HMC150's "Dynamic Range Stretch"

[armisiano]

Anyone out there who owns the HMC150, would you post some footage demonstrating the "Dynamic Range Stretch" feature please? Something very simple would be perfect, just the same static scenic shot before and after. You could even just do screen grabs. Either way I'm very curious to see this feature demonstrated and I'd like to think I'm not the only one.

[Thomas Lew]

I'd be glad to do this for you but what exactly is that feature?...

[armisiano]

I'd be glad to do this for you but what exactly is that feature?...

I'm not exactly sure, but according to the Panasonic website, it's listed as: "A host of advanced video functions like Cinelike Gamma and Dynamic Range Stretch (DRS)", all I can say is read the manual, :) and see if you stubmle across it.

[Thomas Lew]

Alright man lol I will let you know tomorrow

[Justyn]

I believe it's a process to allow a wider exposure and detail latitude.. or something like that

[ullanta]

Dynamic range stretch increases the perceived lattitude of the camera - that is, provides more detail in dark and bright areas - by somehow adjusting the gamma on a pixel-by-pixel basis. So a good test of this would be a scene with both very dark and very bright areas - spotlighting - theatrical lighting - bright window in a dim room - etc.

[armisiano]

...as we still wait for someone to actually test this out...

[Barry_Green]

I posted some DRS photos in my HPX170 Second Look article (http://www.dvxuser.com/articles/article.php/12), you can find the pix about 80% of the way down the page.

[dcloud]

60i only!? :(

[Ed Kishel]

that does suck, DRS on the mode we are least likely to shoot on- gotta save something for the HMC150A I guess....

[Bassman2003]

60i only!? :(

This is a guess, but I thought I read it worked on 720p as well.

[Ed Kishel]

http://panasonic.com.au/content/libr...es/F002212.pdf (http://panasonic.com.au/content/libr...es/F002212.pdf)

see page 87 of the manual- DRS is greyed out for anything but interlace

I great feature I will never get to use :(

[Thomas Lew]

booo interlacinggg

[delaro]

it's working on 720p on the hpx170.

[Ed Kishel]

huh? can barry or anyone with a 150 confirm this?


it's working on 720p on the hpx170.

[mcsmooth]

It was said the 170 could use it in 60i or 60p. Edweirdo, unless I have a different copy of that manual, it says not available in settings other than 50i/50p, so most likely 720p60 should be good too.

I'm thinking that function would be more useful for impromptu or event shooting where you don't have controlled lighting (which is often shot 60i/p anyway). In a controlled shoot doing 24p, I don't see it being as useful. On the other hand, I can't think of a good technical reason why it couldn't work in all modes.

Maybe I am understanding it wrong, but would DRS mess with your gamma and knee settings?

[Barry_Green]

DRS is like every pixel having its own gamma and knee. I mean, it's not quite that, but that's sort of like what it's like.

[Ed Kishel]

In a controlled shoot doing 24p, I don't see it being as useful.

I can see added dynamic range being useful in all modes.

Page 5 of the brochure doesn’t have any asterisks or fine print stating "only certain modes"- this was one of several features that helped sell me on the camera

I am a 24p shooter. Will I cancel my order, no- I am still excited and can't wait to get it. But had I known this I would have looked for other "features only avail in certain modes" before deciding

[kurtmo]

I checked the manual earlier today then just tried to change the DRS settings. I tried to turn it on at 24p - no go. I switched to 60p and the DRS option was no longer greyed out. It appears that the camera can only use DRS in the 60p/60i modes. Not sure why.

[ullanta]

I checked the manual earlier today then just tried to change the DRS settings. I tried to turn it on at 24p - no go. I switched to 60p and the DRS option was no longer greyed out. It appears that the camera can only use DRS in the 60p/60i modes. Not sure why.

Just for kicks, can you try DRS in 720/30p and/or 1080/30p (since 30p is "over 60")?

[Barry_Green]

It gets disabled.

I don't know exactly why, but understand that the dynamic range stretch function is "dynamic" -- it's constantly adjusting to the given circumstances. It seems reasonable (at least to me) that in order to function, it may need the fastest update rate it can get.

Then again, that may be nonsense, but I could understand if that's why it works the way it does.

