first HVX footage posted...

[Mr. Apathy]

the jvc camera still looks better to me.
the p2 thing is a deal breaker a couple thousand dollars for a card that holds less than 10 minutes of footage. then you have to dump the card and then you get 10 more minutes the dumps take forever and is reported to be very hard to work with. a working set up would be well over 10,000 and you would still be limited by that damn lens. :roll:

[christoph]

My only MINIMAL complaint with DVCPROHD is the scaling that occurs on every pass (in 1080 mode, there's no scaling in 720 mode). It records at 1280x1080 and upscales it to 1920x1080. Of course HDV and HDCAM do the same but the numbers are 1440x1080 and the scaling ratio is better there.

well, think of it on the bright side, the compression will be gentler on 1280x1080 ;) btw, the european version will probably have 1440x1080, as it does 50i/25P vs 60i/24P of the american version. also it allows for a true 25P stream in 1080i mode while the american model does 24P in a 60i stream, which means compression should be better in the 25P model, since it can use the data rate more efficiently (in 720P mode both models do true P frame rates up to 60P.. yes, that's TRUE slow motion the way we know it from super8!). the only downside is that we have to wait 3 months longer on this side of the pond.

The main problem with all these new HDV cameras is that the smaller the chips, the better the lenses need to be. Good lenses are expensive to make, good HD lenses are VERY expensive to make. All of these cameras are seriously lacking in the lens department, (even Canon!). To get around the problem, most of these lenses only open to f4 or f5.6 and only stop down to less than f11 to avoid various optical issues. To get the best pictures you need to be shooting at around f8, the images significantly soften at higher and lower apertures. This also limits the possibility of really shallow DOF effects.

yeah, admittedly a true HD zoom will cost 20'000+, but the leica lens of the HVX is apparently quite good (see the sample footage), and it opens up to f1.6. it also has a very nice wideangle.

booster, obviously there are artefacts, you're looking at wmv and h264 compressed webclips after all! i managed to snatch the native dvcpro clip, and compression is about the same as miniDV, only with twice the color resolution (DVCPRO HD is 4:2:2, while MiniDV and HDV are 4:2:0)
as for colors: a lot of the footage is shot through fog, but the HVX has a special cine gama mode which allows for better grading in post.
anyway, i'll skip the details, those who care prolly already know them (or check hdforindies or dvxuser) and those who don't will say it looks like crappy video anyway. make of it what you want.
++ christoph ++

[christoph]

the jvc camera still looks better to me.

the jvc only does 720P, compresses to HDV and only does standard frame rates.. if you're ok with that it's a fine camera.

not sure who told you that a P2 card takes forever to unload, but you can rent the cards, record directly to a firestore harddisk, or capture directly to a laptop if you need longer shooting times. admittedly not the greatest thing for docu filmemaking, but for people that are used to work with film it should be no big deal.
++ christoph ++

[tlatosmd]

booster, obviously there are artefacts, you're looking at wmv and h264 compressed webclips after all! i managed to snatch the native dvcpro clip, and compression is about the same as miniDV, only with twice the color resolution (DVCPRO HD is 4:2:2, while MiniDV and HDV are 4:2:0)

Ah, this explains the enhanced color sharpness.

So I suppose it'd look the same with SD 4:2:2, as I didn't actually notice any improvement as for resolution in spite of it being HD. :lol:

[steve hyde]

Thank you for the detailed information. What about postproduction with footage from this camera. I assume it is easy to compress the footage to a lower resolution for editing off line. Then online to HDcam.....

Does anybody foresee any postproduction snags here?

Steve

[christoph]

What about postproduction with footage from this camera. I assume it is easy to compress the footage to a lower resolution for editing off line. Then online to HDcam.....

actually the beauty of DVCPRO HD is that it can be handeld natively by any reasonably fast computer. disk storage and through put needs are a bit higher than HDV (because it's less compressed) but less taxing on the processor (because of, well, less compression ;).

if you want to edit offline footage (like for editing in the field on a powerbook) you can easily create proxies, like letterboxed DV or even smaller files in jpeg codec.

the only thing that is different from a typical DV workflow is that you should make backups of your original clips to a save place, since there's no tape to recapture from if something goes foom.

++ christoph ++

[christoph]

Ah, this explains the enhanced color sharpness.

actually it's *very* hard to see color sharpness unless you examine the seperate RGB channel.. the eye is much more sensitive to luminance than to chroma (that's why Dv still looks good)..
to be honest, chroma resolution on these web clips is horrible, being h264 compressed.

here's a still from the native footage (1280x1080), unsqueezed to full 1920x1080:

http://www.cmanz.com/super8/samples/HVX-1080-60i.jpeg
(full credit for this first HVX footage goes to the guys at http://www.dvxuser.com)

i do hope your comment about HD vs SD resolution was meant to be a joke ;)
++ christoph ++

[tlatosmd]

Ah, this explains the enhanced color sharpness.

actually it's *very* hard to see color sharpness unless you examine the seperate RGB channel.. the eye is much more sensitive to luminance than to chroma (that's why Dv still looks good)..

