First HVX footage posted

[Nikolai Vavilov]

check thread here link no longer valid

[Mikko Wilson]

..and boy does it look nice and clean :)

- Mikko

[Ram Ganesh]

donno what to expect - but 1080 doesnt look too impressive...

the first shot of the african-american guy is so faded and dull...
the hair of the ladies sitting at the bar has steps (aliased against the white door)

[Nikolai Vavilov]

just downloaded 720p24 clip... looks really great!

[Jared Heck]

If you look closely the gentleman playing pool is surrounded in smoke, that is what is washing out the image.

Secondly don't forget your watching a highly compressed version of the original image. I don't know all the technical details of the h264 codec but I would imagine it could introduce the stepping you are seeing along with some compression artifacts in the dark areas.

[Philip Williams]

The currently available 1080P video has some encoding issues; I would expect an updated version at some point. The 720P footage however is most impressive, even after compression.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

OK...

Now I'd really like to see the clips in their native format... The H264 compression really butchers them. Also looks like there's some frame rate conversion going on as I'm seing some serious stuttering in both clips.

[Daniel Broadway]

The stuttering is probably due to you computer not being able to keep up with the data rate of the footage.

[Mikko Wilson]

Both clips seem to have been encoded into H264 at 720/60p - which is causing some trouble with the pulldown and downsampling.. There should be some better clips online soon (don't ask, i don't know.. just a messenger)

We are in the process of getting a cross-conversion of the clips into WMVHD and online - it will be a generation later but apparently it looks good and plays smoother on some computers. It will be on my mirrors in about 30 mins.


- Mikko

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Originally Posted by Daniel Broadway

The stuttering is probably due to you computer not being able to keep up with the data rate of the footage.

Uh, nope. I edit uncompressed HD at full 1080p24 on this sytem. I took another look at the clips... They're not 24p as advertised. The video was shot in 24p, but the H264 encodings are 30p. So we're just seeing the judder we should expect from the dupicatated frames. The 1080 clip is encoded and delivered to us here at 1280x720 anyway. It would be nice to see a remake of that clip that has fewer artifacts and compression issues and also left sized to its native 1080 line format. So, IMO, these clips are just a quick teaser and don't let us get a true feel for what we're really looking at.

However, these clips provided some valuable insight and did answer a few questions for me already. I'm thrilled that I don't see the overblown, pixellated reds like we see with DV and there isn't too much bleed or aberration with all those blues on the 720 clip. Even being massively butchered when recompressed, the reds of the billiards table portion of the 1080 clip are very encouraging. Actual detail we can expect in 1080 from this camera along with what compression artifacts we should expect and which are inherent of the H264 massacre remain to be seen.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Originally Posted by Mikko Wilson

We are in the process of getting a cross-conversion of the 720p clip into WMVHD and online - it will be a generation later but apparently it looks good and plays smoother on some computers. It will be on my mirrors in about 30 mins.

- Mikko

Thanks for the mirrors. :)

I just grabbed the 32MB WMV from your mirror. Obviously, it's softer and a few more jaggies are present. Thanks for the efforts!

I guess we just wait around patiently for more clips. I've got time though, I'm not planning to pull the trigger and buy until sometime in January. Heh.

[Steven Thomas]

Thanks Jeff.

I saw the the so called 1080 was scaled to 720 too, not to mention
some other wierd may pull down issues. That one got jacked up.

The original 720 file looks dang good. I'd love to see the original raw files, not the compressed H.264.
Even a 5 second clip of the 1080P and 720P would be good to experiment with.

Steve

[Barry Green]

Originally Posted by Ram Ganesh

the first shot of the african-american guy is so faded and dull...

That was shot through a thick layer of smoke from a smoke machine. It's not the camera doing that, it's the smoke.

[Barry Green]

Regarding the encoding: I just got back from the expo and I haven't seen the footage, but I'm sure that Jarred is well aware and will get proper versions encoded and uploaded.

The 720p martial arts footage was shot in 720/24pn mode, meaning native 24 frames written to the card (well, plus the variable frame rates we used, which include 12, 22, 36, 48 and 60). I don't know what all is on the clips, there were also some basketball shots and cheerleader shots, all shot at 720/60 for slow-mo playback in a 24p timeline.

The 1080 stuff was all shot at 1080/24pa. Turns out that apparently the Mac (it was edited on a Mac) doesn't quite have 24pa pulldown removal supported yet, so that one will probably be encoded as a 30-frame file. It was shot 24, that I can guarantee you, but I think it was edited on a 29.97 timeline.

The footage is playing in its native codec format at the DVExpo Panasonic booth.

[Steve Gibby]

Saw all the footage today at Panasonic's DV Expo booth. The undercranked and overcranked 720p martial arts footage was impressive! I liked the basketball footage. Nice slo-mos. Even the Geisha premier footage, which the DP (Mike) verified that he shot "run n' gun" (all auto), looked pretty good. A couple of the lower light street shots caught my eye - the HVX appears to shoot well in low light situations. I was disappointed to have to see it on a 17" LCD. A 60" 1080p DLP widescreen would have been nice...

I drove 3 hours to L.A., walked the expo floor for 5 hours, and just drove 3 hours back to my Central Coast home. I'm super-tired, but super-stoked I made the trip. Nothing I saw at the expo made me regret ordering an HVX. On the contrary, I'm unbelievable anxious to put one through some ENG-style and cine-style field tests.