opinions on the DV.com review of the HD100?

[Ashley Cooper]

Just read Adam Wilt's review of the HD100 at DV.com. He gave it 4.5 stars out of 5, which is pretty damn good! But he did say a couple of things that I found curious:

1-SSE happened for him at seemingly ramdon times, but most often with heavy green content (and mentioned that human skin has lots of green content).
2-he said he found more occasions when HDV style artifacting occured in the HD100 than the Z1 and discussed the different codecs of these cameras.

Wish I could just copy and paste, but appareant that's a no-no. Anyway, I found these two statements interesting as I had heard that the SSE problem had been solved and not to worry about it. Also, I had read that if anything, JVC's short-GOP codec resulted in fewer artifacts than long-GOP codecs.
Anyway, I was just curous what people here thought of these assertions. If you want to read the review, it's free to read at DV.com and you can compare it to his review of the XL H1 (which also got 4.5 stars).

[Chris Hurd]

Copy and paste is of course strictly forbidden, as we respect copyright here at DV Info Net. The link is www.dv.com, registration is free.

[Ashley Cooper]

Just scroll down a bit and it'll be there in the right collum.

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by Ashley Cooper

Just read Adam Wilt's review of the HD100 at DV.com. He gave it 4.5 stars out of 5, which is pretty damn good! But he did say a couple of things that I found curious:

1-SSE happened for him at seemingly ramdon times, but most often with heavy green content (and mentioned that human skin has lots of green content).

2-he said he found more occasions when HDV style artifacting occured in the HD100 than the Z1 and discussed the different codecs of these cameras.

My sense of his use of the word "random" is that some have claimed SSE "NEVER appears at ..." or ALWAYS appears at ..." and my experience is there are no such 100% true statments. SSE is a product (multiplication) of probabilities AS ARE the cures. Think of it as vertical smear on one of Sony's HyperHAD cameras. You don't often see it, but DEPENDING ON MULTIPLE CONDITIONS, you might.

I did not sense he said "HDV style artifacting occured in the HD100" in the sense that fast, complex motion caused MPEG-2 blocking -- as is the case with 1080i. Rather, he found a much more subtle artifact that only happens on tiny amounts of motion. He describes its cause very well.

[Stephen L. Noe]

Originally Posted by Chris Hurd

Copy and paste is of course strictly forbidden, as we respect copyright here at DV Info Net. The link is www.dv.com, registration is free.

Chris,

Is this the shootout that you were a part of?

[K. Forman]

The DV magazine shootout was an earlier test, before the DVInfo shootout. I also think that they may have had one of the earlier cameras, which seems to be full of bugs. Since then, JVC has released a few updates.

[Boyd Ostroff]

No, the shootout was a completely separate event which took place last weekend and focused on comparing 6 HD cameras rather than providing individual reviews. It will be written up in DV Magazine, and at DVinfo of course, but it will take awhile for Adam to analyze the substantial amount of footage generated by the tests so please be patient.

[K. Forman]

Too slow Boyd ;)

[Stephen L. Noe]

That's the question to Adam Wilt. Was his camera on the test "A'd" or was it pre "A" for split screen? Nevertheless, his findings are similar to ours and why we even got involved with the HD-100 and JVC to begin with. It's a top of the line effort and if this is the foundation for future camera's, I think JVC's ProHD(XE) is in for a great ride...

[Chris Hurd]

Hi Stephen,

I'm the one who arranged for all of the cameras we used last weekend. We had two of everything, two each of the HD100, XL H1, HVX200, Z1U, F350, there was even a second (and third) VariCam on site although we used only one.

I can tell you without question that both HD100s on set were definitely "A" models. In fact Nate Weaver brought along his own camera which he had just upgraded to "A" status. The other HD100 was provided by JVC (thank you Carl Hicks!) and it too had just recently come from Cypress with the "A" upgrade.

Just wanted to again point out that the forthcoming DV Magazine article from Adam Wilt about our shoot-out will not be printed for another month or two. The current article that has been mentioned here refers to the Burbank event that happened back in January. DV Info Net had nothing to do with that one. Hope this helps,

[Jeff Morrissette]

The less artifacting was the reason I went with JVC. For me to hold off on the canon is a big deal. I wish we could switch to 720 mode in it, I'd buy it tomorrow.

Still a great camera though.

I think JVC wins so far.Lets see what NAB releases. As much as I love panasonic I'm glad I waited on it. I really don't like their card system vs a focus drive.

[Nate Weaver]

I'd like to mention that if anybody has specific questions about how the HD100 was used/setup in either test, that they can ask me here. I was present for both tests and acting as HD100 op/consultation on both also.

[Ashley Cooper]

I did not sense he said "HDV style artifacting occured in the HD100" in the sense that fast, complex motion caused MPEG-2 blocking -- as is the case with 1080i. Rather, he found a much more subtle artifact that only happens on tiny amounts of motion. He describes its cause very well.

Well, okay. It's something different than that. It's actually the kind of thing I had heard about here before when someone posted pics with an ocean in the bg. But it is still a product of the codec and something to consider. Now, if only that uncompressed "deck" comes out that Keith has been talking about over in "General HD / HDV Acquisition", then it won't be an issue!
But, something else that I did not mention before about the article was my confusion about the HD100's sensitivity. The review says the HD100 is about 1.5 to 2 stops less sensititive than current 1/3" SD cams, but that it get a stop back when shooting in HD mode. Perhaps I'm confusing terms here, but is this saying that the HD100 has less dynamic range than 1/3" cams like a pd170 or a dvx100b? It was my understanding that the HD100 had greater dynamic range and if anything would make a better SD cam than any of those cams b/c of the HD100's greater native resolution. Could someone please clear this up?

[Brian Drysdale]

Originally Posted by Ashley Cooper

The review says the HD100 is about 1.5 to 2 stops less sensititive than current 1/3" SD cams, but that it get a stop back when shooting in HD mode.

The review says that the HD 100's HD sensitivity is about 1.5 to 2 stops less sensitive that most current 1/3" SD cameras, but in SD, the HD 100 recovers a full stop.

[Nate Weaver]

Originally Posted by Ashley Cooper

The review says the HD100 is about 1.5 to 2 stops less sensititive than current 1/3" SD cams, but that it get a stop back when shooting in HD mode. Perhaps I'm confusing terms here, but is this saying that the HD100 has less dynamic range than 1/3" cams like a pd170 or a dvx100b? It was my understanding that the HD100 had greater dynamic range and if anything would make a better SD cam than any of those cams b/c of the HD100's greater native resolution.

The HD100 is less sensitive than your average 1/3" SD cam, but so are all of the current crop of baby HD cameras. Its a function of pixel size at the 1/3" CCD level, as well as progressive scanning.

This is not to say dynamic range is less. Dynamic range refers to the range of light and dark tones the camera can capture, it's usually measured in stops.

The HD100 has slightly more dynamic range than your average SD camera not because of greater resolution, but more because of evolutionary improvements in the CCDs and DSP...something all of the current crop of affordable HD cameras can lay claim to for the most part.