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Tuesday, October 9, 2012

This Article Features Photo Zoom

The GY-HMQ10 was recently used on a Matchbox 20 music video. Using a GoPano plus lens attachment, the GY-HMQ10 was able to capture 360º of the band performing.

Image capture will be derived from three 1/3-inch, 12-bit CMOS sensors. On-camera monitoring will be provided via a 0.45-inch color viewfinder (1.22M pixels) and a 3.5-inch LCD display (920K pixels) with JVC's patented Focus Assist feature. While this should be adequate for MNG work, meticulous DPs will require a larger professional HD monitor, which can be fed from the HM650's HD/SD-SDI or HDMI outputs. SD output is by a standard 3.5mm mini AV jack. A second crewperson or producer located nearby will be pleased to watch a smartphone or tablet that can be fed from the camera's Wi-Fi connectivity applications (iOS/Android) with remote control, remote viewing and GPS-capable metadata.

Sound will be recorded through two balanced mic inputs with phantom power at 48 kHz/16-bit on both the MPEG-2 (LPCN) and AVCHD (AC3) settings. A time-lapse recording function rounds out the extra features, which may prove useful in assembling background plates for weather, traffic and urban-lifestyle segments.

Power will come from an included 7.2-volt battery or AC power adapter drawing approximately 12W with the viewfinder and onboard LCD monitor in operation.

The suggested list price of the GY-HM650 is anticipated to be $5,995.

4K FOR UNDER $5,000
JVC's other groundbreaking camera, the GY-HMQ10 is the first handheld camcorder to record real-time 4K/Quad HD video at 60p onto affordable SD memory cards. At a retail price of $4,995, the specifications and methodology are worth noting. HD images at 24p, 50p and 60p at 3840x2160-pixel resolution are recorded onto standard (Class 6/10) 32 GB SDHC/SDXC cards capable of holding up to eight hours (with four 128 GB SDXC chips) of recording time.

The GY-HM650 can capture two simultaneous streams of video—one in a web-friendly 480x270 resolution in H.264 and one in full HD at MPEG2 or AVCHD. The web-friendly clips can be uploaded by the operator in the field to his or her station via the onboard FTP and Wi-Fi.

JVC employs a unique and proprietary method of using a single 1/2.3-inch imaging chip to produce cinema-quality results. The method begins when the 8.3-megapixel, back-illuminated CMOS image chip feeds its data stream into an array of custom JVC Falconbrid™ LSI chips that deBayer the image. Common in computers, LSI, or large-scale integration, chips contain between 3,000 and 100,000 transistors on a chip and are employed for massive computing in a compact, low-voltage space. LSI chips are required to pack enough processing into a compact camcorder like the HMQ10 at low power consumption to execute a unique deBayering processing of the sensor chips' data. Without delving deeply into JVC's proprietary process, JVC divides the deBayered output into four distinct data streams representing quadrants of the 4K video. These streams are then recorded simultaneously to four SD cards.

Unlike many 4K cameras, the HMQ10 outputs 4K images to an HD or a 4K monitor or projector in real time. Since 4K monitors are rare and very expensive, the camera offers two ways to view either live or recorded 4K images on a standard HD monitor. The first method produces an HD crop of the 4K image. Operators can use the HMQ10's 3.5-inch foldout touch screen to scroll the cropped image around in the HD monitor. The second method allows the operator to watch a full-screen, downconverted HD image. The camera also can be switched to record standard HD in the AVCHD format.

To edit, the four SD cards' output is knitted into one 4K stream using a free, JVC-supplied program that works within Apple Final Cut Pro (Mac OS 10.6.8 or 10.7.2). Using this or any similar program, the footage can be transferred to any 4K NLE, such as Sony Vegas, Adobe Premiere or Grass Valley Edius.

For more information about the GY-HM650 and GY-HMQ10, visit the JVC website at pro.jvc.com.

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