New Sony HDV camera.

Re: New Sony HDV camera.

Since we are all taking about the whole 24p/pull down I wanted to throw a question out there thats hopefully not too far off subject.

I dont know if anyone else has experienced it but I seem to be able to pick up a noticeable difference between what motion looks like with 24P with the needed 2-3 pulldown and FILM transferred with 2-3 pulldown.

Now Im only talking about motion here so lets PLEASE focus on only the posible factors that could effect it. In theory it would seem everything that could be a factor is the same. For example both are showing 24 full frames with 2-3 pulldown and both are normally capturing a 1/48 shutter speed (shutter angle).

So whats subtly changing the feel?

The only two things I could come up with as remote possiblities is:
1)DV compression's effect on motion
2)Possibly the DVX100 is capturing thoughs 24 frames at fluctuating rate to allow for the spacing pattern of 2-3 pulldown. Meaning the gaps BETWEEN each 1/48 sec point in time (each frame) are taken at slightly longer followed by slightly shorter and back to slightly longer intervals allowing for the 2-3 pulldown. While FILM "samples" at a constant rate and pull down is added much later.

Hell I dont know. Never the less there seems to be a subtle difference between the MOTION of film and 24p when they are both transfered to tape. Have other people noticed it? What do you think it is and why?
 
Re: New Sony HDV camera.

Some people have commented that it looks different to them.  I don't really see it, but enough other people do that it's made me look into it.

I don't think either of your proposals are causing the perceived effect.  I believe the 24P operates at precise, discrete intervals (easily verifiable if you time it against an HMI or fluorescent fixture, or film against a computer monitor with variable scanning rates, you can easily trap the Hz motion and see how it moves vs. the CCD scan rate.)  And compression shouldn't be a factor, because film transferred to DV tape undergoes the same compression.

I'll offer three potentials to chew over:
1) The "crispness" of video may be influencing it.  Film is softer overall, whereas video has such sharp "crispness" to it, that it may be accentuating what you see.  Try shooting with detail all the way off and see if it makes a difference to you.  Also consider that the grain pattern in film tends to do a little fuzzing of edges, where video doesn't have that.

2) The differences noticeable in DOF.  With the DVX, all is in focus, all the time, whereas with film you may frequently have backgrounds that are out of focus.  With that may come a difference in how one watches the shot.  If your eye is trained to a certain portion of the frame, due to it being in focus and the rest not, then your perception of the overall frame may be different than it would be if all was in focus.  Of course, this is easy to test for, we need only shoot some 16mm on a fast stock on a sunny day at f/16 on wide angle, and compare the results against DVX footage.

3) the way the shutter works.  If there is a difference, this is where I believe you'll find the answer you're looking for.  I first brought this up about a year ago on 2-pop, and it seems like there may be something to it.  The vast majority of film cameras use rotating mirror shutters (a few use guillotine shutters, or what the Eclair ACL uses -- what do you even call that, a "pendulum" shutter?... and some high-speed cameras use rotating prisms... but that's confusing the point).  The point is, the vast majority of film cameras use a rotating shutter, which is a hole cut out of a disc.  As the disc rotates, it reveals the frame, and as it continues to rotate, it covers up the frame.  Well, by the very nature of a rotating disc, it will reveal one corner (say, the upper left corner) first, and then as the disc rotates it will reveal more and more, until the entire frame is revealed.  Then it will start covering up, starting at the upper left corner, until eventually it covers up all the way to the bottom right corner.

What this means is, different parts of the frame could be exposed at different times.  This differs from the way a video camera works (er, at least how I THINK it works) which is: all the chip is revealed all at once, it gathers an electrical charge, and after the certain amount of time has elapsed (in our DVX case, typically 1/50 of a second) the light-gathering process is stopped.  But the whole frame is seen at once.  Whereas with the film camera, the upper left corner might be exposed as much as 1/60 of a second sooner than the lower right corner.

