How do I get the least amount of noise on my HPX170?

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Filmkid2003

Well-known member
Hey everybody. I have an HPX170 and I am shooting at 1080i/24pa. These are my image settings:

Synchro Scan: 180.0d
Detail Level: 0
V Detail Level: 0
Detail Coring: +7
Chroma Level: 0
Chroma Phase: 0
Color Temp Ach: 0
Color Temp Bch: 0
Master Ped: 0
A. Iris Level: 0
DRS: OFF
Gamma: B. Press
Knee: High
Matrix: Norm 1
Skin Tone DTL: ON
V Detail Freq: THIN




I shoot my footage in broad daylight properly exposed using the Waveform monitor and I still see some noise when I watch the footage on my 47" LCD 1080p HDTV! Is there any way to get rid of this grainy noise? Are my settings listed above, correct? And yes, I have the gain setting on the side of the camera set to Low. Can someone please help me with this or am I stuck with some grainy noise even in broad daylight? I want the cleanest and sharpest image possible! Thanks.
 
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You may want to check what the low gain switch is set to in the menus since it is adjustable.

In Barry Greens book, there is a low noise scene file, you might want to check that. Sorry I don't have that in front of me, but I recollect some of the settings were surprising and very different than yours. The detail level was reduced and the pedestal was cranked up. Coring was high. I haven't had a chance to compare this to a more neutral type file yet, but I suspect it will be pretty soft, so pick your poison.

How are you outputting the footage to your TV? Is it direct from the cam, or post processed?

Grant
 
Hey Ggrantly, thanks for the reply. I am outputting via Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 on my computer. I deinterlace the footage in Premiere before I play it back. I have my 47" LCD HDTV hooked up to my computer via HDMI. I do have Barry Green's book and I'll have to look that up. What do you mean that you suspect the low noise scene file will be pretty soft? You mean it won't be sharp looking like 1080i? Also, if I use that low noise scene file, do you think I will be able to have a lot of freedom when I do color correction in post? That's mainly why I am trying to keep my settings neutral.
 
Hook up your TV direct to your cam and make sure you are not introducing something bad in the editing process. I don't know anything about Premiere, so maybe someone else can help you.

Have you tried shooting a native progressive rate like 720/30?

In a broad terms, the more you sharpen your image, the more you will sharpen the noise. It is like turning up a gain control. Detail coring will help this somewhat.

Grant
 
Filmkid2003 said:
Hey Ggrantly, thanks for the reply. I am outputting via Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 on my computer. I deinterlace the footage in Premiere before I play it back.
Click to expand...

Do NOT deinterlace. Edit on a 24p timeline, and you'll have your native progressive frames. Applying deinterlace will just degrade the footage.
 
Deinterlacing reduces by half the amount of information you are sending to your monitor and as David said degrades your footage. Shoot progressive and deliver progressive or shoot interlaced and deliver interlaced.

Jim
 
also, try overexposing by 1/3 of a stop.

i recently tested the HPX170 with a nanoFlash recorder to get cleaner, less noisy, images. and it works great! recording at 140MB/s. much nicer footage. any kind of noise looks much more organic, kinda like the grain structure on 500T.

what i also did was test how far i could over expose before losing detail when i bring the mids back down in post. false color monitors suggest that skin tones should be at 56% IRE. i found that i could over expose skin tones to 80 - 90% IRE and bring the mids back down in Color for richer, cleaner and less noisy images.

this overexposure technique will work without the nanoFlash. any DP who shoots film will overexpose the neg by up to 1 full stop (most will go to 2/3rds) to get a denser neg.

1/3 works very well with the HPX's 4.2.2 codec.

try it out. but test in your environments. like all digital cameras, the HPX's native ISO/sensitivity will fluctuate, 'adapt' if you will, to its surroundings. harris savides found this was his biggest problem with the viper when lensing Zodiac.
 
Thank you for all your suggestions, guys. One thing about de-interlacing my footage in Premiere. I noticed that if I don't apply the "de-interlacing", my 1080i footage has jagged edges wherever there is a straight edge or line in the footage, like the edge of a building or roof of a house. But, when I apply the "de-interlace all footage" in Premiere, those jagged edges go away and look normal again. Is there a good explanation for this? I'm worried because you guys are telling me that I shouldn't de-interlace the 1080i footage because it will degrade the image, yet, it gets rid of these jegged edges! ???
 
You are probably using a 29.97 timeline. You don't want that. You want a 23.976 timeline -- there's a sequence preset for DVCPRO HD 1080 24p. Use that.
 
you are also seeing those jagged edges, most likely, because the footage is running at 29.97 on a progressive display, like an LCD. you don't notice those jagged edges, or interlacing on, say, a CRT monitor.

use the 23.976 timeline setting, or remove the advanced pulldown of the 24pA recording upon ingestion into premiere, that will remove the redundant frames/fields, giving you progressive 23.98 material.
 
Well, you don't remove pulldown when "ingesting." You just put the MFXs in a 24p sequence and the pulldown is removed automatically. No "ingesting" or log and transfer with Premiere.

You shouldn't see any interlace artifacts (jagged lines) if you do this. But you will if it's a 29.97 sequence because pulldown will NOT be removed.
 
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