EX1 Footage on a 110" Screen!

That's what my wife kept saying! But these chairs were perfect otherwise. Comfortable, lightweight and easy to move around (for when we use the space for recording musicians) and theater-like.

Finally finished hanging the curtains today!

picture.php



picture.php



I added a rubber grommet to the tracks that support the curtains. This was necessary to cure a rattling problem with the curtain hangers jiggling on the track when a 10Hz test tone was present. Rubber added. No more rattling sounds. :)
 
Very nice! Is that screen a permanent fixture or can you move it out? Also, do the curtains affect the audio?

You need to get more chairs for the DVXuser party! :beer:

I hope the ceiling doesn't fall down because you removed the supporting column :grin:
 
I designed the screen wall so it could be disassembled in a day if it needed to move. All held together with screws. The curtains help to absorb earlier reflections. They are not in the transmission path however, except where some woofers are along the bottom.

I bought the last three chairs that Costco had! They said they won't be getting anymore in.

I did a rather exhaustive study before removing the column. As it turns out, it was habit that caused me to put the columns there when I built the house in 1966. The carrying beam is 5 2x12's made of hardwood barn timber, sandwiching 3/16" steel plates, lag bolted together every 18". It could probably support the Brooklyn bridge, let alone the upstairs, which has a 8' high support wall above it that has plywood as a stiffener under the sheetrock. It acts as a huge truss, so the carrying beam really doesn't have much of a load--it's all distributed to the end pillars. I checked for sag after loosening up the lali column and waited a few days to see if the 3mm gap would close, indicating sag. It did not. Not even a paper thickness change. So out the column came.


I took my EX1 with Rode NT4 mic to a car show this evening in town. I used Detail Off, CINE1 gamma, Cine matrix and +10 saturation level. Shot 38 minutes in 103 individual clips. Got home, dumped to HDD, through it all on the Premiere timeline, trimmed the edges of each clip, dropped in a constant power fade between the audio of each clip, nested that timeline into another and applied unsharp mask, radius 0.4, level 0, amount 100. Rendered out to Apple Quicktime Photo JPEG at 97% quality setting. Fired up the InFocus projector and played it from VLC Media Player to second monitor (the projector on M1-DA DVI input).

The footage looked cleaner than anything I've shot prior, and more amazing because this was shot at dusk (8PM) and we were in the shaded side of some buildings with the sunset sky very bright in the background. The Detail Off kept the XDCam CODEC unstressed, and I put all the detail enhancement on in post. Rendering out to Quicktime, I ended up with a 29GB HD video file that plays nicely and doesn't visibly degrade the images. Essentially, it looks better than Blu-ray!

The way CINE1 handles the light is just amazing. There was nothing over or under exposed, despite the absurd contrast. I even shot a sunset, in which all forground detail was clearly and colorfully visible, yet the EX1 captured the setting sun, while maintaining the foreground scenery in a believable relative contrast.

My projector is 30-bit color, and somewhere along the line, it comes out way ahead of the LCD, because there is no banding anywhere, and the shadow details are breathtaking. The DLP projector produces a far darker black than my LCD, revealing details in the darkest parts of the scene. The freedom from noise becomes more apparent--my LCD was exaggerating any little bit of noise, making it looks more contrasty because of the lack of bit depth, whereas the new projector seems to show a more accurate representation of the EX1's recorded images. Everything, from the street lights to the sunset, to the antique automobiles and the motorcycles with the flashing LED lighting, looked stunningly-beautiful. I made a 29-minute video edit and I watched it three times on the projector this evening. I just couldn't get enough of that eye candy!

Then there's the audio aspect of it. A car show is a great event, because there are big bore V8 engines everywhere in sight. An people everywhere, a sea of sounds in all directions. The X-Y configuration makes a great, wide stereo soundfield and the EX1's inputs were silky smooth and free of anything added that was not in the environment. I never use AGC, preferring to use manual levels. I set them for the loudest anticipated sound and leave them alone.

When the show ended, and the cars started up, it was a smorgasbord of deep-throated sounds that rattle yer guts when played back here in the theater. There were some Shelby GT500s and some really customized chopped & dropped dragsters with some low tone mufflers that were just loaded with deep bass sounds. As they rolled by, oh baby!