Somebody once ran some tests and showed that with a film camera, a perfectly level surface on a tripod, panning across a vertical surface (say, the Sears Tower) will have each frame showing that vertical object as A DIAGONAL.  Which makes sense, since the film frame is moving during exposure, and the object, being vertical, will have its top portion photographed at one point in time and then as the camera moves, the bottom portion would be photographed later... as opposed to a video camera, which would show the entire vertical object vertically, but there would be streaks of motion blur on the edges.

So if there is a perceivable difference, that's where it probably is.

But in my testing, shooting fundamentally the same scene with film and with video, and then split-screening it, there was no noticeable difference in motion.  I did not, however, test for this specific case.

I think the Dalsa, or the Viper, video cameras intend to implement physical mechanical rotating shutters, which should render identical motion.  
 
Re: New Sony HDV camera.

i am one of the 500 would-be DVX buyers who got a shock yesterday ;)

i am in europe and the 24p pulldown problem does not exist over here really. 25p is as good as we need it.
but HDV is even further away. i read about the Sony announcement at cebit and thought: here we go....but.....
i read this article and although it assumes a lot from the performance the JVC cams gave so far, i guess most of it is still true with the SONY. it is in german so i translate the important bits. again: this is all for PAL-land, where we watch films in 25p with 4% speed increase which we don´t "realize"!

http://www.slashcam.de/artikel/Editorials/Die_neuen_Videoformate.html

- HDV gets recorded onto miniDV tapes with a different compression than "normal DV"; so you can´t simply import it into existing editsuites.
- there is no PAL-HDTV norm yet, so these cameras will be 30p/60i and to make matters worse this will force you to have a 30p/60i HDTV TVset to watch it; something hard to get over here as the common 16:9 TV does not support HDTV yet and if, then probably not in 60i. and if you find one it will not be able to show the full 1920pixels.....
-and so on...

the report concludes that HDTV is just starting in NTSC land and there are no real norms set yet.


k, when i read all this and the very vague annoncement from SONY i must say: SONY is far from delivering this thing, they are even further from making it a competitor to the DVX.

get the cam for say $ 4200 + a HDTV for editing + a new editingsuite, cos your old one will not work it. what i know in-sync Speed Razor with the THOR card is the only affordable good HD solution right now, but then you got problems editing SD with it due to the different formats. and then you need to find a distriburot who is sold to HDTV and goes thorugh the extra costs with you.
I don´t see all that coming my way.

I will go for the DVX100 (maybe "A" if it drops in price a bit after NAB). give the HDTV age another 2-3 years at least here in europe and decide then.

mind you, we dont even know what the picture quality of the SONY will be like. i saw some amazing stuff here from the DVX100.....to beat that is up to SONY....
 
Re: New Sony HDV camera.

Oh. There's no PAL HDTV standard? That's why... I was wondering why everyone wasn't just talking in this thread about getting the PAL version of Sony's upcoming HDV camera and shooting a feature film with that. Transferring 25fps PAL footage to 24p would be pretty damn easy and impressive as hell. Nevermind.
 
Re: New Sony HDV camera.

[quote author=rbilsbor link=board=nws;num=1079563247;start=25#44 date=03/23/04 at 08:28:49]Transferring 25fps PAL footage to 24p would be pretty damn easy and impressive as hell.[/quote]

Why is it easy and impressive? I mean, what do you do with the frame too much to get 24 frames a second? Just skip it? If not, you would have to render 24 whole new ones from the 25 frames, which should be hard to do in good quality.

By the way, as I own a DVX100AN (Yes, I live in PAL country), reading the thread here makes me a lot happier with my cam... I really like the sense of humour and the know how present here.
 
Re: New Sony HDV camera.

The question I always have is:

What is the purpose of HD if no one has HD?

(I don't know about you guys but I know ONE person who has a HD television and he doesnt even use the 'service' COX cable offers because the shows out there are few and far between that are in HD.

What is the difference between 24p and HD in regards to a filmout?

