2nd day w/ JVC100 (the dead pixel day)

J

jdv

Well-known member
I'm gonna post my first week's worth of reactions to the JVC100 which I recieved a few days ago from EVS.

Well, the first day of testing went well, with everything fitting together, working as it should and then taking a very nice crisp picture.

Only one problem - there was clearly a dead pixel at the top of the picture.

No sweat, I thought, I'll ask those in the know and then I'll mask/clone it - thanks to Stephen and Tim - and you too Nate! :)
It was easy to do and now's there no dead pixel.

As side note, I didn't notice the dead pixel in either the viewfinder or the flip-out screen, I noticed it on a 50 in plasma screen (see my thread on this elsewhere). This only reinforced the idea that you MUST have some sort of monitor to view any kind of HD footage in my mind.

I also had to set the back focus of the lens (which we did w/ the siemans chart provided with the lens. This took about ten minutes, but was relatively painless. The lens, I feel, is actually a lot of bang for the buck and is sharp.

We then next programed in some of Tim Dashwood's scene recipes and saved them to the included memory card. This look longer to figure out, but still not a big deal (thanks to Tim).

Only one real disappointment - you can't assign these scenes to the three user buttons on the side of the camera - you can only assign various JVC presets or color bars. Maybe some firmware for this down the road.

OVERALL IMPRESSION: Day 2 and I'm still very happy I bought it. Continue to be impressed by how well thought out the camera is. And best of all -

STILL NO SPLIT SCREEN EFFECT! (thank goodness)
 
I think you mean Tim!

I've got some presets I roll with, but they're not different enough from what Tim has posted for me to make a big deal out of mine.
 
Sorry man! Changed post :)

By the way Nate, do you have a favorite scene set up? There are so many ways to alter the picture w/ the JVC it can be overwhelming....

John
 
Alright then. Camera Process:

Master Black: -1 (per Tim, and scope viewing on the 4/6 cam shootout last month)
Detail: -7 (I have slowly over the months gone lower and lower with this)
V/H Balance: Normal
H Freq: High
V Freq: High
Black: Stretch 3 (I arrived at this setting independent of Tim, but for the same reason; latitude conservation)

White Clip: 108% (per Tim. Just gives more room on the scope to wrangle highlights)
Knee: Manual, Level 80% (ditto above)
Motion Smooth: Off (I've only seen this be of use once, and it was in 30P)

Cinelike: Off
Color Matrix: Standard (This gives the most pleasing color rendition to me, very DVX like)
Gamma: Cinelike -1 (Again, per Tim. From his DVX matching work)
Color Gain: 3 (I like colors. Watch it with some subject matter though)

My biggest beefs with the default settings, and I feel that EVERYBODY should change, are the default detail, and the Cine color matrix settings. I think those two items are solely responsible for some of the more underwhelming images I've seen on the net.
 
Thanks for the recipe

Thanks for the recipe

nateweaver said:
Alright then. Camera Process:

Detail: -7 (I have slowly over the months gone lower and lower with this)
should change, are the default detail, and the Cine color matrix settings. I think those two items are solely responsible for some of the more underwhelming images I've seen on the net.
Click to expand...

What's your opinion on having the detail set to "min"?

I know's there's speculation that the 'min' setting has no detail and doesn't do anyother wierd funky camera tricks (which some of the other detail setting apparently do).

Thanks for your recipe! (I'll be stealing it :cheesy: tonite)

John
 
My camera came in today, we put it together and shot some quick tests outside.

Within two minutes of shooting, outside, however, the camera started beeping, low voltage, which means battery is low.

Fotunately when we brought the camera inside and took a look at the footage on my 42" HD Plasma, the stuff we shot of my son was stunning.

In my opinion it has a "Varicam" look to it.

I'm very happy with the camera, no dead pixels that I noticed yet. Hoping to shoot some more exterior tests today.

I can't wait to get the battery pack from JVC. The standard battery is pretty much unusable.

John or Stephen, if someone would email me the process for eliminating the dead pixels, I would appreciate it. Just in case.
 
Tom - I'm sure Stephen will send you the process - I promised to keep it secret :)

Any thing else about the camera that 'wows' you Tom? I know the image impresses me...

Much better than 16mm, probably as good as well shot super-16, wouldn't you say?

John
 
nateweaver said:
Alright then. Camera Process:
Click to expand...
Ditto, Nate. I just finished some tests on Monday and came to nearly the exact same settings. The only differences are I have Detail at "MINIMUM" and Color Gain at "NORMAL". Other than that, I find all the other settings make the best looking images.
 
Yeah, actually that's what we dialed in last nite as a matter of fact. Still I'd like to know more about what the sharpness settings really do...

John
 
Hi John,

I think that the thing that impresses me the most, still, about this camera, is the bang for the buck.

Out of the box, the images looked fantastic on my 42" HD Plasma. (and I haven't even played with the settings that can make it better)

Better yet, they look like film images, not video. JVC did a wonderful thing.

I showed, out of the box, some of the first stuff I shot to another film guy, and I said "as good as 16mm film?"

His response was, "at least."

Tom
 
Tom Chaney said:
I showed, out of the box, some of the first stuff I shot to another film guy, and I said "as good as 16mm film?"

His response was, "at least."

Tom
Click to expand...


Yeah, Tom, that was pretty much our opinion. And, IMHO, the JVC easily is the best bang-4-the-buck of the 'baby-4' cameras.

John

PS - Tom - have you figured out your editing solution yet?
 
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