HMC150 questions answered...

MikeGunter said:
Hi all,

Does anyone have any green screen footage (even quickly put together) they could post?

It would be much appreciated. Thanks.
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Mike, What are your thoughts on using this came for keying? It's light years better than anything I've ever tried to key.

Kurtmo
 
kurtmo said:
Mike, What are your thoughts on using this came for keying? It's light years better than anything I've ever tried to key.

Kurtmo
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Hi Kurtmo,

I played around with it last night and this morning. I think it's great. I didn't do a lot with it (I don't have a lot to do a lot with ;-) ), but from the clips you provided, and from the things I saw, it does look to be very nice.

Mr. Green can (if he wishes), or someone with more knowledge can jump in, but my guess is that the 4x4 microblocks have something to do with the keying looking better.

It's always seemed to me that PAL DV and HDV have keyed better than NTSC DV and I've attributed that to 4:2:0 over NTSC 4:1:1 color space. The 4:2:0 isn't leaps and bounds better, just a little better. Others who have tried DV and HDV chroma keying can chime in and yea or nay that, but I think "all things considered," the 4:2:0 is a little better than 4:1:1. PAL DV edges out NTSC DV in that regard.

You only have to key DVCPro once to know what kind of experience that is - it's just awesome. The keys can be made to look absolutely realistic with careful lighting. We finished a comedian's demo reel done entirely in green screen in our basement this Winter here in Kalispell. It was to send to various booking agents. It looked terrific, sounded great, and you couldn't tell if it was done on a sound stage or Mike's basement (which is sort of a mini-sound stage and classroom, but that's another story).

We do some training DVDs where the look doesn't have to be real but I'd like it to be, for the lack a a better phrase, not false, and I think the HMC150 can do that. NTSC DV can't. HDV can't do it that well either.

Some NLE's like Edius and Matrox assisted Premiere work in difference color spaces. Edius uses 4:2:2 and Matrox uses 4:4:4. Naturally, their keying is spot on, but I don't use their products.

I keyed in Vegas 8.0b, 8.0c (native AVCHD), and in Premiere CS3 with the Panasonic Main Concept DVCPro converter. The key was perfect in Premiere. It was pretty good in Vegas, but not quite the same. Remember 4:2:0 vice 4:2:2, it likely won't be quite as good, even thought the source material is the same. Premiere has more capability to work with higher quality color space.

I'm also going to own up that I don't do as much keying in Vegas, so I might not be the sharpest tool in the shed. The key was pretty good in Vegas, but in Premiere, it was perfect.
 
Great info Mike, and as Barry has pointed out, 4:2:2 can be captured through the HDMI port of the HMC150 with the right setup.
 
johnnyha said:
Great info Mike, and as Barry has pointed out, 4:2:2 can be captured through the HDMI port of the HMC150 with the right setup.
Click to expand...

Hi,

Yes, and BTW, for anyone who has the skinny on this; what is the cable run on HDMI from camera to device? If one were to run a cable from the camera to a Blackmagic card in a desktop what is a good run distance?

Thanks.
 
Long HDMI cables

Long HDMI cables

MikeGunter said:
Hi,

Yes, and BTW, for anyone who has the skinny on this; what is the cable run on HDMI from camera to device? If one were to run a cable from the camera to a Blackmagic card in a desktop what is a good run distance?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Mike, great info - thanks! Mid-sentence I was about to run out and by Premiere and abandon Vegas. I'm so fickle and always think the grass is greener, it's annoying.

Good question about length, I poked around and came up with this:
http://www.lenexpo-electronics.com/DVI-HDMI-Cables-Over-70-ft-p-1-c-367.html

A little pricey, but based on what sounds like a 'fixed' setup in your basement, it might be a nice option if you can't, or don't want to, move things around.

If that's not long enough, you might want to poke around and see if you can run this stuff over cat 5/6 - I did that a while back in a theater with a video signal, it was pretty cool.
 
I did my keying in After Effects 7. I render out of Vegas into Lagarith lossless, then do some keying. i would be interested in seeing how the edges compare to a DVCPROHD image out of HPX170 or a 200. With the image size actually full raster HD on the 150 versus the 950x720 (I think that's the aspect ratio) of the 170/200 I'm wondering if the keying is closer to equivolent. Either way, the footage I got would be no trouble to key and if I deliver SD, it should look amazing.

kurtmo
 
Hi Kurtmo,

Here is a sample of the key in Premiere quick and dirty.
hmc150sample.jpg

I think it is pretty clean.

It has been reduced 40%, corrected for pixel aspect ratio, and compressed to 60% of size for web transmission - nothing else.

I should note that the foreground, the keyed element is DVCPro from the conversion software and the background is HDV that I converted using TMPGEnc. So it is mixed format content from two different sources.

My best.

Mike
hmc150sample.jpg
 
great Mike, imagine if it is that good, with some color correcting and spill supression would be perfect. (I still remember my first greenscreen project with a small handycam.......those were though days, rotoscoping ruled over the dark greenscreen empire.....).
 
