grain in SD vs. HD

P

patssle

Well-known member
is the grain amount different between SD and HD? I've tried many different settings on the HVX and reading through the forums on the best settings, but still get a little more grain that I'd like shooting SD to miniDV. After watching a ton of footage from the forum in HD, it seems its not nearly as prevalent in HD.

I don't have P2 cards to test this....

Is there a difference or am I doing something wrong.
 
It may be that what you see is not grain, but simply DV compression artifacts. DV uses 4:1:1 or 4:2:0 color sampling depending on the TV standard, whereas DVCPro50 and DVCProHD are 4:2:2.

You may want to try recording the same static scene directly to disk using your NLE in both DV and DVCProHD and compare the results.
 
Is this grain you are seeing in a correctly exposed scene or in a low light uncontrolled situation?

Remember that the HVX is less sensitive than some of the miniDV cams out there (such as the vx2100 the low light king of mini dv as far as I'm concerned). I havent done any real testing, but in my experience the HVX is around a stop slower than a VX2000/VX2100, but I don't own a DVX to compare it to. I believe that Barry has already done such comparisons and they are available somewhere in the forums.

I seem to recall that in one of these famous Barry tests, side by side, correctly exposed, the HVX SD mode was sharper and cleaner than a DVX.
 
actually i think the HVX is 2 stops slower tha nthe VX2100. the DVX in 60i was a stop slower than the VX2100.

also, is the PD170 basically a VX2100 with Audio inputs?
 
Low light is not a problem, I don't even have to have the iris wide open. I don't think its the DV format, as I've shot plenty on DV before and don't really see this much grain.

I'll bring my camera to work tomorrow and do some testing vs. the sony Z1 and maybe some other cameras. The amount of grain I'm getting is kinda unacceptable.

What scene settings would you recommend for lowest noise possible? (I'd read Barry's book if I had my rebate yet)
 
Something using B Press gamma, a lowered Master Pedestal, and a little bit of Detail Coring.
 
also, make sure the gain isnt on. this seems silly but the gain switch on the HVX is inverted. the lower position is the highest gain. turn it ot "L" for 0db gain.
 
THoff said:
Something using B Press gamma, a lowered Master Pedestal, and a little bit of Detail Coring.
Click to expand...

Yeah it's what I've been using. With a few modifications to the other settings as well.

I'll post some clips too hopefully tomorrow.
 
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