HDV motion artifiacts

[Robert Bobson]

I had finally decided to go with an HDV camera, and then downconvert to SD until HDV distribution improves.

But I've been reading that because of HDV's GOP recording format, motion can cause bad artifacting that wouldn't be present in an SD recording.

Any opinions on the severity of the problem? Would I get "cleaner" video if I just stick with SD?

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

Originally Posted by Robert Bobson

I had finally decided to go with an HDV camera, and then downconvert to SD until HDV distribution improves.

But I've been reading that because of HDV's GOP recording format, motion can cause bad artifacting that wouldn't be present in an SD recording.

Any opinions on the severity of the problem? Would I get "cleaner" video if I just stick with SD?

Sigh.....:-/

more BS from the web....
For the most part, GOP doesn't have motion artifacts unless you shoot incorrectly. MPEG acquisition in various forms has been used for broadcast for more than a dozen years, but you don't hear much about motion artifacts. SD can also be MPEG, and in many cases has been. And MPEG has LONG been used as an editing, storage, and broadcasting format.
There are manufacturers outside the HDV realm who make it their primary goal to sow the market with this sort of BS and hype. If you are shooting slow shutter speeds while sitting on the back of an ATV doing 40mph on a dirt road with no shock absorption for the camera and steady shot off, you indeed will experience motion artifacts. To the contrary, I just saw a bit of the raw footage Discovery Channel is using for a docco on Sturgis (a big motorcycle gathering) that was shot handheld on the back of a Honda Foreman, steady shot on, shooting at 1/60, no steady cam, nada. We saw it projected through a Sony Qualia 1920 x 1080 4k projector, projected to 24'. it was stunning. Oh, did I mention it was shot with the super cheap Sony A1u? And it's a Discovery piece?

Additionally, from the same cameraman on the same display, we saw simply amazing footage of a skydiving team practicing their sky ballet. Wind hitting the camera at 170 mph, steadyshot on, shutter at 1/120. Also for Discovery.

Look at the "Massacre" video from 50Cent. Shot in HDV. Extreme motion in that vid.

Forget the hype. Shoot, and look at the picture. It's in some manufacturer's best interest to make you confused and worried. But at the end of the day, there is one hell of a lot of HDV making it to television as both SD and HD.

HDV isn't the only tool in the box, but it is a seriously big and versatile tool. There simply isn't any better value in the broadcast world, bang for buck, right now.

[Mike Medavoy]

Douglas,

Are you saying that the complete bashing of the HDV codec by some reps from a particular company - especially as compared to the DVCPRO HD codec) is nonsense?

Take care,
Mike

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

Originally Posted by Mike Medavoy

Douglas,

Are you saying that the complete bashing of the HDV codec by some reps from a particular company - especially as compared to the DVCPRO HD codec) is nonsense?

Take care,
Mike

More nonsense than it is factual, absolutely. Everybody's gotta eat, but to do so by spewing garbage isn't by any stretch integrous.
I think the ultimate test of motion artifacting I've seen is when Jesse James' "aero-BMW" was taking off and landing with a Z1 strapped to the tail section of the "plane." Looks pretty darn good both in motion and freeze framed. If you look at the blocks when fast forwarding, there isn't a single redundant area, but it still looks good.
Perhaps someone here was at the HDV course in Burbank this past weekend when we projected all this footage; that way you aren't hearing it from someone who owns a Canon XL-H1, JVC HD 100, 3 Sony Z1's, and 2 Sony A1U's. Who has also put them on motorcycles, ATVs, and other high-challenge places. (Horseback...)
Heath?

[Kevin Shaw]

Originally Posted by Robert Bobson

Any opinions on the severity of the problem? Would I get "cleaner" video if I just stick with SD?

The only time I've seen any problems in my own HDV footage is when the camera experiences a sharp jolt, and you're not likely to want the footage that produces from any camera. Plus if you're really worried about motion artifacts for some particular project you could run an HDV camera in DV mode, and be no worse off than with a DV-only camera. I'd trust DSE's comments on this issue, but if you really want to be sure try renting an HDV camera before you buy it and see for yourself.

[Meryem Ersoz]

the bad rap HDV has for motion artifacting is COMPLETELY bogus. i put my FX-1 through its paces, specifically to test for motion, and it handled motion beautifully.

here's a link to the link.

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...t=fx-1+footage

it is kind of a monster file and takes awhile to load, but the last part of the film is entitled "motion study," where i took the camera for a gondola ride, shot a bunch of mechanical gears in motion, and shot a fast-moving creek. see for yourself. (needs QT 7 H.264 to view).

i haven't shot anything with this cam in cineframe 30 or cineframe 24 (prefer to do that work in post with a filter, at least with this camera)--that's a whole different data set.

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

C'mon, Meryam, you really expect folks to believe this was shot with HDV? <wink>
We know for sure that HDV can't handle motion, because that's what one of the really big camera manufacturers tell us is so, and if a big company says it, and says it in print...it must be true.

Seriously, nice bit of footage, and it further demonstrates what myself and many, many others have shown and experienced. MOST of what is out there about HDV is a myth. But if you don't make HDV camcorders, it's an important myth to perpetuate and add to.

[Dan Euritt]

i personally have not seen any false or misleading anti-hdv statements by panasonic, or any other non-hdv camera company.

i think that companies that sell hdv products are doing everything they can to pimp the hdv standard, before it gets surpassed by the new technology that's out there right now.

i'd love to take an hdv camera out for some shot time at the track... we'll see how well the format holds up with simultaneous super-fast camera motion and full-speed zooming.

