XDCAM EX1 on the road blog

[philip bloom]

as a full time cameraman I never enjoyed shooting with the hvx. In one week I already love my ex1. Just wonderful! Today I shoot my first clean footage with it here in northern Ireland. I will update my blog with my experiences and photos/ screen grabs as soon as I get Internet access. Currently just got it on my iPhone

 

[Jared Meyer]

Been meaning to say that this footage is incredible. I love to see a beautiful looking camera test, great job!

Based on everything I've read and seen, I'm 100% sold on this camera. I think I'm going to have to get one...

 

[ilauzirika]

as a full time cameraman I never enjoyed shooting with the hvx. In one week I already love my ex1.

Could you explain which are the main differences that make you prefer the EX over the HVX?

I'm saving for a new camera and I'm looking for opinions.

 

[John Kary]

Thanks for posting the footage, Philip. You captured some great footage that shows some nice test material. I would like to see you post some un-colored footage especially.

One thing that really stuck out was the stair-stepping in shots where very vibrant reds contrasted other colors. In the screenshot below, you can see it along other signs as well, but not as distractingly. Look at the top of the red sign and notice how the black-sampled pixels dig into the red sign as it goes from left to right.

Now, I realize this is a web compressed movie, but these faults don't look to be the fault of web compression. Here is a 400% zoom of the below shot @ 100% JPEG for a closer look.



I'm all-too familiar with similar results in DV footage, so is this just a fault in 4:2:0 Long-GOP footage?

EDIT: After looking at the 720p version, the stair-stepping is part of the web compression. There are different processes for resizing footage and the one used introduced the stair-stepping.

 

[Stevet]

Wow, thanks for that image Kary !

Let's break it down:

First generation XDCAM 720P (35mb I'm assuming).

2nd generation RESIZED to HALF its original size and COMPRESSED with QT for the internet

On top of that you screen capture it to JPEG. Yet another compression format.

Display here at 400% a small SECTION of a frame.

I'm ABSOLUELY blown away, that it looks this good after all that! WOW.

Please remember when an image is resized to half its size you loose FOUR TIMES the about of pixel data. Not to mention compressed in the process (QT), and then jpeged, and then blown up 400%.

What did you expect to see?

We all could not believe how good that image still looked ! Unreal!

 

[philip bloom]

Could you explain which are the main differences that make you prefer the EX over the HVX?

I'm saving for a new camera and I'm looking for opinions.

Picture quality i prefer. I love the sharp focusable LCD. I prefer the ex1 workflow to the p2 workflow. The compression means I can get almost an hour of full hd on a card as opposed to the 16 mins of p2. I have no problems with log GOP.

The menus are better. The lens is wonderful. The dof is better. The camera is better in low light. Shall I go on?

 

[philip bloom]

shot 1080p through a letus

 

[ilauzirika]

thanks for the answer, that puts things clear.

 

[sinai]

great shots there philip , yah some clean footage would be cool to see eventho your grading looks stunn...

 

[John Kary]

On top of that you screen capture it to JPEG. Yet another compression format.

Display here at 400% a small SECTION of a frame.

I'm ABSOLUELY blown away, that it looks this good after all that! WOW.

100% JPEG is visually indistinguishable from the original... Regardless, the 400% is not up-sampled. I did the screenshot, zoomed in 400% in Photoshop, did a screenshot of that, then dumped that to 100% JPEG. There's really not any noticeable recompression from what wasn't already in the encode.

Even so, the stair-stepping was blatant in the encoded version. I did the blow-up so everyone would see what I was talking about.

Philip, could you please post a full-res image of that scene with the signs so we can see it uncompressed?

 

[Concept89]

Picture quality i prefer. I love the sharp focusable LCD. I prefer the ex1 workflow to the p2 workflow. The compression means I can get almost an hour of full hd on a card as opposed to the 16 mins of p2. I have no problems with log GOP.

The menus are better. The lens is wonderful. The dof is better. The camera is better in low light. Shall I go on?

I understand picture quality, as I see much cleaner low light shots and much less mosquito grain from many "graded" shots. But I have a question about... workflow and compression....

What's the difference between P2 workflow and EX workflow? And besides that, this is a REAL nasty noob question: because the footage is compressed in 35 Mbps, wouldn't this give the HVX the upper hand in uncompressed video as it records in 100 Mbps? I am so confused about using Long GOP MPEG-2 and. DVCPRO-HD. What are the strengths and benefits? Weaknesses?

 

[Stevet]

100% JPEG is visually indistinguishable from the original... Regardless, the 400% is not up-sampled. I did the screenshot, zoomed in 400% in Photoshop, did a screenshot of that, then dumped that to 100% JPEG. There's really not any noticeable recompression from what wasn't already in the encode.

Even so, the stair-stepping was blatant in the encoded version. I did the blow-up so everyone would see what I was talking about.

Philip, could you please post a full-res image of that scene with the signs so we can see it uncompressed?

The video you blew up the image from was something around 700x400 COMPRPRESSED QT file. Philip just mentioned the original was 1920x1080. OF COURSE it will look like it has less resolution, hence the stair-stepping. ESPECIALLY taking the down rezzed version and magnifying just a small section of the frame 400% !! That's like taking a 16bit audio file and converting it to 8 bit and comparing sound quality and signal to noise.

 

[Elton]

Anybody seen the 720p version? Unreal.

 

[philip bloom]

i am away on a shoot with the ex1 shooting clean. So I don't have access to the rushes from that test short.

The ex1 is performing wonderfully. Stunning pictures and lovely DOF

I will write in more detail in my blog soon. The only downside so far is shootings stuff on the sticks on the end of the lens is very wobbly as its very windy today. My 350 with its weight would have coped better but the ois of the ex1 compensated well

 

[Stevet]

I've seen it. Real nice. I'm sold on that adapter too.
Although, I'm interested on what Philip has to say on the Brevis test.

 

[philip bloom]

I actually can't use my Brevis on this trip. The problem with the ex1 as I found with my F350 you need an enormous amount of spacers between the achromat and the adaptor to get focus due to the 1/2" chips. This is not an issue with the Letus due to the longer path caused by the prism and the distance of the GG to the achromat.

I am about 1 cm short on my spacers. VERY annoying!

Stupidly I dont have ilfe '08 on this macbook pro, i forgot to update it. So my blog cant be updated until I get home on Wednesday. What I can do is post some stills from today's shoot. All clean out of the camera, no adaptor and no colour correction

image five looks like it has vignette issues...its not...its the lighting! It was on full wide

 

[philip bloom]

more grabs

 

[LuckyStudio 13]

Phill,

No vignetting issues at all with your cam ??

 

[philip bloom]

last two screen grabs.

very pleased with the image. Had a couple of minor workflow issues but I will be speaking to Sony tomorrow to ask about it. Other thank that it really has been a superb experience today. My first paying gig with the ex1. I asked them to trust me and they have. It looks like it will have paid off!

 

[philip bloom]

and a few more...