Discussion of dv.com results

AshG said:
OK guys, just got thru messing with both cameras some more... The motion is definitely identical but the increases resolution of the XLH actually makes it more video like to some people. It loses some of the natural feel to some, especially at full wide. When you start using the XLH with a long lens (10X -20X) it is stunning and this perception goes away.

After taking some XLH footage into an HD1200A deck, it is MORE noisy than HDV??? I still need to mess with that before there are any conclusions but I am convinced it is the DVCproHD codec that is adding this noise to the HVX. It is an amazing codec but very compressed. I am a DP, not a technogeek but it seems very odd that HDV would have less noise than DVCproHD.

I also did a sample cut of the HVX/XLH together and they cut nice. I am still learning the XLH menu system which is extremely deep. Even though I have 100% mastered the XL2 I feel like I need a Goodmans guide to get into the XLH more!


ash =o)
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That's interesting.

How does either codec handle MOTION, though? That's what everyone wants to see, apparently. Seems like you have both cameras. Do some motion tests for both and tell us what's going on.

Also, you say by using a 10x - 20x lens, the video perception goes away, right? Or did I misunderstand that comment?
 
AshG said:
I am a DP, not a technogeek but it seems very odd that HDV would have less noise than DVCproHD.
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This is very interesting. Several recent posts said that we should trust our eyes and the images over the charts and the specs. Well then is it possible we should trust our eyes on which codec does a better job at recording too? It seems everyone is convinced that the DVCPRO HD codec will crush HDV because of less compression yet your test shows different results. After all, here you have a non-tech DP that uses his eyes to find a pleasing image reporting more noise.

I know there are die hard HVX fans and you were sold on the camera before it was even out. (Obviously based on your DVX experience). I have my HVX on order but would still like to know that my $$$ is being put in the right place. Therefore, without blind support for the HVX, can we PLEASE see some real tests of what comes out of the P2 cards vs the HDV cameras? :)
 
FullRez said:
Therefore, without blind support for the HVX, can we PLEASE see some real tests of what comes out of the P2 cards vs the HDV cameras? :)
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I just returned from a demo in Dallas that Gary Adcock gave.
On his FCP system coming out to HD.
A three screen split, the Sony on the left, the HVX in the center and the JVC on the right. It was taped at a basketball game. I have to say that the HDV footage was not very good in high motion sequences. He had other demos showing HDV shooting flowers and that looked good. He did have the full demo that Barry did and that looked awesome!!
 
HVXguy said:
I just returned from a demo in Dallas that Gary Adcock gave.
On his FCP system coming out to HD.
A three screen split, the Sony on the left, the HVX in the center and the JVC on the right. It was taped at a basketball game. I have to say that the HDV footage was not very good in high motion sequences. He had other demos showing HDV shooting flowers and that looked good. He did have the full demo that Barry did and that looked awesome!!
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No Canon?
 
With all this bloated info on Film out process, has anyone done any tests on bumping up the HVX and other cameras for high-end digital projection? I think that cinema projection will hopefully go away from film and move to a more economical.. robust.. and pristine method. I know there's debates on the format for digital projection.. and the cost of converting theaters... but it should be done.

It's so upsetting to spend 50 or 60 grand on a film blowup.. have it all the way you want it and the only time it will ever be pristine is the first time through the projector. From then on.. it's dust, scratches and compromising your film. I have seen friends cry as projectors scratch their filmprints... burn their prints.. and spool it onto the ground in a giant mess.

It would be great to have film as an acquisition medium and forget this as distrubution. I know that it would greatly help the up and coming filmmakers and certainly the 1000th time you watch it will be just like the 1st. Now try and go watch a 2nd run of any film print.. regardless of how well it was maintained.. and it will look scratchy.. and not to mention the cigarette burns on the top.. I HATE those.

I also think that my opticals on the print were never the same as what I had intended.. and it just was such an expense that I never got returned. I just have several reels that each time I project.. look worse and worse. Instead, have a digital copy.. or copies.. and start to distribute and get the film out there.

