Plaster City Digital Post HDI Screening/Seminar (3/15 & 3/16)

Here's the thing -- the signal is processed internally at 1080p. All processing, all scanning, all DSP operations, everything is done at 1080p.

When it's recorded, that's when the decision to downrez is made. Color will be identical, highlight handling will be identical, everything will be identical, the question is only one of how big will the recorded frame be and how much resolution will be retained? 1080 recording retains more than 720 does.

The main advantage to 720 is the recording time on the cards, and the lower processor requirements when working with the footage in post.
 
Thats what I thought. But there seemed to be some very different opinions at PCDP. That's why I'd like to test more.
 
evinsky said:
provided the artifacts some have mentioned can be mitigated by shooting techique.
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That artifact problem in 1080 is what worries me. Pappas came on here on that bizarre thread that I'm sure Barry remembers (threatening a lawsuit against Panasonic, etc.), but he did mention the artifact problem cited by the Plaster City staff.

Evin, if (or when) you or Barry think the problem is real and have ideas on how to avoid it, I'd really like to hear your updated thoughts. Thanks to both of you for sharing your thoughts so far on 720 v. 1080.
 
One thing to mention is that Illya and Co. shot all that footage on a Version 4 beta camera. It's possible that the production cameras do not suffer from the same problem.
I have only noticed one aberation in super blown highlighs so far, and that involved a camera flash going off directly into the lens. Two frames after the flash a strange turquoise splotch appeard for a single frame. but that was shot in 720.
 
Since we shot no 1080 footage, the artifacts in question didn't come from our Version 4 cam/project.

PCDP has been working with other people who have been shooting with the HVX (including a Academy Award winning director, who's name they didn't drop in the seminar I attended. I guess they're keeping it on the DL.) It's must be from one of the other clients.
 
I have been testing out the 1080 mode very methodically. I do not see any artifacts. Except for the short time on the cards I see no drawback to using the 1080 mode. I Have processed the footage through both FCP and Raylight. The Raylight footage actually looks cleaner, less noise. I have looked at footage directly from my 17" PB to three different monitors. The Raylight footage was played through two of those monitors and two others including a 52" DLP. I was hard pressd to find anything wrong with 1080p or 1080 24pA. Raylight was the only software that could deal with the 2:3:3:2 pulldown of 24pA. Don't know how Edius or Avid handle that.
 
Avid doesn't at all, Edius appears to support it fine but I need more testing with it.

I haven't found any reason to not use 1080. It just looks better than 720. If you can afford the recording time on the cards, 1080 is just plain better.

Once the FireStore comes out you may see a migration to 1080; definitely 720pN is preferable on the 4gb cards! Even so, both modes can peacefully co-exist; the resolution difference is small enough that I'm sure uprezzed variable-frame-rate 720 would work perfectly well in a 1080 project.
 
The exciting thing about the 2K screening for me was that it obliterated any and all doubts about the HVX's ability to make a good-looking movie for theatrical.

I'm curious as to the exact circumstances involved in the problems the Plastercity guys apparently had working with 1080. There seems to be two very different views here-- both from very knowledgeable sources. Michael Cioni, the Operations Manager at PCDP advised the group at Moviola to avoid 1080 (for filmout) like the plague... he was quite adamant about it. I'd love to get details on his experiences, since his observations seem to directly contradict Barry's, who has thus far seen no problems whatsoever with 1080.
 
R Gale said:
Michael Cioni, the Operations Manager at PCDP advised the group at Moviola to avoid 1080 (for filmout) like the plague... he was quite adamant about it.
Click to expand...

Anyone know if Cioni is still at Plaster City? I can't find any info. on him at their site, but I'm probably not searching deep enough.
 
I'd wager it had more to do with 1080i and interlaced acquisition. Neither FCP nor Avid let you edit the HVX's 1080/24p yet. And when Jarred did the "Munich" shots, those guys also chose 720, and they said it was because of the interlace frames in 1080.

But if you properly remove the pulldown, 1080 is better than 720 in all ways.
 
From what I recall, Michael's big beef has to do with blowout artifacts in 1080i mode. The word catastrophic came up regarding it but I still don't know if anyone else has witnessed what they may have personally seen. They also seemed to think that the dsp is internally up rezzing to 1080 rather than the other way around and said that they prefer using their own better uprezzing method in post which gives better results.

Now these guys at plaster city are very knowledge and do have experience working with the HVX in post. Whatever they have to say can be taken with all seriousness and investigated. I do hope Evin get's to work closely with these guys and reconcile any differences in observations.
 
Well, first, it sure would be nice to know what they're referencing, becuae I haven't seen any blowout artifacts of any type.

Second, the camera doesn't up-rez anything. It scans the CCD at 1080, and downrezzes from there, and that's coming straight from the manufacturer. If they wanted to up-rez 720 to 1080, they'd be dealing with an image that was scanned at 1080, downrezzed to 720, and then re-uprezzed to 1080. If they can get better results doing that rather than just sticking with 1080, that'd be interesting to see. In any case there will need to be a final up-rez done, from 1280x1080 to 1920x1080. But it just stands to reason that you'll be better off starting from 1280x1080 than you would from downrezzed 960x720.
 
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