Very good HVX vs HD100 article

booth said:
1080 IS superior, not by a massive amount, but if I had to shoot something for cinema theatres I'd go with 1080p .........
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It should be superior with the HVX if only because 720p DVCProHD has a horizontal luminance resolution of 960, and the 960 pixel shifted chips of the HVX should be capable of delivering more than that.

But I have to say that absolute ....resolution....is ...not....everything. If I had to pick one killer advantage of the HVX over the HD100 it would probably be that the latter only does 25p in High Definition mode, not 50p. If I had to pick one killer advantage of the HD100 over the HVX it would be handheld ergonomics. (And I've not heard a single voice dispute that, so far.) But if you actually wanted the 24/25fps look (as most on this board seem to), and did 95%+ of your work on the tripod, then neither of these would seem anything like killer advantages to you. Similar arguments apply to P2 being a curse or a blessing.

The trouble with doing any article such as is being discussed here is that it is impossible to cover every eventuality, every comparison, and resolution really is only one aspect of a very complicated equation. The highest resolving camera may not necessarily look the best. And how do you equate a camera which maintains 100% MTF right up to x with another whose absolute resolution exceeds x, but whose MTF starts to tail off way before that of the first camera? Which do you think will look the best?

1080p/25 and the HVX (is it not 1080psf/25?) may well give a resolution advantage over 720p/50, but to me the resolution gain is not worth the drop from 50fps to 25fps - a REAL advantage the HVX has over the HD100. To others the gain may be. But things are often far more complicated and interleaved than they first seem.
 
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LearningVideo said:
You are completely missing the point here. We are discussing a particuar article that for either clear bias, or clear ignorance of the cameras ignored to perform the REAL TEST that compares HVX with HD100.




t.
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you want me to conform my posts to what you think I should be posting about. so it's really not worth it.

having said that, if the hvx produces its best image at 1080, then that's what the hvx should have been set at.
 
KingsReign said:
I was leaning to the HD100 for the past few weeks as I am about to take the plung and buy one of these, but the Barry article really may have swayed me the other way.
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You're planning on overexposing explosions a lot? I've shot a number of night things with the HD-100 and it's happier between 2.8 and F4 - Barry was at 1.4. That's overexposing the highlights for that camera AND it's the softest part of the lens for any camera. Plus you're looking at 1/24 of a second in a still. That Vegas footage is totally misleading.

Trust me - TEST FOR YOURSELF these cameras and don't be swayed by a post here or there by anyone INCLUDING ME.

This website is Panasonic home field and Barry gets checks from Panasonic as a consultant. To be fair Chris Hurd at dvinfo.net is paid by Canon as a consultant - so it's not like that's wrong or anything - but it's nice to know who's buttering who's bread before you start taking what you read as gospel.

Jan mentioned earlier she thought Walter had an agenda. Well... it's worth considering when you're reading ANYTHING.

harddrive said:
"but it breaks up badly on excessive movement, doesn't it?" He set out to test it to breaking point, and to a certain extent succeeded - you could see artifacting on still grabs - but AT NORMAL SPEED they became insignificant compared to all the blur of the motion. At the end his reaction was "is THAT what the fuss about HDV is about!?"
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That was my conclusion. You just simply can't see anything breaking up at 24 fps in 99.99% of the situations you might be shooting in. I tried smoke, water, motion, lighting matches... it's such a non issue.

What's a real issue TO ME was the HVX noise shadow noise. Blacks are great... but man, try to do some really moody scene by candlelight and china ball FORGET IT.

Not so with the HD-100. It's a pretty decent low light performer.

So I finally sold my HVX and bought the HD-100 after owning the HVX for 2 months and testing both cameras very thoroughly. The far superior HD-100 focusing system, over all ergonomics and the poor low light thing sunk the HVX for me. It was just easier for me to shoot. But I'm coming from 35mm shooting and not the DVX. A DVX lover should love the HVX ergonomics I would think.

I'm sleeping with a smile on my face now. But when RED arrives... well I won't be sleeping with just a smile.
 
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joelnet said:
You're planning on overexposing explosions a lot? I've shot a number of night things with the HD-100 and it's happier between 2.8 and F4 - Barry was at 1.4. That's overexposing the highlights for that camera AND it's the softest part of the lens for any camera. Plus you're looking at 1/24 of a second in a still. That Vegas footage is totally misleading.

Trust me - TEST FOR YOURSELF these cameras and don't be swayed by a post here or there by anyone INCLUDING ME.
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where did u get that f-stop info for vegas footage?
 
redindian said:
where did u get that info?
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You mean Barry's exposure? He posted it in his article. To his credit he posted that he shot both cameras wide open. I posted back to him that it looked overexposed (which it is) and he replied "it was dark, I had to shoot wide open, it would have been pointless to shoot any other way".

