Gerald Baillgergeau

I got my V1 about a month ago. Last weekend i finally got a chance to get a couple of friends together and we shot a test short. No real set-ups just run & gun shots.. 5 hours tops.. Feel free to download the file "v1test".. @ tracklightent.com/movies.(please right click & download linked file) See for yourself how the V1 performs. There are some high contrast, low light grain, hand held movement & some sudo camera stabilizer shots. I figured just shooting passing cars & trees wasn't gonna be enough to see what I'd be in for when I try to do something serious. No CC was done.. the camera was set on 24pA manual mode. Footage was captured with the workflow stated in this forum.(AIC, Cinema Tools, etc) Hope to do more interior test soon..

Michael Mcintyre

Thanks for the link! Footage looks good.

I'm surprised there hasn't been more V1U footage around but this is a great look.

Marcus Marchesseault

That's some fancy test footage! If I didn't own a V1 myself, I wouldn't believe that clip didn't have color correction. The V1 is amazing in the way it handles saturated colors without losing detail or tinting everything oddly.

The only problem is that the footage was stretched vertically on my machine. I forced 16:9 playback and it looked fine, so it must just be a matter of the aspect flag not being set correctly by the software. I stopped the video in a several places and found compression artifacts, but they weren't noticeable during playback. I think the talk of HDV having too many compression artifacts are unfounded. The artifacts mostly happen in ways that the human eye can't perceive. Macroblocking in a single frame of a fast-moving blurred object are something I can live with. Thanks for the footage!

Robert Ducon

That just proved to me that HDV isn't as bad as many make it out to be. (I've shot a lot of footage on the Z1U.) Show that clip to most average joes on a TV monitor, and they'd figure it could be a clip from a real film or pro documentary-style show. The colours were fantastic, the exposure was as good as you can expect from something that frantic and hand-held, and the codec looked fine at full motion. It's hard to spot artifacts when it's playing back (which is what HDV was made for). And this was all while playing on a fast LCD computer monitor.

THEN I played it on my broadcast monitor. Mmm.. the colours were beautiful. The sharpness was great. I wouldn't have guessed it was shot with a 1/4 HDV camera, no way.

That camera pulled through very well - glad you shared! Nice camera, nice work. In that lit of conditions, it matches or beats the Z1U in my opinion. I'd buy it over the Z1U - there was far less grain in the darker areas in the stills.

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Mac + Canon HV20

Evan C. King

It looked really good! It had the world's fakest punches but did look really good. One question I have is since there's no cc how come some shots have a really nice punchy orange-ish colour to them and others have a colder blue cast? Was this an active choice? And how did you personally like the 24p of the camera did it seem "perfect" to you?

Gerald Baillgergeau

LOL .. We're still laughing about those punches ourselves.. As for the different coloring, I was adjusting the setting on the outdoor white balance to get warmer or cooler. As the the light conditions changed, i'd dial in different settings for experimentation sake. The 24p on the V1, to me, works beautifully. I had to get use to the sharpness & clarity of the images in 24p compared to other stuff I've shot with other SD cameras. Overall, I'm very pleased with the V1. It's not "perfect" but what camera is? There's a lot you can do to achieve a desired look. I was a little worried at first when I bought it because of all the talk of aliasing, mosaic purple edges, etc. I'm not to knowledgeable in the science & technology of HDV... I jus know what looks good & the V1 is alright with me.. Happy I took the plunge..