A british reviewer tests the V1 and compares it to the HD 111
 

A friend from England sent me this link: http://www.dvuser.co.uk/content.php?CID=141


According to the tester, the V1 is great, but he thinks his JVC HD 111 is better.
I've read review on this forum of the V1, do you think we could arrange a comparison between the two, to see if this Brit is right?
Unless he works for JVC I personally don't see what I shouldnt' believe him!
Note that he doesn't trash the V1, far from it, but he says it's not as good as the JVC
Andrea

Note: The review is Nigel Cooper, and is a member on this board and is posting in another thread in this forum.

Oops
 

Sorry, I can you can tell I'm a rookie,
A.

Very interesting to hear a review comparing performances of three cameras-- discusses comparison briefly with the HVX200. Seems really unbiased.

I would like to know what sort of 19" HD monitor he is using. If it is the JVC CRT then the viewable area is closer to a 17" and at that size you really can't make decent resolution judgements with HD material. If it's a LCD or Plasma then it's progressive, so if viewing interlace material your not getting a true image.

Those use bob-deinterlacing for interlaced material so actually you are getting the "true image". There's nothing lost.

A decent review, but I notice he made the common mistake of describing the HVX200 as shooting nearly uncompressed footage. It's true it's less compressed than HDV, but it's nowhere near uncompressed. Maybe after "Red" ships we'll see an end to this sort of misstatement, since everything else will look compressed by comparison. :-)

Here's a link to the related thread: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=76943

The reverse is true -- see below:

"The colour saturation and contrast were about the same, only the overall sharpness of the 1080i was not there."

1) I would agree that the increased resolution I would expect from V1 progressive is not there. I suspect row-pair summation is used on all frames captured. This keeps light sensitivity and V. Rez. equal between interlace and progressive mode.

2) I'm not able to measure any difference in resolution between 24p, 30p, and 60i. However, the motion blur is much greater at 25p so I would expect it would seem less sharp.

3) Also, what's left-out in this review is the fact the JVC is feeding 720p into the monitors. The V1 is feeding 1080i50 into the monitors, even when in shooting 25p.

These may not treated the same by monitors. In particular, monitors that deinterlace by bobing toss out a field automatically turning Sony 25p into 540-lines verses JVC's 720p.

Virtural Film
 

I'm sure Sony wasn't happy when I reported the FX1/Z1 produced a "hi-rez DV" look -- that was "too blue."

Well the V1 blows that comment away. The difference is like:

1) going to a fine grain emulsion

2) switching from Kodachrome to Ektachrome

Today we had bright white clouds and clear bright blue skies in LV. I found I could shoot just like I was using film with 10-stops of latitude. I could underexpose for a "dark" look or go for a "bleached" look.

Not only can you shoot as though you had film because of the extreme latitude -- colors are significantly less saturated and edge enhancement was nil. I'm calling this capability "virtual film." Note, this has nothing to do with 24p.

I did shoot lots of 24p today -- even got some minimal DOF -- but I can't say it looked like film that had been telecined using 2:3 pulldown. It looks just like JVC's 24p and 30p. We'll have to wait to see how it looks after pulldown is removed.

Why 24p with 1/48th shutter doesn't look like film with ANY low-cost video camera is a puzzle to me. I'd love to chat with Larry Thorpe about how CineAlta does it. Because obviously it can be done.

I may try a slower shutter-speed to add more motion blur.

How do you find the depth of field in comparison to a 1/3" chip camera? If it has 1/4" chips it ought to be deeper, but Sony's saying the angle of the chips provides the same imaging area as 1/3" chips...does that have anything to do with depth of field, or is that a processing thing? (I don't know if that question makes sense...if the imaging area is the same, does that mean the "virtual size" is the same and if so would the depth of field characteristics be the same? I'm guessing no because if so, then that 3.5mm lens would be super wide and apparently it's not.)

Any other features hidden in the menu?
 

Steve, I was wondering if there was anything else feature-wise that you
may have found buried in the menu. Is there a clear-scan feature for
shooting monitors? How about the ability to change the shutter angle?

There's no clearscan option. But you can display the shutter in degrees rather than fractions of a second.

Depends on how it is set up. I've seen high end Cinealtas look like over edgey high def video. The only high def stuff I have seen that looks anything like film is with Alan Roberts settings where the detail is drastically reduced, or put into the minuses.

Full techie explanation here (Chris, these documents should be a sticky in the filmlook forum. The subject keeps coming up and I end up reposting the links)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/pubs/whp/whp053.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/pubs/whp/whp034.shtml

Regarding the V1 in general, I love it. I am astounded by its ability to handle high contrast situations, and for once the edge enhancement isn't intrusive on the default settings.

No Clearscan?!
 

Thanks, Simon. I was afariad that the V1 would not have this feature. It's a
shame because many of us shoot industrial/educational videos as well as
24p type "film" projects, and clear scan is a nice option to have. My Z1U
does not have this either. It just means that if I want to do a shot with a CRT monitor in it I have to use my Sony D-30 Betacam which has clear-scan.
I know the HVX has synchro-scan, so why Sony wouldn't give us clear-scan
on the V1 is beyond me.

That's what I needed to know... http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=77028