The Chicago event Stephen Noe posted about will also take place in Los Angeles.

I will be showing a selection of footage shot on the HD100 and output to 35mm film by DuArt at JVC events in LA (Jan. 31) and Chicago (Feb. 2). The presentation will include a selection of footage from my Madagascar shoot last fall and a studio set-up I did in New York, plus Charles Papert’s Mini 35 test. Sounds like Stephen Noe may be showing something too?

Here’s the link:
http://pro.jvc.com/pro/seminar/LACHIProHD/lachiprohdshow.html

Charles, hope you can make it to talk about your footage!

Andrew, any chances/plans for the screening to come to Vancouver, Canada?

Andrew, did you see the 35mm blown-up HD100 footage, right?

Is it today, right? Can you report us as soon as possible?

Looked amazing. Even the Mini35 looked great transfered to 35mm film. That's all I wanted to see =)

Was there, I'll write a detailed my two cents about it tommorrow.

Ah crap. I missed it. I thought it was day after tomorrow.

Just got back from the filmout seminar at the DGA. Had a great conversation with some GREAT people! Especially Michael Pappas....totally cool dude and I'm glad to call him a friend. After everyone left, we continued to talk in length about cameras and video history and the JVC HD100 filmout we just saw and all kindsa great stuff he was schoolin' me on. My piece-of-shat 1988 Legend that I ripped through the streets of Hollywood to get to the seminar 30 minutes late in, freakin' ran out of gas!!!....guess who was there helping me to the gas station....YOU GUESSED IT....PappasArts! *smile* The HD100 filmout was a classy and nice event hosted by JVC. The events host was great. The host, Andrew Young, shot some great looking (yet gruling & dangerous) footage in deep jungles of Madagascare @ 30p and converted it to 24p for the filmout. My hats off to him for accomplishing this feat.. Charles Pappert is the man! He spoke about his footage and we seen his great stuff blown up as well. Both men were very great speakers. Ask me specific questions. They are easier to answer. Rather then giving you a full report. I can answer my opinions that way easier. Michael Pappas will undoubtedly give you a full report on his findings as well.

Moviola just sent me an email about an HVX200 seminar next Tuesday on the 7th. I don't know if there will be a filmout for that. I hope so. I will probably attend that as well. Maybe I'll get to meet more of you great people.

- ShannonRawls.com

Andrew, any chances/plans for the screening to come to Vancouver, Canada?

Hi Jiri,
That's up to JVC - I'd love an excuse to come to Vancouver.

Andrew, did you see the 35mm blown-up HD100 footage, right?

Hi Leuname,

Yes, I have seen it. I shot it and made the film out. Because of that I'll let others who were there do the reporting.

It was great to meet Shannon Rawls finally. Shannon is one cool bro, and a very nice fella to talk with. Not an ounce of ego too with Shannon; just a nice humble person! Nice to finally meet Charles Papert too, another nice humble person. Nice to have seen Producer Illya Friedman & Director Ben Rock ( Ben and Illya shot the HVX200 35mm film out at Laser Pacific ) again.

Hey Kief, nice to meet you as well. We've got to pick you the right camera for that great poject......

I wasn't to impressed with the HD100's performance on this film out. I wanted it to perform better. It's an awesome camera with lots of features. Ofcourse lets keep this in check, this was a film out on a big screen as well a digital projection onto a 25 foot screen. For TV drama, it's a killer ass camera....Pro lens and everything. Built well too!

About the film out. It felt like video more than I liked. Highlights were just too video. It's better than DV, however I just was not to impressed. Unlike the HVX200 film out to 35mm, that was very good outside of the codec artifacts that were in some of the shadows & lower tone parts of the frame. The HVX color on the 35mm out was outstanding too; the HD100 color was not as good as I felt it should be. The digital projection also was not as good as I felt it should be. The H1 digital Projection I have seen was much better and had more rich colors. Now I did make a few suggestions of turning the sharpness down, and boosting the chroma more.


Outside of this technical blawwwwwwww......... Andrew Young's work is excellent. His close up photography was cool too! The things he went through as a filmmaker to get his shots makes you respect his strong will to make his film. Andrew is from the film side and does not have a lot of video time under his belt I believe he said. So the camera didn't get tweaked as well as it should. Century, send Andrew a wide angle lens adapter he can use for his next trip back..............

I wish JVC and all companies would get involved.

These companies should offer free downloads of custom presets to make their cameras have different looks with quality driven settings towards best performance. That's what the SD cards are for......

