HMC150 questions answered...

[drdimento]

here is a 1920x1080 bmp frame grab from one of the videomaker clips, deinterlaced by nero . . . one of those videomaker clips looks like it's way out of focus, and they all look kind of overexposed on my crt monitor: . . PICTURE . .

We just did a bicycle race about two weeks ago and had a similiar shot on HDV in similiar lighting and are getting the CF's here tommorow and are going to look to see if the operator was running when the bikes went through and if so we'll have an almsot side by side shot to evaluate. What bothers my editor is the greenry. If you zoom even just a little it almost has that same edge look of distant SD.

Anyone else notice that? Or are we missing something? It doesn't look like a focus issue.

 

[kurtmo]

Anyone else get this error trying to transcode using panny's tool?

Edit: Got it! I tried to move the files instead of transcoding right out of the stream folder.

BTW: Transcoding the lowlight files took about a half minute or less.

 

[Barry_Green]

For my immediate needs, I'm thinking of classical recitals - from soloists to orchestras - on wood stages with a fair amount of grain/detailing. No super-fast camerawork, but likely some slow panning across very-high-detail scenes (i.e., orchestras), and some zooming (to closeups of performers' hands, etc.). We'd want fairly good detail of performers' actions, of course... lighting is ample, tending towards the high-contrast.

Do you NEED the 6mbps rate then? Zooming is one of the things that long-GOP codecs don't like. Zooming, and color changes, stuff like that. If you can get by with the 13mbps version you'll probably be better off, but ... hmmm... I can't think of any circumstance like what you're detailing that I could go out and grab right now or in the next couple of days, but... I'll think about it. My initial reaction would be that you'd probably be asking too much of 6mbps for those purposes.

Also, if you'r really bored, and have a chance to line-in some high-dynamic-range classical music, with a decent amount of headroom, I'd love to check out the resulting audio!

What, just from a CD? I don't know what I've got here, I'm sure I can scrounge up some Star Wars soundtracks or Holst's "The Planets" or something like that; tell me what you'd want to hear.

 

[drdimento]

If you want to look at the AVCHD material and work with it straight out of the box (file folder) just download an Edius trial for FREE and open the Bin and just right click and say "add a file" and it will instantly see the material. The low light one is the one we are studying the closest. It is this one that will be of the most value to us.

However - - as always - - our biggest concern with the HMC150 will be the solid-state part with no back up. We did just discover something this afternoon in the Avid section that has blown us out of the water though and that is that Avid's 2D filter will extrapolate an image via resizing and for crying out loud it looks HD. How can this be? The edges are soft but it's absolutely amazing. One of the forum guys came up with it and it's pretty darn fab!

EDIT: BTW, don't be in a hurry because it will take Edius a little time to work the material so I suggest ADD a file then wait awhile, then do it again (#2) and so on. Multiclicking them in or get in a rush and ur puter just might lock up. Our 3.0 GHz dual core hyper threaded xeons x 2 don't like it but processes it and is very very very reminiscent of DVCProHD native editing type loading on our cores. No question that HDV runs through our 4 Gb ram machines with 512mb ATI cards a lot easier and we can edit while rendering but not so with AVCHD. Some might say "you just need a hotter computer" but in our book what we have is pretty darn hot that is unless one renders it out to something else like we used to do with P2 but then is that what is wanted or what has to be to make it work? And if modified into something else to work with it (i.e. DVCProHD100 rendered to an MPEG2 codec) then what's the difference in just going with an easier codec to start with? It was this decision that lead us to FCP that just renders to QT )

Same deal, just a different label or wrapper.

 

[Barry_Green]

If you were shooting well lit scenes with slow to medium camera movement in PH mode would you get better results in 720 24p or 1080 24p?

Depends on what you mean by "better results". The 1080 will be a little sharper, but the 720 is going to be almost as sharp and less compressed.

The difference between 1080 and 720 isn't as much on the HMC150 as it is on the HVX200, largely because the codec on the 150 doesn't prefilter. There will be some more detail in the 1080 version than in the 720 version, but not as much difference as in the HVX. And, unlike the HVX, the codec efficiencies are more in favor of 720 mode than 1080 mode on this camera (since the bitrate is the same; encoding fewer pixels in the same bandwidth is going to make for more efficient compression).

I haven't done an exhaustive comparison between 1080 and 720 on the HMC150 but my initial impression is that 720/24p is definitely the "sweet spot" and 720/60p looks just awesome. 1080 will be sharper, and if you're in controlled circumstances it would be the better choice, but for most things I'd say you're going to get 90% of the performance from 720p mode and a more robust codec.

