Sony Rep States 'No Fault Found' on V1E

[dando]

Just want to share with everyone that a well known and highly respected British Sony rep was sent over by Sony, Japan to investigate the 25p issue with the V1E. I have been informed (by a reputable camera dealer) yesterday that his report concluded that, there was,' no fault found' with respect to the 25p.
However, Sony have stated to their dealers that anyone who is not satisfied with the V1E may be entitled to a full refund (now that's customer service!).
I think that this whole issue may have been blown out of all proportion, and different users will have different complaints about every camera out there. No camera is perfect, they all have tiny gripes, which will annoy some users, whilst another user may not notice it.
I will be going down and testing out the V1E next week and will report back if I notice anything bad with the 25p.

[Zim]

maybe they will drop the price!!

[ecking]

If there's no fault why would they offer refunds across the board to anyone that wants one? That's not good customer service that's insanity from a business stand point. Something smells fishy.

[Sean Michael]

IMHO offering the full refunds is good customer service. This means you can try the camera and return it if you're unhappy. It's smart business by Sony to reassure prospective buyers. They've got to do some damage control.

That said, I'm not convinced there are no issues with the V1. If there are "no faults" with the camera, does this mean people are simply discovering its limitations (ie. 1/4-inch chips, etc.)? That's not good for Sony, either.

[Spdamf]

hmm... does that mean we can buy a v1 to test out and if dissatisfied, we can return it for a full refund?? :happy:

[dando]

Well, Yes, apparently so. They will give you a full refund if you're not satisfied.
IMO I think that the V1E has no 'faults', because my dealer has basically said to me to come down and run whatever tests I want on the camera before I buy. Why would he be that confident?
He also said that out of the 15 V1Es he sold, 2 customers returned them, and one of those just reacted to this internet debate and did not even witness any progressive issues, that he was just just freakin' out over the whole thing!
I know I'm going on about this camera dealer, sorry if I am, but he did seem genuine and didn't seem he'd waste my time by saying to come and check it out for myself. Surely, if there WAS an issue, he'd tell me there and then, instead of having me buy one then go through the process of returning it, wouldn't he?

[Sean Michael]

I have a Sony HC3 consumer cam. In good light, it produces STUNNING 1080i HD images. But as light is reduced, the picture quality degrades dramatically.

I've seen V1U & V1E footage that's impressive, but it's usually in good light and/or interlaced. The progressive images have been hit-and-miss. Some of them have reminded me of HC3 low-light issues, which are not "flaws" per se -- they are just limitations of the one 1/4-inch chip camera. Maybe some of the V1 complaints just reflect the limitations of its 1/4-inch chips. Maybe 1/4-inch CMOS doesn't trump 1/3-inch CCD, after all.

I haven't given up on the V1U, but am weighing its purchase against the Canon A1. The A1 is (unfortunately) a pound heavier than the V1, but it's apparently got a lot of happy owners.

[Jason Ramsey]

I thought the issue was with 24p anyways. Not 25p.

[Sean Michael]

The "oil paint effect" blur problem started with the European cameras in 25p.

At first, everyone thought the 24p V1U was unaffected. But now people are reporting similar issues.

[Jason Ramsey]

Oh. I thought I just read in a thread the other day, that they were removing 24p from the NTSC version. It was now going to be offered as 60i. No 24p.

Kind of a shame for them. They finally make a 24p camera and it doesn't do 24p anymore.

Jason

[philnerd]

I looked at a sample M2T from an american V1 over at dvinfo.net and it definitely, without question, had a problem in progressive mode (don't remember if it was 24P or 30P). Its footage of a red shed that looks to be in the guy's back yard. In interlaced mode it looks really nice. In progressive mode, some of the wood grain in part of the decking in the bottom left frame turns into macroblocking mush. Even worse, all the detail in the red shed is virtually wiped out.

Its really weird, in progressive mode the camera sometimes selects certain parts of the image and just blasts it with noise reduction or something... just wipes out detail. So its possible to shoot a very nice scene with no issues, then move on to another scene and its mucked up.

[Barry_Green]

Oh. I thought I just read in a thread the other day, that they were removing 24p from the NTSC version. It was now going to be offered as 60i. No 24p.

Kind of a shame for them. They finally make a 24p camera and it doesn't do 24p anymore.

Where'd you see that? What I read was that they were removing 25p from the European model, so that it would become 50i-only. But they've since apparently retracted that, and are still offering it as 25p/50i. Haven't heard a single thing about the US reaction to the situation.

[Jason Ramsey]

I must have misread (or mis-remembered).

Jason

EDIT: (Yep. I'm stupid. Mis-read)

[dando]

I looked at a sample M2T from an american V1 over at dvinfo.net and it definitely, without question, had a problem in progressive mode (don't remember if it was 24P or 30P). Its footage of a red shed that looks to be in the guy's back yard. In interlaced mode it looks really nice. In progressive mode, some of the wood grain in part of the decking in the bottom left frame turns into macroblocking mush. Even worse, all the detail in the red shed is virtually wiped out.