Why let a guy like Andrew shoot with your camera and not atleast say here a some tips. Someone needs to give Andrew a deal on a quality lens adapter and scrap that make shift one...

Charles material was wonderful, however it was missing the color from his clips I have seen on my HD system when viewing them. Charles wished he could have been part of the process he told me . I wish he was too! His footage carried over to 35mm the best.

The Film lenses in Charles Paperts footage gave shallow DOF, however lowering the sharpness. I just did not like how well that was amplified on the big screen. Elements that are slightly noticeable on small HD systems become much larger issues on the big screen. I would not use this system, rent a wide angle and either telephoto in or accept the dof we get on 1/3 ccds.

Comparing this film out to how the HVX200 film out. The HVX 200 holds up on the screen quite well, because it handles highlights and tone very well. A gorgeous well balanced image. As i said in the past resolution is only one factor, tone, color, ped, enhancement and high light control just to name a few are so important. Now if you do couple this with a high res ccd ( 1 million pixels and up ), then you will have one hell of a high res camera.

The XLH1 digital projection, I have seen more than once of the clock maker via a DVCproHD playback was so outstanding. Miles from the digital projection from the HD100. Even the HDV tape 1080i filmed over in Italy with a prototype XLH1 projected was beautiful. Gorgeous looking, and that was on 1080i hdv tape...


That's my tiny report IMHO.....

PS: Next time us DVINFO/DVXuser people need a meeting area; I was hoping to meet some of you that attended...


SIDEBAR ABOUT HDV. I HAVE HAD THIS .PDF FOR SOME TIME, PLEASE TAKE A LOOK....... THIS IS WHAT I WROTE EARLIER...


The anti HDV is all BS and hype.

People take the HDV scenarios where it was Implemented *incorrectly. Sight those situations with slight of hand while detracting you from excellent performing HDV acquisition*technology

. HDV progressive is good. I would preferrer a 4:2:2 HDV, however HDV 4:2:0 in a progressive capture is far and above 4:1:1.



Here is a quote from a white paper on HDV.

{ So an HDV image encoded at 25 Mb/s (IBP) is roughly equivalent to an I-frame image-encoding of about 60 Mb/s. So, when comparing two compression schemes, remember that the higher bitrate version may not necessarily provide the better image quality }

Here is the link to the HDV white paper on HDV.

http://www.pinnaclesys.com/BSD/liqui..._HDV_40804.pdf



Michael Pappas
Arrfilms@hotmail.com
PappasArts & Arrfilms Main site

CONTACT VIA AOL INSTANT MESSENGER
AT { PAPPASARTS2 }


XLH1 and HVX200 frame grabs and news here:
http://www.pbase.com/Arrfilms

http://www.PappasArts.com
http://www.Myspace.com/PappasArts

Hi Andrew,

Great footage and presentation. I had a few chuckles. Is it possible that you may post your process after finsihing editing to 35mm film. Like what steps you took, methods, recommendations and what to perhaps stay away from (E.g. FILMOUT). Mainly for those who weren't there, but also for people like myself who wants to go to film on some projects and didn't get a chance to write everything down at the seminar.

Thanks

It was a great presentation and I must say that Andew is a great asset to indepenent film makers. I talked to Andrew breifly about publishing the settings he thinks are best for various applications and he noted he would do that here when he had the time to do more tests.

Andrew, once again thanks for the great presentation and I'd definately like to work with you and DuArt on some narrative film out tests. Any chance you would be interested in this?

TIM

Figured that was you with all the great suggestions during the screening Mike.

As an aside, what follows are the words of a guy who's only film experience has been short films originated on super 16mm film. I'm not yet versed enough to speak in knees and coring so bear with me:

Off top I agree with Mike that the footage was not as impressive as I'd expected. For starters, the main goal of the cinematographer, documentarian Andrew Young (great sense of humour this guy), ran somewhat counter to what my personal aspirations were in viewing footage to evaluate the camera. Coupled with the fact that he pretty much jerry-rigged his own wide-angle lens adapter on one of the first cameras off the lineup, you get the idea.

Shooting mostly with an extremely wide 35mm lense, the Safari footage looked a bit "dull" with colors that I'd best describe as "only going so far", desaturated greens and browns and yellows that lent a very flat, neutral image. Again, this was not a problem for Andrew Young as it was his intent and as such I'd have to say he accomplished what he was after (Mike had a great suggestion here about boosting the chroma on image acquisition in the field and desaturating in post, the reverse of Mr. Young's method here). Andrew also shot his footage at 30p because there was no way to edit 24p HDV footage when he went out. He then forced the footage to 23.98 after he'd made all his edits, lending an appealing 1/4 second motion decrease that was fine for a non-dialogue piece. Because he shot in some ridiculously wild conditions, Mr. Young rode the zebras for exposure so there were places in the print where clipping could be seen where image was just gobbelled to white. Overall, there was still a very video look to the HDV transferred to film Safari imagery. Some of this couold be attributed to a default sharpening function on the camera Mr. Young said he'd advise anyone to turn off in the future.

