VaricamLT: Horizontal line on Varicam LT

I can see it in your still (right below the eye). Haven't seen it in anything I've shot yet. But, we'll be looking carefully. Update us on what Panasonic tells you.
 
I'm waiting for their answer. It's not something that I noticed immediately though, I just saw it on a shot, on the shirt of a person, after watching it dozens of times. And lately on another shot. I checked all my footages, I didn't see it elsewhere. Then I checked some footages I downloaded from other users and I saw it on this one and another one. It's exactly at the same height on these shots.
 
Panasonic was not able to duplicate the problem. They told me to do the ABB black balance. I did the ABB when I got the cam and when I updated it. The 2 shots where I noticed it (barely though) were shot in the sun. Maybe it was a black balance temperature thing then. I just did the black balance again, shot some footages, I don't see any line. But it was just 2 shots with these lines over a lot of shots and nobody would have notice them without increasing the contrast, zooming and scrutinising. And maybe the cameras used for the online shots I found were not blackshaded at all.
 
Yep, black balance is something I myself forgot about, even though it apparently is good to do it. I noticed a dead pixel on my FS700 recently, and thought that the sensor was broken in some way. I read the manual, did a black balance and the dead pixel was gone.
 
Ok I did the black balance several times and I still see it.
In fact it's not noticeable in general, I noticed it on 2 shots at first, but then I started to push the contrast a lot and I see in a lot more shots. Mainly on plain even darker areas with a moving camera, easier to see it then. I then decrease a lot the shadows, increase a lot the highlights, and try to play it back and forth focusing on the middle of the image to see the horizontal line.
I still try to understand why I see it with my camera and on the shots from the 2 other sources I found online. So basically from 3 different cameras. Maybe if I can find some other original footage I will know if it's all the cameras or just these 3, which will be weird.
Here another footage 2 mn after a blackshading:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/90344707/Untitled2.mov
 
The URSA Mini 4K had similar lines and it was due to the body temperature. They would randomly appear and disappear.

However, they were much more pronounced than this LT example.
 
Alex Roz said:
There is the first link I posted in this thread. From Ben Meredith who posted some files (https://vimeo.com/171351175). The second is from Oxen Made (https://vimeo.com/172427914), unfortunately his files are not accessible anymore, I just found one of his shots left (it's not an original, it's graded and there was some grain added), I can see the line by pushing the contrast:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/90344707/Untitled3.mov
Click to expand...

Do you see the line in Ben Meredith's footage when you grade the original files or on Vimeo also? I looked at the whole film on Vimeo and couldn't see the line there.

Do you see the problem in all settings (resolution, frame rate and codec) or just in some specific cases?

The line in the file you posted on dropbox is very, very subtle. If I didn't know what to look fore I probably wouldn't have seen it. I can't see the line at all watching his test film on Vimeo.
 
Yes it's subtle. I have to push the contrast to make it clear, but on 3 shots I noticed it without pushing it, that's how I discovered it. And I discovered it after a few weeks. If the image is busy with many elements you don't see it. Also, Vimeo compresses the videos so it probably disappears after uploading as it's subtle. I saw it in Ben Meredith original file and I saw it in all settings. I wrote again to Panasonic, waiting for their reply. It would be good to know if it's a hardware or a firmware problem.
 
Alex Roz said:
Yes it's subtle. I have to push the contrast to make it clear, but on 3 shots I noticed it without pushing it, that's how I discovered it. And I discovered it after a few weeks. If the image is busy with many elements you don't see it. Also, Vimeo compresses the videos so it probably disappears after uploading as it's subtle. I saw it in Ben Meredith original file and I saw it in all settings. I wrote again to Panasonic, waiting for their reply. It would be good to know if it's a hardware or a firmware problem.
Click to expand...

I agree. I hope this gets resolved soon.
 
Run&Gun said:
Alex, is the line visible if the footage is played back straight from the camera or only in a post scenario(ingested and viewed/played back on an NLE)?
Click to expand...

Good point! Also, does Panasonic provide some sort of software where you can view the footage? If so, do you see the line there?
 
Well I tried that. Reading it in VLC directly, capturing an image and pushing the contrast in photoshop, the line is still there.

Ben Meredith uploaded these files:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/kuob6f0x4ec1tkw/AACWBldY6E_rjXKLpOeEKTKSa?dl=0
You can notice it easily on the first file (A007C005_160528_C60X) if you want to give it a try with an original file.

There is a Panasonic P2 viewer software but I can't read these files directly it seems. It's probably only working from the P2 card.
 
The reason for asking this is that the Varicam 35 has been out for a while. If there was a sensor issue someone should've noticed it by now. The Varicam LT uses a different codec (AFAIK, correct me if I'm wrong please) so therefore I'm thinking that perhaps the codec, or the reading of the codec by the software, is creating this issue.
 
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