Unless your going to film why be concerned with HD if the DVD you put together is going to be on a standard television (HD)

Furthermore, I want 24p. That is what excites me; the look of the image in motion. HD is great with "Crystal Clear" imagery for Sports, Reality and VIDEO programming but when it comes to anything based in the FILM arena I want 24p. If I can make my imagery look like 16mm, S16 or even 35mm then praise the Guerillas of the DVX Army!

Barry?  Guru man?  ???
 
Re: New Sony HDV camera.

Well said John

In fact to beign with all of us were so excited about DVX due to its 24/25P feature...which translated to a very special, romantic/dream like effect of a film...that we all love. As we know 24P is an old technology...reborn in the digital age.

I have been following this thread and another on the same subject. I must say that there are two facts that are absolutely clear

1. DVX is so far an unbeaten champion in its own category...and this is no COGNITIVE DISSONANCE..

2. DVX is not the end of the world...new technologies have to creep in. Afterall we live in a high-tech age... the technologic dev will not stop after the birth of dvx.

And one conclusion, that I draw from these facts and some of the points raised above, is that it would take at least 2-3 years (may be 3-4 years) before u feel that u need to upgrade ur dvx to remain professionally productive.

And I would once again like to ask (I asked this question in another thread with no replies) as to how much time do u think it would take to make DVX100/100A an INEFFICIENT camera...(from technological point of view...from film production point of view.......vis a vis the growth of HD technology ..and possibly some other formats later on)
 
Re: New Sony HDV camera.

[quote author=John Hudson link=board=nws;num=1079563247;start=25#46 date=03/25/04 at 18:52:57]The question I always have is:

What is the purpose of HD if no one has HD?
[/quote]
Ah, the million-dollar question. You may have triggered a rant here, or maybe I'll mellow out. I'll let you know once my fingers stop typing...

Currently, nobody has HD. There are very, very, very, very, very few people who care. Most of them are quite vocal however, so you'll see all sorts of proclamations about how HD is coming, it's inevitable, etc. Well, Joe & Jane Sixpack are HD-constipated (i.e., they don't give a crap about HD). They are very content to watch VHS recordings, in LP mode (so they get that extra record time per tape, right?) To the public, SDTV is "good enough". They adopted DVD, not because of "better picture quality" (because they do not care), but because it offers extra features, and relative indestructability, and no rewinding. Those are real benefits to the consumer. It's like CD's when they first came out: the rapid adoption of CD's wasn't due to "better quality" (regardless of what the magazines say): it was due to CD's allowing you to instantly skip tracks. That benefit right there revolutionized the way people listened to music. The hottest development in music right now is not SACD (better quality? Who cares?) it's MP3's, which let you download individual songs, cram more on a disc, and make your own mix. MP3's are not higher quality than CD's, they're lower quality of course -- but they're "good enough", and they provide new flexibility.

People have been adopting digital cable. Horrible quality: ghosting, MPEG2 artifacting, all sorts of ways the picture is degraded. But, it offers some clear benefits: more channels, and the info-programming guide. And our Cox system is making available a PVR integrated into the digital cable system. That's a MAJOR consumer convenience upgrade. PVR's will herald the death of VHS, and not because of quality (because people will use them in the lowest-quality, longest-record-time mode they can). But the convenience, the commercial-skip, and NO MORE HUNTING THROUGH TAPES will be the death knell for VHS, just as the CD was the death knell for audio cassettes.)

Now, that's not to say that people don't appreciate better quality. But once you reach the point of "good enough", they won't pay a dime more for it. They'll take it if you give it to them, but they won't pay more for it.

And that brings us to today's televisions. The people who own HDTV primarily own it because, well, it was unavoidable: they wanted a big-screen projection TV, and most of those are now HDTV-capable. It's not a selling point for them, it's just one of those things that came on the set. Sure there are a few who love HDTV and who clamor for it, but I would bet that 99.8% of the public wouldn't pay an extra $10 for a TV set just because it was HD-capable.