As Mike mentioned, the closeups Andrew shot with a few diopters were EXQUISITE in the blow-up. Matter of fact, just about all of the long lense photography here, faces etc., faired much better, as is to be expected with video acquisition. Also, the wide angle stuff where most of the imagery was kept to the foreground faired better than "expanse" shots as well, variances in depth seemed to aide the image just as greatly as focal lenght.

THE REAL TREAT was Charles Papert of HDVinfo.net stopping by with a film transfer of his Mini35 tests with the JVC! Actually, let me rephrase that, Andrew Young, the filmmaker from above, is a member of the DuArt family (his grandpa founded the place) and so before coming out he took the Mini35 tests we've all seen on the net, downloaded the raw files and commenced a filmout on his own whim. This was the first time Papert had seen the piece on film. How awesome a guy is Andrew Young folks?

Now THIS STUFF looked GREAT! The image from the net of the woman standing before the bed of flowers was fine, and an OTS scene of a couple in conversation was even better, the grain of the print combining with the focus falloff behind to really sell the image. Most impressive however was quick shot of the camera sat in a patch of lawn on a 100mm lense. The AC racks from fore to back to foreground etc. and the behavior of the image was so purely filmic I nearly wet my pants. It was the best color imaging of the camera and the most cinematic framing of the evening, basically a glamour shot that showed what this thing can do albeit under the forgiving circumstances of perfect light, shooting the warm tones of fresh chlorophyl and on the lovely glass of a 100mm prime lense (and all color corrected by Andrew Young at DuArt). There was a night exterior immediately following this that was somewhat underwhelming though, again, Charles Papert had no intention of transferring these things and for the night shot would definitely have done things differently (imho).

The best thing about the Mini35 stuff was that it gave the best example of THIS camera's approximation of a "film look." From a motion standpoint, 24 p is 24p and the JVC nailed that portion of the exam. From a color standpoint, it was neither the Canon's pallete nor Panasonics, something in between that's "natural" in the vain of Panasonic's color rendering though not nearly as robust as the Panasonic. Basically, it seemed like a Fuji to Panasonics Kodak, every bit as valid an imaging emulsion/chipset. You could certainly make a film with this camera, though I'd think the mini-35 is ESSENTIAL TO THAT!

*****Quick note, every piece of footage mentioned above was shot with the CineLike Function on. And just about everything projected was projected on both film and video EXCEPT the Mini35 demo which I REALLY wanted to see projected digitally :(*****

There was one last piece Andrew showed that had the JVC side by side with the $30,000 Standard Def Panasonic SDX900. The JVC held it's own against the $30,000 dollar cream of the standard def crop. It was Mr. Young's opinion that had his detail setting been figured out the JVC may have edged ahead (I preferred the soft quality of the SDX900 here).

That said, the best thing about this was it showed that perhaps resolution isn't as big a notion in film transfer as we like to think. Bob Diaz over on DVXUser put the SDX900's resolution at about 408 lines; even if the HVX comes in at 540 (which I don't beleieve at all), that's more than adequate and sedcondary to other aspects of the imaging as was suggested here.

Sucks that I'm leaving LA in 24 hours for a year road trip around the country. As a starving director type guy, I could get used to these screenings. The food was delicious :)

Good notes folks. Andrew, if you do catch this thread, thanks again for doing the filmout and inviting me to participate, it was a fun evening.

Barry, it's interesting that you favorably noted the color imaging on the Mini35 clips--I was a bit disappointed in the rendition as it was noticeably off from the originals (which can be viewed/downloaded here (http://www.hdvinfo.net/articles/jvcprohd/hd100mini35test5.php)); in fact I would quantify it similarly to the Andrew's footage in that it was rather ruddy and brownish with reduced saturation in the greens, somewhat sepia as Michael P. noted. Seeing Andrew's footage digitally projected I felt the color was more accurate. Thus I would hesitate to blame the camera for its color palette, especially considering that neither he nor I got too involved in the color matrix settings.

