Here's what is in the box:

D

dashwood

Well-known member
We picked up our HD100 today. Our dealer, HVS in Hamilton, is apparently closest to the Guelph distribution centre and we were the first in Canada to receive shipment.

Surprises:

There is a large battery and a dual charger.

The cushioning is very comfortable on the shoulder.

The body is heavier than expected.

An SD card is included (it is in one of the pink bubble bags.)

There is a package with 5 core/clamp filters that you need to put on yourself.


Disappointments:

The quick release plate is not standard (an extra $350 CDN purchase.)

The back cap for the lens is not bayonet, it is just a little round cap that fits over the lens element.


I haven't even turned it on yet - still charging the battery. I'll get around to testing the camera beside my PAL XL2 and DVX100A later this week. I'll keep you all posted.

Tim

strip_tease.gif
 
That is the about the most thoughtful slide show I've seen. Thanks for doing that. Looking forward to your input...
 
I wonder if this means the U.S. ships Monday, as I've been told.

(Take that with a grain of salt, I've been told a lot of things about shipping dates on this camera)
 
Cool! Would be interesting to see some side-by-sides, but they're definitely going to draw fire from all sides. :)

Could you explain the clamp filters just a little bit? I'm not quite sure what you're referring to ... thanks.
 
I have one more disappointment. I wish the XLR connector on the boom mic had a 90 degree bend because it sticks out 3 inches when attached.

Tim
 
Thanks. That was waaaay cool for you to put that together for us - especially before you'd even fired the sucker up!! :)

Thanks again.

harlan
 
Nate Weaver said:
I wonder if this means the U.S. ships Monday, as I've been told.

(Take that with a grain of salt, I've been told a lot of things about shipping dates on this camera)
Click to expand...

Nate,

I assumed the U.S. had already shipped their first units. We are usually behind here in Canada.

We were actually supposed to receive our two units weeks ago, but JVC Canada brought an engineer over from Japan to do an extensive QC check on every camera they are shipping to customers. I'm told there was an extra 3-day delay because they had supplied an English technical manual, but the engineer needed a Japanese one.

The other problem is that demand is so high, and the dealers don't actually know how many cameras they are getting this week until they arrive. Our dealer was supposed to receive 3 units yesterday (2 for us and 1 demo for the store) but they only sent 2. There is another large shipment due to go out next week.

This is of course all second-hand info that relates to Canada only.

Tim
 
MatthewRyanMCK said:
so dashwood, how does the HD100 perform? i am very curious to see how the footage looks.
Click to expand...

I can't really say how it performs yet with aquisition, but spent about a half-hour today going through the menus and capturing a few seconds in each format. I captured some SD60p with HDVxDV and then used Cinema Tools to "conform" it to 24P, and it was slo-mo! My theory actually worked.
The only problem was that my G4 dropped some frames while importing (I don't have a G5 with FCP5 yet.) I'll be taking the camera down to Brainworks Digital and capturing on their HD setup sometime soon.

What is interesting is that the LCD and EVF seem to present 60i no matter what mode you record in. This actually makes sense considering the 24P frames are derived by flagging from 720/60p. It is a little disturbing not being able to see the "temporal motion filmlook" while you are shooting though.

The production company I'm working with actually bought 2 units. I am testing one, and David Herrington (DP for "Missing") will be testing the other one, shooting some tests during an actual shoot next to the AJ-HDC27 Varicam. I'll get some of that footage from him when he is done and compare compression artifacts and latitude between the two.

I'll keep you posted.
 
dashwood said:
What is interesting is that the LCD and EVF seem to present 60i no matter what mode you record in. This actually makes sense considering the 24P frames are derived by flagging from 720/60p. It is a little disturbing not being able to see the "temporal motion filmlook" while you are shooting though.
Click to expand...

Really? I didn't notice that when shooting the tests the other week. That's something I'd really notice. Is it possible you were flipping thru modes and not hitting "Execute"? We never came off 24P for our test, but I noticed a lot of other settings had to be "Executed", and it took me a while to realize it. I know we were looking at 24P via the component outputs!

