V1U - 240 fps slomo footage!

[Karl151k]

I just got to try a V1U the other day, it was a nice upgrade from the Z1. Good feature set and all in all, it's a great camera. The one feature I was playing with for at least 2 hours though was the Super SlowMo Record (Smooth Slow, Sony calls it). It's an option in the menu that lets you shoot at 240 fps. Anyway, myself and my friend Fernando recorded a bunch of stuff with it while testing the camera out. Here's the results:

https://flip2.sslpowered.com/trailers/SlomoFernando.mov

[William_Robinette]

yah, but what's it look like at 1080?

Not dissing the cam, it is a serious question.

[Karl151k]

The Slomo is purley a fun, gimmicky thing. It's meant for analizing golf swings and such. The resolution is less than DV for the Slomo footage and there's a lot of artifacting.

[Sean Michael]

I have a Sony HC3 with this feature. I agree that it's a fun gimmick, and maybe portends for the future. I bet a future generation will offer "super slo mo" while maintaining HD resolution.

[Barry_Green]

yah, but what's it look like at 1080?

Not dissing the cam, it is a serious question.

Here's a clip at full res that DSE posted:
http://www.sundancemediagroup.com/media/HVRV1USlo-Mo.zip

[ecking]

I'm sorry but that is some of the crappiest footage I've ever seen. It's like watching youtube on fullscreen.

[Karl151k]

Exactly. Hence, purely gimick/novelty purposes.

[db20]

Thanks for posting the footage Karl151K. Sorry to say but it looked very bad. In fact i couldn't see slow motion of that quality being useful for anyone with standards. Perhaps Sony should have spent the time adding another feature to the camera instead of this useless feature.

[t-h-e-w-h-o]

Exactly. Hence, purely gimick/novelty purposes.

well, thats pretty damn stupid. Or let me correct myself, thats pretty damn awsome, just very stupid that it wont let you do it in HD. Sony and their gimicks, too bad they cant actully make a decent product with NO gimicks. Just like the vx2000 with "10P" or the vx2100 with "15P" all the user manuals said "use this when recording golf swings"... too bad the serious people in the industry who would have otherwise bought their product dont all play golf.

[Sean Michael]

Yeah, I don't think Sony is doing itself any favors by offering this sort of feature in a professional cam. All it does is entice...and inevitably disappoint.

[t-h-e-w-h-o]

couldent have said it better myself.

sony should start idling on this forum and reading what people actully want. That would be nice.

[redfuse]

I don't agree with you, I think it can be a useful feature. Of course not for any serious broadcast purposes, but it might be handy for someone who wants to analyze something in slowmotion (natural occurences) and doesn't have the resources to get something better. Also, it might be a useful feature to learn working in slomo or set up shots before you rent a good slomo cam...
Thirdly, now they implemented this feature, other manufacturers may pick it up and improve this feature. A bit like panasonic did with 24p, I believe one of the reasons they implented this was because of the popularity of the frame-modes on cameras like the xl1s.

Then again it is not really the key feature of this cam, but I don't think sony advertizes it as such. You don't HAVE to use it, do you?

[t-h-e-w-h-o]

I don't agree with you, I think it can be a useful feature. Of course not for any serious broadcast purposes, but it might be handy for someone who wants to analyze something in slowmotion (natural occurences) and doesn't have the resources to get something better. Also, it might be a useful feature to learn working in slomo or set up shots before you rent a good slomo cam...
Thirdly, now they implemented this feature, other manufacturers may pick it up and improve this feature. A bit like panasonic did with 24p, I believe one of the reasons they implented this was because of the popularity of the frame-modes on cameras like the xl1s.

Then again it is not really the key feature of this cam, but I don't think sony advertizes it as such. You don't HAVE to use it, do you?

of course you dont have to use it, but when i spend upper $4,000 on a device, i dont expect there to be features that are "teasers". Although i do agree with you that im sure another company will take the concept of it and improve off the idea.

[MovieSwede]

The HVX have already started in that area. With its 60fps. But sure we would all want faster frame rates. The problem would be to handle them.

First of all the recording media must allow for that type of bandwith. The sensor must allow for that amount of fps with full resolution, and you also must have enough internal processing power to handle that amount of frame rates.

You could save bandwith by using a very compressed format. But then you would need more processing power to compress that many fps.

in 1080
30FPS with HDV= 25mbit
60fps with HDV = 50mbit
120fps with HDV = 100mbit

So we would need something like P2 to handle it even if its heavily compressed.

[redfuse]

Yes, of course it's not gonna happen in the tape-era. Unless a new sort of tape comes out and/or a revolutionary new compression method surfaces.