watchmaker

[Jon Bickford]

Canon had the watchmaker set on display at DVexpo with 4 or 5 cameras to try out, as well as a dvcprohd deck playing the italy and watchmaker footage

the 24f stuff was recorded on a deck and looks absolutely amazing! the italy stuff is 60i recorded to HDV and looks very very good although there wasn't much camera movement at all on the HDV stuff other than one close up of a rug that is rotating slowly and looks very good but the lack of handheld HDV with whip pans and stuff still leaves things unanswered. as far as the uncompressed out, that's what they have their monitors hooked up to with the cameras attached and pans were perfectly clean in 24f and i also did some serious underexposing with no problems on the monitor. the focus preset function on the H1 is too fast for my taste, not allowing any real focus pulls because it basically happens instantly, like disturbingly fast, the focus snap on the XL2 was too fast for my taste, this one is about 4 times faster, why don't they have a speed adjustment for this?

panasonic was also there with a few HVX's from what i could tell in the viewfinder it wasn't that great looking and the panasonic reps were quite argumentative. Moviola had an HVX in their booth and some footage they shot over the weekend, there were a few slow mo clips of a guy juggling bowling pins and another of a startled girl spinning around and they looked very clean. but the image just seemes a lot flatter than the H-1 with a dvcprohd deck.

[Christopher Glaeser]

At the DV Expo today, I think someone possibly fiddled with the settings when I saw the HD output of the XL H1. There was some sort of shimmering noise in the brown low-light portions of the image. Did anyone else notice this? Was a Canon rep able to find the cause and fix it? When I was there, the attending Canon rep saw the noise and commented that the image should have been perfectly clean, but was not able to determine what was wrong while I was there.

Best,
Christopher

[Jon Bickford]

i didn't see that but the H1 that was at 16X9inc had a terrible grain in the viewfinder and the monitor, i couldn't figure out what was wrong with it for the life of me, it was in manual mode, 0 gain and it seemed like whatever i did with the aperture the brightness in the viewfinder would auto compensate.

the cameras at the canon booth were perfect when i was there

[Martin Costa]

Does anyone know whether the Watchmaker will be available for download?

[Barlow Elton]

I think download is doubtful, but Canon (i'm told) will be distributing a promotional DVD with the footage in at least h.264 and WMV, possibly m2t files also. I'm sure you'll be able to register for the DVD via their web site in the near future.

[Nate Weaver]

Originally Posted by Jon Bickford

i didn't see that but the H1 that was at 16X9inc had a terrible grain in the viewfinder and the monitor,

The particular H1 at the 16x9 display was only displaying composite SD in that attached LCD monitor. They (when I was looking at it) were missing two BNC adapters to get it working in component.

[Nate Weaver]

Originally Posted by Jon Bickford

Moviola had an HVX in their booth and some footage they shot over the weekend, there were a few slow mo clips of a guy juggling bowling pins and another of a startled girl spinning around and they looked very clean. but the image just seemes a lot flatter than the H-1 with a dvcprohd deck.

That's because you were watching the Moviola stuff on an iMac screen.

The HVX stuff they were showing an a big plasma in the Panasonic area looked amazing. Ditto for the same footage on one of their broadcast 17" LCDs.

I've had HVX footage for a few days now to compare with my own HD100 stuff on my broadcast HD monitor. The HVX is going to go far, it doesn't lack in the slightest.

[Stephen L. Noe]

Originally Posted by Nate Weaver

I've had HVX footage for a few days now to compare with my own HD100 stuff on my broadcast HD monitor. The HVX is going to go far, it doesn't lack in the slightest.

Please tell me more about having the HVX footage.

[Nate Weaver]

Originally Posted by Stephen L. Noe

Please tell me more about having the HVX footage.

It looks better, sharper, and color corrects better than some other cameras :-)

[Barlow Elton]

Honestly, the hype about the HVX is getting to be a little over-the-top.

A friend shot a little bit of footage to a P2 card at the show, which we were able to download, and I've been puzzling over the material since I got home. The clips were shot at 0db, (720-24p and 108024p) unfortunately in the ugly expo lighting, but we just wanted to see how the images held up in a less-than-ideal scenario.

Well, looking at the native files, it's fairly harsh stuff--just in terms of compression. The 1080 24p clips looked very uprezzed and compressed. 720p24 fared slightly better, but still looked rather coarse.

Folks, I'm a DVX owner, and formerly the XL1, and I'd like to think I'm reasonably brand agnostic. To me, it's all about the imagery. What truly blew me away was the Watchmaker stuff. Just beautiful material. Canon is quietly letting the camera speak for itself, and I respect that. They're now Discovery HD certified, (in HDV no less) and that's something they could shout from the mountaintops if they wanted to, but they're taking the high road.

Bottom line: I'd like to own both, and I think they're wonderful tools for overlapping purposes. I believe films in the semi-budgeted arena ($100K to $500K) will strongly consider the H1 to get that Cinealta look, and to have lens and SDI options. The HVX will certainly appeal to the micro-budget arena, and will be the new wondercam for the DIY crowd.

It's all good.

[Barlow Elton]

btw, Nate--loved your demo reel! Are any of those music videos DV/HDV/HD or is it all film?

Good stuff!

[Stephen L. Noe]

Originally Posted by Nate Weaver

It looks better, sharper, and color corrects better than some other cameras :-)

I meant, how did you come about this footage and can you share the link?

[Nate Weaver]

Originally Posted by Stephen L. Noe

I meant, how did you come about this footage and can you share the link?

It kinda came and went on DVXUser. Somebody mentioned that they don't think it's a native file, but my surreptitious examining of native HVX media on a Powerbook at DVExpo makes me think it is in fact a native file. The codec for MXF originated DVCPRO HD media on a FCP sys says a couple thing in the info that I've never seen before yesterday.

I'd pass it along, but the link is gone, and it's a 400meg file.

[Stephen L. Noe]

Originally Posted by Nate Weaver

I'd pass it along, but the link is gone, and it's a 400meg file.

Must be the same one they advanced over on dvxuser and pulled the plug before anyone got the full download. 416MB right?

[Pete Tomov]

About the watchmaker footage,is there a place where i can download or buy or whatever ?