2K Projector Tests with HVX

Drew599

Drew599

Veteran
I did a little test today with a Christy 2K digital projector and my HVX. I have been very impressed with the camera so far. But now I'm just blown away at how amazing this camera really is.

The tests consisted of the some of the footage that I've shown here. The slow-mo skateboarding and the rifle being fired. I also threw in some footage from a near by Metro station at night using only available light. That footage was shot with the gain at around 6-12db. There was noise in the stuff that had almost no light. But I've seen worse with some super 16mm stuff. All of the footage looked amazing. It was very sharp and I didn't see any banding or micro-blocking.

The only complaint that I have is going from FCP to the HVX. I would like to be able to record in 24pn but it only lets you record in either 24p or 60p out to the HVX. Both of which eat up the space on the P2 cards rather quickly. Maybe the next version of FCP will solve this.

I'm hoping to do some more tests when I get some footage of a short I'm going to start shooting. All in all I was very impressed with how the footage looked up on a 30' screen.
 
Drew599 said:
I did a little test today with a Christy 2K digital projector and my HVX. I have been very impressed with the camera so far. But now I'm just blown away at how amazing this camera really is.

The tests consisted of the some of the footage that I've shown here. The slow-mo skateboarding and the rifle being fired. I also threw in some footage from a near by Metro station at night using only available light. That footage was shot with the gain at around 6-12db. There was noise in the stuff that had almost no light. But I've seen worse with some super 16mm stuff. All of the footage looked amazing. It was very sharp and I didn't see any banding or micro-blocking.

The only complaint that I have is going from FCP to the HVX. I would like to be able to record in 24pn but it only lets you record in either 24p or 60p out to the HVX. Both of which eat up the space on the P2 cards rather quickly. Maybe the next version of FCP will solve this.

I'm hoping to do some more tests when I get some footage of a short I'm going to start shooting. All in all I was very impressed with how the footage looked up on a 30' screen.
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You shot 720p or 1080p? Duh, never mind that! You wouldn't be talking 24pn if you weren't shooting 720p!......Right? :)
 
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Yes, 720p. It would be interesting to see how 1080i footage would look. But from what I saw the 720p footage looked very good.
 
Drew599 said:
I would like to be able to record in 24pn but it only lets you record in either 24p or 60p out to the HVX.
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This because there is really no real 720p24 SMPTE standard so FCP, and I would assume most other NLEs, conform your 720p24 footage to the 720p60 SMPTE standard by adding a form of 3:2 pulldown. It's just like editing 24p SD stuff in FCP, the 24p footage is conformed to the NTSC standard of 29.97. If you wanted a 24p movie to go back out to a P2 card (which is what I think you're doing or want to do) you could export a self contained quciktime movie to a data DVD, hard disk, or perhaps back to a p2 card, but I'm not sure how that last one would work. Then, on the other end, you would need the playback device to accept/playback 720p24 media, without adding pulldown. When you monitor 720p24 footage out of FCP you are actually watching 720p60. If you play out of the camera (whether it be firewire, or out of the analog component) you are watching 720p60 i.e. 720p24 with the pulldown.

Make sense?

Jeremy
 
That is great news. 30' and looking good. Sweet. How did you play it back? Did you use the camera? That is the impression I get. Has anyone dubbed to and HD deck yet?
 
I used the camera as the deck. I just pluged straight into the Cine-IPM(the input) for the projector and it came up with out having to mess with it too much. The camera is good just to see how things would turn out. But for showing finished product I wouldn't use it for that.
 
I was kind of told to keep it on the down low. But it was at the place that Walt guy built. You know the guy that made that talking mouse and stuff.
 
Drew599 said:
I did a little test today with a Christy 2K digital projector and my HVX. I have been very impressed with the camera so far. But now I'm just blown away at how amazing this camera really is.
Click to expand...
That's great Drew. By 2007 in the UK there is going to be 220 digital screens with the Christy 2k projector so it's good to know that it handles HVX material very well. Then again a friend of mine projected VX2000 material straight from the camcorder on miniDV tape (just through analogue phono outs) through the Christy and he said the projector 'processed' it to look better than the original footage. So I expected it to look pretty good. Nice to have the confirmation though.
 
Granted it's totally subjective on your part, but a lot of the concern from people about image quality ultimately comes from a worry about how it would look on the big screen. So to hear your comments is comforting.

Not that I'm planning to get anything on the big screen... yet. :-)
 
Booth, that would be great if the UK got 220 digital screens up by next year. I know some chains around in the US are waiting for the 4K Sony to come out. Or more the studios are waiting because their going to be the ones footing the bill on this. I don't know why they are waiting on the 4K projector. I've seen some bits and pieces of tests and I wasn't blown away. 2K would be just fine for most of the moive going public.
 
The studios should be the ones footing the bill for these things. They're the ones who save all the money in distribution, not the theater owners.
 
Jeffyjones, I know that its just my opinion on how the image looked up on the screen. What I would really like to do is organize a HVX/DVX user meeting over at one of the Burbank studios so everyone in this area could see what I saw. I could get a little bit of a deal on a theater but not for free.
 
Drew599 said:
What I would really like to do is organize a HVX/DVX user meeting over at one of the Burbank studios so everyone in this area could see what I saw.
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I'd be there. The more the merrier (and cheaper). :Drogar-BigGrin(DBG)
 
Good news. I have a good friend who works directly for christie. He's a coordinator in the change over. He tole me that they have 2300 screens or theaters.. to convert over. He's been working for them for a while.. and he also told me that they are looking for experience projectionists or inexperience people with video and/or audio visual background to hire fulltime with benefits for their travelling installation team. The pay is pretty good with some serious development possibliitis...

Just thought it would be good to add that here. If anyone is interested in contacting my buddy at Christies send me a pm and I'll forward you the info. They are looking for immediate people and I think it sounds like a good gig IF... you are single, without kids and looking to travel. I'm out on all counts...
 
Right now I'm in the process of doing research for buliding an HD player out of a G5 so I could hook it up to a 2K digital projector and show stuff that way. I'm sure that any of the HVX matterial could be loaded on to one of the many QuBit players floating around the studios. But it would be better to have it so the clips could be organized easier, on a QuBit it isn't easy. Personally I would like to use FCP to run the footage.

This way all people would need to bring would be a USB or Firewire drive with their clips on it during setup and load it up onto the one of the SATA drives in the G5. Its a way that would be cheaper than going out to D5 or HDCAM.

But that's what I would like to do if there was going to be a HVX/DVX user meeting at one of the Burbank studios.
 
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