HVX SD Pictures

Barry_Green said:
The clips I posted are with settings that would minimize noise, since that was what I was experimenting with at the time. The same settings work with the HVX as work with the DVX. I used the gray card to compare every gamma and every matrix and various detail and coring settings, and came up with my own level of settings that I intend to use with the camera. That's what's reflected in the clips that you haven't seen yet.
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Thanks again my friend for your care!
 
That is stunning Barry.
Makes me feel great that I already laid out the cash on this thing.
I always thought that the DV50 would be a great use for this camera, but I never imagined that much of a difference.
The great thing about DV50 is that editing workflow and its load on people's systems will be so much easier than getting involved in HD and it will satisfy a great many producers needs.

Thanks again for all your untiring and meticulous efforts.
Saving the rest of us alot of time.
 
Emanuel said:
Good luck! To both!

BTW, as you can easily see, I'm trying to give us the best what I can have regarding your useful thread that we'd like, for sure, to answer our doubts. I can only speak for myself, of course. As well, for my partners & jobs that I have@my_office. But I appreciated your open thread and we beg your help. Unfortunately, we are far away from HVX availability in order to test it. As I said I must have a decision during next weeks for raising reasons, etc and it's not so interesting to decide without testing it. Unless, through yourselves but that's the way it is... Thanks for your superior understanding.
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Sorry about that. Didnt realize you weren't in US.

I'll do what I can to help with my tests as well.

In regards of the SD pictures--

The final test looks as good or better than the DVCpro50... So maybe down-rezzing isn't such a bad idea?

What's your take on it, Barry?

And while I'm at it-- Does the XLH1 shoot in a similar mode? DVCpro50 or anything like that? That might be a downer for our workflow. I'd rather distribute my work through DVD at the moment, and it seems like downrezzing might just be an extra process that could get tedious?
 
Kholi said:
The final test looks as good or better than the DVCpro50... So maybe down-rezzing isn't such a bad idea? What's your take on it, Barry?
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I agree that it looks just as good, and maybe even a bit better. That's what I meant by the separate process of downrezzing to uncompressed and staying there. If you recompress it again, that's just asking too much.

So to be clear and people understand: the initial pictures up there were done by the camera shooting HD to the card, and then executing the in-camera dub to DV tape, then I imported the DV pictures. That's the process that's too much to ask.

The last pic was from HD downconverted but not recompressed. What I was demonstrating was that if you were going to end up in DV anyway, the downrezzing doesn't help you any.

And while I'm at it-- Does the XLH1 shoot in a similar mode? DVCpro50 or anything like that?
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No. It has regular DV, and it has HDV, but there's no 4:2:2 possible (unless of course you use SDI output).
 
Barry_Green said:
I agree that it looks just as good, and maybe even a bit better. That's what I meant by the separate process of downrezzing to uncompressed and staying there. If you recompress it again, that's just asking too much.

So to be clear and people understand: the initial pictures up there were done by the camera shooting HD to the card, and then executing the in-camera dub to DV tape, then I imported the DV pictures. That's the process that's too much to ask.

The last pic was from HD downconverted but not recompressed. What I was demonstrating was that if you were going to end up in DV anyway, the downrezzing doesn't help you any.


No. It has regular DV, and it has HDV, but there's no 4:2:2 possible (unless of course you use SDI output).
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Alright. So I can look forward to NOT looking forward to no other DV output from the Canon.

I'll go look more into this SDI output option from the Canon. Thanks for the testing.

This is the kind of info that should be circulating as well. What the HVX offers as far as SD, a medium that most of us would be using initially, anyway.
 
What do you mean by downconverting but not recompressing?
Where is this done in the process and does it leave you with an ordinary DV file that you can edit in FCP as DV?
That sounds very useful as well.
Does that look appreciably better than the DVPro50?
 
He just did the tests. Find the DVCpro50 bitmap and compare it with the one a few posts up. It's just barely, if at all, better... but not a process that you'd want to go through it seems. You'd have to think that you'd be applying this technique to footage and not just stills.

DVCpro50 looks great, though.
 
What I meant was, if you downconvert in-camera, it will finish the process by recompressing to DV and writing it to the tape. That downrez and recompress process is what's causing the softness shown in the DV-from-HD-Dub shots up above.