So then people try to say "HD is inevitable: the government has mandated that we switch to HD!" Nonsense. The government has mandated that we switch to DIGITAL BROADCASTING. But that doesn't mean HIGH-DEF. Yes, HD resolutions are included in the ATSC digital TV standard, but so are many SD resolutions. A broadcaster can broadcast a standard-def digital signal and be in full compliance with the law.

And, there's no guarantee that that mandate will ever come to be. Once Jane and Joe Sixpack realize that the government is trying to mandate that they'll basically have to throw away all their TV sets in a year, well, expect there to be a loud hue and cry from the masses, and voters may have something to say about the transition to Digital TV (which, in some circles, is viewed as a corporate welfare handout to the broadcast manufacturers, and in other circles it's viewed as a money grab by the government who's itching to auction off the broadcast frequencies. Neither circumstance is necessarily in the consumer's best interest, and the consumer, someday, will notice this.)

Is HDTV better? Absolutely. Will the consumer care? I doubt it. There are no consumers demanding a switch to HD -- there are a few technophiles (and a lot of television manufacturers) clamoring for it, but the consumer doesn't care. And just wait until the consumer finds out that he/she's going to have to replace all five or six of their television sets...
What is the difference between 24p and HD in regards to a filmout?
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Night and day. I merely point you to watching "28 Days Later" in the theater, vs. "Once Upon A Time In Mexico". 28DL looked like fuzzy, grainy, out-of-focus crapola. OUATIM looked like a movie. It wasn't "film", but it was (and here's those magical words again) "good enough."
 
Re: New Sony HDV camera.



Unless your going to film why be concerned with HD if the DVD you put together is going to be on a standard television (HD)
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Well, as content creators, we should always be concerned about the highest-quality content. The end means of distribution will benefit from a higher-quality source. Think about it for a second: why shoot on 35mm, if the end product is going to be VHS on a standard television? Because 35mm looks one hell of a lot better, on VHS, than a VHS camcorder would have been. And seeing downconversions from the hideous JVC HD1 onto standard-def, it's much much sharper than native SD, even from the DVX. The DVX picture looked better in all ways except resolution/sharpness: the HD1 handed the DVX its lunch in that respect. Ever since seeing that, I've been anxiously looking forward to seeing what a "real" HDV camera could deliver. If it can deliver DVX-caliber color, latitude, richness, and feel, but with HDV resolution, well, I'm sold.

Furthermore, I want 24p.
Click to expand...

We all do.

HD is great with "Crystal Clear" imagery for Sports, Reality and VIDEO programming but when it comes to anything based in the FILM arena I want 24p.
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Agreed.

HDV does not provide for 24P.

But then again, neither does DV, and Panasonic did it anyway. What's to stop someone from implementing 1080/24P in the current HDV standard, the same way: scan 24P frames, write 'em out to 1080/60i. It doesn't have to be an either-or, it could maybe be both.

(oh, and I guess the answer to my original question was: rant.)
 
Re: New Sony HDV camera.

Barry

I bow down and offer my second born to you. You are truly the GURU.

Thanks for explanation and my head didnt hurt that time! Must mean It's starting to sink in.
 
Re: New Sony HDV camera.

Mr. Green,

First, excuse my bad english...
I think you are right all the way.

We have to wait to see"IF" HDV can reproduce movement with no artifacts, IF it can be easyly edited, IF it can do 24p, IF it can handle good color and good image dynamic, etc... etc...in a real-time very compressed sream.... how much is the bitstream by the way for all that HD info on a small tape ? 25 mbps ?

...and IF it can be downconverted to good SD quality.
(Few people will buy HD TVs in the next 5 years. They mostly still buy SD TVs)

...and "IF" manufacturers agree to a certain "standard".

IF...IF...IF...

we have to see it first.

I've seen footage from good cameraman from a DVX100 that was just so much more beautifull that Beta footage from an average cameraman...so the format and the camera is not everything.

