XL-HI 24f BIGSCREEN footage at Resfest
 

I just got back from the Resfest seminar: Beyond DV - HD and the future of indie filmmaking.
They discussed the attributes of the Z1 and A1, the JVC, the Canon and the Panasonic.
Most interesting was the footage shown, however, as I have been dying to see something up on the big screen and not compressed into a little quicktime or wav file.
Personally, I thought Canon's 24f looks every bit as rich and smooth as 24p.
They shot some really nice footage in a country side setting with a gentleman on a bike and if this is the type of image you can get from 24f, my fears have been put to rest.
This is a personal opinion, though. Some of you may have been in the audience with me and had a more critical eye.
One guy even mentioned judder which I saw as well but the Canon rep said that the effect was not necessarily attributable to the camera, or at least in terms of contributing to the severity of the judder. (which wasn't all that severe).
This effect is inherent in 24p as well when the camera is panned too quickly.
There seemed to be a little clipping of highlight here and there, nothing significant that would turn me off.
All and all I was very impressed and have even actually begun to consider purchasing the camera sometime in the future.
They only showed the Panny in 1080i mode as its 24p is, unlike the Canon, apparently not functioning on the prototype model
Was anyone else there today to see this?

Great info:) I'm still a little wary of the 24F effect but it's good to see a good review of it. Strange that the Panny is taking so long to be operational. Remember they first implied it was going to come out mid-year, then October, then Novemeber, then December--wonder if they're running into bigger problems than they thought they would.

I used to be in Pro Video sales and Panasonic was one of our lines. A problem we had with Panasonic was that they didn't ship and/or manufacture until they had enough orders to make it worthwhile. A Panasonic executive explained to me that Panasonic USA is really just a warehouse and they do not want to look bad back in Japan by having too much stock. So they would under order and back order until they could get a full shipment.

So it may be technical problems or just waiting for orders.

I don't remember anybody ever saying mid-year about the Panasonic, and especially not Jan Crittenden. It's always been November with Panasonic.

I think you're mistaking the Panasonic for the JVC...the JVC got bumped 2 months...but it's shipping now.

Especially Jan Crittenden, last March or so... saying it wouldn't quite be ready in time to shoot the last of the winter/spring snow but soon after that so hold off and don't buy the Sony FX1.

Panasonic has never said anything earlier than "4Q 2005", have they?

Er... that's probably best expressed as "Q4 2005," and yes that's always been the target date. I've never known Panasonic not to deliver when they said they would.

Speaking of ResFest, here's the info about this travelling tour:

http://www.resfest.com/

Yes, it would have been nice to see what the Panasomic could have done in its 24p mode. But, without having even seen it, I'll go out on a short limb and say it's going to be gorgeous.
Not terribly prophetic, I guess, considering who makes the camera.

Until it goes on sale, the HVX will remain the holy grail but will it ply its many trades with equal aplomb?

A concern I would have with it is if it shoots better video in 1080i60 than it does in 720p60, would I still want to?

It seems unforgivable for a prosumer HD cam to forsake HDV tape recording. To me that makes the HVX a purely *PRO* cam, but I need HDV. I think the XL H1 could more than offset the lack of 720p and P2 cards with an effective mpeg2 encoder for HDV, a best in class image stabilization system, and a telephoto zoom lens that gets you closer to the action.

I would prefer to have it at the pricepoint of the Z1U...sigh.

It seems for many of us that no one camera has everything we want (unless of course it costs 65,000.00 and up). But when you bring this type of technology in at this price point (the 10k and under club I guess it's called) compromises have to be made.
Once in a while I'll hear someone say we should be grateful, that these are exciting times to be in for an indie filmmaker and or videographer.
I'll stick with that wonderful truth and be grateful I can even afford a good, solid SD camera like my XL2 to realize my ideas with.

Even the high-end cameras are less than ideal. Varicam has multiple frame rates, but a resolution of only 960 x 720 and color sampling of only 4:2:2. HDCAM SR, which costs nearly twice as much, has higher res and supports 4:4:4 color, but lacks variable frame rates. No camera will ever be perceived as having everything one could want, especially if it costs $65,000 and up.

There is no perfect camera... no one is sold with a good story...

But think how much money Canon could make on the "XL H1 Lethal Weapon 9 script Bundle" :)

Lawrence, guess I should have spoken for myself on that one. I would be very satisfied with the Varicam, personally.
I'm just happy to be making stuff.

LOL Stephen, do you think it come with a free Joe Pesci!

Exactly. The emphasis should be on the stuff you can do with a camera, not on the camera itself. Besides, like beauty, perfection is in the eye of the beholder.

The ongoing discussion on the 24p versus 24f and on the 720 versus 1080 lines is interesting in the sense that the PAL version of XL2 creates already 576 vertical lines in the 25p mode, if vertical detail is set to normal. Such an image is amazingly sharp for a SD camera. (Maybe we who have the PAL version should post some our best footages to give to the NTSC land people an idea of the 25p image.)

The difference between 720 and 576 is not that remarkable, and thus, it is understandable that Canon went straight to HDV2 and 1080 lines although some people seem not to be happy about that. I wonder, if the XL2 25p image is interpolated to 720 lines, whether the difference between the SD and 720 25p HDV signal is that big -in another words, is the difference worth of an investment?

If I understood it right, the difference between the XL1 25f mode and the XL2 25p mode is that in the XL1 25f mode the number of lines was reduced (by 100) to avoid flickering. In XL2, the vertical detail is included in the menu, and one may choose whether there is the reduction or not. Whatever is the case, the difference in sharpness between XL1 and XL2 is easily observable. (Of course, the lens and other facts matter)

Now, when it comes to XL H1, does anybody know, does Canon give a new meaning to the f-mode, or has it the same meaning as in XL1? Making any judgements from the footages available so far is rather difficult, for there is hardly any device available (here in the PAL land) from which the footages could be viewed in full resolution. All HD ready TV's marketed seem to have ony 720 lines, and have neither seen yet ordinary wide screen computer display which had 1900 horizontal pixels.

You should probably view some footage first. I agree the difference in numbers does not seem great, but I think most people viewing HD100 footage on a proper display would agree that it's more than a small change.

720 compared to 576 may not be that big of a jump but 1280 compared to 720 sure is. It isn't just about the vertical resolution but the horizontal as well. You cannot say the XL2 shoots 960 horizontal pixels because when on tape it is dumped down to 720. HDV on tape and live output will be the full 1280x720 pixels which is much higher than 720x576. Now if you could manage to somehow get the full 960x576 from the CCD's on the XL2 then you would actually be fairly close to the resolution of DVCPROHD.

DVCPROHD is only 960x720 and even some people consider this to be a little soft for HD. If 960x720 is going to be a little soft than 720x576 will be worse.

720x756=414720 total pixels
1280x720=921600 total pixels

That is still a little over double the amount of overall pixels on tape which is a lot of extra detail.

Nate, you are absolutely right, especially for my phrasing was bit inaccurate; My intention was to say, I can understand if Canon felt some preassure to go straight to HDV2, for the change at least sounds more remarkable.

I've seen recently a demo on a LG screen in full 720 line resolution, and, indeed, the HD(V?) image popped up among the other displays in the store. However, back in 98 I saw some HD demo in the Sony building in Tokyo, and that really captured my eye. The amount of details and color tones was amazing compared to what I had seen before. Have no idea of the format.