What I mean is that one or both color channels don't drift off to the left or right/up or down in comparison to the b/w channel, so-called color shifting and color bleeding. Oh well, maybe I'm sensitized to it because it's my job to correct this drifting.

i do hope your comment about HD vs SD resolution was meant to be a joke ;)
++ christoph ++

Nope, not at all. And I think with Roger, I do have an agreeing professional on my side.

As for the still you've posted in your post just above this one, I think I see serious halos from digital post-sharpening that weren't included in the wmv clip.

[steve hyde]

...yeah this sample image brings us right back to the HD problem. It makes skin look pretty nasty.

Steve

[christoph]

i do hope your comment about HD vs SD resolution was meant to be a joke ;)

Nope, not at all.
[snip]
As for the still you've posted in your post just above this one, I think I see serious halos from digital post-sharpening that weren't included in the wmv clip.

if you read carefully: the still is from a *native* DVCPRO clip, directly from the camera, no post sharpening applied. this is the standard in-camera sharpening that all cameras do to make video look good on crappy screens. (and before everybody starts shouting: yes you can turn it down while recording.)

the reason why the webclip doesnt show it is simply because it has been severly blurred due to heavy compression.

but i disgress, if you really think the resolution of a SD frame is not much lower, please post an uprezzed still that remotely compares with the one above.
++ christoph ++

[MovieStuff]

if you really think the resolution of a SD frame is not much lower, please post an uprezzed still that remotely compares with the one above.

Oh, there's no doubt that this is much higher rez than SD DV. What I posted about in another thread was how HD broadcasts of movies don't look much different than SD DVDs do when you run the component out off the player to the HD set. Stuff shot on HD DV looks totally sharper but stuff that originates on 35mm looks just great on an HD set, even off of standard def DVDs. Again, I switched between the two and I could hardly see any difference. But this still looks awesome.

Roger

[tlatosmd]

but i disgress, if you really think the resolution of a SD frame is not much lower, please post an uprezzed still that remotely compares with the one above.

Where did I say the technical specifications of SD and HD would be identical? All I said is that I can't *see* that much of a difference between SD and HD resolution, neither on SD TVs nor on HD TVs.

Average HD TV screens might be bigger than SD TV screens, however when looking at them at the same physical screen size, I can't see much of a difference.

The only difference I *did* see up to now was between 4:2:0 and 4:2:2, in the latter case resulting in both color channels remaining where they are supposed to be within the picture area, making the image seem sharper and maybe clearer/cleaner. I saw that in this HVX footage right away, even before I found out about its technical details by you saying those clips are in fact 4:2:2.

Do you maybe think my eyes would be too bad? I've seen SD interlacing lines on some HD TVs when they were trying to come to terms with SD broadcasts, so I tried to find a suitable deinterlacing mode in the menus as 'intelligent progressive mode' was advertized. Obviously, non-turnoffable 'intelligent progressive mode' meant that you can see SD interlacing lines in case the material is actually broadcasted like that. Nothing to build up confidence into what is currently avalaible in stores with 'HD' logos all over it.

[christoph]

All I said is that I can't *see* that much of a difference between SD and HD resolution, neither on SD TVs nor on HD TVs.

well, all i say is that either you have a very poor HV TV, a very poor HD source or very poor eye sight ;)
i've compared HDV vs DV (poor HD vs good SD) on a 14" SD studio monitor and on a 17" HD studio monitor over component cables, and the difference is day and night (and my eyesight is not terribly good).

The only difference I *did* see up to now was between 4:2:0 and 4:2:2, in the latter case resulting in both color channels remaining where they are supposed to be within the picture area, making the image seem sharper and maybe clearer/cleaner. I saw that in this HVX footage right away, even before I found out about its technical details by you saying those clips are in fact 4:2:2.

the webclips are nowhere near 4:2:2, but rather something like 4:1:0... they are heavily h264 compressed, which means the data rate is about half that of HDV and about a 1/4 of the original 720P and about 1/7 or the original 1080i. one can easily check that by exporting a still (or taking a screenshot) and examining the bue channel in photoshop (or any decent image app).

++ christoph ++

[S8 Booster]

as far as the still goes i am surprised that it looks hell of a lot like video with the contour effects and all but with some suppressed noise in the out of focus part. it is way off film performance.

apart from the contour effects the noise may be suppressed at motion like film grain though.

id thought that high end video would have come way further at this stage/price than what i see in these samples.


my twinola du-nots :?

s/hoot

[Freya]

id thought that high end video would have come way further at this stage/price than what i see in these samples.


my twinola du-nots :?

s/hoot

It's not really high end video tho is it, just a prosumer camera.

As for resolution, it might look the same on a little screen but I was impressed at how far you could zoom in on it before it goes really funny. You can't really zoom in on DV footage much.

As for it looking like film or not, well, erm, why would it, it's just a video camera. It does the cine gamma thing but so does the dvx. It's just like a high resolution dvx really but with better colour space and stuff. I don't think video is ever really going to start looking exactly like film because it isn't film.

It's just a nice video camera.

love

Freya