I also think that Rez qualifications and tests aren't for filmmakes.. but more for bleeding edge geeks. I've never heard any audience commend a film for it's sharpness and rez... and all that garbage. Give me something I can connect with.. and that captures my attention.

I'm also glad that the 720 stuff looks so appealing on the HVX. I'm pretty much going that way with my project and hopefully I NEVER have the hasell of ever making a film print. As silver keeps on going up... will go up.. and not to mention the environmental nightmare that this produces.

Think GREEN.. Think digital projection.. My local places has projected HD from a windows-based system and it looked awesome. Even on there 9K projector. Simply awesome and on the Highend projector here in town.. It's better than film in my mind.. Clean and pristine again and again... Maybe all these negative-cutters could go into flower arranging if it switches to HD.. or something more Zen.

Film outs also have NO MOJO...
 
FullRez said:
... However, it bothers me that the film out test is only based on uncompressed images. We need to see that plus what it looks like when captured to native format.
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??????


As I wrote above, it is the native HDV and then uncompressed.
 
"Not exactly. The film transfer uses uncompressed targa or tiff sequences in which case the transport stream (whether DV25, HDV or DVCProHD) is irrelevant."

- Guess I don't understand that. Did I miss something?
 
AkaiJenkins said:
I wonder how many folks here DON'T get your "silver" injunction :laugh:
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I wonder if I can scrape it off my old workprints and sell it? Pay for the HVX....just kidding. :)
 
AshG said:
but it seems very odd that HDV would have less noise than DVCproHD.
)
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Thanks for the report Ash.......

Doesn't surprise me that much; HDV codec was written many years later after the DVC codec, standing on the shoulders of previous technology.

DVCpro was written and designed in the early 90's. HDV was finalized after 2002 or so. Think about it, how were just audio codecs that are highly compressed ten years ago. The first mp3 audio wasn't as good compared to the improvements just a few years brought.

The language and science of codecs, compressions technology is a daily ongoing project in labs all over all over this globe. Trying to perfect the last one based on the previous finalized one. When the HDV technology was being written and finalized they had all it's predecessors to compare to and take from.

One day they will squeeze ten times more info in the same 25mbs stream; and it will look ten times better than this. That's amazing.

Michael Pappas
Arrfilms@hotmail.com
PappasArts & Arrfilms Main site

CONTACT VIA AOL INSTANT MESSENGER
AT { PAPPASARTS2 }


XLH1 and HVX200 frame grabs and news here:
http://www.pbase.com/Arrfilms

http://www.PappasArts.com
http://www.Myspace.com/PappasArts
 
Kaku told me he ran tests where he recorded to P2 and component to AJA card at the same time to the same DVCpro codec that he was recording to on the P2 in camera. You know what his findings were.

The AJA analog capture from component was better than the internal straight to P2 in camera of the same shot to the same DVCPRHD codec. He said the P2 material had more artifacts of the same shots at the same time. He was very puzzled as he was lead to believe that DVCProHD codec is the same whether it's in the camera or anywhere else.

Personally I don't know what to think on this one.


FullRez said:
I know there are die hard HVX fans and you were sold on the camera before it was even out. (Obviously based on your DVX experience). I have my HVX on order but would still like to know that my $$$ is being put in the right place. Therefore, without blind support for the HVX, can we PLEASE see some real tests of what comes out of the P2 cards vs the HDV cameras? :)
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Barry,

Since both you and Adam agree that there is a question mark surrounding the HVX horizontal resolution- Will we be seeing a rez chart “re-shoot” with a different HVX, so that if there was something wrong, it can be determined?