Hi Scott,

A little pricey, but based on what sounds like a 'fixed' setup in your basement, it might be a nice option if you can't, or don't want to, move things around.
Click to expand...
Very little is "fixed". Our classes are small and often customized to suit the needs of our clients. I end up rebuilding that part of the room couple of times a month while classes are in session. It isn't a real chore.

There is a Resources FAQ that says the optimum length is 10 meters which is okay with me I should be able to rig a 30 ft line to the camera to the desktop for our needs.

I'm pretty convinced that the HMC150 will fit nicely into our kit with the HVX200 for now. I'm looking to sell it later (not too much later) and get the 170 (or not if the HMC150 does all the heavy lifting).
 
Mike,

Did you try keying the 1080 versus 720. Could you tell if one was better than the other? I couldn't perceive much difference.

Kurtmo
 
Hi Kurt,

If there was, I would likely attribute it to operator error on my part. It just looks good to me.

Here is a quick sample of 720.

hmc150_720.jpg


The particular frame isn't so good, but really, the footage is great.

Whether for good or bad I've convinced myself that the camera is my Halloween or Veterans' Day or Thanksgiving Day or whatever day gift to me.

I've been having a ball with a Canon HF10. Terrific little camera for just about everything. Taking the HMC150 with green screen for production work will be a boon.
 
Going back to the issue of keying, I remembered I had some photos showing the different color sampling for keying.

The first is a 10x zoom, looking at DV25 on a green screen. Notice how the limited color samples 4:1:1 causes problems to find the edge:

DV25-Green.jpg



The next example is 4:2:2 color shown 10x size. Notice how the color edge is so much cleaner.

DV50-Green_Zoom.jpg



Sorry, but I don't have any 4:2:0 green screen examples.

If I remember correctly, Barry Green shot these images on an HVX-200 and I just zoomed into the image to better show the detail.


Bob Diaz
 
Evro said:
"I also found this on the Panasonic Australia web page:
http://panasonic.com.au/products/information.cfm?detailsID=453&contextID=4728

"It supports a full range of HD formats including 1080/60i, 1080/50i, 1080/30p, 1080/25p, 1080/24p native; 720/60p, 720/50p, 720/30p, 720/25p, 720/24p native; and it is 50Hz/59.94Hz switchable."

It's a bout time we had 24P available to us in PAL land - this could certainly explain why the PAL model costs around $1,000 more!!

But then I've searched through the downloadable user's manual for the PAL model and it says nothing about 50/60Hz operation... Rob & Barry any idea, could the manual be wrong??
Click to expand...


Hi Evro,

Sorry that press release is incorrect. The 152 that ships in Australia is 50Hz only. If you talk to the Dealers I'm sure you find the $ difference between the 150 and 152 is a lot less than $1,000.
 
Thanks for clearing that up Rob - oh well I'll have to keep using my JVC for 24P & Telecine work.

Regarding the price of the 152 I found myself a pretty good deal through DVT in Sydney that's pretty close to the going price in the USA :) Only problem is that he doesn't know when he'll have the cameras in stock :(. Rob please do what you can to get these cameras out there :)

THANKS!!
 
Hey Bob,

Thanks for those grabs.

The DVCPro's green screen's chroma key is always nice. I need to do more keying in Vegas. Like I said, we don't, for the majority of our training material, make a realistic key, just a talking head over a computer screen, perhaps. I just don't want a green 'halo'.

Of course, when we're wrapping a briefing tape for the Army and doing that occasional realistic key in which someone is making a small commentary of their unit's duty in Iraq, when he's really at Ft Hood, that sure goes a long way to convince me that I've made the right choice.

The overall performance features of the HMC150/HPX170/HVX200 family are really standouts.
 
With the focus assist tools(enlarge and focus graph), I've been able to get very crisp focus...as long as I remember to use them (it's hard to remember things like that when you're excited about your new cam!).
 
The HMC150's AVCHD far exceeds HDV quality and theoretically could be sharper than the hpx's dvcprohd. Hopefully we will see a faceoff review soon!
 
Intrepid Media said:
This camera is good, but it doesn't compare to the HPX in my opinion, because your pushing all those HD images through a low quality cheaper CODEC. it's comparable to HDV
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AVCCam isn't exactly a "low quality, cheaper" codec

Granted, DVCProHD is 4:2:2 and Intraframe, but for some of us that's not a big deal or issue. DVCProHD also has a max resolution of 1280x1080/960x720. AVCCam far exceeds that, as well as HDV's 1440x1080.

From what I've seen, I honestly wouldn't have a problem stacking an image from this camera against an HPX. It's as much shooter as camera.

There are a lot of other great features that come with the HPX, but those come with a price. And P2 ain't cheap. It's like comparing a really nice sedan with a really nice sports car. The sports car is superior... until you need to get groceries. Or haul people around. Or get it fixed.

Bang for the buck... for me... the HPX simply doesn't justify it's price. For you, maybe. For someone else, sure. But for what I need, and what the HMC can produce, it's a far superior camera.
 
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