Test Pattern Comparison HVX200 - Raylight/Avid/Apple/Panasonic

This shows roughly equal performance from 3 codecs, the exceptions are that the Apple codec
always applies a gamma warp and so it is darker, and the 4th codec from Panasonic
shows minor decoding artifacts (see details at bottom)

Raw camera data and Apple test frame courtesy Barry Green and dvxuser.com


Raylight




Avid DV100 Codec




Apple DVCPROHD Codec


        Panasonic Decoder



        Below: 4X Magnified close-up of Raylight vs. Panasonic decoders

Raylight Magnified 4X
Panasonic Magnified 4X

showing artifacts

Another example of the decompression artifacts. Note the horizontal bars in the flat areas on the left side.

(Source Image Barry Green, dvxuser.com)

Technical Note:The artifacts in the Panasonic decoder are due to the fact that it uses MPEG-2 coefficient matrix and as a result the high frequencies are two times overemphasized. If you use CineForm for editing DVCProHD which uses the Panasonic decoder in HDLink to transcode to CineForm, DVFilm recommends that you switch to Raylight Ultra to get the better quality of the Raylight codec for decoding of MXF files or Raylight AVIs made from RayMaker. You can still use CineForm to preview effects and render intermediates.