Also, your comment about it making sense because the camera derives the 24P from 60P is not right. All the talk on another board about 720p60 is about the MPEG stream laid to tape, and ONLY the stream. It's not really 60 discrete frames being written to tape, only 24 inside the 60fps "file".
 
hey, ...and please tell me you have a sound example, CCD-block-wise? no half screen noise and no white pixels, I hope?
 
dashwood said:
... David Herrington (DP for "Missing") will be testing the other one, shooting some tests during an actual shoot next to the AJ-HDC27 Varicam. I'll get some of that footage from him when he is done and compare compression artifacts and latitude between the two.
Click to expand...
That would be very interesting!
dashwood said:
I'll keep you posted.
Click to expand...
Please do!
 
Nate Weaver said:
Really? I didn't notice that when shooting the tests the other week. That's something I'd really notice. Is it possible you were flipping thru modes and not hitting "Execute"? We never came off 24P for our test, but I noticed a lot of other settings had to be "Executed", and it took me a while to realize it. I know we were looking at 24P via the component outputs!
Click to expand...

Nope. each time I changed modes, I hit EXECUTE and then the system reboots. It always had a 60i NTSC look on the LCD/EVF and NTSC monitor I plugged it into. I just tried it again, and it does seem to be a little blurrier when in 24 mode, but the real-time monitoring doesn't have the look of 23.98 in a pulldown pattern within 60i.
I also double checked that "smooth motion" was turned off.

The results may be different on an HD monitor in 720P mode. I don't have one around yet to test this theory.

My general observation is that there isn't an obvious change in motion when switching from 60i to 60p to 24p like on a DVX100 or XL2.

Also, your comment about it making sense because the camera derives the 24P from 60P is not right. All the talk on another board about 720p60 is about the MPEG stream laid to tape, and ONLY the stream. It's not really 60 discrete frames being written to tape, only 24 inside the 60fps "file".
Click to expand...

Exactly. Same thing worded differently. It lays them down in a 2:3:2:3 pattern, but put flags only on 1 version of each 24P frame. Your NLE recognizes the flags, and will discard or disregard the duplicates. I wonder how they fit those flagged frames withing the GOP though? I guess with their shorter GOP than Sony one of the 24 must always fall on a keyframe. Maybe someone can do the math?

This from page 3 of the manual:

"24p mode shooting function
In HDV format, it records in 24p mode.
It uses a 2:3:2:3 pulldown when recording to tape and converts the images to 60 frames. Component output is converted to 60 frames during playback as well.
24p DV format video uses a 2:3:2:3 pulldown (24p mode).
A 2:3:3:2 pulldown (24p advanced mode) is also supported."

So what does this mean exactly? One of two things is happening.
A: Either the CCD is capturing 24 fps with a shutter of 1/48th, but wrapping it in 60p to lay to tape in HDV, or
B: the CCD is always capturing 60p when in any P mode and deriving 24 out of that (but then how can you get a shutter of 1/48th ???) Hmmm.

Assuming option "A" makes the most sense to us (that's how teleciné/DVX100/XL2 wrap 24 in a pulldown within 60i) then the question is "are the LCD/EVF and live output showing us the image before or after it is wrapped in 60p (or 60i in the case of NTSC). (I didn't test this theory in NTSC DV recording mode. It may behave exactly like a DVX100/XL2 when set for DV record. I'll check next time.)
PS: I have now done the test and when the camera is recording in DV mode, it does act like a DVX or XL2 and show a true representation of 24 with pulldown in 60i. However, when recording in HDV mode, it still looks as smooth as 60i no matter what frame rate you are set to (even after reboot.)

One thing that has always confused me about this camera, is that when I went to the first JVC seminar months ago, I remember the rep mentioning that the CCD captures 60p all the time. Oddly though, there is no 720/60p aquisition option, even though that is the HD output standard from the camera. There is however an SD60P option for 480 and 576, but it is not considered NTSC. (That's how I captured slo-mo at 60fps and conformed back to 24fps.)
I tried to wrap my head around how it worked and I asked a few questions about the camera captures and processes the images, but the rep couldn't really clarify it for me. He wasn't an engineer.

I found this recording/playback format chart on the jvc site.
http://www.jvc-victor.co.jp/english/pro/prohd/faq/gy-hd100_faq.pdf

The bottom line is that I don't really care if live monitoring doesn't show the final 24P temporal frame look. All that matters is composition, lighting and focus to the director. Video assist on film never showed a true representation of the final product either! A small price to pay to for cheap 24P HD.

