Got my Brand new XM-2 , satisfied? NO! This camera can't handle the colour RED
 

Hi, Finally I got my new camera! Tested it only for a couple of minutes yesterday, transfered the video to my PC(premiere 6.5), and was NOT satisfied! OK, I thought - I need to read the manual... so I spent a couple of hours reading/experimenting & testing. The result was better, BUT - The camera can't capture RED. Everything moving that is solid red ( like a red jacket on a person ) is blocky and "ghosty".

I've tried setting up my own custom profile where I desaturate and turns the picture towards green, same result.

Seeing several people here on the forum complaining about the same thing, I wonder if this can be a bad "batch" of cameras?

To see what I mean, please visit my website at:

http://lazze.dns2go.com/xm2red

There you will find 3 grabbed frames, please download them and zoom in the RED parts on the pictures and you will clearly see what I mean!

I'm almost on my way posting these pictures to a Canon office.

Best regards,

Lars Siden

Sweden

Just wanted to say that I have made a formal complaint at Canon Sweden. We'll see what they say!

// Lazze

huh?
 

I don't get it. Without "zooming" in on the reds, I see no difference between them and the other colors, and with a jpg at 72dpi, zooming in doesn't make much sense. If you have a high resolution original from the card and want to post it you might get more interest but nothing much can be gotten from zooming in on a 72dpi compressed image.

>I don't get it. Without "zooming" in on the reds, I see no >difference between them and the other colors, and with a jpg at >72dpi, zooming in doesn't make much sense. If you have a high >esolution original from the card and want to post it you might >et more interest but nothing much can be gotten from zooming >in on a 72dpi compressed image.

Hello Bud,

If you bear with me and do zoom in on the red parts you'll notice that they are blocky and ugly. If you zoom somewhere else in the picture ( on blue or black ) the surface will be calm an "ordinary jpeg".

It is also very clear when playing the original movie from which I grabbed these frames. I could try to make small clip from the AVI and post it.

// Lazze

an oddity or problem with your camera?
 

I wonder if there is something wrong with your camera? if this were a problem with every camera it would have (I think) been discussed at great length. I see no such problem with any of the reds from my gl2. at first I figured that the problem was being introduced in software somewhere along the line, but if you are seeing it in uncompressed dv footage...when you say you see it in the pics that you grabbed from the film, how was it done? can you see this when you play your camera back directly to a high quality monitor? could the problem be in how you are capturing the picture? I think it must be in that process or you have a defective camera; I don't think it is a trait of the gl2 line of cameras.

Sorry to hear that you are having problems with your new cam Lazze. The blockyness is quite visible in the video clip you posted. That problem should be visible even on a regular 28" TV set through a s-video connection from the camera, so give Buds suggestion a try, to rule out any software/computer errors.

I saw this problem once with my XL1S- but not the GL2....a video anomaly?

I have some problems too with Red.

Look this picture:
http://marcolivier.free.fr/temp1/motocross1.jpg

zoom part of the picture:
http://marcolivier.free.fr/temp1/motocross2.jpg

I know the 4.1.1 reduction can makes some loosing colors lines, but not as this.

The picture was extracted from a video (it's not a photo), full zoom. Others settings are on the screen. It's an XM2 not a GL2.

At least you have got a great supject to film...

Marc the XM2 has 4:2:0 compression, not 4:1:1. I'm not sure if this will matter in your results though.

Aaron

Hi guys,

I'm getting an XM2 next week. Please tell me if I should hold or look for another cam. I sold my 950 for XM2.

Please tell me if this artifact is also visible even if it's connected directly to the tv.

Thank you.

Try TV Test
 

As Yik says, try a piece to TV. Of course ensure that the TV is set up with correct colour saturation - if that's the correct word - so you can confirm your observations.

I'm not clever enough to make a comment on the JPG versus TV decoded finished product, but somewhere in there is an answer. I too noticed a certain de-sensitivity or over enthusiastic response to reds while filming a large red area, until a friend adjusted his TV set to accomodate the "fresh" image.

Hi,

I'm very worried now. I've sold my 950 which gives excellent quality in exchange for better manual control and more natural color reproduction.