This was my first time seeing any 1/3" HD material filmed out, and while there were niggling points I was overall really impressed, compared to the DV filmouts I've seen. I feel secure that I could shoot a narrative piece with this (or the H1 or the HVX) and be satisfied with the results on the big screen--it may or may not fool the most critical viewer into thinking that it was film-originated, but I think it would still look good.

Oh, and finally--I think it's worth nothing that Andrew's footage contained many scenes that are real compression challenges, such as running water. I looked hard and didn't see any of the artifacting that I might have expected from much of what I've heard of the HDV format (and that I have seen on similar scenes on DirectTV, for instance). I'd love to hear if you guys saw anything that I missed. It was also good to hear that Andrew didn't suffer any problems due to the GOP scheme; all of that camera abuse and no dropouts. I've had very limited HDV experience and after hearing so many naysayers on the format I was pleasantly surprised by all this.

Andrew, as I said in another thread somewhere today, thanks for inviting me to participate and incorporating my footage in your presentation. Great hearing your stories from the jungle too.

I also tried hard to see HDV artifacts, and saw few if any in the film-out! The same material, projected digitally, had many (especially in the rainy scenes). So it seems to me that either DuArt's film-out process was able to reduce or eliminate these artifacts, or the digital projection (and other digital display technologies) tend to enhance them. In any case, for the film-out, it really didn't look like an issue for the JVC.

As for colors - Andrew Young did his own film-outs, no? I found the film-out color to be much more suited to the material than the digitally projected colors...

Hi Barry,

I wish I could have met you. This sucks, we all need to coordinate in future events for ways that DVinfo and DVXuser people can connect.



Michael Pappas
Arrfilms@hotmail.com
PappasArts & Arrfilms Main site

CONTACT VIA AOL INSTANT MESSENGER
AT { PAPPASARTS2 }


XLH1 and HVX200 frame grabs and news here:
http://www.pbase.com/Arrfilms

http://www.PappasArts.com
http://www.Myspace.com/PappasArts

Barry, it's interesting that you favorably noted the color imaging on the Mini35 clips--I was a bit disappointed in the rendition as it was noticeably off from the originals (which can be viewed/downloaded here (http://www.hdvinfo.net/articles/jvcprohd/hd100mini35test5.php)); in fact I would quantify it similarly to the Andrew's footage in that it was rather ruddy and brownish with reduced saturation in the greens, somewhat sepia as Michael P. noted.

Gotcha. You know, I should have qualified that my personal preference with any video for film look application is a REDUCED tonal range, and that the place I thought that was best represented AND indicative of video as replicating filmic color was the plant shot; the others I'd agree the colors were a bit off but that plant shot I was very pleased the greens you guys got.

Also, I thought Andrew said he'd fudged with the colors a bit in your footage?

I wish I could have met you. This sucks, we all need to coordinate in future events for ways that DVinfo and DVXuser people can connect.


You know, that was my first time at one of these things and I've only been on the board a week or two so i figured i'd just stick to lurking. Seeing you and Shannon chatting up Papert was sort of an "All Stars of the HD Boards" conglom. Very cool :)


The HVX200 holds up on the screen because it handles highlights and tone very well. A gorgeous well balanced image. As i said in the past res is only one factor, tone, color, ped, enhancement and high light control just to name a few are so important. Now if you do couple this with a high res ccd ( 1 million pixels and up ), well then you will have one hell of a camera.

And yes, I meant to say this: Even in the ragged quicktimes of your one chip recording a blind HVX Blowup on film, I felt like that stuff was better than the JVC last night (and Mike, the HVX projected footage from before was 720p without a Mini35, correct?).

In the pre-screening talk up, I felt the specs on the JVC were impressive for that price point, but felt the images didn't match the potential.

Hi Barry,

The HVX was straigt from the lens, no adapter. I am going to be posting some more very soon from the H1 and HVX200 off the screen. The H1 will be digital, however you will see how the H1 HD looked projected. Very nice looking.....

Here is a quote from a white paper on HDV.

{ So an HDV image encoded at 25 Mb/s (IBP) is roughly equivalent to an I-frame image-encoding of about 60 Mb/s. So, when comparing two compression schemes, remember that the higher bitrate version may not necessarily provide the better image quality }

Here is the link to the HDV white paper on HDV.

http://www.pinnaclesys.com/BSD/liquidblue/English(US)/doc/WP_HDV_40804.pdf


[QUOTE=Barry Jenkins] (and Mike, the HVX projected footage from before was 720p without a Mini35, correct?).

Michael, I'm glad someone else has the same viewpoint I do about HDV. It really gets a bad rap. The way JVC is only saving 24p with HDV reduces the compression amount, it only looks at 6 frames for it's GOP and It seems to really make a difference.