Perhaps something before the “Texas Shootout”? :)

-trane
 
Benton said:
No Canon?
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No, but the ALA rep was there and had a slide showing how the Canon could go SDI into an FCP system. Nice for a studio shoot I guess but that is about 2% of my shooting.
For Video Projection in theaters read this:

Big-screen showdown
TI and Sony duel over the future of cinema technology

Movie theater projectors are finally going digital, promising sharper images, bigger Hollywood profits and – groan – a never-ending supply of pre-show advertising.

The movie industry has been eyeing digital projectors for a while, but theater owners were reluctant to pay to install them. Now some cineplexes are coming on board, led by Dallas-based Landmark Theatres, the art-house chain owned by Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner.

Dallas-based Landmark Theatres has been using Sony's digital projector but will also test TI's.
Landmark is in the middle of a feud between makers of two rival projector technology companies, Sony Corp. and Texas Instruments Inc.

The theater chain announced last year that it would be using Sony's projectors. Now it's trying out Dallas-based TI's technology, too.

For TI and Sony, it's a chance to compete head-to-head in theaters owned by two of the biggest technophiles in the land. The first big test will come today, when both projector makers say they'll be showing the Steven Soderbergh movie Bubble on Landmark screens.

"It's like the old-fashioned bake-off," Mr. Wagner said.

For cinema lovers, it's a taste of the future of the movies.

Instead of showing from a long strip of film spooled into a reel, the video for digital projectors can come straight from computers.

Unlike movies on film, digital images can be reproduced and played repeatedly without degradation.

The 100th screening of Bubble in a Landmark theater will look just like Mr. Soderbergh's master copy.

Some moviemakers still prefer the color and quality of film, but the degradation problem has persuaded directors such as James Cameron, George Lucas and Mr. Soderbergh, all Oscar honorees, to convert to digital photography for their movies.

But Hollywood isn't spending a wad of money on digital equipment for the sake of art.

"There's no philanthropy here," said Peter Guber, the former head of Sony Pictures Entertainment. "They're looking at the economic reward."

Big Hollywood studios have to buy prints of the films they distribute for a few thousand dollars apiece. Then they have to pay to transport those prints to theaters across the country. If theaters were equipped with digital projectors, they could simply transmit digital movies over high-speed data connections.

Theaters have been in no hurry to help Hollywood studios save a buck. It costs about $100,000 to outfit each theater for digital projection, compared with about $35,000 for film projection.

So some technology companies, such as TI partner Access Integrated Technologies Inc., have stepped in as middlemen, offering movie theaters funding from studios in exchange for installation of digital projectors.

Other uses

And some theater owners have begun to envision the ways digital projectors could make money for them, too. The new projectors give them much more flexibility, allowing them to show several different movies on the same screen throughout the day. Digital projectors could also show other material – football games, concerts or corporate presentations, for instance – giving theaters new business opportunities.

Then there's the advertising. Commercials before movies could be more customized to fit different audiences, since they could be easily switched depending on the time of day.

"Some of the chains view this as a way to have even more advertising," even though audiences could rebel, Mr. Wagner said. "We need to all be cognizant of that fact and be careful of how much and how it's done."

Technogeeks

It's no surprise that Landmark is one of the first movie theater chains to start installing digital projectors. Mr. Wagner and Mr. Cuban are technology geeks at heart. They founded the Internet video firm Broadcast.com and sold it to Yahoo Inc. in 1999 for about $6 billion.

After the sale, Mr. Cuban made headlines by becoming the outspoken owner of the Dallas Mavericks. But he and Mr. Wagner also quietly forged a mini-media empire, creating two TV networks (HDNet and HDNet Movies) and two movie studios (2929 Pictures and HDNet Films) and buying the Landmark chain.

In April, they embarked on an experiment, releasing a documentary about the Enron scandal in theaters and on HDNet Movies on the same night to see how audiences would respond. They're doing the same thing with Bubble, with a new twist: They'll also release it on DVD four days after the movie opens in theaters.

Movie buffs will continue to go to theaters that offer a rich, rewarding experience, even if they can get the same film on DVD or TV, Mr. Wagner and Mr. Cuban have argued. And digital projectors could be part of that experience.

