JVC introduced its HD Everio GZ-HM400 in Japan
way back in late July, but at long last, the time has come for the Yanks in attendance to grab one as their own. Shipping now (as in,
right now) here on US soil, the Full HD camcorder packs a 10.3 megapixel sensor, 32GB of internal storage, an SD / SDHC expansion slot and the ability to capture stills at 9 megapixels. Over on the video side, users will have access to a trio of slow-motion recording modes (600fps, 300fps and 120fps), though we can't express in mere words how disheartened we are to hear that this thing utilizes the thoroughly worthless AVCHD format. If you aren't bothered in the least by that, you can pick yours up now for a nickel shy of a grand.
posted Sep 14th 2009 10:22AM
Doesn't excite me. They really need to start focusing on the chips inside these things. 10MP? Not really needed. Better low light, cineform codec and better ergonomics (like a focus and zoom ring around the lens barrel), now that would be something interesting.
You'll only break it
AVCHD worthless? With a proper editing workflow, AVCHD proves to be faster at converting and backing up than any other HD format out there.
The thing is AVCHD is (or at least should be) a finishing format. Not a format by which you capture with. Of course we've all gotten so used to the marketing of these major electronics companies pushing us into believing that shooting even more compressed (but more efficient) formats is a great idea. It's not. We should be aspiring to less compression for our capture. Yes, even for home videos.
Agreed. I just got a pair of nice Canon AVCHD cameras and they work perfectly for me. The image quality is incredible, and for the price, I'm very happy with it.
how is AVCHD worthless??? explain yourself engadget....or someone.
+1
+2
This is a rare ass hat gem from Engadget. The "worthless" parties here are the NLE vendors who seem to refuse to support this fastest growing codec! (Yeah, I'm talking to YOU, Avid. Get on the stick...)
How is AVCHD worthless? What's wrong with it?
There's no Apple logo on it, ergo it can't be perfect. This is Engadget remember?
oh schnap.
Lemme guess...You want it to record in Quicktime HD or whatever its called:)
JESUS! Please, NO!
I haven't been following Camcorders and video equipment but the fact that you can record at 600fps at that price is good enough for me.
AVCHD IS WORTHLESS CRAP!! This is what they killed tape for?? We should of waited and found another format.
CANON please save us!! Avchd is unefficient when you try to work with it. Half the editing programs dont support it and its been 6 years now! Wow. The Fastest computers buckle when working with this Junk!
I should know because I had it. Why are they doing this to the consumers do the think we are Idiots??
CANON Save US!!
There's nothing wrong with AVCHD. It's really just MPEG-4/H.264 and it's why you can record hours of 1080i Dolby AC-3 footage on a flash card.
The problem is that AVCHD is a recording and playback format, *not* an editing one. But it's easy and quick to convert (especially to Apple ProRes) and backing up is as simple as copying the root folder of the flash card to a external HD or DVD.
Ok, this is a good chance to ask a question. As someone who has largely been out of the loop regarding hard drive or flash-based camcorders. What's a good format to use. I've been given the task of editing video using a standard iMac and FCE.
kthnxbai.
I just picked up a lower-end JVC HD camcorder 2 weeks ago. I got it because of AVCHD -- because that's what Blue Players can play natively, right? I may be wrong (I usually am). I've filmed a few things and it was a breeze to play the clips with my media player and to edit in Adobe Premiere. If there's something better, I'm all for it. I just assumed this was the standard for the next couple of years.
As a Premiere Pro CS4/Matrox Rt.X2 user I welcome AVCHD. It supports it natively. Quite a bit easier to use. I don't care about "half the editors" out there. I only care about Premiere. SO there...;)
Premiere Pro runs circles around FCP, so your point is completely valid. However, even iMovie supports AVCHD, so I'm still unsure what the author is going on about.
Editing AVCHD natively in Premiere Pro is far slower than converting it into a real editable format. And when you do that, Final Cut handily beats Adobe's suite hands down.
