The HVX200 is a multi-format three chip native HD / SD camera; the imagers used are progressive, 1/3" and 960 x 540 pixels. We use a closely specified half pixel horizontal and vertical spatial offset of the (Red + Blue) to the Green imagers. Each imager is then fed to its own 14 bit A/D, this is then fed to the camera's DSP "engine"

This new video DSP "engine" parallel processes the CCD content and in the luminance matrix processing area combines the sampled video onto a 1920 x 1080 array. The beauty of this system is that we gain an approximate 30-40% increase in effective luminance resolution from the spatial offsetting over the native imager resolution. This "correlated" image data is then gamma corrected, detail enhanced, matrixed, colour corrected etc as required. The 1920 x 1080 video "array" data is then format converted, sub-sampled and then compressed to whatever recording format is chosen by the user.

In the US HVX200 cameras, the 1080 DVCPRO HD CODEC uses a 1280 x 1080 sampling matrix for the Y signal, the R-Y/B-Y is 640 x 1080. The Y signal derived from the 3 CCDs is thus more than sufficient to saturate the 1080i CODEC and produce a very high quality image.

In 720p we sample at 960 x 720 (Y) and 480 x 720 (R-Y/B-Y), this is why the 1080p looks slightly sharper than the 720p CODEC, yet both are derived from the same CCDs….