If you bring in the HD footage and just downrez it, it can look beautiful -- but what can you do with it? Eventually it'll have to be compressed to something (whether DV, or WMV9, or something like that). Compressing to DV throws away the "goodness" that it had. DV50 seems to preserve just about all of it, as far as standard-def goes: you get all the goodness, all the sharpness, and you can use it -- you can dub it to DigiBeta, or whatever.

Downrezzing without compressing to an output format is an intellectual exercise, but doesn't really have any applicability in real world production output. I'd still say that if you were aiming for SD distribution, and didn't need an HD master of your product, shoot DV50. It's gorgeous, better than I was hoping for! :) If you do need an HD master, then go ahead and shoot HD, but do your own downconversion in post; don't let the camera do it. Unless you're editing in DV, in which case it's six-of-one, half-dozen-of-the-other.
 
Barry_Green said:
What I meant was, if you downconvert in-camera, it will finish the process by recompressing to DV and writing it to the tape. That downrez and recompress process is what's causing the softness shown in the DV-from-HD-Dub shots up above.

If you bring in the HD footage and just downrez it, it can look beautiful -- but what can you do with it? Eventually it'll have to be compressed to something (whether DV, or WMV9, or something like that). Compressing to DV throws away the "goodness" that it had. DV50 seems to preserve just about all of it, as far as standard-def goes: you get all the goodness, all the sharpness, and you can use it -- you can dub it to DigiBeta, or whatever.

Downrezzing without compressing to an output format is an intellectual exercise, but doesn't really have any applicability in real world production output. I'd still say that if you were aiming for SD distribution, and didn't need an HD master of your product, shoot DV50. It's gorgeous, better than I was hoping for! :) If you do need an HD master, then go ahead and shoot HD, but do your own downconversion in post; don't let the camera do it. Unless you're editing in DV, in which case it's six-of-one, half-dozen-of-the-other.
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And as far as downcoverting in post (off-topic), is there a thread you can point me to on how to do this? I want this to be part of my testing this weekend. I plan to actually burn an HVX DVD and a XLH1 DVD to check out on a few different screens.
 
Barry_Green said:
The clips I posted are with settings that would minimize noise, since that was what I was experimenting with at the time. I used the gray card to compare every gamma and every matrix and various detail and coring settings, and came up with my own level of settings that I intend to use with the camera.
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Thanks for the testing, Barry. These are the kinds of examples I've been waiting for, and really show how the different modes of the camera compare and relate to each other. The newer footage I've been seeing from the camera lately looks really promising; I'm very happy about that.

The only thing that is still somewhat worrysome to me is that you've mentioned how changing things like the gamma, detail, and/or coring settings can really help to reduce noise in the picture (which is something a lot of people have been concerned about), but what I loved SO much about my DVX was the amazing color it outputted and rich, cinematic feel that it displayed (thanks largely to its unique gamma controls). I understand that I can "dial out" a fair share of the noise on the HVX by switching away from the cine-like gammas and reducing the detail, but is that not in effect also taking away the best things about the camera that DVX users have come to know and love so much - the beautiful color and sharpness of the images it produces?

Believe me, I'd love for you to clarify the issue so I can understand better, but even in posts like the one I've quoted, it seems that you've traded those benefits for the "optimal lowest noise" settings... and in a lot of ways that defeats the purpose (or at the least, gives up something really important for the sake of fixing something else). I realize that in most situations you can't have your cake and eat it too, but I don't want to give up the beautiful colors I'm used to on my DVX just to get a picture out of the HVX with acceptable levels of noise. Is there a solution (besides only shooting scenes that are flooded with light)?
 
thanks for putting up those shots barry! not trying to start a flame war...

if all these shots are identically illuminated, then it seems that the dvx100b wins in the latitude department. it's the flattest looking shot! the dvxpro50 picture looks like it has the worst latitude. am i missing something? i love the sharp red channel but i can almost get that look using magic bullet's dv artifact corrector...

i feel like it's hubris to say this (especially considering all the experience and wisdom of the people on this thread), but the only pics i've seen from somethign other than the dvx100 under $10k that has the same "wow" factor that the dvx100 did at its introduction is this:

http://forum.reel-stream.com/viewtopic.php?t=338

of course it seems they're not shipping to the public yet. and the workflow is kinda nasty. but they're putting up a good fight (although probably a very biased one)... for example: http://forum.reel-stream.com/viewtopic.php?t=341

anyway the original point of this post was to ask about the dynamic range of the hvx vx. dvx. if the rest of this looks like a flame, then please just ignore it! :) barry what do you thikn of the dynamic range of dvx vs. hvx in sd?

thanks!
 
