Panasonic unveiled G1-HD...

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Eddy Robinson said:
You can tell from a fuzzy shot where the LCD display of the gh1 is waving around relative to the lens of the main camera?
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Yes. It's obvious. Can't everyone see it? Look at the background as he pans it between objects to focus on, there's major slanting going on. Look at the background at around 0:37.

While it isn't enough to put the question to rest, it's grounds for cautious optimism.
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Why? Every single rolling shutter camera has the same issues, and they will continue to have. Every new camera it seems like people hope and pray that it'll be different, and they always get their hopes dashed.

The footage shows skew. The final product most likely will as well. But hey, if you want to hope otherwise, feel free to I guess.
 
Barry_Green said:
Yes. It's obvious. Can't everyone see it? Look at the background as he pans it between objects to focus on, there's major slanting going on. Look at the background at around 0:37.
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I really can't tell how much skew is on the LCD and how much is a result of the gh1 itself moving around in front of the camera. The most 'bendy' vertical I see in the thing is around 0:17, but again, it's going through so many layers of a/d/a conversion I don't see how one can draw a solid conclusion.

Why? Every single rolling shutter camera has the same issues, and they will continue to have. Every new camera it seems like people hope and pray that it'll be different, and they always get their hopes dashed.
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Well, the speed with with the data is read out from the sensor is a factor too.
 
then we're just arguing semantics at this point. i've panned up and down and never had any vertical skew on the d90, however, if i pan left and right it displays skew rather horribly. if i shake the camera, it just looks like "jello". where the an hv20 or red doesn't have "jello", just mainly skew.
 
it's not semantics, it's reality. you never saw it because it's harder to see, but at high frequencies it becomes obvious. let's call jello "fast skew" then if you will. it's the exact same thing that happens with all rolling shutter cameras only to various degrees. if there's skew there's jello, if there's a lot of skew there's a lot of jello, if there's little there's little. they are 100% connected and you can't have one without the other and you can't have more or less of either relative to the other.

/matt
 
Barry_Green said:
Why? Every single rolling shutter camera has the same issues, and they will continue to have. Every new camera it seems like people hope and pray that it'll be different, and they always get their hopes dashed.
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Is it not a case of how much skew though? Even from that short clip... people can be optimistic that the skew is vastly improved over the d90.

The 5DII showed very little skew when the first clips started to appear .... surely that was a reason for the canon users to get (justifiably) optimistic?
 
Car3o said:
then we're just arguing semantics at this point. i've panned up and down and never had any vertical skew on the d90, however, if i pan left and right it displays skew rather horribly. if i shake the camera, it just looks like "jello". where the an hv20 or red doesn't have "jello", just mainly skew.
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The HV20 most definitely has jello, it was the original "jellocam". Look at Russ Andersson's helicopter footage for the original "jello" footage.

Skew is a shearing from horizontal movement. The same thing happens in the vertical, but it results in something other than the image leaning; instead the image stretches or scrunches. If you put all that together (stretching, scrunching, and leaning) you get "jello".

Helicopter footage from HV20: http://www.ssontech.com/content/skool.mov
 
stockfuel said:
Is it not a case of how much skew though? Even from that short clip... people can be optimistic that the skew is vastly improved over the d90.

The 5DII showed very little skew when the first clips started to appear .... surely that was a reason for the canon users to get (justifiably) optimistic?
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We'll see, obviously. Zoom setting and frame rate have a big effect on how much skew there is. We had people flatly denying that the EX1 had any skew whatsoever, and then we had Dan Brockett posting clips that showed massive skew from an EX1. It's all about the relative magnification of the object, and the frame rate.

Shutter read/reset time does have an effect as well, of course. But I guess all I'm saying is: it's gonna skew, we can see already that it does, and all CMOS cameras on the market today skew. That's just the way it is. Some might do it worse than others, that's true, so if there's room for optimism it might be that you hope it'll skew like a professional video camera and not like an HV20, but either way it's still going to have it. The only question mark possible is "to what degree"? As in, will you find it acceptable?

Someone at a trade show should get their hands on one and do a skew-off against a D90 so people can quantify it.
 