[Ed Kishel]

:angry:yea that's what I was afraid of- for me the feature is pretty much meaningless if it does not work in 24p. So I would have removed it from the list of pros:

tapeless
low noise
histogram
progressive HD
PH mode
Wide lens
3 year warranty
DRS
Iris ring
balance

Dont get me wrong, I'm still excited to get it, and the feature probably wouldnt provide a night and day difference to the regular viewer. Just sucks to learn a feature you were looking forward to wont get to be utilized. Oh well, moving on :)

[shrigg]

Just for kicks, can you try DRS in 720/30p and/or 1080/30p (since 30p is "over 60")?

I tried it, and nope... Grayed out in 720p30 and 1080p30.

[ullanta]

Thanks for trying!

Are you bored? I supposedly have two weeks to wait before "my" camera arrives... in the meantime, I'd love it if you could capture (in addition to some 6mbps footage... or even AS 6mbps footage!) some "fake" 30p... that is, 60i or 60p with a slow shutter set to about 1/30th... DRS should work for this, and if the compression is smart enough, quality should be a bit better than 720/60p

[Barry_Green]

Interesting. I don't know if that'll work, I'm pretty sure the slow shutter speed will disable the DRS because it results in effectively half the motion samples. Just like you can't have any gain once the frame rate drops below a certain rate (22fps on an HVX200) I don't think DRS will work once the "effective" frame rate drops below 60 (or 50 in the 50Hz camera).

But, I don't have a 150 to test with so -- sure, someone give that a shot!

[ullanta]

Boy, we need some more detailed info. on what exactly DRS does... anyone from Panny wanna drum up a white paper?

[mcsmooth]

... 60i or 60p with a slow shutter set to about 1/30th... DRS should work for this
Like Barry suspected, it does not work. It must be actually in a 60hz mode. Similarly, digital zoom also requires 60hz, and digital zoom cannot be on at the same time as DRS. Must be some weird processing thing although it doesn't make sense to me, it should be easier to process something slower.


Now that I've gotten a chance to try DRS, it is pretty cool. I think it would be useful in a lot of situations, especially outside. I do still think you would want to avoid it in a controlled environment. Think of it this way:

We only have 8 bit color, so at most you have values of 0 - 255. If your camera is set to a medium exposure, but lets say you have some really dark areas (area under something casting a dark shadow) and some real bright areas (sun shining on something reflective). Your shadows and highlights will be black and white with little to no detail. DRS makes use of the chip's 14 bit color so it is able to take colors BEYOND what would be 0 or 255. I'm not sure if it really uses all 14 bits, but if it were, you'd have 0 - 16383.

It then needs to compress this back into 8 bits to fit in the codec. The result is capturing a much greater dynamic range of brightness and placing it in a space with the same dynamic range. So you get more extremes at the cost of losing brightness resolution in the middle. Figure all those numbers needed to squish into a smaller space, so it's going to give you a lot less room to CC in post. I can totally see the difference of what pops into the picture, but I feel the mid colors become less defined. The other disadvantage is the noise that is introduced. So a nice tool to have but with some trade offs to keep in mind.

[ullanta]

Thanks for testing that, McSmooth!

[Barry_Green]

Remember you can use DRS in your slow-mo film footage, by shooting 720/60p and then conforming that to 24fps. You just can't use it in your realtime film footage.

[ullanta]

Great for a kind of a Six Million Dollar Man thing... when he uses his bionic eye, we hear the "er-er-er" sound, everything becomes slow motion, and he can see into shadows blinding light!

[johnnyha]

Here's some footie I shot today.

http://www.vimeo.com/groups/HMC150/videos/1883651

[vavavideo]

We only have 8 bit color, so at most you have values of 0 - 255.

DRS looks like it'll be an *amazing* step forward that'll likely prove itself to be a hard-to-live-without feature in the future, but I wasn't aware that the HMC150 was only 8 bit.

I was hoping to transition from Sony SR12s to the something better, while maintaining the ease of the tapeless and the inexpensive media. I've wanted to go with something other than an EX1 as cameras from Panasonic (and Canon) tend to have richer color. With the cheap media the HMC150 takes, I figured this might be the next best step at the moment.

The Sony does x.v. color, which is 10 bit, right? So it's 256 x 2 x 2 = 1024 values per color. That's quite a jump in color space.