Hey Barry,
What iris settings were the cameras on when you did those?

I'm curious as to how much more light the HVX needed compared to the DVX.

Hope you remember.
Thanks.

-BillP

EDIT: Doh! Guy above kind of beat me to it.
 
HVX requires 1 stop more light than DVX.

Haven't tested for comparative latitude.

As far as the noise & settings, I'm so tired of the "noise" thing that I developed a mostly noise-free recipe. There are many, many, many settings, and you can really dial it in just about however you'd want.
I realize that in most situations you can't have your cake and eat it too, but I don't want to give up the beautiful colors I'm used to on my DVX just to get a picture out of the HVX with acceptable levels of noise
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Depends on what you find acceptable. Did you find the DVX100B acceptable? Then you'll be fine with the HVX. If you like the look of a DVX in cinegamma with cinematrix etc., then you'll be fine with the HVX in those settings.
 
Barry,
Thanks for the excellent post on DV and DVCPRO50 differences.

There's no doubt the HD capabilites have created quite the stir that put the DVCPRO50 in its shadows.

I was very excited when I heard about DVCPRO50 with the HVX200.

This now confirms it!

Anyone even consider an SD solution would be crazy not to think about the HVX200!

Just look at the examples Barry posted! Wow, what a difference.

This also confirms I won't be downsampling and compressing to DV within the HVX.

Barry, your downsample from 1080 to 480 no re-compression looked great.
Is it possible to try this same test with 720P. With all the frame rate abilites of 720, I believe a lot of users will downsample from 720 to 480 for SD stuff.
Thanks, Steve
 
One more question on the downrezzing Barry,

I assume you did the downrez on a computer.
Is there a workflo where you could shoot HD and eventually convert to SD either before or after editing and keep some of that quality.

I assume that many producers will be unsure whetehr they really need HD or not, but will want to protect themselves by shooting HD even if they deliver in SD or would prefer to downrezz and edit in SD (saving the HD files for future).
Is this an option or will they always end up with the crappy looking recompressed SD in your test.

Exactly where did you do the downrez.
Is that available in FCP?
(I know you're not a Mac guy)
 
Great tests, Barry! I guess I have the same question. Since many of us won't be able to resist acquiring our footage in HD, many of us will be "stuck" with HD masters, even though the majority of our near-future distribution will be standard-def DVDs. What then, would be the optimum recommended workflow for HD-acquired footage that eventually needed to be distributed on SD DVD?

Also, remember, my friend has that Teranex digital converter seen here:

http://www.rezfactor.com/

I guess the "downconvert/recompress" would optimally come from a converter such as the Teranex Xantus? If you didn't have the Teranex, what would be the next best method in your opinion?

Or would you just need an "industrial-strength," Sonic Solutions-level DVD authoring platform to do the MPEG-2 encoding directly from the HD master (or DVCPRO-HD/HDCAM tape)? Or is there an HD premastering application even on the market yet?
 
Oh...man...

the poor man...i mean...the dentist...

It is obvious the HVX's has a much better image than the DVX100B.
I presently use a 100B because i'm waiting for my HVX...
...and the 100B is very good, i like it much much better than the A.

The HVX shines.
 
Well, as a side note . . .

Barry's tests are now making me rethink SD acquisition . . . if I'm only producing for SD DVD, maybe I should reconsider the 2/3" DSR450 SD camera again (yeah, yeah, I know, it's only 25Mbps, 4:1:1 DV). The PDW-F330 1/2" XDCAM HD is nice for only $20K with glass, but the DSR is 2/3" and only $14,999 with glass, bricks, charger, and a bag. The great thing about that is that I keep my regular ole' DV workflow.
 
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