What other cam worth getting that falls within this price range if not the XM2? Please suggest.

I'll be getting the XM2 not the GL2 here in Singapore. Seems like the PAL version is worse, is it becoz of its higher pixel count in pixel-shifting technique, 470K vs 410K NTSC?

I've seen those images/video posted here, it's totally unacceptable.

Thank you.

Hello Guys,


Thanks for your input!

Will try a "TV test" tonight. I will also remove my filter on the camera(skylight).

But I think that even if it isn't so visible on the TV, this is still an error. All other colors looks good, why not red? An expensive camera like this should be able to produce outstanding quality, both for TV and for computer output.

I have also tried to de-interlace the AVI for computer playback, no visble change.

I'll be back ;-) ( sorry, couldn't hold myself )

// Lazze

PS: Aaron, Yep - she is a beautiful little girl ds.

Connected to the TV, the problem is near to invisible to see, but I can see a little bleed in the red however.

Okay - Now look at other "reds" from other sources on your TV - Adverts, news casts, plays etc etc.

So does that mean you are a bit better about your purchase?

Hi there.

I own an XM2 and I'm also not satisfied with reproduction of red tones. Took some shots in a low light situation in manual mode yesterday (and many times in normal light situations before). Colours were neutral except red which was bleeding.


Chris

Hi Guys,

Did the TV test tonight. On TV the result is OK - no visible blocking or lines. BUT red colors are still bleeding.

Took a shot of my daughters toy "Mr Ring" ;-) It is a black "doll" with multicoloured rings around the waist and in that shot the bleeding is very clear.

Now I must find out why the transfered video from the camera is messed up on the computer. I have a standard IEEE1394 card, short cable, Windows XP Pro, Premiere 6.5.....

I have another old videocamera here, a Panasonic DS-11, will try to play my XM2 tape in that cam and record to the computer.

Will be back with more info...

// Lazze

I think it is broken ;-( XM-2 red-problem
 

Hi,

Tonight I've studied the phenomena of my bleeding and misbehaving red-colour.

The thing that got me convinced of that something is wrong is when I filmed a window-lamp. The lamp is made of red glass...but the camera rendered it yellow or white, independently of the selected white-balance.

I tried manual mode and full auto mode.

I also filmed one of my daughters dolls, it's a black body with several coloured rings around it. The camera can focus and show detail on all rings, except the red one which is fuzzy and "ghosty". The green ring is to light, but okay.

I tried the same tests with my old cheap-o Panasonic DS11, it rendered both the doll and the lamp correctly.

So I think I'll have to use my Canon European warranty - I hope they'll be good and fast!

Sad regards,

Lars Siden

Sweden

two comments
 

first, lars, when I read "I have also tried to de-interlace the AVI for computer playback, no visble change." that tells me you aren't viewing dv footage, you are viewing video compressed into an avi. all bets are off there with regard to compression artifacts you might see. there may be some error or problem with the compression, but again, you can't make any conclusion about the camera based on an compressed avi image. go back to the original dv footage. if you are importing this directly into an avi, compressing it on the fly, that may be the issue right from the get go.

when discuss the window lamp it sounds like you are talking about viewing it in the viewfinder so perhaps there is indeed a problem, but it's still not at all clear....hard to troubleshoot some of these things, eh?

VX2000 can have red bleed too. Look:
http://marcolivier.free.fr/temp1/vx2000.jpg

The original picture is here:
http://www.bealecorner.com/vx2000/xmas00/glade.jpg

There is less bleed than the GL2/XM2 but it is here.

The more I see the clips shooted with the XM2, the more I see some electronic sharpeness (white lines contour). Anyone has noticed that?

Lars,

if your XM2 is broken, all XM2s sold by CANON are broken because they all show this phenomenom. Red tones are difficult to handle and so my conclusion is that it is by design of this cam. Not very satisfying, I guess.


Chris

Lars - You have my full attention!
 

I too get red bleed - I've been living with it XM2 - PAL. I also have an old analogue Panni cammy - not red bleed - PAL.

I'm wondering if this is a PAL-land issue and not an NTSC-land issue. I'd like to hear from NTSC users if they have had this issue - yeah?