Tim
 
please tell me you have a sound example, CCD-block-wise? no half screen noise and no white pixels, I hope?
Click to expand...

so far so good.


ADDED TWO HOURS LATER:

Upon closer inspection, the NTSC output does seem to be a little brighter on the left side of the screen. It is a perfect split down the middle. This is also visible in the LCD. I suspect this has to do with the NTSC downconverting circuit. There are also many residual frame artifacts and compression artifacts when using the NTSC output.
I also haven't put the core/clamp filters on the cables, so it could be a result of some interference in the analog out created by the camera. Who knows?

The digitized footage is fine.
 
hey thanks for the info dashwood, i'll be waiting to see some real footage. i can't wait. the real wait will be to see the hvx and the hd100 side by side. that one will be interesting.
 
Hey Tim, that sounds like the split-screen effect, and likely has nothing to do with the downconversion. Put on the lens cap (or close the iris) and jack the gain up to 18db, and you will probably see a marked difference between the left and right half.
 
dashwood said:
Nope. each time I changed modes, I hit EXECUTE and then the system reboots. It always had a 60i NTSC look on the LCD/EVF and NTSC monitor I plugged it into. I just tried it again, and it does seem to be a little blurrier when in 24 mode, but the real-time monitoring doesn't have the look of 23.98 in a pulldown pattern within 60i.
I also double checked that "smooth motion" was turned off.

The results may be different on an HD monitor in 720P mode. I don't have one around yet to test this theory.

My general observation is that there isn't an obvious change in motion when switching from 60i to 60p to 24p like on a DVX100 or XL2.



Exactly. Same thing worded differently. It lays them down in a 2:3:2:3 pattern, but put flags only on 1 version of each 24P frame. Your NLE recognizes the flags, and will discard or disregard the duplicates. I wonder how they fit those flagged frames withing the GOP though? I guess with their shorter GOP than Sony one of the 24 must always fall on a keyframe. Maybe someone can do the math?

This from page 3 of the manual:

"24p mode shooting function
In HDV format, it records in 24p mode.
It uses a 2:3:2:3 pulldown when recording to tape and converts the images to 60 frames. Component output is converted to 60 frames during playback as well.
24p DV format video uses a 2:3:2:3 pulldown (24p mode).
A 2:3:3:2 pulldown (24p advanced mode) is also supported."

So what does this mean exactly? One of two things is happening.
A: Either the CCD is capturing 24 fps with a shutter of 1/48th, but wrapping it in 60p to lay to tape in HDV, or
B: the CCD is always capturing 60p when in any P mode and deriving 24 out of that (but then how can you get a shutter of 1/48th ???) Hmmm.

Assuming option "A" makes the most sense to us (that's how teleciné/DVX100/XL2 wrap 24 in a pulldown within 60i) then the question is "are the LCD/EVF and live output showing us the image before or after it is wrapped in 60p (or 60i in the case of NTSC). (I didn't test this theory in NTSC DV recording mode. It may behave exactly like a DVX100/XL2 when set for DV record. I'll check next time.)
PS: I have now done the test and when the camera is recording in DV mode, it does act like a DVX or XL2 and show a true representation of 24 with pulldown in 60i. However, when recording in HDV mode, it still looks as smooth as 60i no matter what frame rate you are set to (even after reboot.)

One thing that has always confused me about this camera, is that when I went to the first JVC seminar months ago, I remember the rep mentioning that the CCD captures 60p all the time. Oddly though, there is no 720/60p aquisition option, even though that is the HD output standard from the camera. There is however an SD60P option for 480 and 576, but it is not considered NTSC. (That's how I captured slo-mo at 60fps and conformed back to 24fps.)
I tried to wrap my head around how it worked and I asked a few questions about the camera captures and processes the images, but the rep couldn't really clarify it for me. He wasn't an engineer.

I found this recording/playback format chart on the jvc site.
http://www.jvc-victor.co.jp/english/pro/prohd/faq/gy-hd100_faq.pdf

The bottom line is that I don't really care if live monitoring doesn't show the final 24P temporal frame look. All that matters is composition, lighting and focus to the director. Video assist on film never showed a true representation of the final product either! A small price to pay to for cheap 24P HD.

Tim
Click to expand...

Hi,

@Tim Dashwood, Here is some input for your reading pleasure about how ProHD works.
It may not have all the anwers but may shed some light on what you're saying.
 
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