Just got mu JY-HD1OU
 

Hi folks,
I just picked up my JY-HD1OU from Fedex. I won't have time to try it properly until tonight unfortunately, but my first impressions on handling it were:

1) It's tiny! Smaller than a GL1, but much more sturdily built, and I like that Feels like it could take some work on the road.

2) It's hard to believe that the pictures I've been seeing could have come from such a small package.

3) It comes with 2 interchangeable metal handles, one regular one, and the larger one with the XLR inputs on it.

4) The onoff/play/camera/record button is kind of small and stiff to operate, and will take some getting used to.

I'll get back to you later once I've had a chance to do something with it, i.e. shoot something.

All the best

Awesome Paul! I look forward to seeing some images from you as well . How much and where did you get the HD10? Check out the A/S control to see if you can over ride all auto systems. Do you have an HD system to view the material?

If you can, Shoot a color chart and resolution chart if you have access to one.....

Michael Pappas
http://www.pbase.com/arrfilms
http://www.pbase.com/PappasArts9
http://www.pbase.com/PappasArts1
www.PappasArts.com
Arrfilms@hotmail.com

Hey Paul,

Sweet! That's from B&H, right?

FYI, everyone, I am buying mine from a local distributor for $3195. Yes, that's the price. With tax, it's $3400 even. Shocking! Less than the HD1, and I wonder why!

My first impressions were the same as Paul's! Let us know if you borrowed your brother's HD Ike to test. And tell us if you notice a "one chip" lack of quality, like Alex was theorizing yesterday.

heath

I've just been out quickly at lunchtime to test the controls and do some shooting on auto. I won't be able to look at the footage till tonight so I'll report back on that then.

As far as the controls go, as expected they are totally consumer level. I am used to a professional level camera (Ike DV7VW mainly) and haven't used a GL1-2 level camera for a while, so it's more exaggerated for me.

That's the first thing I realized, a lot of what you pay for on a high end camera is the accurate controls that you can dial in and be sure of what you're getting. On this thing I haven't got a clue what I've got.

The on/off/camera/playback/auto/manual switch is horrendous! really hard to turn on the camera without hitting the Rec. button at the same time.

I quickly tried the manual focus and zoom controls and they sucked, probably worse than a GL1. The manual zoom really isn't a manual zoom at all, just a ring that controls an electronic zoom, and it was much less controllable than the rocker zoom switch.
As far as focus goes, god only knows what I got, I can't judge anything from either the viewfinder or the LCD to any degree of accuracy. But the GL1 etc. sucked just as badly in that department IMHO. If only I could put my Ike B&W viewfinder on the top of this thing I'd be ok, but even if I could attach it, it's bigger than this camera and would look ridiculous!

Having said that all these terrible things about it, it's just what I expected, you aren't going to be doing any rack focusing with this camera, again, the controls are consumer level.

I bought this camera for the picture quality that I've seen, so hopefully it will deliver in that dept. I'll let you know later if it does, then we'll have to figure out how to work around all the other stuff.

Cheers.

I expected just as much and that's what I saw as well, Paul. And I agree with the analogy to the GL-1; it's a nightmare for me (who uses DVCPro and BetaCam more than my XL-1, which is similar to pro cameras) to control the GL-1! This isn't nearly as bad, since I figured out what I was doing quicker than on the many GL-1's I've used.

I never did rack focuses any way; this will be a great camera for my uber-low budget films. For the bigger budgeted films, we'll shoot with a CineAlta my buddy owns.

heath

<<<-- Originally posted by Paul Mogg :

Having said that all these terrible things about it, it's just what I expected, you aren't going to be doing any rack focusing with this camera, again, the controls are consumer level.

Cheers. -->>>

Someone summed it up pretty good to me. They said it's like a box camera with no thrills at all. But the one thing it has is a good image ( ? ) for the price. It's 20 or 30x less in cost then any other HD camera. So in reverse is the HD10 20 or 30x worse in picture quality. I would say not.

I find it funny that JVC has not come back to the board to answer atleast some of the questions though.

Michael Pappas
http://www.pbase.com/arrfilms
http://www.pbase.com/PappasArts9
http://www.pbase.com/PappasArts1
www.PappasArts.com
Arrfilms@hotmail.com
__________________

I agree. Look, I don't do a lot of fancy shooting, I'm a filmmaker who's a bit reserved (until my next film) on camera stuff. This will be ideal for me.

heath

<<<-- Originally posted by Michael Pappas : Someone summed it up pretty good to me. They said it's like a box camera with no thrills at all. But the one thing it has is a good image ( ? ) for the price. It's 20 or 30x less in cost then any other HD camera. So in reverse is the HD10 20 or 30x worse in picture quality. I would say not.

