*** DVXuser Exclusive! *** Canon G1 Footage and Stills! DV and HDV now online!

[TimurCivan]

was the gain way up? it lookd terrible, granted its not he best circumstances.

Correction:

after viewing in vegas:

The G1 fotage was still terrible. Peopel would have slaughtered a DVX for much less.

The H1 footage looked pretty good however. LESS noisy but still noisy. The vectorscopes and Waveforms said there was exposure al the way up to the mid 60's, and down to 0. So thats enough for the DSP to process. it shouldnt be this noisy unless the Gain is WAY up there. Even the Xl2 with 12db gain wasnt liek this. somethign is amiss.

We just need to wait for better footage from the camera once its shipped.

In the end that H1 footage looked the most ordinary H1 footage I have ever seen before, plenty of noise etc. Its unfortunate but that tells me that these clips arent giving me a solid story. As I said before with the stills these arent even showing the same quality as the consumer HC3 at my local sell all electric supermarket.

The HC3 actually puts out a Nice picture. the bigger model, the 1,400$ sony 1chip HDVcam, Puts out a GREAT! picture. thoes machines are surprising.

[epicedium]

Yeah, at least we know that it isn't just the A1 looking bad, the H1 didn't fare any better! So there's still hope ;) Definitely inconclusive.

[mikkowilson]

Yeah, those shots posted are VERY inconclusive and don't say anything tehcnically acurate. It will take a good side by side test in controlled conditions to determin how 'good' or 'bad' the cameras actually are. And then we'll need practiced operators in good conditions to show us what the cameras can produce.
I honestly think that they will fair similarly to the XL-H1 in most aspects. One thing that I am very pleased to see is the complete lack of any Chromatic abrasion. Granted those where with a wide angle lense & adapter, but still.

I took photographs of the LCD as I shot so I have camera settings logged, I will sit down when I get a chance and match camera settings to pictures by timecode. Then we will be able to at least make sence of this footage I have / posted.

- Mikko

[Kholi]

Thanks for doing this, Mikko. Valiant effort. It's awesome that you get to see it before most of us. =(

I am still going to wait until the camera is shipped and a few more tests show up. Seems that you wouldn't have had time to make sure that things were okay with settings and all.

Thanks again!

[TimurCivan]

How did tehy look on the monitors? were hey displaying Hifdef on the monitors?

[mikkowilson]

They looked prety darn allright punped out to HD monitors over HD-SDI.

My original posts about the cameras describes that in closer detail.


- Mikko

[Barry_Green]

Wow Mikko, nice job in getting an exclusive scoop! I've done this a couple of times, so I know what it's like.

That is not pleasant looking video. That is extremely disappointing looking video. The XLH1 looks like a RED compared to the G1.

So here's the question -- do you *have* to be furtive? When I got some of the first footage from the DVX back at WEVA 2002, I just asked the guys if it was okay to tape stuff and they said "sure". When I got some of the first footage from the HD100 at WEVA 2005 I just asked 'em if it would be okay to tape stuff, and they said "sure." I got the first 24F footage from the XLH1 at ResFest 2005 by asking the Canon reps "would it be okay if I recorded a little?"

So ask. If you ask them and they say it's okay, then you'll have much more freedom to experiment with settings and make sure you're drawing out a representative picture. Nobody expects it to be David Mullen caliber, but at least you would have the freedom to explore the menus and take your time to ensure that gain is at zero and focus is properly set, etc. And you may find that the reps will be exceptionally helpful, they were with me when I was getting early footage!

As for those hoping that this is unrepresentative because it's a preproduction model, that's not likely. They wouldn't be exhibiting it attached to a monitor if it wasn't representative of what the picture will look like; if the picture wasn't up to snuff they'd be showing a non-working model or they'd be showing it not connected to an HD monitor. But that doesn't mean Mikko's recorded footage is absolutely representative yet -- they may have fine-tuned the monitor output but somehow not certified the recorder yet, who knows? Maybe they're willing to show the analog output but aren't ready to show the recorded output? Although the very fact that the recorder is enabled would tend to disagree (for example, at NAB 2005 I tried to get HD100 footage but there was no actual recorder in the units, they were configured for live output only and even the menu settings were disabled; here at IBC 2006 that doesn't appear to be the case with the XH G1, they appear to be exhibiting a fully working unit).

Obviously everyone worldwide was expecting the footage to be a whole lot better than this. And everyone's disappointed. Some will say the camera itself is complete crap, others will point (perhaps rightly?) to the circumstances under which the footage was gathered. So I recommend taking a tape to the show and asking them, forthright, "do you mind if I record a little footage?" They'll probably say "yes". And I bet if you ask nicely enough, and if the booth isn't too overly crowded, they'll move an XLH1 over so you can do a side-by-side.

[Zim]

good idea Barry. There are a lot of people getting ready to dump money on this camera, some may have already on pre orders. Maybe not to late to get a refund.

[mikkowilson]

Asking permission? No kidding.

I will try tommorrow (the last day of the show) if I have time.

- Mikko

[Elton]

Mikko,

Do you have a laptop you can bring to the show? Try to record in 25F and 1080i HDV modes. I can point you towards some software that will allow you to capture the .m2t streams if they'll allow you to hook up a firewire cable to the cameras for a minute or two.

Please attempt the following:

Shoot HDV with the following enabled :

--Gain on zero or -3 dB
--Cinegamma 1 or 2 (on the H1 I like 2 better)
--Knee on medium or low (low smooths highlights a bit better)
--Black setting to medium (press will crush blacks and stretch will enhance noise)
--Edit!--DO NOT ALLOW ANY OF THE NOISE REDUCTION MODES TO BE ENABLED!! (in the XL-H1 menu they're called NR 1 and NR 2--I believe there might actually be a new NR mode on the XH cams) These will most likely soften the picture!

Everything else can be neutral or zero setting.

software on PC:

HDV capture: CapDVHS
http://www.videohelp.com/tools?tool=CapDVHS
Export: MPEG Streamclip
http://www.squared5.com

on the Mac:
HDV capture: DVHSCap (part of OSX 10.4 Developer Tools on installer CD)
http://developer.apple.com/hardwared...oad/index.html
HDVxDV (demo is free) http://www.hdvxdv.com/
Export: MPEG Streamclip (OS X version) http://www.squared5.com


If you could possibly post a few raw clips (.m2t's--you'll see them in your capture folder) they don't need to be any longer than 3 or 4 seconds to give a sense of the picture quality.

I'm sure all this would be more difficult to pull off than recording DV, but if you can it'd be great to see. I think most people are interested in how the HDV looks anyway.