AVCHD is a perfectly adequate acquisition format, but is a pain to edit on older systems and laptops that lack CPU power.
Panasonic provides its AVCHD users with a software utility that converts everything to DVCPRO, a codec that is less CPU-intensive, and allows for frame-accurate editing. Alternatively, you can just take the HDMI output of any HD camcorder, and ingest it using a BlackMagic or AJA solution (resulting in DVCPRO, or uncompressed files - again, easier to work with).
What is lacking for consumers, is a simple (one step) software solution that converts AVCHD files directly to a burnable DVD-Video ISO file (this is the biggest request I get from people who want to watch their footage on a TV, but lack a Blu-Ray player).
I'd like to add a question to Engadget. What format would you propose JVC use? MPEG-2 isn't any better (although JVC uses that format on its far more expensive cameras), and P2/XDCAM are proprietary formats. There's not much else floating out there these days.
Darren, I'm certainly frustrated by lack of direct support for AVCHD in Final Cut Pro, but I've never assumed there was an issue with the codec itself. Could you elaborate on that? I assumed any hit in editing performance was being compensated for by better data compression as the trade-off.
AVCHD is fine by me. But Michael is right about the chips. I remember years ago when JVC introduced the first Everio series hard drive camcorders. There was much hype about it here at Engadget, and with good reason. They were the world's first collection of camcorders to use built-in hard drives as a storage media. Since then, JVC has had plenty of time to capitalize on that by providing better chips and sharper image quality. As of now, this thing could not hold a candle to the Canon VIXIA HF series.
On a side note, there is some crazy guy over at BloggingStocks talking about gold having no tangible value. He is talking about a vast cult of worshipers with their die hard beliefs, magic, potions, and sorcery. Have you guys ever thought of having a psychologist on staff? And when gold does hit $1200, perhaps you guys should move old Jamie to Joystiq.
Gold is valuable because of the bigger fool theory, same as most other investments. Besides the likelihood that someone else will buy it off you, it has no actual function except to look pretty.
Can you explain and/or direct me to a source for your "cannot hold a candle to the Canon Vixia HF series" comment? I'm not disagreeing but I am in the market and am very interested in the differences, etc. Thx
When I said "can't hold a candle to the Canon VIXIA HF series", I was referring to image quality and performance. It is up to you to decide which camcorder is more user friendly or best for your needs. This comment is solely based upon my experiences with different models of both brands. Unfortunately, I cannot refer you to any one source. Please do a search on Google. There are plenty of good sources there.
Gold is money. Other precious minerals are valuable, but their value is mainly related to their industrial uses. Gold always has an underlying physical and monetary value. Gold protects against both inflation and deflation. There is nothing wrong with paper money. The Fed is printing too much money to buy Treasury debt. It is left with no choice right now. This will lead to inflation. And this is where gold comes in to protect wealth. The Fed can print paper money, but no one can print gold.
Gold protects against inflation, etc. only as long as others believe it's worth buying off other people. Yes, you're right in that you cannot create gold in non-trivial amounts, thus limiting its supply. But just because supply is limited doesn't mean something has inherent value. Again, the only value gold has is that it is shiny and other people seem interested in buying it off you. If people decide they're not interested in gold tomorrow, you're just as screwed as with any other arbitrary monetary instrument.
Why does Engadget seem to have suddenly lost the ability to spell nickel?
They must have been drinking a McCafe while writing this article
I spell nickle that way too. It's perfectly valid. And it's as least as cromulent as the other spelling.
Many computers manufactured in the last year or two (including some laptops) with adequate RAM and a dedicated graphics card (say 4+ GB RAM and 256+ MB graphics) can edit and render AVCHD. Sure, the more powerful the better. But what exactly makes AVCHD garbage? Can you take your tape and pop it into the computer and watch any part of any clip with no rendering needed? I didn't think so.