I went over to a side street where a group of Harley owners were getting ready to take off. So I positioned myself downhill from them and used telephoto to compress the view for a theatrical effect. It was almost twilight now, and their headlamps were on and generally aimed directly into the camera lens. But the rest of the scenery behind them was clearly deliniated as was the faces of the cyclists themselves. Then they took off, heading down the hill past me. A sea of rumbling Harley Davidsons making that big rumbling sound as they passed by. What a sensation!

Overall, the "film" was a joy to watch, and I didn't even have to author a disc to watch it in the theater here. And I had some of the lights on in the room, but had forgotten about it because the projector is so darned bright, given it was intended to fill a 25' screen and mine's only about 12' wide. The sunset scene was making me squint, in fact.

The footage wasn't perfect.. I really need a steadicam vest, because there is too much side to side wobble and jerk when I walk, but when movement settled down, the view was spectacular. CINE1 all the way! Cine matrix really gave it the color of film, too. Slightly subdued reds, but still very satisfying. And clean at -3dB gain. Absolutely stunning pictures when projected. Sharp, noiseless (to the eye) and with dynamic range approaching the human vision. The camera saw everything I could see, as I saw it, save for the cine matrix subdued reds.

A lot of people would be about to walk into the path of my lens, suddenly notice me, and duck out of the way or hesitate. A middle aged couple actually apologized for walking down the sidewalk that I was filming from. While the EX1 is low-key, I guess a number of people still sense that there's a pro video guy at work on the streets there, despite my Hawaiian shirt and flip-flops. :)
 
I had a famous audio manufacturer/friend over last night and I showed him the car show footage on my new theater, with the Carver Sonic Hologram engaged.

His first question was, "Is your camera surround sound-capable?" I told him no, it's recording in stereo. He replied that was interesting because he was hearing sounds from not only the front, but the sides and also behind his seating position and was convinced the surround channels were operating. They weren't.

Having an X-Y microphone comes fairly close to binaural recording, and these recordings, played with the Sonic Hologram, produce an immersive 3D sound space. Surround-like sound from just two speakers! :)
 
Your missing the popcorn machine, Bass Pig. All good theaters have the smell of popcorn as an added sence to the preformance. You can get those yellow and red ones with the big wheels on line for about ~$200.00, popcorn not included! When are you going to have the big premier and can I get a ticket. Great job! Carl
 
Hey Mark! Do you have a photo of your EX1 decked out with your NT4 you can post? Just wondering what chock mount you're using etc.
 
Carl Marxx said:
Your missing the popcorn machine, Bass Pig. All good theaters have the smell of popcorn as an added sence to the preformance. You can get those yellow and red ones with the big wheels on line for about ~$200.00, popcorn not included! When are you going to have the big premier and can I get a ticket. Great job! Carl
Click to expand...

I was never one to make a big deal over the acutraments like popcorn machines and movie posters, actually.. Folks that know me realize I am a 'cut to the chase' kinda' guy, sorta' like those racing cars that are all engine and no body style, if you know what I mean.

I'll post an announcement when we're planning to have our grand opening ceremony. Everyone is certainly welcome!
 
Awesome set-up and great write up!

I've got a 1080p Panasonic Projector and the output from the HPX171 to the projector is *not bad* but nothing like as good as a cinematic transfer from a feature on blu-ray. So I'm quite interested by your findings.

Also I don't understand the relevance of 30bit processing on the projector - when your camera is 8bit at the recording stage. How does this reduce banding?

Have you calibrated your projector? If so how.

Thanks.
 
This is one awesome setup man! You are my personal hero! Not only the projector/screen, but especially your sound system! I want that so badly. Well done :)
 
basspig said:
It's just a simple metal bracket that I DiY'ed:

picture.php
Click to expand...

Cool. Did you make that cable to? I need to find a short stereo XLR for my NT4 so I don't drag around that long one that comes with it.

I'm using the Rode SM5 Shock mount for both the NT3 or the NT4. I have 3 different versions of that shock mount I like it so much.
Here's a shot:
picture.php
 
Last edited:
Chadfish said:
Cool. Did you make that cable to? I need to find a short stereo XLR for my NT4 so I don't drag around that long one that comes with it.

I'm using the Rode SM5 Shock mount for both the NT3 or the NT4. I have 3 different versions of that shock mount I like it so much.
Here's a shot:
picture.php
Click to expand...