<<<-- I never did rack focuses any way; this will be a great camera for my uber-low budget films. For the bigger budgeted films, we'll shoot with a CineAlta my buddy owns. -->>>

I think you've expressed it well. For big pay broadcast projects go with the high-end stuff. When there is no budget to spend -- live with the "consumer controls" to get an image that stands-out.

The odd thing is the notion that one needs to know the iris setting directly. You had to know in the old days because you tranferred the reading from your lightmeter to the lens. Now you simply adjust until it looks right.

Of course one might want to work at a particular Fstop. But with a zoom lens the sweet-spot may change with the zoom.

But with a trick you can learn the Fstop so you can get a good idea of where you are at. Then count the + or - steps as you adjust.

In short, you either pay in money or in labor. For many of us, HDCAM money is not even an option. So we need to be clever.

Steve, the "Exposure" control on this camera. Is it just an electronic "Gain up-down" control, as on a professional camera?. I'm assuming it's not also adjusting the Iris.

Paul

In short, you either pay in money or in labor. For many of us, HDCAM money is not even an option. So we need to be clever. -->>>

Yes, to think the HD10 is a 100,000 dollar camera is insane. Although, the fact that the Varicam is a 1 million pixel camera and the HD10 is 800,000 + pixels. That's interesting, and I'd LOVE to do some tests with both.

heath

Heath, pixels aren't everything though. The Varicam is a professional level camera, it has top end optics and all that....

Just like how some pictures from a expensive 2MP digital camera look much better then from a cheap 3-4MP camera.

<<<-- Originally posted by Alex Knappenberger : Heath, pixels aren't everything though. The Varicam is a professional level camera, it has top end optics and all that....

Just like how some pictures from a expensive 2MP digital camera look much better then from a cheap 3-4MP camera. -->>>

We'll see, based on what the tests we'll do. I am on the fence about the Varicam: When you have a huge budget (like NBC's CARRIE remake), it looks good, but on a lower budget, it looks "janky," and expression we use at my station for crap.

heath

<<<The odd thing is the notion that one needs to know the iris setting directly. You had to know in the old days because you tranferred the reading from your lightmeter to the lens. Now you simply adjust until it looks right.>>>

It's not very odd at all! If I want the lens to perform it will need to be in the middle ground. If I want to shoot with extreme DOF I will want to stop down as far as I can with out the shutter kicking in to 1/15th as the GR-HD1U does.
If I am shooting miniatures, then I must have and know where my f-stop is. The 8yr old VX1000 did this. Every camera in this price range ( $3,400+ ) has allowed independent shutter/Iris settings since late 1995.

I might want to pan into a dark part of a scene to only track into normal exposed setting. If you can't lock both shutter and Iris, the camera will lower the shutter to 1/15th and open the iris to get as much light in while you track across the dark parts of the set. This already has happen with the tests I have done with the HD1U.

Maybe the HD10 is different or I have still have yet to figure out the way to make sure that shutter always stays at 1/60th and never changes while I have what ever aperture setting I want. What’s JVC have to say?


Michael Pappas
http://www.pbase.com/arrfilms
http://www.pbase.com/PappasArts9
http://www.pbase.com/PappasArts1
www.PappasArts.com
Arrfilms@hotmail.com
__________________

>>When you have a huge budget (like NBC's CARRIE remake), it looks good, but on a lower budget, it looks "janky," and expression we use at my station for crap.<<

The Vari-Cam looks like crap on a low budget??? This, with the "24p = a crappy image comment," is getting strange...so does the Vari-Cam somehow sense the low budget and then go into "crap" mode? Or are you saying that bad lighting makes for a crappy image? I'm not understanding you? And if the Vari-Cam looks like crap on a low budget then this JVC HD cam should be nothing but a paper weight then.

I would translate "on a lower budget" to read as inferior lighting, which not even the VariCam can fix, re: garbage in, garbage out.

So I would say yes, the VariCam (and just about any camera for that matter) can sense a low budget... in other words, if the production values are low (lighting, etc.), then sure, that will definitely show up on tape (or film, or whatever).

It's not the plane, but the pilot. Hope this helps,