"The advantage for customers in the Landmark chain is that we're able to show more movies," Mr. Wagner said. "You don't have to ship reels of films and pay blow-up costs to do that." Last March, Landmark announced it would install Sony's new projectors, which use light reflected through liquid crystals to create an image. The projectors offer the highest resolution available in the industry – 4096 by 2160 pixels, or 4K. Projectors using TI's technology, by comparison, offer 2K resolution – half as sharp, technically speaking.

The Sony technology "provides a viewing experience for movies that far exceeds what other theaters are doing today with 2K projectors," Mr. Cuban said in a statement accompanying the March announcement.

But in January, TI announced that Landmark would be buying 2K projectors based on its technology, which reflects light off of tiny, rotating mirrors.

"The reality is, nothing has changed. We are working with multiple vendors, which at this point we absolutely should," Mr. Wagner said. "This is the time to really test products."

Quality debate

TI says that image quality isn't solely a matter of resolution and that its images look better than Sony's images. Sony argues that its technology produces a resolution that surpasses what's available in home theaters.

"What we're trying to do as a corporation is really help the movie industry out, get people off of their couches," said John Kaloukian, Sony's general manager for display systems.

Will audiences be drawn to high-resolution movies? Probably not, said Mr. Guber, chairman of Mandalay Entertainment Group and co-host of the AMC talk show Sunday Morning Shootout.

"No one goes to the theater and says, 'Hey, 2,000 lines of resolution! Let's see this movie!' " he said. "They go for 2,000 lines of script."

Mr. Wagner declined to say how many Landmark theaters would have Sony or TI-based projectors.

Projectors using TI's Digital Light Processor, or DLP, chip have been installed in about 800 theaters worldwide, with hundreds more to come this year.

"Landmark is just a really nice complement to that," said Nancy Fares, TI's business manager for DLP cinema products. Carmike Cinemas Inc., the third-largest U.S. theater chain, also announced this month that it plans to install 2,300 DLP-based projectors.

Sony began shipping its projectors to Landmark, its only announced customer, in October. DLP projectors have been deployed for about six years.

Landmark has been "totally satisfied" with Sony's product thus far, Mr. Wagner said. He compared Landmark's use of competing technologies to the old Broadcast.com days, when he and Mr. Cuban tried different types of video software.

"When you're in the early stages, you want to work with different vendors," he said. "We are technology agnostic, just as we were in our past lives."
 
Can you give me the exact link to this article since I can not find it on www.dv.com.



smelni said:
Hey all,

as you prob know the 4 cam article is up on dv.com - I dont mean to cross post but i wanted to start a topic to discuss the results.

I am pretty surprised - were the results pre or post codec?
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insanityfw said:
I wonder if I can scrape it off my old workprints and sell it? Pay for the HVX....just kidding. :)
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You know, a few guys and I spent about four months during film school trying to figure a way to go in with a small lab and work up a way to really turn a buck on this.

Of course, there was lots of alcohol involved and thus the futility of the endeavor took months to rear its head :grin:
 
PappasArts said:
Kaku told me he ran tests where he recorded to P2 and component to AJA card at the same time to the same DVCpro codec that he was recording to on the P2 in camera. You know what his findings were.

The AJA analog capture from component was better than the internal straight to P2 in camera of the same shot to the same DVCPRHD codec. He said the P2 material had more artifacts of the same shots at the same time. He was very puzzled as he was lead to believe that DVCProHD codec is the same whether it's in the camera or anywhere else.

Personally I don't know what to think on this one.
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The spiggot for the component output from the camera is probably prior to compression of the DVCProHD codec. I have brought this up several times over the past year or more, the problem with the DVCProHD codec is that its 8bit linear. In the world of CODECs DVCProHD is old technology.