Boring Audio Issue

Boring Audio Issue

Sorry to interrupt with a boring audio related post. Looking at the sample clip on the bottom right of the birds by some water: http://panasonic.net/avc/lumix/systemcamera/gms/gh1/movie.html

It sounds like a space ship is landing just behind them. I am thinking the audio levels are automatic which was a major problem with the 5DII. It will drive you crazy trying to do interviews or any quiet sounds. The camera will pump up the levels in a quiet environment until it sounds like your in a sandstorm. The only work around is the external recorder, which starts to get ridiculous when a good quality one might be bigger than the actual camera and then all the sync issues in post.

Honestly I hope I'm wrong and the audio is manual, but even if it is I dont see any headphone socket to monitor it. The absence of sound on most of the clips also is worrying. It will be sad if its true because otherwise this could be the perfect documenatry makers run and gun solo camera.


Why is it no-one seems to be asking any questions about audio or cares? :crybaby:
 
you're right, the hv20 does have "jello" but you're comparing it in a helicopter. the d90 looks like that when you're walking on a memory foam mattress. i'm sure the gh1 will have "jello" under harsh circumstances like if you put it in a dryer. my idea of jello is not panning left or right and seeing skew, but rather, when you walk the image looks like well "jello" and it's not very visible in the ex1 or red or hv30 and 5dII.
 
jamesmallonuk said:
Why is it no-one seems to be asking any questions about audio or cares? :crybaby:
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Because it's about as good as it's going to get on a camera of this size.

First, the noise on the clip you mention is due to excessive compression. I'd bet money that it was recorded from the built-in mic rather than the external one; not sure whether it has the 'wind rumble' turned off or not (a low pass filter) but I would never expect anything other than tinny transistor noise from an onboard mic like that.

Second, the option to plug in an external microphone is a good compromise. The little stereo one with the hot-shoe adapter offered by Panasonic is, dare I say it, cute. On the downside, it requires external microphones to be 'Dolby compatible - so no feeding it from a mixer. You can get decent and affordable mics besides the Panasonic one, but I'm fairly sure the point of this decision was to drive accessory sales. I'm sure the Panasonic mic isn't fantastic, but it's probably average, which these days means quite good. I bet someone will offer a box to convert incoming line signals (ie from a mixer) before long.

Third, OK, so we have to consider external recording solutions, oh noes. Well, I do have a DAT recorder which is a giant brick that's bigger than 3 of these cameras...but I'd suggest a ~$300 Zoom H4/H4n which will do a great job, including allowing you to plug in expensive condenser mics. You can of course spend a lot more, but the H4 is very good and very compact. The new one records BWF, which means a timestamp in the audio metadata.

Fourth, If you're doing anything serious, you should be using an external mixer of some kind anyway. Nobody in their right mind trusts the camera for onboard mixing, any camera. This is why I'm not too worried about whether it has automatic gain control or not, though I suspect not. I mean seriously, you plan adjust focus manually AND manage two dials to adjust the audio level in real time? No, I didn't think so.

Fifth, but you'll have to sync it all up with an external recorder! Oh noes! Well, put on your big boy/girl pants and sync it up then. IT AIN'T THAT HARD. Frankly, I am constantly amazed at how video shooters paint this as some sort of epic struggle. Did you know that film cameras don't record sound at all? Yes, everything ever shot on film has been synced up in post! That's one of the main reasons to use a slate ($50-$60 for a basic one at any film equipment retailer). If you have a lot of money, you can shoot with a timecode slate and pay lab about $150/hour extra to automagically match up the audio in telecine, but most indie films do it by hand.

(Protip: you can also just point the camera at the display of the audio recorder or hold the recorder up in front of the camera before each shot. Bingo - you've got a frame-accurate timestamp reference for picture and sound. Don't worry so much about timecode issues - modern digital clocks and NLE software are so accurate that sync is a non-issue as long as you plan and do a few tests in pre-production.)

I've done it for a few features and more shorts than I can count. Sure, it's kinda boring. It can take a whole week or longer to do for a feature. Fortunately, nowadays you don't have to listen to/watch it all play back in real time as you capture from DAT or miniDV tape, youc an just hook up the USB port and copy the files, saving many hours of work.