As I've said over on the DVX forum, while the footage on 35mm wasn't the best I've seen it was very impressive considering it was shot with a stock camera and lens in bad conditions. To me this is much more real world than someone loading the camera up with thousands in accessories, high end lenses, etc.

There was some cross-posting between this thread and a newer one on the same topic over in the HD Acquisition forum, so I've merged the two of them together.

Andrew, as I said in another thread somewhere today, thanks for inviting me to participate and incorporating my footage in your presentation. Great hearing your stories from the jungle too.


Hey Charles, I meant to tell you how much I appreciated the test you did with the HD100 and P&S.
It actually helped me make what had to be a quicker decision than I planned on HD, and based on last nights shoot I'm very glad I did.

What's your decison after tonight?

What's your decison after tonight?


I'm not sure what you mean if your asking me.

As stated it needs to be stressed that this camera was just, taken out of the box fiddle with for a half an hour, just set to the default settings, a non-conforming standard defintion wide angle adapter was glued on, and thrown into the jungle!!!

Having said all that I think it proved to be awsome. The video held up. There was adequate resolution for a film transfer period.

I bought my first DV camera in 1995....I learned in 1995 to shoot as close to the color saturation, contrasts, and whites, etc... Paint when I shoot, not in post...We need to do that with HDV, big deal I'm used to it.

Thanks to all for the comments. I know that what I showed was not so much "here's what it can do" and more "don't try this at home," but I'm glad people got something out of it – it’s interesting to hear the different reactions. I’m just sorry that I didn’t get to meet all of you and hear what others are doing with this medium. Extra thanks to Charles for doing that mini35 test and taking part in the presentation.

I was a bit disappointed in the rendition as it was noticeably off from the originals

Sorry we didn’t make more of an effort to time your footage to the original, Charles. We did it under the gun for the New York event and never had a chance to revisit it. (Excuses, excuses.)

Seeing Andrew's footage digitally projected I felt the color was more accurate.

I agree. The color corrected 1080p HD master on CRT looked best of all, but the filmout process was not really completed. Normally, a timer would screen the video and make additional corrections to the print. That was not done in this case. I'm afraid real jobs took precedence. Oops, more excuses :)

...the Safari footage looked a bit "dull" with colors that I'd best describe as "only going so far"...

I do feel that out of the out of the box, I prefer the Panasonic color pallet to the HD100. I'm going to have to start playing with those color matrixes. Perhaps I'll give Tim's DVX match settings a try.

...the closeups Andrew shot with a few diopters were EXQUISITE in the blow-up...

I think the reason for this (apart from the fact that close-ups always fare better in small formats) is that I was able to control the lighting in these set-ups, so I was dealing with a much more manageable contrast ratio. Out in the open in the (albeit rare) equatorial sun, the contrast was absolutely brutal, and that had a negative impact on a number of those shots - even in terms of color. I think the limited contrast ratio in Charles' material (as in my close-ups) is one of the reasons it holds up so well.

I did forget to point out (but I'm sure many noticed) that the really big views with fine detail (e.g. leaves) are the shots that most clearly show the limitations of the 1/3" chip. If only we could just stick low-con close-ups...

About the film out. It felt like video more than I liked. Highlights were just too video.

I think this video look (which I also see) is a function of the default detail setting, which is way too high. I think it is less noticeable on the mini35 footage because of the slight softening that is inherent in that process. I'm curious to know if you thought the sequence of the girl painting (which was done with detail off) looked any better. It does to me.

I think it's worth nothing that Andrew's footage contained many scenes that are real compression challenges, such as running water

Yes, I did forget to mention yesterday how remarkable it is that those shots in heavy rain showed no compression artifacts.

Is it possible that you may post your process after finsihing editing to 35mm film. Like what steps you took, methods, recommendations and what to perhaps stay away from (E.g. FILMOUT).

Will do Brian, as soon as I get a chance. Got a shoot coming up so it may be a bit. Sorry.

Someone needs to give Andrew a deal on a quality lens adapter and scrap that make shift one...

Well, if your going to go to the trouble, why don't you just send me a 13x? I promise I won't get it wet! :)

I'm not sure what you mean if your asking me.

You said the night made it easier for you to make a decision, so I asked what it was.

My apologies in advance to Andrew and Stephen since I won't be able to attend in Chicago. I had my fingers crossed, but my clients keep asking for revisions, so no time to spare.

I hope it goes well, and please let me know how my nighttime exteriors look on the 35mm blowup.

thanks,
Tim

Hi Andrew!

