I've seen it in full size 1080 projection!

evinsky

evinsky

Well-known member
I just got back from Rez-Fest LA where Jan gave her well rehearsed and very informed presentation on the HVX and then I saw it... 1080i footage projected native to 40 feet across... Drum roll please....

Oh my God! It looks fantastic!
The first thing that struck me was the noise & dynamic range. Namely there was no noise and there were gobs of dynamic range! I would say it is at least a stop more dynamic range than the DVX in CD. Next was detail, there was plenty, definately equal to the Sony if not better for 1080i. Whatever thier chip resolution is it don't matter, this cam easily held up to theatrical projection detail. But let me get back to noise, it's so clean I almost wet myself. I'm used to the DVX where even 0db has some shadow noise, but this had none. And it rolled it's highlights off seamlessly.

I also saw the XL-H1...
And that was great too. However, my money is going to the HVX. I saw 24f, and it looked fine, it was slightly, very, ever so tiny bit different from 24P. But I may have been seeing things, any way I would have no quams about shooting this camera for film look. The lens is great and the layout, controls and VF were the best on any Canon XL to date. But the image was, well it was very sharp, but a little too smooth.
Like a bit too much NR was applied. Edge detail was there but it had that fuzzy Canon DSL look. (I'm a Nikon guy) The HVX image just poped off the screen at me.
That being said we recorded to HDV and I tried my best to induce crap frames but the H1 held up. It is by far the best HDV camera made to date. My biggest complaint was DR and highlights, maybe it could be set to handle them better (I was in cine gamma), but from what I saw, and I spent 20 minuites tweeking and adjusting both settings and monitor, the H1 has at least 1 stop worse DR than the HVX and it's highlights burn off very quickly. And I don't think the HVX was even in Cinegamma mode.

So in conclusion, if you must have tape the XL-H1 will do very well, but for my money the HVX is clearly a superior imaging machine.
 
Man, I am so jealous. I really wanted to get to there, but never got out of the office today. Your report on the HVX is absolutely what I wanted to hear. If it looked that good at 1080i, then I can't wait to see what it can do at either 720 or 1080p.

Thanks for posting this, now I have something to dream about tonight!
 
Very interesting info - great report. I'm hoping footage and downloads are available soon as I would love to see both cams output.
 
thanks for the informitive report. It's nice to hear somebody willing to give props to the other great camera's out there as well...my money is on the HVX, but you know that there are other great camera's out there.

Thanks again,

Jason
 
Yes it was gorgeous. I tried my darnest to spot one bit of fringe or artifacting or noise, but I just couldn't no matter how hard I looked, no matter how fast the camera panned.

dj, it was rolled off to DVCPRO-HD tape, and bumped back to Digital. Jan said that if it hadn't gone to tape, but stayed in the P2 digi-realm, it would look even better. I also saw some stuff she shot in Amsterdam, right off the P2 in the camera, and that looked amazing. It was displayed on a 20" HD LCD, and it looked like you were peeking through a window. Amazing. :thumbsup: One thing that was cool, is even though it was a prototype, the camera was so responsive. It would pull up a video clip instantly, no lag from what you hit "play", at all. The focus wheel responds quickly and softly, just like the DVX, so it doesn't shake the whole camera when you focus. The Zoom is also soft and fast, and still mechanical. Very nice camera, perfect balance, incredible lens, just 1 stop darker than the DVX. Jan said it was F8 at 2000lux, whereas the DVX was F11 at 2000lux. However the picture is so clean and noise free at 4:2:2 DVCPRO100 (same as DVCPROHD) that applying gain will be no problem at all. In fact, it might make it even cooler :grin:

The color and gamma depth and DR on that camera is incredible. In the same exposure you had a brass bowl with a big reflection on it, and dark shadows, and nothing had grain, and you could see detail in both. Nothing blown out, nothing too dark.

Needless to say, I am very excited to get a production model. I have some projects waiting! :laugh:
 
HVX200 at LA resfest

HVX200 at LA resfest

some folks balked that the presentation was not a true digital transfer from P2 via firewire to the AJ-HD1200A VCR, but a P2 master send out component digital to the VCR and reencoded to DVCPRO HD cassette. it's a minor point, but on the 40 foot screen we did not actually see camera raw. at the panasonic booth at the egyptian courtyard, they are showing P2 raw images, which look just as good.

there is an amsterdam night shot, which is show crisp and noise free, that i'm sold on the camcorder too. i was told jan and company will be at the los angeles egyptian theatre for the entire resfest 2005 (this weekend) for all to come touch, taste, and check out the HVX200.
 
ismaelr said:
some folks balked that the presentation was not a true digital transfer from P2 via firewire to the AJ-HD1200A VCR, but a P2 master send out component digital to the VCR and reencoded to DVCPRO HD cassette. it's a minor point, but on the 40 foot screen we did not actually see camera raw.
Click to expand...

Which actually made the images we saw lower quality. If they were straight off the P2, they would look even better. So we should expect 10% or better increase in quality when we shoot on P2, since we are not going to analog first and running into that layer. :) Since the Record deck was just another DVCPRO-HD machine, it recorded the images at 100mbps, just like the P2 would. It is not getting any better quality than the P2.
 