Would it look as good as an HVX 200a in 1080 24p?

HVX is still going to have twice the color resolution in its recording. They'll have comparable levels of detail; HVX will have about 1400x810, HMC150 will have about 1280x720, so -- really, they'll be pretty close. But the HVX200A and HPX170 are still shooting intraframe 4:2:2 so the advantage is on their side.

 

[Barry_Green]

That's awesome but is the difference in colour space apparent? I remember when hdv came out you pretty much proved it can be.

Yes, that's not only a possibility, but when shooting 1080/60i it's going to be a definite advantage for the HVX/HPX.

60i or 50i 4:2:0 is hideous and should be outlawed. Progressive 4:2:0 is much better. Neither will match 4:2:2 no matter how you slice it. But in interlaced, 4:2:0 is the debbil.

I'll have to see if I can find time to do some comparative chroma keys in 1080 mode so you can see how much of a difference there may be between them.

 

[Barry_Green]

Will there finally be any firmware upgrade to make it possible to switch between NTSC/PAL?

Great question, and no answer for you. I doubt it; we got it on the 170 as a factory upgrade but they've given no indication that they're even considering it for the 150. But, hey, I'll ask...

 

[ilauzirika]

Two more questions......
Have you tried the hdmi out? which is your opinion on the audio side of the camera?

Thanks for all the info you'd given us.

 

[drdimento]

Barry, are you using Edius 4 or Broadcast to view the AVCHD? Also, have you tried running it through ProCoder3? We tried but ProCoder3 won't see it but the small coder that came with Broadcast does. What the ???

Also, do u know if anyone tried it in PPcs3? Even our Studio 11 says "hello" to the material but we don't have the BRD on that machine and trying to figure out how to get it over to either Avid Liquid, Edius Broadcast or FCP by "file output" out of Studio. What format should we come out to do the transfer and not affect the video enhancements? .avi? or ???

 

[Barry_Green]

Two more questions......
Have you tried the hdmi out?

HDMI is HDMI, so it's a digital uncompressed 1920x1080 signal. Looks like an HVX's HD-SDI. I haven't tried to scope it or anything, but it sure looks good.

which is your opinion on the audio side of the camera?

Identical to the HVX and HPX170. Only difference is that it uses AC-3 compression instead of uncompressed PCM, and it's two channels instead of four. I'll try Ullanta's suggestion here hopefully soon and post some recorded AC-3 files demuxed from the MTS.

 

[Barry_Green]

Barry, are you using Edius 4 or Broadcast to view the AVCHD?

Broadcast 4.61.

Also, have you tried running it through ProCoder3? We tried but ProCoder3 won't see it but the small coder that came with Broadcast does. What the ???

No, but once it's been converted to HQ you can use it in any of the EDIUS applications.

Also, do u know if anyone tried it in PPcs3?

PH mode doesn't work in CS3 3.1, but I'd bet a dollar that it'll work in CS4.

Even our Studio 11 says "hello" to the material but we don't have the BRD on that machine

BRD, as in blu-ray disc? You should be able to burn the raw .mts files directly onto a blu-ray disc and play them on your blu-ray player. blu-ray players support AVC-HD files.

What format should we come out to do the transfer and not affect the video enhancements? .avi? or ???

You want the highest quality conversion you can get, obviously; either uncompressed AVI (which would be HUGE) or use the Canopus converter to go to HQ if you're going to EDIUS.

 

[Barry_Green]

Footage files are up due to the generous server donation by Jason Adams.

http://www.dreamoncreative.com/~dvxuser/

As of this moment, 00095 is still uploading and says it has a couple of hours to go, but the rest of the files should be downloadable.

 

[dcloud]

how does the workflow go on worst case scenarios (no edius or canopus)?

 

[Bucknfl]

As a freelance cameraman I shoot alot of formats yet I still have alot of clients that request the dvx100b because they are not comfortable with P2. Mostly I hand off a tape at the end of the day. I think I can sell them on the 150 workflow, just hand them a card.

Will using pro res in final cut be about the same amount of time as digitizing tape?

 

[avenue]

frustrated

frustrated

So what are my option for converting on a mac? I can't do it in FCP studio 1 so I think I may only have the option of FCP2? Panasonic should make a converter for macs that suks on their part big time!!!!! maybe once it's released they'll will have something going for us MAC users.....

 

[Jim Wiseman]

Thanks for uploading the files Barry. They don't seem to be accessible with the FCP 6.04 Log and Transfer window. They seem to want the whole directory structure of the card. I get a Warning:

"Blank (folder or file) contains an invalid directory structure. Please choose a folder whose directory structure matches supported media.

