New HMC Owner Requests Help - Defective Camera or Me Dumb?

the first day I looked at my 150 footage I thought it was a little noisy- until I realized the 42" Sony Bravia I was watching it on (via HDMI) had the sharpness setting turned up to 85%. After turning the sharpness off- strangely enough the footage got about 80% cleaner.

Make sure whatever monitor you use has the "sharpness" turned off or reduced to zero.
 
Barry_Green said:
If you're using "auto" mode, be aware that the camera by default can add up to 6dB of gain.

And DRS = noise. There's no free lunch, and if you put on the DRS feature you're going to get a noisier picture especially in the dark areas. DRS basically uses gain in the dark areas and a knee in the bright areas, so if DRS=on, you're probably getting gain applied throughout your image. Try DRS OFF.

DRS should be used when you need it, but not by default at all times. Just like gain.
Click to expand...
DRS Off, Changed the Automode gain to zero (shot in manual anyway).
Monday I contact panasonic as I think I simply have a duff camera.
 
Everts said:
On a JVC SD broadcast monitor /component out theire is almost no noise visible .
But once I hook it up to and HTDV @ 720 p through HDMI there is a noise pattern al over the image which as I mentioned earlier looks like a photoshop filter.
Click to expand...


I think you really need to try another HDTV. It's quite possible that one is set up incorrectly. Better yet, try an HD broadcast monitor.
 
strangways said:
I think you really need to try another HDTV. It's quite possible that one is set up incorrectly. Better yet, try an HD broadcast monitor.
Click to expand...

As soon as I have the green.

the first day I looked at my 150 footage I thought it was a little noisy- until I realized the 42" Sony Bravia I was watching it on (via HDMI) had the sharpness setting turned up to 85%. After turning the sharpness off- strangely enough the footage got about 80% cleaner.

Make sure whatever monitor you use has the "sharpness" turned off or reduced to zero

Edweirdo ,
thanks a bunch. It was already @ 0 but mine has a setting of +50 to -50 ,
but when I went all the way down to -46 the image became much cleaner I feel much better now . :beer::thumbup::kiss::dankk2:
 
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B&H finally shipped my order and I'm pretty psyched about the camera...wanna see for myself whether or not the things im reading in this particular thread is due to operator error or if its really the limitations of the cam. one question though, is that i thought the DRS feature was made to simulate deeper dynamic range...all comments sounded to it being a damn good feature and now you're saying it adds noise and its just like using gain.....:huh: whats goin on here?

Barry_Green said:
If you're using "auto" mode, be aware that the camera by default can add up to 6dB of gain.

And DRS = noise. There's no free lunch, and if you put on the DRS feature you're going to get a noisier picture especially in the dark areas. DRS basically uses gain in the dark areas and a knee in the bright areas, so if DRS=on, you're probably getting gain applied throughout your image. Try DRS OFF.

DRS should be used when you need it, but not by default at all times. Just like gain.
Click to expand...
 
and frankly all this speak about monitors and hdtv's causing grain sounds funny. seriously? computer monitors cause grain?? TVs are suddenly too sharp? why is it that i've never read such issues on a camera like the XHA1 or the EX1? TVs/LCDs cause grain on HMC150 footage only? i'm probably wrong, and somebody is probably gonna point out a thread where this is discussed but isnt this all kinda wierd?

maybe you guys should just take a few steps away from your HDTVs!!! :beer:

barry, we're all eager to read your hmc book!!!
 
ANTshooter said:
and frankly all this speak about monitors and hdtv's causing grain sounds funny. seriously? computer monitors cause grain?? TVs are suddenly too sharp? why is it that i've never read such issues on a camera like the XHA1 or the EX1? TVs/LCDs cause grain on HMC150 footage only? i'm probably wrong, and somebody is probably gonna point out a thread where this is discussed but isnt this all kinda wierd?

maybe you guys should just take a few steps away from your HDTVs!!! :beer:

barry, we're all eager to read your hmc book!!!
Click to expand...