Now, if you get any feedback from Canon Europe I'll shall be very, very interested. I got my XM2 in Nov '02 so I could get it checked out too - hmmm....

I got the XM2 for many reasons:

1 - Price - Sony VX2000 a bit too much for me

2 - Audio control/s and sound quality

3 - Actual ergonomic "feel" of the camera

4 - MA300 adaptor - yes I do like it!

5 - Wide angle lens option

I will say that in general I'm very happy with the XM2. This one "issue" I could possibly "correct" in post-prod.

Lars . . . I'm keeping an eye out for your responses

If that's the case, Lars, can you please let us know what's Canon's remedy to this problem.

Can the problem be fixed by upgrading the firmware? Or, is it due to the hardware?

Possible for Canon to change your XM2 to XL1s or money back?

I'm sure that they must do something. Can they provide details for this weird problem?

Any version of XM2/GL2 to avoid?

But, I don't see complains from Japanese and Taiwanese users who are using the XV2.

I did came across some sample stills of XV2 and to my surprise, they are okay. :(

Yik - Interesting - "I don't see complains from Japanese and Taiwanese users who are using the XV2"

Sooo... what's the difference between the XM2 and the XV2? Why the better quality? - I don't expect you can answer this, but is there a "specifacation" difference

That seems to bring us closer to the firmware problem rather than the hardware.

If this is the reason, then the GL2/XM2/XV2 have no technical design fault (I hope), only the firmware glitches. This can be fixed by newer firmware update, just like Panny usually does.

The XV2 is Japanese NTSC model, with black body which has more "professional" like.

Follow this link (in Japanese), just look at those sample stills:

http://www.soundweb-asia.com/products_test/canon_xv2/page_1.htm

I have mostly done "nature" shoots so far with my new XM2, so I haven't really shot any red subjects. I will try to do some tests this weekend though, so we can see whether this problem is a general one, or Lars' camera being broken.

Bud Kuenzli wrote something about .avi files not being uncompressed DV. As far as I know these things are not strictly related. Video is compressed right in the camera in a 5:1 ratio. Ie. what is recorded on tape is already compressed 5 times compared to uncompressed video.

When you import this to a PC, it will be the same DV data as on tape. There is an .avi wrapper around it, but this has nothing to do with compression. Avi files can be all sorts of codecs, so you can easily have radically different compression schemes that are all stored in .avi files.

My point is that this problem should be judged on the basis of newly imported DV footage from the camera stored in an .avi file. These will be compressed 5:1, but this is inherent in the DV format.

Will get back, when I have done some testing myself.

Hans Henrik

Ok. I have some test material up for you now for comparison.

First a few words about the test method. I shot them with my XM2 in daylight, manually white balanced. I imported the shots to the PC via Scenalyzer and dumped screenshots directly from there via the "export to .bmp" - full resolution option. This should eliminate .jpg compression as a possible culprit.

Here are the shots:

http://home7.inet.tele.dk/hhb/redtest/redtest1.bmp
http://home7.inet.tele.dk/hhb/redtest/redtest2.bmp
http://home7.inet.tele.dk/hhb/redtest/redtest3.bmp
http://home7.inet.tele.dk/hhb/redtest/redtest4.bmp
http://home7.inet.tele.dk/hhb/redtest/redtest5.bmp
http://home7.inet.tele.dk/hhb/redtest/redtest6.bmp

I tried to use some standard objects such as a red coke bottle cap for possible comparison. In the last 2 shots, I put a red and a green candle next to each other for direct comparison of red vs. green reproduction.

I notice some bleeding of red. On the images of the cigarette pack, there is similar bleeding of yellow, but then again red is a component of yellow. There is also edge enhancement very obvious in all the shots, but especially in the candle shots, I don't find any remarkable difference between green and red.

Will be very interested in the feedback you get from Canon. Also feedback regarding my testshots are very welcome.

