Re: The second elephant in the room

[toke lahti] "If you can record 100Mbps, then you can.
There no magic here and no codecs to record.
Tape does not not with what codec its data will be used.

Tape may not, but the record heads do, which is where track pitch comes into play.
The codec does matter, each codec has it's own specification for how it is written to tape. If you want to change the specs, then you are changing the codec.
So again, you may be right about recording 100mb/s to dv tape, it may be possible, but now you have to write a codec that can support that (because DVCProHD cannot do it).

No one is implying that this is "magic."
But the tape and datarate is only part of the equation.
Codec specifications do matter, and you can't just ignore them.

But you guys seem to totally miss my point.

I think this topic has been gone over in minute detail.
Please don't mistake disagreement with misunderstanding.
I understand what you are saying, and I concede that you may be right about the ability to write 100mb/s to DV tape. It's the conclusions you seem to be drawing from that that I disagree with.

You take for granted that HD camera can cost $6k now, when 5 years ago it was $100k. And camera can be 5 times smaller. But somehow you can't believe that tape mechanism that has costed $20k for the last 5 years can cost only $1k. It's all about manufacturing volumes of mass market.

It's not all about manufacturing volumes of mass market, it's about new technologies which allow for the removal of expensive components. The only reason an HD camera can cost $6K now instead of $100K is due to the fact that the tape transport is removed from the equation and replaced with inexpensive solid state card slots. The camera is 5 times smaller because once the large tape transport is out of the design, the electronics can be put into a unibody fixed lens camera design (which has already been used for a previous model, and can simply be modified to fit the new camera's electronics).

There has been no 'breakthrough' in tape mechanisms akin to the move to solid state recording. There is no cheaper way to manufacture record heads, or the mechanisms of the transport itself. You could manufacture all the tape transports you want, but the price will only go down to a certain point. Unless there is some advancement in the recording technology used in tape transports, the price will not drop significantly.

Why aren't you screaming that HD ccd's cost $20k per set and that's why it's totally impossible that hvx has HD ccd's?

Probably because that isn't true.
Obviously the CCDs in the HVX don't cost $20K per set.
You comparisson doesn't hold because it's not based on anything factual.
CCD technology has advanced by leaps and bounds over the past 10 years, aided also by the digital still camera advancements. Again, I would ask that you point out the major advancements in tape transport technology, or in record head technology.


If you don't get it, I give up.

Again, I 'get it,' I just simply don't agree with your position.
That's all.

'Nuff said about this subject."

That's something we can both agree on.




Luis Caffesse
Studio 3 Productions, Inc.
Austin, Texas