25P SONY V1 problem's fixed or not?
 

I order my V1 PAL a few days ago, and today I discovered, horrified, a bunch of threads in this forum from 2006 discussing the problem with progressive scan mode in V1p, things as "25p issues will NOT be fixed. Sony to offer full refund"
"The V1E will no longer be sold as a progressive camera in 1080i50 regions but as a 50i only HDV camera" etc etc

somebody knows if the V1p cameras bhphoto were shipping in 2007 have this software problem solved?

thanks for your help

Relax, Martin - it has been fixed completely. I've been using my V1E in progressive mode exclusively for over ha;f a year now and have been very satisfied with the result - it takes very special shooting conditions for me to switch to interlaced.

uf. Thanks. It's good to know, as Im planning to shoot almost in 25P

cheers

Please educate me if you will, Piotr. What advantage do you see when you shoot in 25P as opposed to 50i and under what conditions would you switch to interlaced? Thanks.

Greg,

Progressive 25p is very close in "feel" to the 24p, which is considered the most "filmic" look a video camera can get. As illusive as it is, I'll leave it here - dig further yourself :)

On the other hand, when fast action is involved and lots of movement within the frame cannot be avoided, you will get better temporal resolution, or smoothness, shooting 50 fields per second rather than 25 full frames - this is when I switch to interlaced.

Piotr, I guess I just don't understand the attraction of the filmic look. Unless I am missing something. But I have been on shoots where we were shooting 24p and I don't really care for what I saw when I looked at the playback. But then there would be other people looking at the same monitor and remarking at how wonderful it looked. What I see is less smooth action and some motion artifacts. I guess my original question should have been, When you are watching something shot in 25p, what do you see that is attractive to you? Of course, I understand if you were going to do a print to film, shooting in 24p would be desirable. But I have never shot anything that I thought was going to be converted to film.

Since I don't want to look like an idiot on location, I have never asked my colleagues "I don't get it. What do you see that you like about that?". But I don't mind looking like an dummy here.

Thanks for you indugence.

Greg,

Frankly? I'm afraid I don't quite understand what you mean. When shooting 25p, I'm just doing my best to avoid rapid zooming and panning, and when my subjuct is moving, follow it closely but with only as much of the camera movement as necessary. Also, throw anything else out of focus if possible.

Whether I don't understand "the attraction of the filmic look" is less important; I just like what I shoot. There is no need to be dogmatic about it.

Piotr, I am not trying to be argumentative. From my time here, I know that you are extremely well informed and talented. That is why I wanted your opinion. I feel this is like discussing fine wines and I do not have a developed pallet.

Neither am I, Greg - sorry if I sounded this way; didn't mean to. What I did mean is with all that much having been said about the "filmic look", it still seems one can say more about low framerates disadvantages (stuttering, motion blur) than on virtues; yet there certainly is something about shooting 25p that I like.

This is why I called it "illusive", and didn't even try to describe it...

While noone has asked me I thought I might chime in anyway. I like 25p because it somehow lookes more proffessional where as 50i just looks like a home video or cheap TV soapie.

I mostly use the cam for filming live music and I def find 25p, and here especially makes a difference in looking more professional than it is. I've always felt a band looks "big" and "immortal" if their show is shot on film as opposed to interlaced video.

That said I recently was in Japan to film some skiing action and made a mistake of shooting all of it in 25p. Standing still and filming skiiers looked great but following a skiier down a mountain resulted in a lot of jerky unwatchable footage. Better left for 50i. I'd LOVE 50p of course.

At this point this is a very interesting thread, in my opinion.
To try to understand why, as Adam says, the filmic look (progressive) seems
more "professional" and something filmed that way looks "big" while the same thing filmed 50i (interlaced) could easily looks "cheap".
You have the same resolution, same lighting and the 50i footage is clearly smoother but your feeling is that progressive footage is more realistic, more vibrant... in a word: more filmic. Maybe because that look comes from cinema, from big pictures you have seen in big theatres... comes from a sort of dream, an universe of movie stars, open spaces, legends and so on... Interlaced (HD or not) comes from television... a small box in a corner of the living room, evoking soap operas and quiz shows....

well, after 30+ years in the business i still don't understand why people want a film look, that looks like video trying to be film...

there is nothing like film, from dynamic range through to speed, it can be everything to everybody, video, well, i for one can always spot video pretending to be film...

i regularly 'play' with my v1 footage to achieve a desired look, be it cc or frame rate, but to shoot 25p and think it's going to look like proper film is, as far as i'm concerned, wasting the potential of 50i, which you can always 'doctor' in post.

then again, i'm hitting 60, so i'm probably just another old fart who can't understand change ;-}

my new bravia has a button called theatre. hell, even crappy video looks good WITHOUT having to do anything to it!

leslie

I only shoot action type shots, so I am not able to shoot a film look even if I wanted to. In my opinion (for what little it is worth) watching a slower frame rate on a huge theater screen seems appropriate. possibly it takes longer to let each frame soak in my thick head? but to watch that on a typical living room TV seems odd. I prefer 50-60 for television, and 24 in the big screen.

It certainly is subjective and cultural and I spose depends on our viewing experience. While I didn't show much love for interlaced in my other post, I have to say that there are times where the smoothness+detail has looked "new" and "high tech" - particarly when I first saw footage taken by a DV camera.

But overall Ive always like the old look, and while id love to play around with a real film camera, it just isnt practical or possible finantialy. Progressive is the next best thing.

Other than that, my video cam sometimes also doubles my photo cam and i like pulling frames out as happy snaps, cant really do that in interlaced (unless u hit the photo button).

Theres always this thing in the back of my mind about interlaced that you dont get a full picture, u get half the picture alternating twice as often, it doesnt seem natural.