GH1 Action Short / Field Test

I haven't compared them side by side, so my observation could be off, but it seems they've been really working on the color correction and grading because the same shots in the newer trailer look a lot better to me. Either that or I've just gotten used to it. It still looks like video though, which isn't that bad. It's just different and the majority of the movie-going public wouldn't notice and wouldn't care anyways. What really matters is a good story and good acting combined with decent shots and sound.
 
I played the 200MB download on a 50" DLP TV. A lot of the shots seemed pretty good, but I did notice a lot of noise in a few. One that really comes to mind is the shots of them running by the wall in the beginning when when he throws the gun against the wall. Reminds me a little bit of the HVX200 noise in low light situations, but this seems worse/more noticeable and it's a fairly bright shot. Is this due to compression or camera settings or something else?
 
Mike@AF said:
I played the 200MB download on a 50" DLP TV. A lot of the shots seemed pretty good, but I did notice a lot of noise in a few. One that really comes to mind is the shots of them running by the wall in the beginning when when he throws the gun against the wall. Reminds me a little bit of the HVX200 noise in low light situations, but this seems worse/more noticeable and it's a fairly bright shot. Is this due to compression or camera settings or something else?
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I noticed this noise too and thought the same thing ( HVX200 ). However i know the GH1 can look better. It can't be the 800iso, we have seen plenty from Japan that is very clean...

Why was there noise? It doesn't seem compressed well either.

Take a look at this video by ( Commanderspike ) , shot at night at 400-800-1600iso which can be tough on any camera, however looks damn good. The lit market scenes look very filmic with good DR on all the overexposed lights as well!

Panasonic GH1 low light footage test in Taiwan:

http://www.vimeo.com/5179973



My question is why does this action video not look as good or better...?



.
 
Okay, I got home and played it back on my own TV. The noise I see on my TV doesn't look the same. Rather than HVX200-type noise it looks like some kind of macro-blocking... basically like high compression. Is that the AVCHD or is it just the conversion/compression after edit?

BTW, my TV is a Pioneer Elite 60" plasma (Pro150FD). I'm going to try some other samples and see how those look since the only thing holding me back is how it looks on a TV. Just about anything I playback on my Mac screen looks awesome. I'll report back here with my findings.
 
Jack Daniel Stanley said:
Also if it's jittery. Press pause, let it fully load. Drag the bar back. Press Play. Maybe that will help.
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The stuttering I was noticing was with the QT download. However, I didn't play the second half (didn't even notice it for some strange reason) and so didn't realize so much of it was 1/50 shutter. Every shot I saw the stuttering/jitteriness in was 1/50 so that might be it.

Still... this looks awesome and is pushing me closer to pulling the trigger. Good work!
 
The noise = 800 ISO + Grading + Compression. Even in the ungraded version you have there's some weird flicker etc in the walls but not on mine. In the raw version there's just a hair of noise in mine due to the 800 ISO. We reshot with a lower ISO yesterday and no noise, almost too clean. I may keep the old shots because they are better content wise - but we'll see. I'm going to try and post 10 second clips in whatever the best codec is people can watch because web compression is just not made for this kind of movement - your 200mb version is much much more marco blocky / artifacty than my 1.25GB CineForm version.
 
Jack Daniel Stanley said:
The noise = 800 ISO + Grading + Compression. Even in the ungraded version you have there's some weird flicker etc in the walls but not on mine. In the raw version there's just a hair of noise in mine due to the 800 ISO. We reshot with a lower ISO yesterday and no noise, almost too clean. I may keep the old shots because they are better content wise - but we'll see. I'm going to try and post 10 second clips in whatever the best codec is people can watch because web compression is just not made for this kind of movement - your 200mb version is much much more marco blocky / artifacty than my 1.25GB CineForm version.
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Cool, that's what I wanted to know. Can't wait to see some of this stuff uncompressed.
 
Jack, if you have the chance to upload any raw 720 60p action clip it would be great to try our 60p to 24p workflows! I want to see how Vegas, Premiere and After Effects do.
 
Bravo! Now that is how the camera should be handled to make a good judgment. I'm still just as impressed with the GH1 as I ever was. Thanks for the work JDS.
 
Thanks Jack, for posting this along with the RAW and settings. I also noticed the stuttering as well, and I believe it to be an artifact of the 30P to 24P conversion (which by its very nature is stuttery due to dropped frames). And this is what concerns me a bit as it being used as a valid workaround. So many people have been saying that they'll just shoot in 720P modes and convert, but it doesn't always look right. As we've seen here it can actually be distracting. It's tricky and it will work in a pinch, but to rely on it as workaround seems a bit risky in my opinion. If Panasonic had just given us a 720-24P MJPEG mode so much of this could have been avoided. It's nice work though, Jack, especially considering how quickly you turned it around!
 
Really well done video. Action isn't exactly the easiest thing to try and pull off and you (and your team) created a well-shot, believable piece with some great cinematography. Very nice. And thanks too for going the extra mile and posting all of the info about your settings and workflow.

I was wondering why, when you wanted to create a final video in 24P, that you chose to shoot so much of the footage at 720 30P and 720 60P instead using the actual 24P mode at 1080? I get for the slo-mo part but didn't you force yourself into doing a lot of extra conversions to get 24P when the camera shoots 24P natively in the first place?
 
Jack Daniel Stanley said:
The noise = 800 ISO + Grading + Compression. Even in the ungraded version you have there's some weird flicker etc in the walls but not on mine. In the raw version there's just a hair of noise in mine due to the 800 ISO. We reshot with a lower ISO yesterday and no noise, almost too clean. I may keep the old shots because they are better content wise - but we'll see. I'm going to try and post 10 second clips in whatever the best codec is people can watch because web compression is just not made for this kind of movement - your 200mb version is much much more marco blocky / artifacty than my 1.25GB CineForm version.
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Nice. That's really good to hear. I'm guessing ProRes422 would be the best codec to use?
 
Nathan Troutman said:
If you're on a Mac but the PC people are going to feel a little left out. DVCPro HD would be more platform universal.
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I thought you couldn't play DVCProHD files on a PC without some special software that would need to transcode to a different codec. When did this change? Admittedly I haven't used a PC in years. What about H.264 at best quality? Good enough?
 
Edius 5 and Premiere CS4 do native P2 MXF natively with no problem. The AVCHD to DVCProHD is free from Panasonic.
 
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Then I guess the DVCProHD codec should work then if you keep the same 1920x1080 resolution and pixel aspect ratio of the AVCHD files.
 
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