JVC's(Divicom partner) Digital-S....................................
vidy.com
The Digital-S 4:2:2 Advantage
By George Avgerakis
As the digital revolution sweeps through all strata of the professional production marketplace, camcorders and VTRs are increasing in quality and declining in cost. Spending more than $50,000 for a high-quality 4:2:2 digital camcorder or VTR is increasingly hard to justify, especially for broadcasters faced with the looming costs of the DTV transition. DTV-ready receivers are expected to be on the market in less than two years, with a demand for programming to follow.
Most anticipated standards of DTV are based on 4:2:0 digital component video, which carries half the chrominance of 4:2:2, but is still an improvement over NTSC. Producers using 4:2:2 will have the highest quality DTV resolution because 4:2:2 converts nicely to 4:2:0. Producers using 4:1:1 DV formats will lose half their chroma (4:1:0) when they convert to DTV. The price requirements of 4:2:2 video have been daunting in the past, but this is changing. JVC Professional Products' Digital-S format combines both affordability (cameras in the $12,000 range, VTRs in the $10,000 range) with quality (4:2:2 component digital).
As VIDEOGRAPHY readers know, Digital-S is not digital S-VHS (see "Industry Digitalization: A Tutorial on JVC's Digital-S Format," 3/97). The only commonality between the formats is their JVC pedigree and use of half-inch tape. As Digital-S proponents like to point out, the format's 50 Mbps data rate is the minimum required for lossless digital dubbing. Those DV formats operating at 25 Mbps may not yield artifact-free dubs; 50 Mbps DV doubles its tape speed, which halves its maximum record time.
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