I quickly called a DP friend and said "You're shooting an explosion or maybe streetlights and night, what's your exposure?" He said F4 or F5.6. Now I've shot both cameras side by side in low light and the HD-100 shows more detail at the same exposure.

The HD-100 is faster wide open. I've noticed pretty drastic differences in one or two stops when shooting low light. You really have to experiment with each scene.

To get something like Sirens right you'd have to try a few different F-Stops. I can't imagine the noise on Barry's actually MOVING footage from the HVX is very pleasing. He was at +7 detail at night with an HVX.

Hmmm... a still is probably as good as it gets. Whereas HDV artifacting a still is the WORST that it gets. Expose fire properly on the HD-100 and it looks fine even if there was artifacting cause it's moving so dang fast.
 
Oddly enough, the thing that bothered me most about buying my HvX200 was suspicion of the P2 cost and workflow. Now, I can say that after using it a good bit, I have fallen in love with it as my favorite feature. But maybe it is because I make constant use of my P2 Store, which doesn't seem to have caught on for some reason...

I rigged a belt-strap arrangement for the store, and it has become a total workflow problem solver used wtih my Avid.

Look, ma! No deck! (And now that Avid studio is releasing its new Avid DVD with blu Ray out for a free upgrade on 5.x dongle systems, the holes are finally patched up (at least in one method).
 
TwoHatCat said:
I make constant use of my P2 Store, which doesn't seem to have caught on for some reason...
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It's probably the cost. If the camera came with a free one then I think there would be A LOT more people excited about it.

Right now you have to say to yourself... get a new light kit, or P2 Store, or laptop or "add $2k of on screen production value"?
 
joelnet said:
It's probably the cost. If the camera came with a free one then I think there would be A LOT more people excited about it.

Right now you have to say to yourself... get a new light kit, or P2 Store, or laptop or "add $2k of on screen production value"?
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that's why I think the HVX is perhaps more fairly compared to the canon or the forthcoming jvc HD250, the hvx in actual fact occupies a different price point.
 
joelnet said:
You're planning on overexposing explosions a lot? I've shot a number of night things with the HD-100 and it's happier between 2.8 and F4 - Barry was at 1.4. That's overexposing the highlights for that camera AND it's the softest part of the lens for any camera. Plus you're looking at 1/24 of a second in a still. That Vegas footage is totally misleading.

Trust me - TEST FOR YOURSELF these cameras and don't be swayed by a post here or there by anyone INCLUDING ME.

This website is Panasonic home field and Barry gets checks from Panasonic as a consultant. To be fair Chris Hurd at dvinfo.net is paid by Canon as a consultant - so it's not like that's wrong or anything - but it's nice to know who's buttering who's bread before you start taking what you read as gospel.

Jan mentioned earlier she thought Walter had an agenda. Well... it's worth considering when you're reading ANYTHING.
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I will not be shooting explosions and have thought about this. An authorized dealer near me is giving me a demo on the HD100 today, and I am going into B&H later as well, so I will test it as much as possible.

A few months ago I was in the market for a DVX100B, and opted to save up and wait for HD. I remember seeeing the JVC, and loving it, but I didn't give it too much though as I didn't plan on buying it.

My concern really lies with how dated will the cameras become. The HD100 is already getting "outdone" by the HD200, but I really don't need 60P, except for possible overcranking. I am going to have this camera for a few years, so I want something that will last.

I heard that the HVX200 is getting a firmware upgrade to 1080/60P and the Native settings as well in that mode? Is that true?
 
TwoHatCat said:
I have fallen in love with it as my favorite feature. But maybe it is because I make constant use of my P2 Store, which doesn't seem to have caught on for some reason...
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Yes it has, we are as back ordered on those as we are on the cameras and the cards,

Glad you are loving your camera.

Best,

Jan
 
I still do not know why the HD100 does not show more artifacting than the HVX. I mean, why fill up 100 MBit, if 25 do it?
 
Pascal_Parvex said:
I mean, why fill up 100 MBit, if 25 do it?
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Because it makes for far easier coding, and (especially) ease in the edit process. That's what is really inherent about an I frame only codec - NOT necessarily any quality issue. But it comes at the expense of a higher data rate, 4x in this case, so if you able to record HDV to P2 it would give 4x the running rate. Which is better? Horses for courses. Neither is "better", one is more suitable is some circumstances, and vice versa.