I was the one that said that that footage reminded me of late 80's 16mm stock. Ofcourse different then film since it's electronic and not film. It was minus the grain of 16mm, that would be one major difference, however it was more like the older 16mm in how it blows up to 35mm.

Shoot with that sharpness down, and boost that chroma. If there is a gamma, set for low. to much clipping and not enough roll-off is another big sign of video.

Andrew Have you seen this thread. If not it has samples of settings for your HD100. Give these a try and run some multiple test within the same film test strip. See which one works. Let us know if you do, I would be very curious to your results.

HD100 Gamma/Colour Tests + DVX100 Match Settings
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=52256

Also here is Tim Dashwoods hd100 recipes:

http://homepage.mac.com/timdashwood/public

take care.......


Michael Pappas
Arrfilms@hotmail.com
PappasArts & Arrfilms Main site
CONTACT VIA AOL INSTANT MESSENGER
AT { PAPPASARTS2 }
XLH1 and HVX200 frame grabs and news here:
http://www.pbase.com/Arrfilms
http://www.PappasArts.com
http://www.Myspace.com/PappasArts


Quote:
I think this video look (which I also see) is a function of the default detail setting, which is way too high. I think it is less noticeable on the mini35 footage because of the slight softening that is inherent in that process. I'm curious to know if you thought the sequence of the girl painting (which was done with detail off) looked any better. It does to me.

I was at the Chicago event today and I thought that the footage was stunning.

Andrew was great, his stuff was very impressive, and his journey sounded very exciting.

The real show stopper for me was Stephen's footage. He showed a shot of a train pulling into a train station in falling snow that I will not soon forget. (not to mention, amazing stuff of pigeons, some beautiful footage of a barge, and much more) Thank you Stephen!

I went to the event to decide if I wanted to pursue the camera for a project I am doing this summer and I was convinced.

Having come from a film background, and actually shooting a 16mm feature that was blown up at Duart in the 90's and then released theatrically, I felt that what I saw was as good as our (very nice) blowup. Our movie, MOSQUITO was produced for nearly half a million dollars, an enormous amount of that cost was film stock. With the JVC, I could have made the same movie (with the same quality) and saved a hundred thousand dollars.

And in reality, most of the work we're going to do, even feature length, is not going to end up in theaters. We may sell it, but our markets are more likely to be cable and DVD release.

Sometimes it seems to me that we are always looking for any minute faults with this stuff, when in reality, it is an extremely exciting time to be a visual storyteller.

I will be ordering the camera tomorrow.

www.tomchaney.com
www.take2themovie.com

Has anyone heard if they'll have another showing in LA...

It seems that everytime these things happen I have something that I can't get away from...

If I know far enough in advance... then I can make plans...

Thanks

I was the one that said that that footage reminded me of late 80's 16mm stock.

Hi Michael,

Not only that but it has been remarked that the 16x lens has the look of an Angenieux 9.5-57 from that era - something I agree with. Interesting!

I do have Tim's recipes and do intend to play around with the color pallett before my next shoot. It's a shame I had to run off and shoot with no time to experiment.

Thanks for the comments.

...please let me know how my nighttime exteriors look on the 35mm blowup.

Hi Tim,

I think Stephen told me yours were the night shots with the gun wielding troops. If that's the case, I thought they looked quite good. Enough shadow detail and good blacks. The reel it was a part of was a mixed bad of shots - some impressive and some sketchy (though the same can be said for my material!). Many shots suffered from the default detail setting (like my stuff) and there were some ugly examples of chromatic aberration. Stephen used the reel as an opportunity to discuss some do's and don'ts. Sorry I wasn't able to meet you.

Our movie, MOSQUITO was produced for nearly half a million dollars, an enormous amount of that cost was film stock. With the JVC, I could have made the same movie (with the same quality) and saved a hundred thousand dollars.]

Tom - a fellow Michi-gander (Ypsilanti) here! I had the lucky chance to see some of your mosquitos in your studio a few years back - they were great - love the movie too!

I feel the same as you do + I just ordered the JVC and should be recieving it this week.

If you'd like to come and help us put it through it's paces, or just check the thing out, I'd be happy to help. (As an aside I work quite often w/the AD of MOSQUITO, Eric Maurer, who's actually a fine actor as well).

Anyway, let me know Tom....
John

Ahh, I didn't know you guys were screening additional material in Chicago--I would have loved to have seen it. Every little bit helps in learning the "do's and don'ts".