Yes, made the cable after just one trip out with that Rode-supplied cable and its bulk.
But you know what I'd really like? If Rode provided a retrofit replacement for the large cylinder part of the mic body that is essentially a battery compartment. If that were reduced to a 2" nipple that fit into the camera's shockmount, that would shed 13oz of bulk weight and make the camera easier to get in and out of a duffle bag, my preferred incognito camera concealment.
I wrote Rode about that last year, but never got a reply or acknowledgement.
 
ROne said:
Awesome set-up and great write up!

I've got a 1080p Panasonic Projector and the output from the HPX171 to the projector is *not bad* but nothing like as good as a cinematic transfer from a feature on blu-ray. So I'm quite interested by your findings.

Also I don't understand the relevance of 30bit processing on the projector - when your camera is 8bit at the recording stage. How does this reduce banding?

Have you calibrated your projector? If so how.

Thanks.
Click to expand...


I pondered this 30-bit question myself, and suspect a number of contributing factors:

The LCD TV this replaced claims to be 24-bit color, but who knows what the gamma curve it uses looks like?

The 30-bit depth may allow the projector to 'straddle' any uncertain boundaries in the luminous levels of a particular group of color channels, settling on a more closely-matched color to the intended color.


My observation is that the LCD TV exaggerates the difference between adjacent pixel color values, wheras the projector finds a closer match to the real color intended by the program source. Why this is so with supposed 24-bit program, I don't know. I can only speak of the results, which are:

Less noise/grain in familiar reference footage
Reduction to invisibility of discreet bands of color on sunsets.


I didn't have an ISF calibration done because I don't have the access code to my projector's calibration menu. However, the InFocus IN82 is known for being very accurate out of the box. My observations confirm that it's pretty much as correct on color as I could ever want.

WRT EX footage, the direct pixel for pixel mapping to 1920x1080 really shows on a screen this size. When I look at my Over America Blu-ray, shot with cameras costing over $250K when footage was shot by NHK TV in 1996, it looks like HDV. Downright nasty on the night shots and in any shots rich in HF detail, such as over forested lands.

Hollywood films on Blu-ray are clean, in terms of compression artifacts, but are 'dirty' in terms of grain and noise. And, with all the talk about film's supposed great lattitude, why is it that every film-based movie I've ever seen has blown highlights and crushed blacks? Where is the dynamic range past 7 f-stops?

And finally, the major movies are supposedly shot with some really expensive lenses, so why the barrel distortion, chromatic aberration and loss of sharpness in the corners, particularly in Stanley Kubrick films?

There are few films that are right up there with the results I'm able to achieve with the XDCam. The International looks quite good in this respect. Knowing looked pretty sharp around the edges, but lacked texture detail in the fabrics of people's clothing in closeup shots, and seemed to lack the full spectrum of color outside the red tones.

Everything else that was shot on film, while it looks pleasing, just isn't all that rich in fine spatial detail.

In a way, I am anxious to try shooting direct to Flash XDR or some other uncompressed recording off HD SDI, as I suspect I am not seeing the full potential this camera offers. But a partial test is to eliminate the second compression cycle, by not authoring Blu-ray, but rendering to a lossless CODEC and viewing direct off the workstation to the projector, which is how I viewed the car show footage I shot Sunday. By shooting Detail Off, I placed less demand on the CODEC to deal with HF details and attained a more faithful capture of what the sensor picked up. Then I added my detail enhancement in post, where it was more effective. Rendering that out to a lossless CODEC, and viewing on projector ought to be similar to viewing a Blu-ray (compressed) where the originating digital footage was shot uncompressed. One lossy compression step in both cases.

At any rate, the sum of my observations is that Hollywood's mega buck cameras don't have nuttin' on the EX series, in terms of raw image quality. What they probably have is other conveniences that matter to movie directors, but on the whole, the image quality, in a 1080P world, is right up there with the best of them.
 
Do you think your comparisons to hollywood/ex-1 bluray footage is really accurate? I figured the hollywood raw footage has gone through many processes that would degrade it's quality by the time it reaches the final output. I would like to see the ex-1 and the expensive hollywood footage in their raw forms, for an accurate comparison.
 
All very interesting.