With AVCHD, I can record, then take the SD card right out of the video camera and put it in my computer, and fire up VLC and watch it in HD with no rendering or other steps needed. And the video quality is stunning.
AVCHD is worthless because its a nasty lossy artifact ridden format. Perfectly find for exporting to... NOT good for working in. You want as lossless as possible when capturing.
Right... and a lossless capturing format is economical for the prosumer in what way exactly? How much lossless footage you can capture on a 32 gig card? Try about 8 SECONDS.
Oh really? It uses the H.264 codec, which, as far as I know, is pretty much used for everything nowadays. Why don't you read a book on video compression before spouting off.
No its not? Nothing uses h264 as a working format... Its only used in export. I think YOU need to get your facts straight.
And as for 32gb cards... There pretty cheap now. But you still wont need them. I didnt say lossless i said close to lossless... Theres plenty of codecs out there that provide a better image quality. DVCPROHD for one.
AVCHD uses MPEG-4/H.264. That is a fact. And while DVCPROHD provides a better editable format, it requires 10 times the amount of storage as AVCHD for less than 5% increase in video quality. You do the math.
How is AVCHD worthless Darren? I'm a freelance videographer with multiple emmy nominations, and I use AVCCAM (Panasonic's "pro" aka rebranded version of AVCHD) exclusively. Show me footage shot on AVCCAM that doesn't look better than HDV. Granted to edit in FCS I have to convert to an intermediate format, however the time it takes to log and transfer from my AG-HMC150 is still much quicker than my old workflow using HDV and an HVR-Z1U. So again Darren, please explain yourself...how is AVCHD worthless? Or are you just reading what the "pros" at CNet tell you and talking out of your ass?
Laughing at "worthless AVCHD format" comment. Are you out of your mind?
This goes to show that Engadget has finally completed its transition into a TMZ-style blog - bunch of non-technical bimbos who are more concerned about putting unfunny puns in the headline than doing real reporting.
AVCHD is far from worthless.
It's just H.264 and AAC in a .m2ts transport file. What could be more natural than that? All kinds of programs can read those files.
If you want to edit it, you'll need a lot of horsepower and maybe do an intermediate conversion. That's rough, but that's the price for being able to store a lot of video on an SD card, which is something people need.
These aren't the days of DV anymore, we need frame-differenced video now. You're going to have to learn to deal with it.
Sony Vegas gladly accepts AVCHD.
IMHO
Prosumers still loves AVCHD and hate harddisk, plus the use of sd/mini/micro is neat.
The amount of horizontal lines is yummy!. :3 (but only if its = to more quality).
Slow motion is funny but useless for most users.
But the real down is the lack of native 24p
I'm not sure what makes AVCHD worthless. Just curious.
What makes AVCHD rubbish?
1) The lack of support for 480/576/1080p @ 25*/30*/50/60 fps (and their fractional counterparts)
2) The use of a modified MPEG-2 Transport Stream as the container format
3) The motion trailing artefacts at lower bit rates
4) The sloth like adoption on NLEs (mostly due to point 2)
5) The high processing overhead
6) The poor support in codecs of the multiple/hybrid interlacing types.
7) The chroma sub-sampling instead of RGB 4:4:4
8) It interframe rather than intraframe, meaning it is less suitable for editing (and harder to seek).
* some cameras support these through putting the progressive frames in 50i and 60i frames.
Now don't get me wrong, AVCHD @ 24mbps looks great, so while it may not be 'worthless', it is still far from ideal.
Thanks some sence being spoken here...
I want to also add you couldnt shoot any nature envioments with this codec. Such as country side with grass and trees. The level of detail just gets turned into blocky mush.
1) huh? All of these are possible with AVCHD. Are you just saying you can't find a camera that does it?
2) I find this to be a great container. It supports variable bit rate audio (unlike AVI, etc.), has no size problems and seeks better than anything but Matroska.