Hi,

The Chicago show has come and gone and there is alot of information to discuss about the film transfer. As Andrew Young said above, the stuff I put together was a mixed bag of shots and the intention was to not color correct and to put the footage up on screen as it came off the camera. Tim D., your stuff (with the masked men) was in and Nate W. your downtown shots were in as well.


First up was Andrew Young's footage. I saw the footage from the front of the theater and from the back of the theater. There was a really big difference between viewing from the front and from the back. In the front of the theater it looked muted in color as some pointed out. I felt the same way when I sat in the front of the theater. When I saw the reel from the back of the theater it was very impressive. Maybe it was the screen? I don't know but from the back of the theater the footages colors looked correct and the resolution fabulous. Very, very nice Andrew! His story of perils in getting the footage was entertaining and I enjoyed it.

Next up was the reel I put together. The reel was intended as an example of what to do and not to do as well as to directly film transfer some scene files and see how they look. There is a ProHD user group formed in Chicago and the reel will be shown there as well and discussed in detail.

@ T. Dashwood and N. Weaver- can you post your camera settings for what you've included in the reel? I'm gathering settings so we'll have the reference to the camera/film. Thanks guys, even though you weren't there, you were!

In all things shown the blacks were superb and the shadows had nice detail. Andrew made the comment many times about the detail settings and how it may have artificially enhanced some highlights but from my point of view they were not that pronounced and it's nice to know we can turn detail enhancement way down or off.

There were 5 known scene files represented in my reel. Of them all, the "Warm" scene file was almost identicle on screen to what I saw on my timeline and what I saw to HDTV. As the editor of the piece I saw all of the footage over and over on SD monitor, HDTV and now on film for two screenings. Across the board the warm scene file transferred to all display types the same and I think would be a good basis.

Workflow went like this: I brought the m2t 24p files into Liquid 6.1 Broadcast (same as Avid Liquid 7) and layed them on a 720p24 timeline. The files had no render and were raw 24p on my timeline. I added cuts, transitions and a few titles. The render codec used was 2VUY (8bit) uncompressed. The only portions that had any rendering were fade to black and titles and one shot that was 30p linear time warped to 24p. The rest of the footage was raw all the way through. I then took the timeline and exported it as a TARGA sequence to a PC formatted USB2 drive and delivered it to "I cubed" here in Chicago. They took it from there and the Lab work was done by Cinefilm in Atlanta, GA. We requested them to leave it un-color corrected. Andrew, I will gather the information on the film stock (Kodak provided), the transfer method (Arri laser or CRT) and scaling method to 1080p and forward the info.

Some things I think are relevant to the film transfer and to the HD-100:

1. Focus is PARAMOUNT. Check and recheck focus. Use the full 88mm to zoom in and get critical focus for shots. We displayed some shots in the film that were in focus on SD but in HD were out. Be aware.

2. Observe pan speed laws in order to get smooth motion in 24p. We displayed proper panning and tilting and improper. Slow pans and whip pans are OK but medium speed pans that are beyond the pan speed 24p can take will judder. Be aware.

The bottom line is this: The HD-100's image is worthy of 35mm film.

S.Noe


PS To JVC, All the credit to you that put on the event. They were open to discussion about the camera and had no false ideas about the camera/format. Edgar Shane (JVC) described how the format and codec works and then JVC let the images speak through Andrew Young and I (in Chicago). They had no problem with Andrew or I pointing out errors or things to look for when shooting. Keep up the good work!

PS PS To all the guys from the boards I got to meet. It was great putting faces to names and I am happy to meet you. I can't wait to see some content!

Stephen,

Any chance you will post some of these clips for us to download and view? I went to the JVC event in LA but didn't make the Chicago one - well it's a bit far ;)

I picked up a JVC HD100 yesterday so I'll go shoot some stuff this weekend. I'll try to post various examples at different settings at some point this weekend of early part of next week.

Thanks for the report Stephen,

This is why we need another screening in LA with other material shot. I have material from the HD100 that looks awesome that you and others have given me. So I was way way surprised about what I saw. I expected it to surpass the HVX200 material I have seen at laser pacific. However didn't, not closem and that doesn't make sense to me. Let's hope for another screening in LA... I would love Laser Pacific to do a film out of the HD100 as well XLH1......


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Most of the clips that I've seen that I know were on the reel have what I'd consider now (now that I've spent a lot of time with the camera) to be excessive edge enhancement. I suspect the the HD100 would look superb for a film-out with Min detail.

In general, it seems the larger the display (whether film, or electronic projection, or 50" plasma) the less edge enhancement you want. Conversely, if you're downconverting to SD for display on the average 19" set, the "Normal" detail setting would probably look great.