Its really weird, in progressive mode the camera sometimes selects certain parts of the image and just blasts it with noise reduction or something... just wipes out detail. So its possible to shoot a very nice scene with no issues, then move on to another scene and its mucked up.


This is just my point. Every user will see different things in progressive. NO camera is perfect, but I'm sure that if you took that same scene and lit it differently, you may get different results. My undertsanding of Progressive is that it is a 'film-look' and so the loss in detail is what 'naturally' occurs in film? Most films do intrinsically have that 'soft' look to them.
I too own a sony HC3 and that too suffers when there is way too much detail in low light, but as soon as you sort out decent lighting, it's completely fine. I don't intend to shoot stuff without decent lighting anyways.
Or is this whole issue a characteristic of HDV itself? Do Z1 owners experience any crazy things in over-deatiled scenes?

[Barry_Green]

My undertsanding of Progressive is that it is a 'film-look' and so the loss in detail is what 'naturally' occurs in film?
No way, there's something haywire with the V1's progressive mode, and it affects the US version as well as the European version, and it affects 24p as well as 30p. Progressive doesn't have to be softer, look at the DVX: its progressive mode is 30% sharper than its interlaced mode. That's how it's supposed to be.

I'm sure that if you took that same scene and lit it differently, you may get different results
That does appear to be true about the V1 -- it doesn't always "oil paint" its progressive, it does appear to depend on the lighting conditions. Darker scenes, and especially using gain, can really bring out the "oil paint" effect.

Or is this whole issue a characteristic of HDV itself? Do Z1 owners experience any crazy things in over-deatiled scenes?
HDV does bring out some ringing and mosquito noise and blockiness in over-detailed scenes, especially with motion in them, but nothing like this. Look at the red shed scenes -- that's about the worst oil paint effect I've seen from the V1U, yet it's a totally static scene.

[philnerd]

No way, there's something haywire with the V1's progressive mode, and it affects the US version as well as the European version, and it affects 24p as well as 30p. Progressive doesn't have to be softer, look at the DVX: its progressive mode is 30% sharper than its interlaced mode. That's how it's supposed to be.<snip>

Well good luck convincing Steve Mullen of that.

Its a feature Barry, not a problem :)

[Barry_Green]

Not interested in "convincing" anyone of anything. I just want to see the issue explored competently, and either validated or disproven. And if there's a problem, solutions explored to see if it can be gotten around.

Now that I've had confirmation from someone with a US V1U who is also perhaps the most gifted and brilliant engineer I know of, whose knowledge in video exceeds anyone else on the planet, and who *never* brags about himself, I think we're in capable hands and a full report will hopefully be coming in the next few weeks.

It's certainly not a "feature", but the question is: is it truly a problem, and can it be minimized? Can it be worked around? When does it occur, and what circumstances cause it to fall apart? That's what I'm interested in, and I dare say that that's what the buyers and users are interested in.

[philnerd]

<snip>Now that I've had confirmation from someone with a US V1U who is also perhaps the most gifted and brilliant engineer I know of, whose knowledge in video exceeds anyone else on the planet, and who *never* brags about himself, I think we're in capable hands and a full report will hopefully be coming in the next few weeks.
<snip>

If you're talking about who I think you're talking about, that's great news and should definitely shed some light on this issue.

And I don't mean to rag on Steve, he's a super smart guy. I just happen to dissagree with him on V1 progressive performance.

[digiteye]

There is one funny thing. People who complain about the V1 are obviously those who actually had chosen the model over others.
It confirms either they are loyal to Sony or chose V1 for the features advertised (one major feature now is considered non-existant as being useless: p mode)

Now these people are kind of attacked by certain "experts" who try to prove there is no issue around, by posting nice looking shots against the horrible ones from the end users described above.
Problem is, the great looking pictures and challenging the existence of the issue comes from those who are in businesses built on having V1 prototypes on hand early (tutorial video, V1 book) - and the problem shots coming from real end users, who have no relationship with Sony whatsoever.
This is funny. And this situation requires clarification - in best case scenario straight from Sony.
As of today, Sony's strategy seems to be silence. First it looked like the problem exists only in their smaller markets (PAL), I wonder how this changes as US models also seems to have similar issue - even if in lesser extent.

In another forum one went as far as speculating why pre-production models had no problem, while production models had...

Is this part of a marketing strategy? Launch a single CMOS cam, then a 3CMOS 1/4 with minor PQ problem, then a 1/3 3CMOS with better PQ in the future? :Drogar-Angry(DBG):

[Fugitive]

It would be by far the worst strategy adopted by a camera manufacturer yet.