Hans Henrik

confirmed
 

I took a shot of a red screwdriver on white paper. After dumping a pict file from iMovie I could also see some red bleed, but it was limited to a single pixel in width, here and there along the length of the object. It's not something I would have noticed in any moving video and wasn't as pronounced as your example of the coke bottle lid. Luckily I'm not a pro with a need for better resolution and perfect color fidelity. I don't know the exact trade-offs of other cameras on the market, but I do know that they all have some trade-off, whether that be resolution, zoom, color aberation, barrel distortion, whatever. My GL2 is new to me and I've only put about 5 tapes through it, but those 5 tapes are the best video I've ever shot so in spite of this (minor from my perspective) issue, I'm a happy camper. Hope this is resolved to your satisfaction...

Like you Bud, I am generally very happy with my XM2. A vast improvement over my previous suckycam. I also noticed that the bleed is most noticable in still really. As soon as you get to moving video, the bleed seems very slight.

When I get daylight again I will try some more testshots, this time with sharpness dialed down, so we can see how much edge enhancement has to do with this.

Hans Henrik

Hi Guys,

Spoke to Canon Support today and described the problem. There response was "if it is visible on TV, then there is a camera malfunction".

There guesses where "badly trimmed CCD" or "faulty CCD".

I will visit Canon IT Center Support on Monday. They will test my camera with their test equipment.

If this should turn out to be "no fault", then I'll demand an exchange/refund - a semi pro cam in with this price shouldn't produce a lower quality video than my 500 USD Panasonic cam.

I'll keep you posted!

Best regards,


Lars Siden

ps. BUD, mini-DV is alway compressed...5:1, I just took the original captured AVI file ( 200mb/minute ) and deinterlaced it to remove possible flicker effects. ds.

Hi Lars,

Thank you and we're waiting for the good news.

I've just discovered that shooting in 16/9 can help red tones:

Image in 4/3:
http://marcolivier.free.fr/temp1/4-3.png

The same but shooted in 16/9 mode:
http://marcolivier.free.fr/temp1/16-9.png

I think i've the same problem in my XM1 but, this red bleeding is visible only on computer monitor and with high light condition shooting.
I guess it's problem of dinamic response of the red ccd.

Hi Guys,

Just wanted to tell you that I have done some extensive testing this weekend. I've filmed the same troublesome objects with my brand new XM-2 and with the old Panasonic DS-11.

I have also uninstalled ALL premiere stuff + standalone MC Mpeg encoder, cleansed the computer with DXMAN. Reinstalled Premiere 6.5.

My observations:

Edges & Fuzziness:

The DS11 gives a smoother impression on Computer monitor, but much less detail when viewed on TV.

Focus:

Some of the objects which I filmed without any problems with the XM-2 can't even be put into focus with DS-11(it just blurs them out).

Colour:

DS-11 has a blue/green tilt with a "restricted red". If I put the XM-2 in "indoor" profile it produces much more neutral colours.

Red:

If I film the same red jacket with the XM-2 and the Ds-11, they show the same problems. Overall the XM-2 produces a much cleaner result when viewed on TV, but a more pixelated & blocky appearance viewed on the computer monitor.

MPEG 2:

I converted the Raw AVI file to MPEG2 with the standalone MC Encoder v1.3. The result is very good! It is some noise when filming brightly coloured red, but not disturbing. Maybe I think the result is abit better when using "top field first" field encoding.

XM-2:

When using a Custom Preset with colour gain set to -2 and with the Color Phase set 2 steps towards green the result is very good, especially when viewed on a TV ( I have a Philips 32" Wide, blackline 100 hz ). I don't feel that decreasing the sharpness helps the "edge combing" effect that much.

When I view the tapes I filmed first, the "red shift" is much more pronounced than now - The only explenation I have is that maybe the camera was "damp" from transport, or maybe there where some "stuff" on the heads that has been rubbed of now.

Overall I'm quite happy with the result from the XM-2. Maybe I'll get me a filter that will filter out some red....

I'm VERY happy with the sound quality on the XM-2!

I will still talk to the technical team at Canon tomorrow to hear their opinion.

Best regards,

Lars Siden

Sweden

Lars Thank You ! !
 

You spent your Sunday doing all this! - I think a prize is in order.

Yes the sound on the XM2 is excellent. I like what you did with the presets - I'll give it a go.

Please keep us informed on your discussions with Canon reps - yeah?