MX500, to sharpen or not to sharpen
 

Hi,

I am still uneasy about MX500 (or PV953). The more grabs I look at the more I see of a potential problem.

The last frames I have seen are kindly provided by Justin Boyle in previous thread about frame modes. As this question has nothing to do with that, here we are in another thread.

Those birds look like cut-outs, and the culprit is a thin white ghostly line encircling the bright foreground against dark background. I was told in another thread that this effect is a result of a too much sharpening done by the camera software.

I believe there is a control in MX500 to control sharpening.

This is a personal appeal to Justin or anybody else with MX500 or PV953.

Can you take a several short videos of a high contrast detailed object, something dark against bright background or light against dark background, with different levels of sharpening.

And post the grabs, please. I would like to see if the effect can be eliminated with that control and what price you pay in details.

Thanks

Ayosha,
Don't get too uneasy about sharpening. This camera has won accolades for its video quality and I'll bet the reviewers didn't do anything with sharpening from default. At least this camera gives you the option to control it which most do not. And, if we post them, what other cameras will you compare them to? They may look terrible when viewed in closeup but actually be 100 times better than other DV cams. No frame grabs are going to look like they were taken with a digital still camera.

Hi Guy,

I know, not much out there at that size and price bracket. Except maybe Canon MVX3i (Optura Xi).

Not many grabs from that one around but there were a couple of long shots and I watched them carefully and slowly and didn't notice that effect at all and the sharpness of the video was ok (the one inside with the dog, I believe was presented to this community in the thread about deinterlacing, here now gone: http://www.photomosaic.com/movies/CanonXiShort.wmv).

I know I should go and do trials by myself, but at this moment I cannot (no cameras and no time until end of Jan).

I am sure there are others interested in effect of the sharpness control.

I cannot be the only nutter around :-):-)

Best regards, have to log off, it is midnight here and my eyes are falling out with the screen strain (in spite of my new LCD screen).

ayosha do you have a digital video camera. if so what i suggest is that you get some frame grabs and put them on tape so that you can play them back on your tv. what you will find is that you wont see any of the halo effect. this is just a guess i haven't actually seen it as a problem myself. i haven't really seen it stand out a great deal. I can also tell you that i am a bit of a critic and a hard judge when if comes to AV. I guess i am at a point where i think my camera could be better in some places however for this price i don't think it could be beaten. i must point out also i got the camera second hand and less than half the retail price so that helps too. Look i will try to get some photos up on the web in the next few days. I will probably get one of the same bird all in normal or frame don't know which one yet and then i will get three photos one with sharpness turned down low one with it normal and one high. we will see what happens then.

talk to you later
Justin

Request Answered
 

Ok Ayosha,
Anyone who will watch a computer screen until their eyes fall out deserves to get a simple request. I have posted here some frame grabs with different settings of sharpness...0, 20, 50, 70 and 100 percent. All were shot with color set to 0. The light was halogen. The grabs were taken in Vegas 4.0 from 4:3 interlaced video that was rendered to progressive (blend fields). The .BMP files were pasted into Irfanview and converted to PNG (best quality). I don't know if it means anything but the files start at 351K at 0 sharpness and get progressively larger to 421K at 100%.

Now, I only notice a small difference in edge artifacts between 0 and 100%. Maybe someone else can comment on what to look for here.

As I expected, the noise gets amplified with more sharpening.

I normally shoot on the soft side, to minimise the effects of noise. In the sharpness setting bar, I go two notches left (less sharp).

hi Guy, I just realised that our equipment is pretty much the same, Fuji S602z and MX350 for me. I am sharing all my adaptor lenses and filters, at 55mm.

My PC is way down, though, at 800MHz, a real dinosaur.

<<<-- Originally posted by Yow Cheong Hoe : to minimise the effects of noise. In the sharpness setting bar, I go two notches left (less sharp). -->>>

YowCH,
So you set sharpness at 80% (two bars left of max)? Mine is usually set around 30-40%.

well it does seem that the halo effect is a little more present in the 100% photo. The halo is still present however in the first. Well it looks like you can't really get rid of it fully but as i noted i dont really think it is that noticeable in a moving picture nor on a tv screen. you can look at it on the computer and because of the high resolution and the proximity to the screen it is more visible. I really don't think it is a problem. go try the camera out in a store and plug it into a tv. if you have another minidv cam, get a tape and bring it into a store and try recording on different cams and the go home to look at the difference. make ur decision from there. I think though that you will be impressed with the 953 but it is up to you and i think you really need to see these frames on a tv. i know for me often i'm not happy looking at my footage on the computer screen but when i play it back on the tv i love it.

Justin

Yes, I have followed some of your threads where you speak of using the Fugi wide angle on the MX350. I really like the 602...decided to buy it over the Nikon and haven't regretted it. I don't have a wide angle yet.

<<<-- Originally posted by Guy Bruner : <<<-- Originally posted by Yow Cheong Hoe : to minimise the effects of noise. In the sharpness setting bar, I go two notches left (less sharp). -->>>

YowCH,
So you set sharpness at 80% (two bars left of max)? Mine is usually set around 30-40%. -->>>

Nope, I set sharpness at two notches left of the "zero" mark. Maybe there is no 'zero' mark on the NTSC machines. If that's the case, then about 30-40%. Definitely softer than the default setting.

YowCH,
There is no "0" mark on the 953. The indicator has 10 bars between the "Low" and "High" legend. There is a caret below the 5th bar to indicate midpoint. I interpret the bars from 0 to 10 or 0 to 100%.

What I see...
 

Hi Guy,

Thanks a million, for those tests, I owe you.

My tired eyes have, unfortunately, nothing to do with this and other forums (where fun and pleasure is) but with Tax Return deadline (pain and nothing but the pain there).

My conclusions based on those are:

Even at 0% sharpness there is a visible white halo on horizontal edges. Black halo is also present but not as strong, also only on horizontal lines. There is a very small amount of halo on vertical lines.

At 100% sharpness there is stronger white halo and black halo on horizontal lines and a very small amount on vertical lines.

Based on this and on other grabs I must conclude that the original halo effect on MX500 (PV953) is NOT caused but only worsened by sharpening. It mostly affects horizontal edges. The sharper the edge is and the stronger the contrast of that edge is (of the original subject), the stronger halo effect will be, before sharpening make it even more visible. ...Now that was an awkward sentence...

The effect cannot be avoided by setting sharpen to 0%.

I am not trying to rubish MX500 here, which I haven't tried yet, and about which almost everybody have a positive opinion.

Let me see if I can entice anybody in Canon forums to do a similar test with Xi :-)

For some reason I only get a dark blue screen when I click on that link, so I couldn't view "the halo." Were you shooting toward the sun by any chance?

<<<-- Originally posted by Frank Granovski : For some reason I only get a dark blue screen when I click on that link, so I couldn't view "the halo." Were you shooting toward the sun by any chance? -->>>

Link is fine here in my office, Frank. Is opening a bit slow for some reason. Could be because my bandwidth is over 3 Gig this month. Also, that album has some pretty large files in it. Hope you aren't on dialup...cause could take a while. No sun, t'was a moonshot :-).

Ayosha,
Taxes, eh. I heard rumors that the US separated from the UK way back when over taxes...that's why we don't have any here (he says playfully). Yeah, we can commiserate with you...our time is up in April. Also, if you can get come frame grabs to compare the DV953 to, that would be helpful. Having the ones I made is an interesting exercise without perspective.