Really. Double-system is a lot simpler than most people realize, and you'll get better results in most cases. As an audio guy myself, I view the onboard audio of this camera as a handy bonus - to be frank, I wouldn't care that much if it were just mono or had no external input, as I'd just go back to using a slate or similar.
 
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Car3o said:
you're right, the hv20 does have "jello" but you're comparing it in a helicopter. the d90 looks like that when you're walking on a memory foam mattress. i'm sure the gh1 will have "jello" under harsh circumstances like if you put it in a dryer. my idea of jello is not panning left or right and seeing skew, but rather, when you walk the image looks like well "jello" and it's not very visible in the ex1 or red or hv30 and 5dII.
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I believe (correct me if I'm wrong please) that the jello effect on the D90 has something to do with possibly a slower sampling rate of the CMOS sensor combined with the slow 24P frame rate?

Could explain why the jello effect is not as pronounced on the 5DMK2 footage (30P instead of 24P)?
 
Audio

Audio

Cheers Eddy I appreciate your answer. your right the sync issue is not a big problem at all. I guess though I am coming it as someone wanting to produce documentaries as a man man crew.

I would debate that no one in their right mind would use the onboard camera mix, look at James Longley the director of 'Iraq In Fragments' who was nominated for an Oscar who has posted on this forum and recorded all audio from the DVX100a. The documenatry is noted for its excellent use of sound.

The bottom line is if I was shooting a movie or a documantary with a large crew then who cares about the audio on the camera, but trying to make yourslef blend in to the backgroud as you shot documentary footage is tricky with an external recorder. It can be done though Its not ideal.
 
ScrollLock said:
Thanks for the links!

Unfortunately there seems to be an exposure issue. When you look closely at the background of the 2nd and 3rd scene in movie_b for example you can see it "jumping in brightness" a few times.

Hope this is due to pre-production firmware and will be fixed -- or hopefully can be worked-around by locking exposure at the begin of a shot.

again, thanks for posting! ScrollLock
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Your Welcome.

Most of the time they shoot this stuff in auto mode for the marketing demos, that might possibly be the reason for the fluctuations. The camera does allow full manual control, which is such a slap in the face to Canon for not doing the same on the 5d MII. As for skew, Cmos/Mos do it, some worse, some less. The HPX-300 / PMW-EX1 does skew and jellovision in telephoto. For some reason tele exacerbates the issue. Same with Red, 5D etc. The G1 looks to be on par or maybe better than the Canon 5D in this respect. Of course those clips are hardly a good example to form any concrete opinion. S0 we must wait for further analysis.......

Michael Pappas
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jamesmallonuk said:
I would debate that no one in their right mind would use the onboard camera mix, look at James Longley the director of 'Iraq In Fragments' who was nominated for an Oscar who has posted on this forum and recorded all audio from the DVX100a. The documenatry is noted for its excellent use of sound.
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Totally - it remains to be seen how the acessory mic performs on GH1 (or more specifically, what happens to the audio once it's in the camera). One upside is that I noticed it records at 48khz so there are gounds for optimism.

I was thinking more of narrative work where you have a floating boom and wireless mics coming in, and the expectations are a lot higher than for documentary, where you can set a safe level and leave it there. For narrative I ride the gain on the mixer a lot because you might have an actor go from whispering to shouting n one scene but it all has to sound smooth.
 
Looking at this video news piece on the GH1. I noticed in the background on the large plasma or LCD screens is the footage that is the posted clips on the web site. Did anyone go to PMA , and just happen to watch these to report how it looked...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiFRYQeowcw&fmt=18

The 8 minute news piece is on the GH1 exclusively, which the reporter at the end stands in front of a large screen of HD footage from the camera.....



Michael Pappas
http://www.pbase.com/Arrfilms
http://www.Myspace.com/PappasArts
http://www.facebook.com/people/Michael-Pappas/573417404
Arrfilms@hotmail.com
http://www.PappasArts.com
CONTACT VIA AOL INSTANT MESSENGER
AT { PAPPASARTS2 }
 
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so,does it record continuous video or it has a video recording time limit? because of its form, it could be nice for guerilla works. just hang it on your neck and no body will suspect that you are filming. cool :)
 
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