Or am I confusing xv with deep color? I apologize if I'm getting anything criss crossed. I'm not a high level expert on this. I'll ultimately use whatever my eyes like best. :)

In any case, I would hope that Panasonic, better known for it's intense color, would also record the widest gamut possible. Whether that's via xv, deep color, or what have you. It seems like it makes more sense of Panny to incorporate more of these wide gamut and deep color technologies than Sony, which until very recently, was not known for color as a strongpoint.

I'm really surprised that the SR12 looks as good as it does, honestly. I was scared it would have the infamous Sony "videolook", but it doesn't, really. I've even seen nongraded SR12 footage intercut with nongraded EX1 footage, where the SR12 obviously had more pleasing color. (but obviously not better overall clarity and resolution)

To me, better color usually makes for better footage to watch than more resolution, unless you're shooting something instructional where every last pixel counts. Of course, I guess if I ponied up for an HPX3000, and a cameraman good enough to operate it, then I could have both excellent color and amazing resolution. :)

[Barry_Green]

The HMC150 uses 19-bit processing. Its final recording spec is 8-bit (same as the EX1 and HPX170 and every other camera on the market).

[armisiano]

Here's some footie I shot today.

http://www.vimeo.com/groups/HMC150/videos/1883651

Nice example. Thank you. Definitely a nice and quite unique feature. Can't wait for it to progress to use with other recording modes in a year or two. Cute dog too by the way.

[johnnyha]

Nice example. Thank you. Definitely a nice and quite unique feature. Can't wait for it to progress to use with other recording modes in a year or two. Cute dog too by the way.
Thanks actually the window was way overexposed and as Noel said in another thread the DRS might do even better with the bright areas exposed properly. I also see an overall noise level in the walls w/o the DRS that is less an HMC problem and more an exposure error on my part. And Greta thanks ya she is awful cute.

UPDATE: From the manual: "It (DRS) enables the dynamic range to be expanded by compressing the level of the video signals in the high-brightness areas where the overexposure results during normal shooting." Maybe shoulda read that before shooting...

[vavavideo]

The HMC150 uses 19-bit processing. Its final recording spec is 8-bit (same as the EX1 and HPX170 and every other camera on the market).

So is it Deep Color I'm thinking of that gives more than 8 bits?

It's interesting. When you look at high end TVs now (850u from Panasonic, Pioneer Kuros'), they usually support both Deep Color and xv standards. Blu-Ray players, including the PS3, support them (xv, anyway).

Yet there aren't cameras that shoot these formats yet? Or any NLEs that edit them? That seems like what I've been reading, yet the TV and Blu-Ray player ads tend to imply that you can buy already media that has this extended colour information.

[vavavideo]

Thanks actually the window was way overexposed and as Noel said in another thread the DRS might do even better with the bright areas exposed properly. I also see an overall noise level in the walls w/o the DRS that is less an HMC problem and more an exposure error on my part. And Greta thanks ya she is awful cute.

UPDATE: From the manual: "It (DRS) enables the dynamic range to be expanded by compressing the level of the video signals in the high-brightness areas where the overexposure results during normal shooting." Maybe shoulda read that before shooting...

Hey, I've got an idea... Do you think you could shoot Greta by candlelight with DRS on? Pretty please? :)

[mcsmooth]

So is it Deep Color I'm thinking of that gives more than 8 bits?

It's interesting. When you look at high end TVs now (850u from Panasonic, Pioneer Kuros'), they usually support both Deep Color and xv standards. Blu-Ray players, including the PS3, support them (xv, anyway).

Yet there aren't cameras that shoot these formats yet? Or any NLEs that edit them? That seems like what I've been reading, yet the TV and Blu-Ray player ads tend to imply that you can buy already media that has this extended colour information.
That is a consumer technology that is more marketing hype right now (like 120hz). Most of the TV's do 1080p, so they have to come up with new ways to convince you to upgrade. ;) So TV's are claiming they can support it, but how many devices or movies actually take advantage of it?

Keep in mind that 8 bit color is 16 million colors. You can't really see beyond that, so there isn't much point to displaying more. On a pro camera it is nice feature mainly to allow more room in post to CC. You have to pay a LOT more for a pro video camera with 10 bits. With Panasonic, start looking at the new models that support AVC intra. This will change over time, but don't expect the first consumer devices with "deep color" to actually be better or full 16 bit just because the standard can support it. If Sony were to start selling pocket camcorders that touted "48 bit color", I doubt anyone would be selling their 150s.

It's really a non issue in this price bracket, extra resolution/sharpness would be much more desirable right now, especially on this camera.