In the late 90's Quantel tried desperately to convince everyone that 8bits was enough - its not. Both the Vericam and the HVX are great camera's with an extraordinary spatial and dynamic sampling system, but [and its a big one that sales reps like to blow right bye] the picture quality depends on the caliber of processing and truncating word length.

That's why when you see the image a Varicam displays on set and then in post [mostly FCP] it doesn't look quite as good. Clearly the number of bits used does not tell the whole story but it plays an increasingly important part. When the cameras couldn't resolve such high resolutions it didn't matter as much. Now you can see for yourself from a report from some of our own well respected members that these new camera's are much higher resolution and they have in a sense surpassed the ability of their own codec's.

I would imagine the next round of improvment will be going from 8bits linear to 8 or 10 bit log. Its simply physics...:huh:
 
My 2 cents.....

I have been reading all of these posts with great interest - it is amazing, since Adam Wilt's article only arrived via e-mail yesterday, that there is so much discussion - and opinions - already up here!

I have to begin by saying that it was this website that helped me make the decision to purchase a DVX100A, a camera that I have been very happy with, that I made money with, and which I sold in the marketplace forum just this past week. I had planned to replace it with the HVX200, hopefully having the new camera in my hands by early Febuary for some documentary projects that I have lined up.

I have been ingesting all of the info on the HVX - and the other competing cameras - on this and other websites. I have actually had an HVX in my hands (power off) at my local dealer. Do I know that the camera does exist, is ergonomically workable, and will, eventually, be available to purchase.

So, essentially, I am just like the rest of you.........

I thought that Adam's article was interesting, especially in contrast to Barry's and some of the other comments from people like Evin. I have made some conclusions:

The Canon looks great, but there is NO DECK that works with the 24f mode. Since Canon does not manufacture decks, and has not announced a deck that they will manufacture in the future, that makes the Canon a definite NO. I refuse to use a camera as a deck - horrible idea.

The JVC shows great promise - but the inane engineering that led to the Split-Screen effect (SSE) added to the miserable standard lens makes this a definite NO. What is it about JVC - few years ago they came out with D9, which was essentially Digibeta quality output for a very low price, and they couldn't sell it to anyone! The stars are not aligned with this company......

Ah, the HVX200. The camera everyone wants - but cannot seem to get. I expect production delays from smaller companies - for example, if the RED camera ever gets produced I would EXPECT long production delays. But Panasonic has been mass-manufacturing electronics for decades - why the delays, why the mystery here?? It has opened up a lot of questions, both from me and from all of you. Now Adam's article makes potential buyers even more concerned.

Then we have Sony.....
Suddenly, a camera (the Z1) that I haven't seriously considered is starting to look veeeery interesting. It's available, filmmakers are using it with great success (I was very impressed with the movie trailer that is available to download on DVXuser). It has been stated in many reviews that the HD video is beautiful, that shooting in 50i allows you to go into post and produce a wonderful film-look, and there is an inexpensive deck (Sony makes decks, obviously) in the $3000 range all ready to work in tandem with the camera. And if you want to blow up to a to 35mm, the one place that makes that their specialty is owned - by Sony! That can't hurt.....

Trust me, I am not a Sony guy. I am an independent writer/producer who does this for my living. No work - no roast chicken with mashed potatoes (I make a wonderful gravy as well) on the table! But all of these delays, all of the mystery surrounding some of the camera's specs, makes me - right now - dubious about the HVX200. Panasonic is letting production delays turn into a potential PR nightmare.....
 
I just downloaded the chart jpgs from dv.com. Next to the XLH, the HVX looks just plain muddy. :huh:
Did anyone notice how much grain is in the XLH shot though? Maybe it was just bad settings.
 
My big question; will they upgrade the resolution in the HVX200a? :laugh:

No seriously, do you think panasonic would rush that out in a hurry. Rework the CCDs and lens and ship an A version. How long did it take for the A version of the DVX?
The only thing that's hurting the HVX now--at least in my mind--is the really low rez. This may not keep me from buying it, but still, it doesn't help. :undecided
 
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