Playing back footage on an HDTV

Azmyth

Azmyth

Veteran
I'm either starting to see the camera's faults.. or something else is not right.

If I play the clips from my pc on my monitor.. they look great. (some of them have vertical banding, but I know why that is and know how to get around it(

If I play them on my tv from the camera with an HDMI cable, some of the shots look like a picture in photoshop does when you like strip out colors.. its hard to explain.. but it only looks that way on the HD tv directly from the camera.. is that part of "blowing it up"?
 
I wonder if you're perhaps seeing the results of a poor quality cable that can't handle the bandwidth, or if a hacked GH1, just too high a bandwidth for the codec to process.
 
yeah, it could very well be the cable. I didn't know I had to have any certain kind so I just bought a cheapo one off ebay. I'd love to be able to make sure thats it before shelling out more money. There is other stuff I've shot that looks amazing on the tv, it was mostly stuff I shot that was in extremely low light..
 
Just as an aside, I played back my AVCHD (hack) footage on a large HD tv using the regular output cable (phonos) and it looked great. So I don't think the camera is at fault.
 
Try this or this for recommended Panasonic choices. They are kind of pricey though.


Grrr.... I just noticed the cheaper one isn't available...
 
i watched it again, and I think you guys might be right. Which makes me a feel a whole lot better.
 
I bought an HDMI cable for my GH1 and ZS3 off eBay for less than the price of a burrito, and it works great, even with C-settings.

I can also put the SDHC card right into my Panny Blu-Ray player, and it plays back fine with C-settings.

If you shot at 1920x1080, nothing should be blown up.

Watching your footage on an actual big flat-screen HDTV can, however, put your video-making skills (especially learning the real output of a particular piece of gear like the GH1) out there on the table...it's very different than posting videos up on Vimeo. :D

Good luck!
 
swyzlstyx said:
Watching your footage on an actual big flat-screen HDTV can, however, put your video-making skills (especially learning the real output of a particular piece of gear like the GH1) out there on the table...
Click to expand...

I agree.
I discovered horrendous camera shake resulting in very obvious jello.
I thought I'd adopted the brace position well enough and as a stills photographer assumed I had a fairly steady hand.
All my future video work is going to be tripod mounted...... unless I try one of the guerilla rigs so many use.
 
Hmm i just watched the clips straight off the card in my PS3.. and it still seems to be there.
 
What about playing the footage via a SD card, or even, a USB device? My Panasonic Viera Plasma TV accepts SD cards, and my Blu-Ray player accepts USB devices, but neither of these options work with me.

The only way is to watch via HDMI cable? with the camera playing?

thanks!
 
I had a thread on this earlier as to best choice for playback on set.

I bought a $25 12 foot mini to hdmi extreme cable from b&hy and I can absolutely tell you it does NOT look as good as when playing the files off the camera through windows 7,

The color is off and everything is lighter... not a HUGE difference... but noticeable to my eyes.

Will try the blu-ray solution next.
 
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don't forget to calibrate that particular input on your TV. most people (like me) use a separate HDMI input for portable device input rather than their main HDMI input (likely connected to an AVR).

Ivan Lee - your SD input on your Viera plasma is for photo playback (I have one too)
 
Have your tried playing your video with the computer hooked up to a HDTV via a HDMI cable?

Performance will depend on the specs of the computer and the speed of the hard drive of course. I have a two-year-old 15" MacBook Pro with an upgraded 7200 RPM hard drive and the video files play nicely on the TV...
 
Cheap HDMI cables are fine. There is no reason to buy an expensive HDMI cable vs. an ebay cheapo. The bandwidth of HDMI is very small compared to other forms of digital communication and cables aren't of extreme importance.

You guys do know that there is "broadcast RGB" and "computer RGB" too right?

In any case, watching my footy on the TV looks better to me than on my monitor.

You might try playing the file from your camera on both your TV and monitor if your monitor has a DVI input. DVI and HDMI are the same thing and you just need a cheap adapter to go between them.
 
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I have a LG 24 inch and 26 inch 1080p lcd. The computer goes in dvi... the camera goes in hdmi.. as far as I can tell, all contrast and monitor settings are exactly the same, I just switch inputs... so unless you must compensate for hdmi input vs dvi input and someone could explain what those compensations are... I am not sure what is going on. Is it just seeing the footage over the dvi is full 32 bit computer rgb and the hdmi is ntsc rgb? meaning lowered highlights and lighter blacks?

THis reminds me of when DV came out and it switched black to 0 from 7.5..... it looks now like black is back up to 7.5 hen using hdmi.
 
chrisso said:
I agree.
I discovered horrendous camera shake resulting in very obvious jello.
I thought I'd adopted the brace position well enough and as a stills photographer assumed I had a fairly steady hand.
All my future video work is going to be tripod mounted...... unless I try one of the guerilla rigs so many use.
Click to expand...

I have found that even folding up the legs of your tripod, and holding at the neck will give your fairly smooth jello free shots... the camera is so light that your tripod can act as a mini steadicam.
 
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