24p questions

[Christopher Go]

See page 46 and 61 in the manual. Set the TAPE PROTECT function found under the OTHER FUNCTIONS menu to STBY instead of the default POWEROFF. Make sure your camcorder is set to Camera and not VCR for this menu to show. Keep in mind that this will now keep your camcorder on all the time, something you may not want in some circumstances.

There's a lot to play with on this camcorder; I'm always finding something new in the manual and menu settings. Still not second nature for me, which is why I made a copy of the manual I can take with me (rather than taking the original). I find using the remote a lot easier to navigate the menus with instead of the joystick on the camera itself.

[Philippe Orlando]

A friend of mine, Jeanne in NYC exchanged this correspondence with Swiss effect:

"I'm so surprised! I wrote swiss effect to ask them which cam would be better for film transfer and if I'd choose the DVX100 if it'd be better to use the PAl over the NTSC. HEre two answers from them. First one from the NYC office, second one from Swisszerland
Jeanne


FIRST EMAIL FROM SWISS EFFECT
We are testing the PAL version of the Panasonic camera.

It seems to be a better choice over the NTSC version.

I'm still suspicious of this camera and I haven't seen any real strong
reasons, as of yet, why it is better.

Write your questions directly to Thomas Krempke at info@swisseffects.ch
(as in chocolate.)

Thomas is doing the tests on this camera.

All the best,
Jerome Poynton


SECOND EMAIL FROM KREMPKE

Dear Jeanne
I cannot really recommend the Panasonic DVX Camera neither in Pal nor in Ntsc. The quality of the picture is just not good enough compared with other cameras. I know that this camera has a lot of success due to the 24/25p option but neverthless the picture is not goog. If you are anyhow thinking of buying a Pal camera rather buy a sony pd-150. If you still want to buy a panasonic, of course the pal camera transfers better than the ntsc.

thanks for your interest
thomas krempke

--
SWISS EFFECTS
Thurgauerstrasse 40
Airgate
CH - 8050 Zürich
Tel. +41-1-307 10 10
Fax. +41-1-307 10 19
e-mail: info@swisseffects.ch
http://www.swisseffects.ch

What's going on here?
Philippe

[Glen Elliott]

<<<-- Originally posted by Philippe Orlando :
What's going on here?
Philippe -->>>

Who cares. I own it, and for one, can vouch that it DOES have a goog picture. :)

[Stephen van Vuuren]

Swiss Effects is very Sony and PAL centric. They were one of the first to do this and started with PAL VX2000 and pretty much stayed Sony since.

Each transfer house has it's own biases and systems optimized for PAL/NTSC. Swiss Effects never has much anything to my knowledge other than Sony PAL cams.

Seach this forum for the Duart blowup test, or better yet, if you are in New York/LA, go see it for yourself. The DVX100 objectively captures more detail with less artifacts than the PD150. There is really not too much to argue about.

The PAL DVX100 vs NTSC DV100 is a matter of PAL motion artifacts, audio issues vs. increased resolution.

[Chris Hurd]

Stephen is quite right; Swiss Effects tends to show a Sony bias. However they are not the only tape-to-film transfer house; there are many others available, using various processes. Shop around.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

I would have to disagree with the suggestion of the Sony PD-150. I have used a PD-150 on several occasions and it is not superior to the DVX100. The DVX100 provides equal resolution and image quality (actually, I seem to be getting some clearer images out of the DVX100) with richer color and shadow definition. The PD-150 does handle low light a little better and in some situations can give more defined DOF. The DVX100's Cine-Gamma color system also helps give a more film-like appearance to the video if that's what you're after.

For film transfer or working with digital compositing work (especially if combining animation and effects), the progressive scan modes of the DVX100 provide superior results.

As far as PAL vs. NTSC, I don't know if there would be much benefit of the PAL over the NTSC model. Both cameras are the same, use the same optics, same CCDs, etc... The PAL model differs in that its interlaced mode is 50i rather than 60i for standard PAL support and instead of 30p it supports 25p. But PAL does make use of a slightly higher resolution - 576 lines instead of 480. However, I have heard that the PAL model still records progressive modes in 480p, but can't confirm as I have not used the PAL model myself.

If the 480p holds true for the PAL model, then there would really be no reason to purchase it unless you're in an area that uses the PAL standard instead of NTSC. And even if the resolution is higher on the PAL model for progressive modes, you would probably still want the NTSC model if you're in an NTSC area unless you intend to only use the camera for film output.

Compare the features you want with the features available on these cameras: DVX100, PD-150 and XL1s... Those are the best miniDV camcorders available right now for under (US)$7500. I own an XL1s and a DVX100 and have logged more than 100 hours on a PD-150 (about 10 hours of it under water). I'll get to take the DVX100 under water in a month or two so it will be interesting to see how the two compare in those lighting conditions.

I think that whether you choose the PD-150 or the DVX100 you will be happy either way. Both are excellent cameras and each have a few features that fit each user and project differently. But for these guys to say that the picture on the DVX100 is not good compared to a PD-150 is a little strange - they're either doing something wrong or they're heavily biased toward Sony (which a lot of people are). I recommend trying out both and see which one fits you better.