That's what I thought at first until I tried it .Im still in shock that I hadnt thought of it earlier.
It turns out my HDTV , probably evry HDTV ,has some weird looking pattern
(photoshop filter I call it ) when the sharpess is turned on.
The camera is the only thing that I've ever connected to the HDMI input .
So it looked like some high resolution noise pattern. What The F right .
I shot some footage this afternoon played it back while I was reading Edweirdo's response, turned down the sharpeness some more and it looked pretty clean .Still some noise in the shadows and the blacks but alot cleaner .
Thanks again Weird Ed.
 
I post this as a "For what its worth" and with the disclaimer that this has been my experience. I like all of us recently bought an HMC150. As someone making the change or "re-tooling" to hi-def the shopping list is not so long, but fairly pricey. And though I am still reading and will continue to read which is the best bang for the buck monitor wise until I can justify one in the budget I bought what I am calling a "Client Monitor". It is a Samsung SyncMaster 2343 BW. 23" wide TFT-LCD monitor 2048x1152. I use an HDMI to DVI cable and after a bit of tweaking with bars....it looks damn good. It cost me $300.00 and I am very pleased with the image and felt it was good value since it will double as an edit monitor for my MacBook Pro 17.
I don't see any "Noise" etc. The image is remarkably clean and crisp with descent color rendition.
Brian
 
BrianMurphy said:
I post this as a "For what its worth" and with the disclaimer that this has been my experience. I like all of us recently bought an HMC150. As someone making the change or "re-tooling" to hi-def the shopping list is not so long, but fairly pricey. And though I am still reading and will continue to read which is the best bang for the buck monitor wise until I can justify one in the budget I bought what I am calling a "Client Monitor". It is a Samsung SyncMaster 2343 BW. 23" wide TFT-LCD monitor 2048x1152. I use an HDMI to DVI cable and after a bit of tweaking with bars....it looks damn good. It cost me $300.00 and I am very pleased with the image and felt it was good value since it will double as an edit monitor for my MacBook Pro 17.
I don't see any "Noise" etc. The image is remarkably clean and crisp with descent color rendition.
Brian
Click to expand...

Well, I'm not using an external monitor, I'm judging noise on what is contained in the actual output files. Right now they are very poor. So far I have not seen output form anyone else that ooks as bad as mine, athough it would be nice to see a full res frame capture with no fixups or size reduction for comparison.

I would love to get into an email chat with someone who has a good one so we could do direct comparisons and see if my camera is really bad.

Ideally I'd like to meet up with someone in Norfolk UK so we could do a side by side comparison using the same settings and actually see if they are the same.
 
When I had CS3 I could pull jpeg's right from the timeline but I have not been able to do it with Vegas 8 so I couldn't help you there but it almost seems as if you have some issue.
 
You do see this thread about monitors on the EX1 and the others. As discussed, an LCD does add to the perceived noise. I see it all the time on my Dell monitor. Noisy as hell and then at a friends house.. clean as ever.


personally I've only shot 720p footie with this cam and no DRS on. This camera IS WAY WAY WAY cleaner than the old HVX and I think as clean as any A1 stuff I've seen. I've compared this vida HDMI, component and on the comp and it's just a clean cam for sure... The colored noise that would be all over the HVX is NOT in this image..


I can give another example here.. When the HVX came out, and I know Barry remembers this... there were thread after thread slamming the noise on the camera. People complaining.. sending it back in.. calling for Jan's head and just being so darn upset... Then a few calming voices like Barry's and others, set out to explain the "sweet spot" on the HVX and we got to figuring it out... knowing how to make the most out of this camera.. and we did and have done that. You don't hear the bitching as much... sometimes you do, but only the uniniated.


Guys.. it'll take some time for you to get it right the way you want it.. Similar to the HVX and the DVX. If anyone is in Florida and having issues, I'd be happy to chat and meet up. I've been over the moon excited with this cam.. Right out the box its cleaner and smoother than I got from my tweaked HVX. I don't think you have faulty stuff... just what it is.


