24/25F = Placebo effect?

Norbert

Norbert

Well-known member
Yes, this is another 24/25F-thread. I apologize for that. I was just thinking, have Canon specified the technology behind their F-modes? Many of you say it looks just as good as true progressive but don't you think it looks good just because we don't really know what Canon is doing? Like a placebo? Like, if you believe it's supposed to be good, it will actually be good.
How do we know 24/25F it's just not the same old frame mode from the XL1/XM1/XM2?

I agree it looks good and I couldn't tell it from true progressive and I could probably never tell frame mode from progressive either, but some of you say Canon has made use of some sort of new technology that's better than the old frame mode. How do we know this is true if Canon hasn't specified this new technology?
 
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From Canon. I'm not sure exactly when, but an explanation of F mode should be forthcoming.
 
I used to have a Gl2 and the pseudo progressive mode it had sucked when compared to the one on the new canon hd cams...from a visual point, that is.
 
Of course it sucked compared to the F-mode. Lets pretend its a simple field drop the new canon does.

Then we have 1440*1080 to 1440*540

With the GL2 their frame mode can yield about 360 lines of resolution. And thats a 4:3 image.

So then its 1440*540 vs 720*360 and thats exactly 3 times better in resolution.
 
Right, I forgot to mention that. Of course the new F-modes look better in HD because it's HD resolution. It wouldn't be fair to compare 24/25F HDV to DV in Frame mode.
It would be more fair to compare 4:3 DV @ 24/25F from Canon's HDV cameras to 4:3 DV @ Frame mode from a(n) XL1/GL1/GL2. Does 24/25F still yield much better results?
 
4x3 DV F mode is progressive and sharp. It's slightly better than the XL2's progressive mode. But the best SD from these cameras always comes from an HD downconvert.

Most of my work I deliver in DVD, and I have probably shot less than 5 hrs of DV with the XL-H1 since I've owned it.
 
Of course, silly me, I already knew that in SD it can be considered progressive. I guess there is no way to make a fair comparision, but I'm satisfied as long as 24/25F really is a new and much better technology. I kinda like the idea of it because it preserves light and keeps noise down as opposed to true progressive scan.
 
Norbert said:
...but I'm satisfied as long as 24/25F really is a new and much better technology. I kinda like the idea of it because it preserves light and keeps noise down as opposed to true progressive scan.
Click to expand...

That's one of the small, underappreciatd things about using an interlace chip for these cameras. It's pretty astounding that such a physically dense chip could have adequate sensitivity and acceptable noise characteristics in marginal light.

I've always said this--the F modes just plain work. On occasion in certain shooting situations you might need/want to tweak the picture to account for the way the picture is rendered in F mode.

For example: Shooting with the XH-A1 in NY at Times Square with a lot of bright, colorful neon signs--some with very thin diagonal lines--required that I take down sharpness, coring and horizontal detail frequency in order to not see a bit of twitter/aliasing on the finest of lines with saturated color. Thankfully with the amount of control the cameras have, I was able to get a VERY satisfactory HD image even in trouble areas.

The A1 is just an awesome little HD camera. I think it's a home run for Canon. It even has some extra features that I would love to see on the XL-H1--but I like being able to change the lens. (the new 6x WA is an AMAZING piece of glass)

It's an absolutely fantastic time to be in the market for a camcorder.
 
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