyrz

What does the "60p" in "1080/60p" signify? I haven't seen that before.

canadianco

@fyngyrz: With caveats, 1080i and 1080p are the same resolution. They are indistinguishable in low or zero motion shots. Sure, 1080p will be preferable but 1080i is really good, esp. if the compression is not too heavy and your deinterlacing is good. Of course most of your Blu-ray and HDDVD material is stored as 1080p23.97, either MPEG2, AVC, or VC1 (most HDDVD players actually output at 1080i60 but the movies are almost always stored progressive). People do need to pay attention to the horizontal rez specs too because, e.g., all the MPEG2 HDV camcorders shoot in 1440x1080i. (Off topic but most of DishNetwork's HD feeds are in 1440x1080i). I think most of the most recent AVC 1080i cameras shoot at 1920x1080. Just food for thought...

scarbrtj

@canadianco: They just messed it up, they meant "1080p/60," or 1080 resolution in progressive scan at 60 frames per second.

@rainfever: 1080i is 1080 lines of resolution interlaced, where the odd lines come to the screen first then the even ones. 1080p is just both lines at once. So how do you make 1080i into 1080p? Simple, de-interlace the image. Just have the device accept both lines of resolution at once and then display it at once. Technically this causes lag while the device de-interlaces it, but a proper de-interlacing signal will move as fluidly as a interlaced one.

Personally, I like this, but if its just de-interlacing, its not doing anything a 1080p TV does by itself, and I'd bank on the TV having a better built-in engine than this camera, plus there would not be any loss of data over the transmission if the TV de-interlaced it itself.

scryer_360

The point here is that 1080p/1920c/60fps/40+mb/s capable camcorders will make 1080p capable displays perform MUCH better than 1080i/1920c/30fps/20+mb/s camcorders. The only reason that 1080i roughly equals 1080p at the moment for movies is because as you say (and as I said as well) the storage there is under 30 fps - 24 fps for all intents and purposes, 48 if you count shutter fakery.

In the end, it'll go down exactly as I describe: You buy 1080i equipment, you'll have half the quality, specifically the timewise resolution, of the people who held out for 1080p. And the more things move, the more the higher quality of the 1080p/60 recording will be evident.

Those are the facts. The questions are: Do people with home camcorders shoot things that are moving, and do they want maximum detail on those things?

The answers, I believe, are unquestionably yes to both.

If we move beyond pragmatics, there is the simple issue of a specifications war, and the consumer urge, apparently unstoppable, to own the best. That alone will keep the manufacturers working until the maximum the format can do is available to the consumer. From there, we'll go up to a new format, ultra-HD or whatever, and we'll go through this set of arguments all over again, with precisely the same results: Higher res will win out. Spatially, Timewise, MB/s.

fyngyrz