First ever HVX 35mm Film-out Screening!

obin said:
How did it feel watching it? did it have a "cheap" feel? or did it feel like a "real" movie on the big screen?
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It looked very much like a "real" movie.
All of the issues I mentioned were minor, and we all noticed them just because we were very attentive to the technical aspects of the image. After all, that was the purpose of this film-out test...
However, comparing the image to regular film projection in a commercial cinema theatre, it didn't look any different for the most part, and it was very impressive, especially considering the price-point of this camera...
 
Charles Scalfani said:
Seems to me that it is important to see how the images project but that film is only an interim format. In the next 5 to 7 years, most projected content will be digital.
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I might be wrong, but I tend to disagree.
So far digital projection didn't prove it self as effective as film projection when it comes to storytelling. I'm not talking here about the shooting format, but rather the projection itself. for some reason, even when projecting the same exact material (originated on film) at the same theatre is clearly more effective when projected from a film copy, rather than a 4k digital projection of the same material.
Somehow it is just more compelling to watch the film projection, and it makes the storytelling more effective.

I know it doesn't make sense, but I was actually in an elaborate test screening testing exactly that, and everyone felt the same way in about 80% of the time.
 
I am with a few that say that since this is an interim test, that it shouldn't be as good as it will be when they get used to it.
It's like when the DVX came out. The footage we started to watch wasn't as good as the ones coming out a few months later. Take November or Land of Plenty, for instance, that was great looking footage.
If that was shot with the HVX, I bet it would've looked much better.

Since this test was from a 720p reel, that suffered further compression when uprezzed to 1080p HDCAM, we still need to wait for results from the 1080p footage shot from the camera.

Now, like many others, I haven't seen much difference from 720p and 1080p from this camera. I don't know if it has to do with the fact that people aren't yet used to the camera, but I guess that we still have lots to see.

From January onwards we will see a lot of improvements.

I wonder if Steve Dempsey is going to get an HVX, cause I would love to watch some footage shot by him.

Anyway, just my 2 cents.
 
I just came up with another question. Why did they uprezz the footage to HDCAM?
When they transfer DV footage, do they uprezz it to HDCAM as well? Why not do it from the actual 720p clip? Is there a reason for it?
 
Charles Scalfani said:
Seems to me that it is important to see how the images project but that film is only an interim format. In the next 5 to 7 years, most projected content will be digital.
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If you mean that within 5 to 7 years most projection will be digital, I think you are overly optimistic. My guess is closer to 15 to 20 years.
 
I was glad to have seen this film test tonight. I am writing a small report about it now with some pics. I will say this, the distraction factor is pretty much gone that SD cameras had on film outs. It looked like super 16 of mid to late 80's. Now todays Kodak Vision S16 bump up to 35mm would thrash the hvx200 any day. The HVX200 is a very good tool that will give you an image that will hold on the big screen and not go to mush.

As to how it compares to maybe the Canon XLH1. Well, I look at it like this:
I think it comes down to Benz vs BMW, Pick the one you like , buy it, and go drive it.


Is there any news of some XLH1 footage transfered to film. I would be interested to hear about how it turned out and who did the transfer etc.
 
Tzedekh said:
If you mean that within 5 to 7 years most projection will be digital, I think you are overly optimistic. My guess is closer to 15 to 20 years.
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I don't know about that. I prefer digital and my local Galaxy has a DLP. Adoption of technology is very often driven by cost savings. Hollywood has way too many bean counters and the saving with digital are H U G E. It would be cheaper to give cinemas projectors versus the cost of making prints.
 
I'll put together a couple of minutes of our 1080p stuff and Marcus at DVFilm.com will transfer it. I'll arrange a screening in Vegas when it's done, and then I'm sure Marcus will make the reel available for others to order & view, like he does with his demo reel. I believe DVFilm has a screening room in Los Angeles where he can arrange screenings for interested parties as well.

This footage will be submitted to DVFilm in the native codec with no post alteration and no recompression.
 
As I said before, one day there will be an indie film festival award with your name...thanks Barry!
 
Thanks folks. This topic was on top of my list for the HVX. Would love to see the transfer, especially the 1080P footage with no recompression. Any chance us New York folks will get a screening?
 
I do wish there were more of you people that could have been at Laser Pacific last night to see HVX200 film out to 35mm.

One person traveled 400 miles to see this screening last night. I had to only drive 42miles and did it in 34 minutes.

It was pretty damn amazing material on the screen last night, that's for sure.

The SD distraction is now officialy gone............

This is only the beginning, wait tell the work flows get figured out over the next few months to a year among the post houses.

BTW, the lens was tack F#$$#%% sharp for those that wanted to know. Not bad for a 6K camera, ya think!

PS: What I want to see is the 1080P material. It should have 50% more detail on the HVX200.


http://www.pbase.com/arrfilms

Michael Pappas
 
Granted you haven't seen the 1080p footage, but do you image that 720p footage would look odd is cut in with the 1080p footage. In terms of indy shorts and features it would be nice to shoot at 1080/24p but I'm sure there will be times where I will want to make use of the variable frame rates in 720p.

Do you image it would look odd to cut from 1080/24p material to 720/variable30-60p material, and then back to 1080/24p?
 
Barry_Green said:
I'll put together a couple of minutes of our 1080p stuff and Marcus at DVFilm.com will transfer it. I'll arrange a screening in Vegas when it's done, and then I'm sure Marcus will make the reel available for others to order & view, like he does with his demo reel. I believe DVFilm has a screening room in Los Angeles where he can arrange screenings for interested parties as well.

This footage will be submitted to DVFilm in the native codec with no post alteration and no recompression.
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Thanks Barry! This may be worth a trip up from Phoenix.
 