Poeple do not pay attention the a 5% quality increas if it is, like you said "good enough".

BUT they pay great attention to the story, the subject, the general "look", the "mood".
 
Re: New Sony HDV camera.

Naw, not a guru, just a guy who talks too much. Or, well, TYPES too much.

BUT they pay great attention to the story, the subject, the general "look", the "mood".
Click to expand...

I wish people understood this more. I was at a screening of short films from UNLV's film class. Much of the stuff was, well, I mean it was first-year film student stuff, obviously not very polished yet. There was one where the director was all fancy, you know, the "look-at-me, I'm-a-director, I-shot-this-shot-through-the-fishbowl" type of stuff... good-looking, but pointless.

Then there was this one from this big hairy biker guy, about his quest to quit smoking. Perhaps the most horrible production values I've ever seen, looks like it was shot on a VHS camera, edited on one of those $30 Dazzle things (or maybe it was deck-to-deck analogue?) Audio out of sync, the whole thing.

And we laughed our butts off. It was by far the most entertaining thing there. The guy had style, he had a wicked sense of humor, he made a delightful short film that was marred only in its technical skills -- they were atrocious, but so what? We loved it anyway and voted for it for "best short film" of the bunch. Give that guy a crew to back him up, and he'd make the next "dumb & dumber" or something.

Content was, and always will be, king. Great content with bad presentation will trump lousy content with slick presentation every time (can you say, "Battlefield Earth"?) Of course, great content with great presentation is best, and that's why we're here on this forum, and specifically on this discussion.
 
Re: New Sony HDV camera.

Hi Guys!
I was on CeBIT (as usual - though I don't really like it.. if it wasn't for the babes ;o) - and of course I went to the Sony booth to have a look at the cam!
Well... I took my DVX100A with me but wasn't allowed to take any pictures myself. :-(
I compared the two cams and the new Sony body is clearly influenced by the DVX100! :-)) The switches and placement of buttons etc. ...
The had one model behind glass which was complete fake! You could see for example that the view finder was only loosely put on etc. but it had at least button labels etc. - another one was standing around (of course all the time cornered by some Sony employees) and was used to "demonstrate" the cam. However they only used it to play back tapes onto one of the new WEGA HD panels - they did never show any live recording and wouldn't even if you asked for. That was another point: the people had really no clue at all.. typically fair noobs - more kind of marketing/sales dudes and no real technicians.. they had learned some specs but didn't really know what they talked about. ;-)
And yes I was allowed to pull the focus and zoom rings.. the zoom was completely manual on this model - the focus servo driven as usual. However the live model needed to be "rebooted" (resetted) quite often and all on screen texts still were japenese of course... it was 3 chips CCD with 1440 x 1080 pixel. Shoudl be quite impressive however all of the footage they showed that really could have been from the cam (some other stuff just looked too good.. more like scanned film) looked really.. well... shitty to be honest! :-/
The resolution was there however the colors looked totally washed out and were even "smearing" (or tearing!? ;o) ... totally home video look with oversatured colors etc. No comparison with the DVX! :-((
And you could clearly spot compression artifacts - you have to remember: they compress 1440 x 1080 pixels with 25fps or 50 fields per second (PAL) into 25mbit/s which is only MiniDV rate using MPEG2 I-frame only. *sigh*
Every half an hour they did a "presentation" which was more some kind of teleshopping/sales show and advertised the HD cam/panels and blueray disc records just like something Jane & John Doe would use for there holiday vids!!!!! Unbelievable... I don't know which people at Sony are that stupid.. I really don't know...
Well so far so good/bad.
What I learned: it is coming.. but nobody knows when and the final features aren't fixed at all. Probability is high that it will be 3 CCD but they said perhaps they would drop the 720p mode completely and only offer 1080i!!! I don't know what evil powers are at work there at Sony *lol*
No idea about the price yet.. the 5 grand are only speculations so far.
And from the pre-alpha state this working sample there had I would assume that it's at least a year until you can buy this thing for yourself somewhere....
However they absolutely agreed that the DVX100 gives the VX2k etc. a run for the money and that they have to come up with something new/better sometime now. *g* (of course more unofficial.. it was the last day and I think they were fairly relieved when we left again.. they hadn't planned for so much technical questions all at once ;o)

Cheers,
-Sören

PS: The body was a little longer then the DVX and in all it was a little more slim and I personally still found the DVX100 more pro looking than this prototype/sample...
 