Any ideas other than uploading the cards whole directory with associated files? The Videomaker files were in that format and imported without a problem, but I would much rather see your footage!

 

[rmmskatemedia]

yeah I'm wondering about the mac situation too. So let me get this straight. If I have fcp6 I'm ok???? or is that just to work with avchd. Do you think fcp will make an update for avchd??? I'm just slightly confused on the whole fcp and the hmc.

Also How much wider is the lens than say the dvx???? Is it wider than the hvx? I'm wondering this for the purpose of some century lenses I have, and whether I will get a good deal of vingetting. Also, how is it as far as the body is concerned? Yes I'm just as concerned about the codec and picture as everyone else, but my whole purpose for buying this camera would be for a secondary to my hvx, so is it worth buying for its size? as far as being more managable, and less conspicuous looking?


also, is there anywhere to preorder the cam???


Sorry for all of the questions.

 

[Barry_Green]

how does the workflow go on worst case scenarios (no edius or canopus)?

Every major NLE manufacturer has said they're going to support AVC-HD. As to when they get around to launching proper support, that's up to them. Remember that it was 2.5 years before Avid even supported JVC's HDV entirely, and it was about 6 months before Apple and Avid supported 1080 HDV at all.

I expect that we'll have proper AVC-HD support from all the "A" companies (Avid, Apple, Adobe) in their next releases (i.e., FCS 3, Adobe CS4, and whatever Avid introduces next).

 

[Barry_Green]

Will using pro res in final cut be about the same amount of time as digitizing tape?

Depends on your system. On a dual-core laptop I can convert 60 seconds of footage in 40 seconds. On an Octo-Mac I would expect that you should be able to do a minute in 10 seconds, but I'm not a Mac user so I can't answer that for you.

 

[drdimento]

As a freelance cameraman I shoot alot of formats yet I still have alot of clients that request the dvx100b because they are not comfortable with P2. Mostly I hand off a tape at the end of the day. . . . Will using pro res in final cut be about the same amount of time as digitizing tape?

It is this whole issue that has prevented us from getting a lot of the Pittsburgh market freelance material . . solid state only. The only projects we were able to land that we didn't deliver the finished product (we call shoot and ship) were rock videos where they don't really care if the video worked or not because it is a song only or B roll for marketing or training material that is for illustration/marketing. In other words, both scenarios are NOT critical applications.

For ALL our mission critical applications all our clients REQUIRE tape. Thus, when faced with the P2 720 @ 24pN issue and no codec for our NLE we simply evaluated our reasons for the WHY P2 at all and came up with if we could find a tape solution (even be it HDV) and our clients were satisfied, then so be it and lower our manpower requirements on location (no data transfer person running around with a laptop and hard drive) and when we rented two different HDV cameras and put the material on DVD and BRD and put the material in front of 11 of our largest clients each having at least two or more people in the viewing process the result was that only twice were they able to distinguish the HVX from the HDV cameras and even those two both said, ". . I can't really see any real difference other than just maybe and this is only maybe the one is maybe richer in color but I'm not sure."

Thus, why go to all the heartache if ya don't have too and that's when we discovered a camera that recorded to both HDV tape - - AND - - Compact Flash at the same time. To this end, we have the second of four arriving tomorrow afternoon for our second in a series of three shoots that are HD where the client said ". . . we want a tape, otherwise we'll get someone else" and that was the 8th request of this nature this year, the others we had to rent a camera.

Thus, we now have solid-state (CF) AND tape (miniDV - HDV). Thus our configs are:

SD PROJECTS: Panasonic DVX100B x 3 per unit
HD PROJECTS: Sony HVR-Z7U x 1 per unit

Thus each of our two field units at the moment will have 1 HD camera with a removable lens and Compact Flash AND tape recording PLUS 3 SD cameras that record to tape.

The HMC150 we are looking at closely but will have to be convinced that there is marked reason to go that route and the footage I've seen thus far from the D/L's isn't jumping off the walls and shouting "I'm markedly better than HDV" to me. I'm going to show it to our clients over the next two days (before Friday) but that bicycle shot looks more like the DVX100B to us and I am certain that our HDV material would look at least as good and probably more definition on the foalage in the background even with the mild pan. I know when the CF's come in from our bicycle tour shoot from two weeks ago will prove that.

So, we agree on the solid-state only and our clients prove it also by demanding some form of tape OR at the least that we deliver on HDD and that we keep two copies on hand until they have received the drive and digested it. This latter is one major hassle. HMC150 material of couse would take up a lot less space.