Beta testing the HD DVX100A !!

They are about to miss the boat once it sails with the HVX on board :)

Tethering sucks for how I like to shoot. Is anyone else suspicious of those pics on their website. They seem to improve the latitude of the CCDs somehow????? :undecided
 
No, I can assure you the pics on the site are legitimate. The improvement in latitude comes from the decreased compression. Compression has a strong tendecy to do that - happens to me all the time when I make DVDs and it pisses me off.

I think the benefit of this over the HVX would be the complete lack of compression. No artifacts for the big screen. That and the 4:4:4 which is an effects artists dream :D.

Still, I'd have a tough time deciding... 4:4:4 to disk or 4:2:2 to P2?
 
Shaw said:
The improvement in latitude comes from the decreased compression.
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I used to think that, too. Here's what I did. I downloaded the frames from their
website and recompressed them as 48k JPEG's. Here are the results:

vegas1.jpg

Originally the "RAW UNCOMPRESSED HD" Andromeda output

vegas2.jpg

Originally the "DV TAPE" recorded signal

The only conclusion I can draw is they are rating the camera at a different ASA value for Andromeda pre-DSP exposure and as a result the DV Tape is overexposed. The fact is the camera will look very different at the same exposure pre and post internal camera processing and side by side comparisons are skewed in their favor. Images on the DVX are never that blown out unless the shot is clearly overexposed.

Shaw said:
Still, I'd have a tough time deciding... 4:4:4 to disk or 4:2:2 to P2?
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Me, too. That's why I think this system should be included in the camera shootout against the AG-HVX200 for comparison. They would do well showing the benefits of 4:4:4 vs. 4:2:2 in a side by side comparison.

Frankly, there's no other way to tell.
 
I completely agree with your assessment :). I'd definitely love to see this included in the comparison as well. Especially since I'm not 100% convinced that their debayering process is good enough. Barry, are you signed up to be a beta tester or? I seem to remember you saying something about this.
 
Shaw said:
...Especially since I'm not 100% convinced that their debayering process is good enough.
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Good point. Funny how the aspect ratios don't match, either.

Shaw--I'm glad you're posting here again. Missed ya, man. Feel the DVXuser love!! :thumbsup:
 
That was the picture (well 2 pictures) that lit up my inbuilt BS detector.

I would like to know the full story behind it.

When people do stuff like that, I think, well if you have to mislead to sell your item, it must be crap!
 
Well, it's more complicated than that. Panasonic has done something which should set of your "BS detector" as well. They've advertised sensetivity of f11 at 2000 lux. Also, dvx footage is notoriously grainy, even with gain off. Why? The DSP does a lot of automatic gain to enhance the sensetivity, thus the dvx images are much more overexposed then the "raw" ones. If both were exposed correctly, certainly the difference in lattitude would be far less pronounced, but the fact remains that when the dvx's ccds see what the andromeda puts out and output what the images show, meaning that a LOT of highlight detail is lost to 100IRE white. So there definitely is a difference in lattitude, it's just not this pronounced when both are exposed correctly.

Also, 4:4:4 is BS. Using Bayer interpolation or "pixel shift" methods, 4:2:2 is the best color you can actually get out of an image. Certainly 4:4:4 might look nominally better simply due to less compression, but it wouldn't have true "4:4:4" color.
 
Policar, Your comments are quite valid. The DVX100a does not use pixel shifting in and of itself (SFAIK), so a 444 image in SD is quite possible. However, as you say, the best image possible in HD would be 422... And, if I understand the principals governing the technology, it would likely be even less because of pixel shifting in both the horizontal and vertical axis the result would be 411 color sampling.. My grasp of this is admittedly "hack" because whatever they're doing is BS and it's misrepresented, plain and simple. So, I've lost interest in following up on the specifics anymore.

But hey, if you or I spent two years in development and a lot of personally invested resources on something like this, what would we do? Probably the same. The real technical misrepresentation comes from the newcomer marketing guy there, not the technical guru. The new guy probably doesn't know/care the differences and is merely trying to secure in a high level position in a start up company. I recognize his interests and commend him for doing so. I'd probably do the same.
 
Thanks for the info Policar and thisiswells.

Obviously there was something fishy...but I didn't know what...

How do you expose using this device? Surely the LCD and finder will be set according to the over exposed DV stream. Therefore your 4:4:4 image would be underexposed. Do you have to use a separate monitor as well or is the camera modified?
 
I rather wait till the HVX comes out. I don't know if I want to process thousands of still images for a few secs of video. What happens if I lose a couple of those umcompress tiffs?
 
The same issues are happening at the high end with file based cameras like the Dalsa, etc. Backup and archiving become even more inportant issues since the capture format is not the long term storage medium as it is too espensive.

Michael
 
Well, this is pretty interesting. I haven't seen people dissing the Andromeda before, nice arguments. I too felt that there was some way over the top hype about it, when I saw the footage side by side at NAB, I thought "Well... maybe if you exposed the camera right we could get a much more fair comparison?" But still, it's still unreviewed and not much is known about it yet and the only people that do have been shot with dreaded NDA bullets. So, like the HVX200, we wait and see.

BTW, regarding the Andromeda pictures, I was in that location today walking to the Fashion Show Mall, I wanted to eat at that McDonald's so bad but I knew the food court at the mall would be better.:laugh: Las Vegas is a fun place to live I must say.
 
Also, on their forums... theyve pointed out that they are not advertising the Andromeda as a hacked hidef cam with 4:4:4. They tried to make it clear that their standard definition hack would be 4:4:4, but the higher definition hack would be "4:x:x". So who knows what color quality they can pull off with this thang?
 
Shaw said:
Barry, are you signed up to be a beta tester or? I seem to remember you saying something about this.
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I was on the list, yes. But when they released the full details, including the cash out of pocket portion I'd have to pay, I decided to pass.
 
Shaw--I'm glad you're posting here again. Missed ya, man. Feel the DVXuser love!!
Click to expand...

Thanks man! It's always good to come back after a break and breathe deeply the DVX air :D.

Barry: Completely understandable. Guess we'll have to wait for Obin to get back to us!

Policar: Great point about the 4:2:2 hi def. I'm more concerned with their bayer interpolation algorithm than the shift to 4:2:2 color. Supposedly they are going to be implmenting a better algorithm now that most of the other work has been completed. Guess we will have to wait for footage from beta testers to find out. You can clearly see what looks like chromatic aberration on their HD screen grabs (it's not of course since it's due to the bayer interpolation but that's what it shows up like). I downloaded the HD flower grab and tried to manipulate it in Photoshop. Works great except for the darn color fringing. It really stands out when you try to, say, increase the contrast or saturation.
 
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