Think of it like packing your camera gear in a car. If you were super efficient, you may get it all into an average car and not need a van. Fine - it may be an advantage to be in a smaller vehicle, and you've got exactly the same equipment after all. But what about when you want that box that's now right at the back and have to unload EVERYTHING to get it?
 
joelnet said:
You're planning on overexposing explosions a lot? I've shot a number of night things with the HD-100 and it's happier between 2.8 and F4 - Barry was at 1.4. That's overexposing the highlights for that camera AND it's the softest part of the lens for any camera. Plus you're looking at 1/24 of a second in a still. That Vegas footage is totally misleading.

This website is Panasonic home field and Barry gets checks from Panasonic as a consultant. To be fair Chris Hurd at dvinfo.net is paid by Canon as a consultant - so it's not like that's wrong or anything - but it's nice to know who's buttering who's bread before you start taking what you read as gospel.

Jan mentioned earlier she thought Walter had an agenda. Well... it's worth considering when you're reading ANYTHING.
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Since I see that you did not attempt to address the clear arguments against Walter's article, you response can be summarized as follows:

"Maybe Walter's article is unfair, but also Barry's article is not fair either and is clearly biased"

To this, I have several questions for you:

First:

I have looked personally at the Barry's stills and there is at least one OBVIOUS conclusion: HVX footage are superiour due to the higher color resolution. In my mind this fits the numbers of 4.2.2 verses 4.2.0

Are you suggesting that this (due to at least color resolution) superiority of HVX stills in Barry's test are due to Barry's intentional use of 1.4 on the HD100?

Could a value between 2.8 and F4 give better color resolution than 1.4?

Second:

And furthermore, you are arguing that Barry should have used other values IN THAT CIRCUMSTANCE and then he would have received BETTER results overall from the HD100.

Barry explained that he had to use these values because the situation demanded that he uses them. Are you then suggesting that if the JVC is pushed to perform outside of its comfort zone it could not match the performance of HVX?

Third:
But the most curious statement is the following:

joelnet said:
Plus you're looking at 1/24 of a second in a still.
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Are you suggesting that JVC does not perform as well as HVX in 24P?

So what shall we conclude? Shall we conclude logically from your posts that when it comes to 24P, color resolution, non-ideal conditions, HVX performs better?
 
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LearningVideo said:
Third:
But the most curious statement is the following:



Are you suggesting that JVC does not perform as well as HVX in 24P?

So what shall we conclude? Shall we conclude logically from your posts that when it comes to 24P, color resolution, non-ideal conditions, HVX performs better?
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I believe he's saying what others are saying: we use these cameras to record full motion video, not stills--what is problematic in a still may be no problem at all once the entire clip is played.
 
brian,

But that's not the point, the point is why the HVX is not displaying the problems of JVC in the same stills of 24P?

Remember, we are comparing two cameras. Giving excuses for JVC is not acceptable WHEN HVX is able to perform in the SAME conditions.

This is the fair kind of test. Not to compare what is similar, but to see how they are different.
 
Also it is all relative. You could have recorded that same footage on the JVC with a barebone setup that can be had at B&H for $5099 with a free bag.

To do any of that with the HVX you would need the HVX with at least a P2 card or a laptop or some device added onto the base price. If you could get the HVX with a P2 card for $5700 (a NAB special I believe) you'd be spending 600 bucks more and still have no case. You could record for almost 11 minutes and then you'd be done. The extra quality comes at a cost premium and a runtime premium.

The JVC could record for an hour on a $10 tape (if the battery held up).

Like it has been said before these cameras are really in a different price bracket when you look at the whole enchilada. Does the HVX seem to create a better image? It seems to albeit in my mind a little softer but more colorful. But it comes at a price.

What I think people fail to appreciate is that the JVC is basically a mini-ENG camera at the $5000 price point that shoots HD. That is a big accomplishment....expecially since anything other than a true manual lens sucks!

Of course....I own the HVX.... but I can really appreciate the "other" side of the fence. What the HVX is lacking is what I see in the JVC. What the JVC is lacking I see in the HVX. Why can't we just get a real manual lens? I don't care if it is fixed....just do it right!

End of useless diatribe.

Peace.
 
I think you guys should try the little baby on the left here, the Kodak Fun Saver!! You get true 18P film like quality with 8 minutes of running time. The color rendition is FABULOUS. And the noise level is pretty acceptable if you use 40 ASA stock. The exposure settings are clearly marked on the front for ease of use (Bright Sun, Hazy, Cloudy etc) and you never have to worry about batteries. I hear they are still having issues with audio, however...
 
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