I find 4:2:0 to be a limiting factor, and to me it's pretty obvious when blowing up say the GH1 (which I also own) that although it has great resolution in the luminance (1-1 pixel on my projector), the colours look 'averaged' across pixels.

I would dearly love to hook up an EX1 to my projector, which is calibrated and produces a stunning picture even with blu-ray, even if they are also 4:2:0. But the mastering is done to a very high standard.

I suspect blown highlights and crushed blacks are more to do with over-zealous grading and modern style. We very rarely get to see things clean, but we can be certain film's latitute is heaps better than a 8bit 4:2:0 codec can resolve.
 
male_man said:
Do you think your comparisons to hollywood/ex-1 bluray footage is really accurate? I figured the hollywood raw footage has gone through many processes that would degrade it's quality by the time it reaches the final output. I would like to see the ex-1 and the expensive hollywood footage in their raw forms, for an accurate comparison.
Click to expand...

There is no comparison at all.

blu-ray is good, but doesn't come close to the 10bit 4:4:4 master. And neither would the EX1. I've seen a decent play out of 35mm on a barco dp100 and you notice how much better the colours are.

That said, subjectivity is a weird thing - which is why so many people are happy with the HVX blow-ups.
 
The thing with the GH1 and any HDV camera is that 4:2:0 interlaced footage has about half the color resolution of 4:2:0 progressive (and I mean true progressive, not 24P embedded in 60i. I figured out why the colors are so blurred and blocky on HDV and that's when I converted some EX1 30P footage to 60i for Blu-ray--it degraded the color resolution so badly that I decided I'd rather look at frame judder than reds that were pixellated.

I'm sure the master 8K footage looks great. Although since the end product is Blu-ray, I think it's a fair comparison to compare Blu-ray EX1 footage to Blu-ray Panavision or whatever.

Allistair Chapman, in one of his posts on another board, stated that the EX series cover about 12 f-stops. That's consistent with my observations (using CINE1 gamma). The human eye can discern 14 f-stops of lattitude. So one can realize that the EX series comes very close to human vision (and the footage looks that way)!

The thing about film, which makes it look soft, is that the high frequency spacial detail (MTF) starts to roll off in amplitude at relatively low spacial frequencies. Whereas digital cameras can be flat right to Nyquist, then cut off sharply. That results in visibly sharper, more detailed images. With film, you can unsharp mask to peak up the detail, but then you also get the grain being emphasized right along with it. That's why I prefere the look of digital over film in most shooting situations.
 
Basspig: It is my understanding that in printing and scanners the 24bit claim is divided into 8-8-8 which is Green, blue, Red and 24bit colour. The y or luminance channel is assigned to the green channel which makes one of the three channels for color in video. My understanding is in scanners the extra 6bit information is assignes to the luninance channel (green) for extended gray-scale. Therefore, it would be more like 14bit lattitude on detail, or 14-8-8 =30bit; this would explaine the deep black and lack of artifacts by the projector if it produces 30bit information to the screen. I don't think the blues and reds are inhanced here, but I don't have any direct knowledge or information on this subject. I hope this helps your understanding of the deep deep black on your projector.
 
Last edited:
I've often heard 30-bit RGB referred to as 10-bit, meaning 10-bits per channel. Printers and scanners work with subtractive colors and the color model evolved slightly differently than with video or additive color systems. With scanners, we used to have 48-bit drum scanners, or 16-bits per color channel. Photoshop supports 16bbc images, too. Frankly though, I've never encounted an assymetrical system.

Three factors contribute to the black levels:

Dark room with no bright colored reflecting surfaces near screen,

DLP projection system which uses reflection instead of transmission of light,

Enough bit depth and accurate gamma curve to convey near-black levels accurately.


Now if my old monitor is, as the spec states, 24-bit, then they must have allocated the bits unevenly across the intensity range. If most steps are near the middle, that would short-change the highlights and shadows, which is what it looked like to me.

The DLP projector produces a far better image than I get on the LCD, both in terms of truer colors and brighter images, but also because of the smoother gradations between luminance values of any color. This is beneficial because it does not exaggerate noise in film and video (I was amazed at how much better even my HDV footage looks), and it makes it possible to see shadow detail below 20 IRE, whereas normally it's a black bog down there.

BTW, I love your Wallace & Grommit avatar! Now pass me that Stilton cheese, will ya' mate? :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top