Personally, I would recommend the XL1s over the PD-150 as it is a superior camera with un-matched versatility (in this price range) and the only reason I bought the DVX100 was to compliment my already excellent XL1s with some true progressive scan shooting ability.

[Philippe Orlando]

Yes, all you said makes sense. I didn't know the guys at Swiss Effects were biased toward Sony. I could feel something was wrong but I needed other inputs, and you did.
Thanks.
By the way, Jeff, you said that the PAL version of the DVX100 would be 480 when shooting in progressive, I understand you don't confirm that, but does PAL also sample and re-create the colors in a different way that's supposed to be better? Increased resolution is not just what's different for PAL, right? Tell me if I'm wrong but I've always heard that PAL has better color.

Phil

[Zac Stein]

According to the PAL dvx100 panflet i have here, it is 576p.

Zac

[Glenn Gipson]

I know that DuArt and The Digital Film Group prefer the DVX100 over the PD150. I'm HIGHLY skeptical that Swiss Effects can squash the interlace image of a PD150 together and make it look better then a 24p (or 25p) DVX100 transfer.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

<<<-- Originally posted by Philippe Orlando : Yes, all you said makes sense. I didn't know the guys at Swiss Effects were biased toward Sony. I could feel something was wrong but I needed other inputs, and you did.
Thanks.
By the way, Jeff, you said that the PAL version of the DVX100 would be 480 when shooting in progressive, I understand you don't confirm that, but does PAL also sample and re-create the colors in a different way that's supposed to be better? Increased resolution is not just what's different for PAL, right? Tell me if I'm wrong but I've always heard that PAL has better color.

Phil -->>>

AFAIK, DV is DV and doesn't encode PAL differently from NTSC as it's all digital and only offers format flags in the DV stream header and different resolutions/frame rates to match up with the intended analog delivery format (PAL or NTSC). When the DV stream is converted to analog and output from the camera (or other playback device), then colors are presented differently. As an analog signal, PAL doesn't necessarily provide better color, just more consistant color.

Checking with Panasonic at:
http://www.panasonic.co.jp/bsd/sales...ag-dvx100.html

The PAL DVX100 does have higher resolution CCDs - 470,000 pixels vs. the NTSC model's 410,000 pixels. And its recording modes are either [625]576i or 576p. The camera only does 25p progressive and DOES NOT do 24p or 30p! This is straight off Panasonic's spec pages and their product manual for the PAL version of their UK site confirms this. So, if you don't want to do drop frame conversion from 25p to 24p for film, you'll want the NTSC version. ...I wonder why Panasonic did this???

[Stephen van Vuuren]

Is this a film shot on the DVX100?

[Philippe Orlando]

I doubt PAL is worth the trouble and as mentioned Duart, which is a reputable house, I used them years ago to develop, process and transfer 16mm footage must know what they talk about when they say the DVX100 NTSC is great.
Thanks
Phil

[Nigel Moore]

I wonder why Panasonic did this???

Perhaps because 24p is a big deal for NTSC (frame rate difference = 6), whereas it's less of an issue for PAL (difference = 1)?

[Eirik Tyrihjel]

About a week ago I had my editor analyzing some tests I did with my DVX-100 in his Smoke suite.

Some of the things he concluded with was that the 25P mode was far superior to making shots Progressive in post, the DVX_100 makes excellent 25p pictures, and although he had been sceptical towards me using this mode (rather than have him doing it in post) he completely turned around on this after the tests.

As the sony PD-150 does not do the progressive thing, the choise in camera for a film transfer looks pretty obvious to me. The difference between a post generated progressive and the DVX-100 25p was very very obvious, and clear.

The only conclusion against the DVX-100 (in my tests) is that its completely unusable for quality bluescreen (keying) effects, this however goes for ALL cameras recording in the compressed DV format (sony pd-150 included), as the compression takes away the detail (or something of that matter) needed for successful keying.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

<<<-- Originally posted by Eirik Tyrihjel : The only conclusion against the DVX-100 (in my tests) is that its completely unusable for quality bluescreen (keying) effects, this however goes for ALL cameras recording in the compressed DV format (sony pd-150 included), as the compression takes away the detail (or something of that matter) needed for successful keying. -->>>

MiniDV just doesn't work for blue/green screen work. Actually, it can work, but it's a little touch and go sometimes and can leave lots of ugly artifacting. But that doesn't stop people from using it in low budget TV commercials and other productions I've seen on TV occasionally.

It's a combination of the compression of the DV format as well as it's relatively low color depth - DV is 4:1:0. DVCPro50 can be used to greater effect due to the lower compression.

The progressive modes on the DVX100 can really help and color keying and matte work can be effective although it will take some extra hands-on detail work to get the desired results. Take a look at this link on Yan Wen's site...

http://www.ywenzstudios.com/DVX100/dvxcomments.htm

He posted it here a couple days ago. He's extracted a pretty good matte from that first image. A little tweaking and some filters could produce some very good results from that for keying effects. If you have the time to work with it. I doubt you'd get any kind of realtime keying out of this camera (let alone any other miniDV camera).

I haven't personally tried it, but I've had more than one person tell me that they can do better color keying with analog s-video source material. Even though it is technically inferior and can degrade with the capture and conversion process, it comes in with no compression artifacting and somewhat better color fidelity to aid in keying. Just something to think about...