I'd say to try some 720 stuff... bring down the sharpness a bit... the master ped and have a good time shooting something with a lot of range. The noise if it is there.. is a lot less distracting than anything out of the HVX.
 
MrFluffy posted an image on the first page, and said "The noise is ghastly"
It looks pretty good to me, and other people from the sounds of it. The thing is - I know my monitor is properly calibrated.

If anyone with a properly calibrated monitor takes that image into an image editor and really boosts the blacks or the midtones (gamma) it will show ghastly noise.

I've seen this before, people looking at images on computer monitors or TVs where the blacks or midtones are too high, and the noise in the dark areas (which is normal) gets terribly exaggerated.

In the image he posted, the TV screen, speakers, chair, footstool, and Playstation controller look perfectly black to me. If they look gray, the noise will look way more prevalent.

If you don't have another HDTV, find a friend with one, or take your camera to a store that'll let you plug into their display sets.
 
strangways said:
MrFluffy posted an image on the first page, and said "The noise is ghastly"
It looks pretty good to me, and other people from the sounds of it.
Click to expand...

Maybe thats all I need to know. My basis for comparison comes from still photography and some samples downloaded from here. If other camera users think that the image is failry representative then ok. But then stop saying its practically noiseless as it most certainly is not noisless.

The only place I dont see noise is the blacks.
 
ANTshooter said:
and frankly all this speak about monitors and hdtv's causing grain sounds funny. seriously? computer monitors cause grain?? TVs are suddenly too sharp? why is it that i've never read such issues on a camera like the XHA1 or the EX1? TVs/LCDs cause grain on HMC150 footage only? i'm probably wrong, and somebody is probably gonna point out a thread where this is discussed but isnt this all kinda wierd?

maybe you guys should just take a few steps away from your HDTVs!!! :beer:

barry, we're all eager to read your hmc book!!!
Click to expand...

I wonder what role the "Comb Filter" circuits and other image processing have in cleaning images on the LCD and Plasma screens? I don't know if these filters are in-line with the HDMI and Component inputs. But if they are ....
Anyone know?
Brian
 
Ok I want to put this to rest so I made a test clip at 1080/25p, using the default F1 scene file, shooting a (printed) Macbeth chart. Exposure was set to, just, stop showing zebras.

The file is here:
http://www.freekstorm.com/dload/private-1080p24.zip

If anyone wants to take a look and tell me if they think its noisy I would appreciate it. I think its very noisy. I'm viewing using the Panasonic viewer on a colour calibrated LCD monitor (at 1920x1200).
 
Default F1 Is pretty much as neutral as you can get:
Syncro Scan - 1/48
Detail Level - 0
V Detail Level - 0
Detail Coring - 0
Chroma Level - 0
Chroma Phase - 0
Color Temp ach - 0
Color Temp bch - 0
Master Ped - 0
A Iris Level - 0
DRS - Off
Gamma - HD Normal
Knee – Auto
Matrix – Normal 1
Skin Tone DTL - Off


There is a greater amount of noise than I've seen normally.
It's uneven too, if that makes sense....
 
BrianMurphy said:
I downloaded it and opened it in FC and it is Noisy. What were your camera settings?
Click to expand...

1080/25p
F3.5 (just to the point the zebras did not show)
Manual Focus
ND off
Gain-L
White balanced for a white card
All othersettings factory default.
 
Dealer says its normal, but they dont have another one with which to compare.
So Ive emailed panasonic directly to see if I can get any feedback from them.
 
MrFluffy said:
Dealer says its normal, but they dont have another one with which to compare.
So Ive emailed panasonic directly to see if I can get any feedback from them.
Click to expand...


I downloaded the clip and I would expect the same results if you had used my camera or anybodyelses.
I believe this camera is light hungry . Try a lower iris setting .Dont worry too much about the zebra's .Im not saying to overexpose . But just open up the iris a bit more.
I still havent gotten it " Canon XHA1 clean " which cost USD 2999 now btw, but after resetting the camera its been less noisier.
Give it more light .I dont believe your camera is broken.
 
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