Re: New Sony HDV camera.

They actually had it running?  Wow, that's impressive.

Overall, sounds like a similar "launch" that the DVX got at NAB.  It was kept in a glass box, and they showed footage from ANOTHER 24P camera, saying "it'll look like this."  They caught all sorts of flack for that... until the camera was actually released.

Disappointing to hear that the colors are washed out, hope that doesn't mean it's on target for being like the JVC HD.  Might be hard to avoid, having these high-density megapixel CCD's trying to render colors with such tiny pixels.

In any case, I am surprised and amazed that they had something other than a carved wood model there.  Maybe we'll have some better info by NAB, and maybe something actually demonstratable by WEVA!

25mbit/s which is only MiniDV rate using MPEG2 I-frame only. *sigh*
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Did they say it was i-frame only? That would be very shocking, and disappointing. The JVC uses a GOP of six, one I-frame followed by 5 delta frames... if they use MPEG2 and make it I-frame-only, that's unnecessarily crippling MPEG2's greatest advantage. Heck, for I-frame-only they could have used MJPG...

I would be very, very skeptical (especially at this early stage in the game) to believe that they made it I-frame-only. That just doesn't make sense...
 
Re: New Sony HDV camera.

Yeah I was a little surprised too as it was always stated on the news sites etc. that they only had a fake "carved wood" ;) (well carved plastic would be more precise ;o) model there.
However there was no way to get them to demonstrate real live recording... it really looked somehow like "well look we have something new too" in reply to the DVX and other new (innovative) cams around. ;)
But yes.. the colors looked absolutely murky :-(
So I personally would favour much more something like a DVX100 with HD CCDs instead of the current ones and HDV/MPEG2 compression no prob - but please with 50mbit at least... if Panasonic would be working on something like this... *dream* ;)

It's sad that I wasn't allowed to capture any footage as that was the main reason to take my DVX with me to the fair at all! grrr
 
Re: New Sony HDV camera.

Oh sorry the information about the I-frame only was doubtful so I'm not sure about this of course. But nevertheless even when employing the same compression scheme as the JVC does, it still is too much data (in 1440 x 1080 mode that they somehow favour) for packing it into 25mbit/s! For an offline encoding or dedicated (big) online/realtime hardware these rates are totally OK - but not for a small "consumer" realtime encoder chip as built into these cams! Something like DVCPRO50 bitrates of 50mbps would be much better suited if you don't want to get too many artifacts - especially when much movements occurs and the complete picture content changes in just a few or even one frame...
I mean this is already a fairly big problem with "normal" resolution MiniDV cams too of course but with HD it even gets much worse!
I can't understand why 25mbit/s is still considered to be useful :-/
 
Re: New Sony HDV camera.

I'm willing to bet if someone offered HDV with the film look capabilities of the DVX100 that would be enough. Whether in 30p or 24p the DVX100 can create the look of telecined film (the look a film has after being put on video or DVD). That's what many indie filmmakers want. When something like that drops then it'll turn my head. People are used to that look and that's why I shoot with the DVX100.

If I get rich tommorrow I may buy the Sony but until then it's the DVX100 for me. I am curious as to what Canon has to offer. I think I'd buy an XL in a heartbeat if it got the image Panny gets. Most of my films go straight to video so I'm really not concerned with film transfers. But I would be interested in presenting the highest quality video for home use. My dream is two DVX100A cameras an XL and a GL and maybe a Varicam if I start doing film prints. ;)

-Nate
 
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