3) At any given bit rate it has better picture quality than any alternative. If you don't like artifacts, use a higher bit rate.
4) There is plenty of software that supports it, at least by converting to an editable format. So go get some.
5) It is definitely a huge processor (and memory/bandwidth) hog. No argument there.
6) Huh? H.264 handles all of this just fine.
7) Seriously? And you have a system designed which can store 4:4:4 video on a device this size? I'd love to hear about it. H.264 supports 4:4:4, maybe it's possible AVCHD devices could support it in the future.
8) Frame differencing is here to stay for portable HD content capture devices. It's either that or have very short recording times.
I know H.264 is a pain to work with because it's such a CPU hog. But the payoffs are well worth it.
1) huh? All of these are possible with AVCHD. Are you just saying you can't find a camera that does it?
No. If you look up the AVCHD spec you will see it has limited support for progressive formats. That's not to say that it is not possible, but the formats I mention would be out of specification and therefore may not be editable in NLEs.
There are video cameras that do 1080 50p/60p, but all the ones I know of record to AVC in a either an MP4 or AVI container.
2) I find this to be a great container. It supports variable bit rate audio (unlike AVI, etc.), has no size problems and seeks better than anything but Matroska.
Whilst I'd agree with you that a standard MPEG container would be best suited to MPEG-4, I'd have to say that it was the non-standard version of the MPEG-2 Transport container that I was objecting to.
3) At any given bit rate it has better picture quality than any alternative. If you don't like artifacts, use a higher bit rate.
In the beginning AVCHD was trumpeted as twice as efficient as HDV (MPEG-2), so a 13 mbps AVCHD video was said to be as good as a 25mbps HDV video. This was quickly debunked (due to motion trailing artefacts) and now most AVCHD cameras offer bitrates of 16 mbps-24 mbps. Using a higher bit rate does escape this problem, but the fact remains that H.264 is more prone to temporal artefacts.
4) There is plenty of software that supports it, at least by converting to an editable format. So go get some.
Whilst this is true now, as an early adopter of AVCHD I can say that it took nearly 2 years for a major NLE (Vegas) to natively support AVCHD (with Adobe Premier only adding support in CS4). I agree that the picture is far more rosy now, but there are still gaps.
6) Huh? H.264 handles all of this just fine.
Sorry, should have said 'codec implementations'. Check out the Wikipedia page on h.264 and it shows the patchy nature of interlacing support in codec implementations.
8) Frame differencing is here to stay for portable HD content capture devices. It's either that or have very short recording times.
MJPEG-2000 would have be a good quality/size choice for a intraframe codec.
@Nutsy
Two things create this problem:
1) A bit rate that is too low (commonly seen in 9mbps cameras).
2) Variable Bit Rate encoding where the bit rate is allowed to drop too low.
The best way to avoid this is to go for a high bit rate CBR setting if available.
While AVCHD is far, FAR, from being worthless, I'd too love to see a different format taking over. Say, CineForm's 10bit 4:2:2 intermediate AVI (ok, or MOV), but then again, we'd be leaning towards a bit more of a pro-sumer level, than these camcorders are suited for.
It's probably worth mentioning at this stage in the discussion:
AVI is not a format, it's a container. What's inside can be encoded in a number of formats. Same goes for MOV. So in matters of bitrate and data rates, they're not relevant.
Also, count me as one of those who also took exception with Engadget's AVCHD remark. AVCHD has its place. It's not ideal, but does work OK as a stop-gap way of getting high bitrate content onto slow media. I mean... frankly, the alternative is to have people complaining about the price of the hardware if they want ProRes 422 or the like.
a thousand dollar camera, not for me obviously
AVCHD might be billed as a consumer format but if you know what you are doing you are able to handle it's cons, that's why some of the Prosumers can't find any Lumix GH1 in stock... it has its pros and cons, but for the right user who knows what they are doing it is FAR from worthless.