Most of the clips that I've seen that I know were on the reel have what I'd consider now (now that I've spent a lot of time with the camera) to be excessive edge enhancement. I suspect the the HD100 would look superb for a film-out with Min detail.

Hi Nate,

Yes, a lot of the material on that reel looked way over enhanced. Based on my experience so far, I would agree with you about the detail setting. What I shot with detail off looked better to me, but felt a bit soft. I'm working on a new piece and will use the min setting and this time I will push the colors more - since a number of people didn't like the correction I did.

Hi Nate,

Yes, a lot of the material on that reel looked way over enhanced. Based on my experience so far, I would agree with you about the detail setting. What I shot with detail off looked better to me, but felt a bit soft. I'm working on a new piece and will use the min setting and this time I will push the colors more - since a number of people didn't like the correction I did.


Andrew, the footage we shot of Apollo Ono this week was with detail set to minimum and it looks almost 3D in some shots with out any of the exaggerated highlights I saw in initial tests.

I've only had the camera for a week so there wasn't a lot of time to get it down but I'm happy with the detail there and after reviewing the scenes in the studio I'm also bumping the color up a bit to match the CC I did in FCP.

I'm just pushing a broadcast deadline and I'll post a bit of that graded footage this evening.

Hey...can you spare some Gorilla glue?

Hi Tim,

I think Stephen told me yours were the night shots with the gun wielding troops. If that's the case, I thought they looked quite good. Enough shadow detail and good blacks. The reel it was a part of was a mixed bad of shots - some impressive and some sketchy (though the same can be said for my material!). Many shots suffered from the default detail setting (like my stuff) and there were some ugly examples of chromatic aberration. Stephen used the reel as an opportunity to discuss some do's and don'ts. Sorry I wasn't able to meet you.

I'm sorry I wasn't able to make it.
The S.W.A.T. Team stuff was mine. I was using my "Ciné Wide" setting on 0dB with the stock lens + 0.82x converter. Key/fill was a 4x4 Kino Flo with 5600K bulbs rimmed by a 5K tungsten with 1/4 CTB from about 70 feet away on the roof, exposure was ƒ2.8 at 1/48th shutter.
I'm glad the blacks were still black and not muddy. This shoot was part of promo trailer for a film in pre-production and is destined for standard def DVD. Therefore we wanted a sharp 35mm look for our action sequences and (believe it or not) the detail setting was actually set to +4 !!! It looks quite good on HD and in the SD downconvert, but I wonder if this was obvious in the film out? On that shoot I fluctuated between detail -6 and +4 depending on the scene.

And thanks again Stephen for adding my stuff to the reel.

...we wanted a sharp 35mm look for our action sequences and (believe it or not) the detail setting was actually set to +4 !!!
Wow, I can't beleive it - and yours was one of the few ones that I didn't have detail problems with. Maybe the low key lighting changed the dynamics - there weren't a lot of edges to focus on. Just a theory.

Your low latitude recipe seemed to do the job well, of course, I didn't have anything to compare it to. I'll have to do some split screens to compare different settings.

In general, it seems the larger the display (whether film, or electronic projection, or 50" plasma) the less edge enhancement you want. Conversely, if you're downconverting to SD for display on the average 19" set, the "Normal" detail setting would probably look great.
I've seen this in my experimentation as well. At the event they had various HDTV sizes with camera's connected to them. I was talking with some of the others about detail and as we experimented with the settings, the small screen's benefitted from added detail and the larger screens benefitted from less detail. I don't know if you could get away with the detail off. We'll soon see. The next gig is commercial work and I hope to shoot dual HD-100's with completely different detail settings (albeit the same scene file and whitebalance). I'll try detail off opposed to detail -3 unless someone has a better suggestion for this scenario.

we'll see...

Stephen,

Any chance you will post some of these clips for us to download and view? I went to the JVC event in LA but didn't make the Chicago one - well it's a bit far ;)

I picked up a JVC HD100 yesterday so I'll go shoot some stuff this weekend. I'll try to post various examples at different settings at some point this weekend of early part of next week.
I'll post a wmv (I know the mac guys cringe) and an SD DVD ISO for anyone to burn and get a look at it. First I'll have to find some more web space to put the files up. The 4 Gigs of space from last month have dried up.

I'll post a wmv (I know the mac guys cringe)
WMV is fine for the mac guys (using the free flip4mac wmv plugin for quicktime http://www.flip4mac.com ) as long as it is WM9 series, not 10. WM10 codec doesn't seem to work on the mac yet.