All of the footage I shot was done with the film-out being the ultimate goal. It was no accident that there are high and low contrast scenes, that the car was blue, or that the guy at the pool table was black and it was smokey.

The DVX100 film-out we did before looked like 16mm. I guess it's possible the 720p footage that moviola did looked like Super16 (I would have expected it to look better). I'm anxious to see our footage, this will be THE deciding factor in the role of this camera.
 
So, after reading through this thread I was wondering a couple things.

1. It sounds like underexposure is going to be an issue to be aware of, when going to film out (also recalling NBC shooters dilemma) , so does that mean that we should have a bigger lighting package if this is the final goal?

2. Has anyone done a Canon XLH1 film out, and if so what was the output ? If I remember correctly someone mentioned the HD/SDI out captured footage wasn't representative of the true type of footage the cam was made for (normal user). And how does it compare to the HVX ?

Oh, and one more thing, are there going to be any sessions showcasing the HVX filmout footage in Toronto ? I would love to see some... :beer:

Cheers.
 
Yuval Shrem said:
It seems to me that one practical lesson from this screening would be to be careful when shooting not to under-expose the image, because brightening the image up in post will increase compression artifacts to an unacceptable level. (at least with the extreme example shown in one particular shot of a young woman climbing stairs, which was so under-exposed, that in post they aggressively pulled up the levels).
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Hi Yuval, thanks for coming. It was great to get your feedback after the screening.

Everything I'm about to say about the stairs shots is really critical, because overall the images looked really good and not entirely dissimilar from the HD master.

That being said... The shot going up the stairs shows some shadow and mid-tone noise, but knowing that could be crushed and printed up slightly, it isn't bad. The one coming down the stairs had VERY little overall illumination and was the probably the most brutal test we gave the camera for exposure. Everything on the "beauty reel" was exposed intentionally, and parts of the reel are very dark and contrasty.

After testing the camera, we intended to try to push the latitude and have some super low-key scenes. If anyone tried to bring up the overall level of the downward stairs shot, the noise would make it unusable.

We tested the prototype HVX on Saturday for a few hours to learn more about the camera. We tried torturing the exposure latitude of the different Gammas by shooting the DSC Chroma DuMonde and Macbeth charts. In each take we increased or decreased exposure until the imager couldn't process any information (basically until it hit all-black and all-white respectively). With these charts we were able to determine the absolute widest range the camera could expose adequately.

From the series of tests we found the prototype HVX handled well-illuminated high-key scenes pretty easily and noise free. It also does a good job with lots of highlights and some contrast, while there was some compression in the highlights, in most circumstances a skilled DP's lighting will be able to minimize clip/compression artifacts. The camera had a harder time with images that extend primarily or nearly exclusively through the low mid-tone IREs. A skilled DP can do some compensation for this, but it's more difficult. I'm told this was a version 4 prototype so undoubtedly there'll be some changes with the final version.

Where I'm going with all this? There are similar artifacts and noise in the HD master in the same places we saw in 35mm. If we had done a reel exclusively with flat high-key images, the film out tests would certainly have looked good, probably jumping out of our seats fantastic. But what fun would that have been? From our perspective as the independent producers it was important to offer up good looking and challenging material. That way we not only shows off the camera, but also try to figure out how good the camera can look, and what are its limitations.

The print wasn't struck until yesterday afternoon. There were some cautious folk that didn't want to show the first pass 35mm footage to anyone who wasn't directly involved in the technical creation of the project. I felt it would be helpful to put some hopefully unbiased and educated eyes in the room to get feedback. Word got out of the transfer, and next thing I knew I started receiving a lot of emails and calls from people (I've never met) asking to see a 35mm transfer, that hadn't happened yet. Moviola, Panasonic, Laser Pacific, Plaster City and Visible Man Productions all had staff present. There was also cast/crew from the shoot and a few personal acquaintances, with really critical eyes (DPs mostly.) I hadn't really met either Mr. Shrem or Mr. Pappas until last night. You guys must have made a really good impression on Mr. Yas to get the invitation :) Like both of you, we all saw the footage for the first time last night. I'm glad you both made the trip because it's obvious you're both really knowledgeable about the technology involved.

The material we gave Laser Pacific was challenging, and they pulled off an awesome first pass in only 24 hours. Undoubtedly they'll be able to perfect the system after they start working with some of our raw footage. I'll keep everyone posted if something new develops or the footage is made available for public consumption.

I.

Illya Friedman
 
town said:
How was the upconversion to 1080 HDCAM done? Teranex converter?
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I'm actually not possitive which process they used. I'll have to check, I really don't know. Plaster City is a developer under NDA for at least one MAJOR company so it wouldn't surprise me if it's there own thing, or a hybrid process with a Kona manufactured card.

I.
 
araujofh said:
Since this test was from a 720p reel, that suffered further compression when uprezzed to 1080p HDCAM
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When I did a series of tests with CFI years ago, every source less than 1080p got up or cross-converted to 1080p before going out to 35mm. So unless something has changed, any Varicam 720p gets converted to at least 1920x1080 23.98 psf before output. While it's possible there could have been some issues with the HDCam I don't think it hurt us too much. D5 would have been better, and will be done shortly. It just wasn't available to us in the hours before DV Expo.

I'm curious about the 1080/24P/PA/60i mode of the HVX. However, I'm not aware of any current software that will recognize the HVX flags for 2:3 or advanced pulldown and remove them for filmout. Has anyone worked a true 1080/24p timeline with only native frames in either FCP or Xpress HD? 60i to 35mm looks really poor, so without some software help it will be a VERY tedious manual removal process.

I.

Illya Friedman
 
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