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

Originally Posted by Dan Euritt

i personally have not seen any false or misleading anti-hdv statements by panasonic, or any other non-hdv camera company.

i think that companies that sell hdv products are doing everything they can to pimp the hdv standard, before it gets surpassed by the new technology that's out there right now.

i'd love to take an hdv camera out for some shot time at the track... we'll see how well the format holds up with simultaneous super-fast camera motion and full-speed zooming.

Then you haven't been looking too hard.
The HDV format isn't being, nor going to be surpassed in it's price range for a long, long time. It *is* the new DV. DV was proclaimed by many as being a short term solution, and here we are almost exactly 10 years later finally looking at a new standard to replace it. I don't believe HDV will last for 10 years, but it will last for at least the next 6-7 as a strong standard.

Not that it matters much, but bottom line is, HDV in many situations is very good. But like anything else, it's not for everything. You'll likely do better, for instance, with an intra-frame camera mounted on a highly active race car body, the constant vibration isn't a problem for the Z1 in a NASCAR that a friend shot, but I don't know that his situation is the same as everyone else' as it's his job, along with his brother, to mount cams and archive/document NASCAR events. He's got a lot of cool mounting toys, and the steady-shot in the Z1 set to soft is pretty good.

[Glenn Thomas]

DSE, is that 50 cent video online anywhere? I'd love to check that out.

Also, do you know of many other high profile clips, video footage or movies shot with HC1's, or A1's? I'm always interested in checking out what others are doing with the same gear I'm using myself. I don't have cable tv by the way, so no Discovery channel here. But anything online would be good.

Apart from my first HC1 becoming faulty after just 6 days and eventually being replaced with another, I think these cameras are brilliant. So far I've not noticed any compression artifacts in any footage I've shot either.

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

Glenn, I don't know if it's online or not. I've got a copy of the DVD, given to me by the guy who edited it (in Sony Vegas). I've been showing it on the HDV tour, minus audio because of the explicit lyrics.

As far as high profile with the A1, the only two things I'm aware of besides the Jesse James/Monster Garage shots, are a docco about Sturgis, and a skydiving piece that Discovery hired out.

[Glenn Thomas]

Ahh, so it was edited in Vegas too, every clip on the DVD? Considering 50 Cent's quite a popular artist (platinum selling?), it's nice to know his video clips are being put together using some decent affordable tools, and not the usual overrated FCP, Avid, Digibeta, film or whatever. Plus the fact that Vegas' output is only 8 bit. I know guys in Australia who are still getting their clips shot using 35mm film. I can't see the point myself. A HDV camera with a 35mm adapter would be a much better option.

As for FCP which I had a look at it on my cousin's Mac, I honestly can't see how people can use that? Such a slow and awkward interface. Nothing can touch Vegas for speedy video and audio editng. Sorry, probably the wrong forum to be bagging FCP ;-)

By the way, who's the editor of the clip who gave you the DVD?

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

The guy that did the Massacre piece also does Notorious BIG VMixes, and edits/creates/generates/produces pieces for other major hip hop and rap stars. He's also got a weekly segment on VIBE, and other shows.
Scary talented guy, and smart as hell. Aundre Oldacre is his name, but goes by "DJ Deelux."
http://www.vmix.tv/portfolio.html

his studio is a fun place, surrounded by awesomely talented young guys. Fun to hang with. The Eminem Da Club piece is super. All done in Vegas and Sony Acid.

[Glenn Thomas]

Cheers for the link. I'll have a look.

Edit: Looks great. He's done some nice work. I like the Weekend Vibe promo. Tight editing, nice transistions etc. A few of the transitions look very familiar actually, but work really well.

[Wayne Morellini]

Originally Posted by Robert Bobson

I had finally decided to go with an HDV camera, and then downconvert to SD until HDV distribution improves.

But I've been reading that because of HDV's GOP recording format, motion can cause bad artifacting that wouldn't be present in an SD recording.

Any opinions on the severity of the problem? Would I get "cleaner" video if I just stick with SD?

Too put it more correctly, it is a problem with too much motion, on too much of the screen. I have seen people that say it is not a problem, say things like, you have to turn not faster than a certain rate, and other evasive tactics. This is alright for controlled positions, but I have a mate that wants to do a film on a nationally famous local character, that will probably involve scenes chasing him through the jungle (I think dropping back to SD mode or the 25p mode for a HC1). Also shooting the scenery/road close by through an fast moving car window (without moving the camera) is said to produce the problem (so I guess we just forget those shoots). But apart from that, I have read that once you blow up a HD10 picture to a very big/projected screen at full resolution the compression artifacts become obvious.

I have seen sample shoots over at some Sony user forum (I thinking Spotted might even have done them). They were called a success, but upon closer examination there turned out to be fine blocking. But they did come up with some techniques. The technique was to raise the shutter up very fast (might have had something to do with one of the shooting modes to) to reduce blur. Something else, that I can't confirm, is that the 25p mode in PAL, that halves the vertical resolution to 540 lines, might present half the compression. You could always drop back to SD as well. But depending on what you are shooting, 90% of the time this maybe an unnoticed non issue.

All told, the only other professional mpeg based shooting scheme that I have heard motion artifact problems on, had very low bandwidth. The trick is to get that bit extra bandwidth that makes the problems largely go away, which might be the 35-50Mb/s HDV2 stuff we keep hearing about.

But being an imperfect world we are stuck with what we have, and have to work around the issues. I'm sure spotted will agree, it's worth it going to HDV and sticking with whatever headaches might turn up.