The thing I kept coming back to was -- yes it looked phenomenal on the LCD that they showed -- but that was even downscaled to 720p! The LCD they were showing it on was a 1280x720 display! There was totally the hyper-realistic ultra-detailed "looking through a window" effect -- and while that looked extremely impressive, that wasn't even near what the camera's capable of. That was interlaced footage, and downrezzed at that! Interlaced footage is inherently about 1/3 less resolution than pure progressive scan, so by the time we get an actual 1080/24p image output to a 1080-native display, this thing should look a-maz-ing.
 
Rush said:
it was rolled off to DVCPRO-HD tape, and bumped back to Digital. Jan said that if it hadn't gone to tape, but stayed in the P2 digi-realm, it would look even better.
Click to expand...


I'm sorry, but how can that be true? On the tape, the encoding is the same (and obviously also digital) as on the cards. I'm supposing it's dubbed digital, so there can't be any difference (only if there would be a dropout on the tape - but they wouldn't show it in that case)

I heard that on other posts before, but it just can't be true... :huh: (Did you really say that Jan? Echt waar?)
 
What I did was that I came out of the component analog outputs , A to D or rather HD-SDI and then into the DVCPRO HD machine, thus having a layer of analog to digital in the middle of what I showed. So if being a purist, I would say that the P2 would look better as there would be no analog layer. All said, it looked great.

Hope that clears up my words,

Jan
 
Barry_Green said:
The thing I kept coming back to was -- yes it looked phenomenal on the LCD that they showed -- but that was even downscaled to 720p! The LCD they were showing it on was a 1280x720 display! There was totally the hyper-realistic ultra-detailed "looking through a window" effect -- and while that looked extremely impressive, that wasn't even near what the camera's capable of. That was interlaced footage, and downrezzed at that! Interlaced footage is inherently about 1/3 less resolution than pure progressive scan, so by the time we get an actual 1080/24p image output to a 1080-native display, this thing should look a-maz-ing.
Click to expand...
Drool... I want it. I want it now. Where's my wallet?
 
Rush, for zooming you said it was smooth and mechanical, does that mean there is a ramp now? So rather than hard stopping for a zoom, it slows down and then stops?
 
Wow. I have to say I haven't been excited about a digital video camera since Genesis. I'm heading to Rez Fest in Chicago next Sunday to see for myself. If this camera proves to be HALF of what we're hearing from these reports....we're looking at a full blown REVOLUTION here for lost cost, high quality TV and Film acquisition format.

And if indeed HDV is not easily compatible with other HDV equipment.....then the costs of P2 is nothing. Like I said before...no deck needed to edit. Hand the client or editor a Blue Ray or dual layer DVD. NO BIG DEAL.
 
i was at RESFest SF last week. The XL HD looked good but it was a bit of a trick because it wasn't HDV, they used the HD SDI output...which is far less compressed. Also, the Canon optics were great but the footage 'jutterred' and it was noticable. The HXV was awesome but I would suggest that Panasonic make or commission a demo movie to show off this brilliant camera. Jan said she was no filmmaker but it was mostly an engineering look of how the camera picked up patterns on fabric shot in a room.

HVX is in a different league because it was the only HD camera in 5 that was not HDV. I think the firestore by the beginning of 2006, a few months away, will be a good choice for those not using or have budget for the P2. Firstore disk will get larger and more inexpensive pretty quickly.

It was nice to see Jan in person. I told her that she was always good at monitoring and responding to these forums. Seems Panasonic and her are the only one that really guage interest and feature feedback from video geeks...which was great.
 
yeah, it's not like me to gush praise for any corporation, but i think we all should be thankful for the panasonic teams' efforts here. they have finally put true high quality production value into the hands of artists that are too headstrong or unlucky to get a big hollywood budget...

as for me, greenscreening will finally look like it wasn't greenscreened...

thanks panasonic!
 
Let me second evinsky's comments. I saw the same presentation. I tend to be critical of images, doing still photography ( http://www.jake-richardson.com ) and what I saw on the big screen was definitely impressive. The amount of detail in the images, and their lack of noise was something that I am not sure I even believed was possible coming out of a little camcorder.

Equally impressive is the latitude. The way the color was rendered in the shadows. I doubt if that many 'average' viewers would even notice it is not 35mm film (in the 24P mode)
 
There is another showing of the HVX at Resfest/Los Angeles on Sunday @ 12 NOON. They're going to project footage onto the big screen from all cameras.... I hope they use the same footage that you saw on Friday with Jan. I can't believe I missed it! I thought it was Sunday!
 
I guess I'm the only one who wasn't overly impressed with the footage I saw. I went on Friday afternoon to take a look at the HVX200 presentation. When the 1080 60i image was projected, it looked good, but it did not blow me away. What I really want to see is the 1080 24p image. According to Jan, the 24p image should look much better, and if that holds true, then I am sold on the camera. For me, the film look of the footage is everything. We could not get a good sense of that watching interlaced video, but I'm hoping there will be presentations in the up coming months showing off the camera's progressive capabilities.
 
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