Z7 or no Z7 - What do you recommend??

[Tom Hardwick]

I tend to side with Perrone. If you're not happy with what the EX1's giving you then please don't move to the Z7 with it's far smaller (just over half the surface area) chips.

If it's interchangeable lenses you want then yes - a good move if you can't stretch to the EX3. But if you're not planning on swapping lenses (and going for the EX1 I suspect you're not) then the 1"/3 chipped Z5 might be a better bet. Starts wider, goes further, same lo-lite as the Z7.

tom.

[Perrone Ford]

Originally Posted by Andy Nickless

Erm . . .
I presume you mean output via component to capture card? (Can you recommend one)?

AJA | Kona-LHe 12-Bit HD/SD Video PCIe Capture Card | KONA LHE

Originally Posted by Andy Nickless

My immediate problem is the (XDCAM EX) footage I have on my FCP timeline. It looks stunning as HD but unfortunately, I don't have all the BPAV folders so I don't have the option to re-ingest.

Why re-ingest? The re-wrapped files you have are identical to what was in the BPAV folders.

Originally Posted by Andy Nickless

Any help would be very welcome.

Send me 10 seconds of your troublesome video and I'll play with it and do a downconvert.

[Andy Nickless]

Originally Posted by Perrone Ford

Kona-LHe 12-Bit HD/SD Video PCIe Capture Card | KONA LHE

Thanks Perrone, but I seem to have a mental block when it comes to Capture Cards!
Does this have to go to analogue at any stage?
Is there a Deck you would recommend for me?

I would dearly love to keep the EX1 if I can sort this.

Send me 10 seconds of your troublesome video and I'll play with it and do a downconvert.

There's just over 12 sec here - but it's XDCAM EX .mov:
http://www.workingsheepdog.co.uk/vid...st-12s18fr.mov

Let me know if this is a problem - and what format I can put it in for you.

There's also an MPEG2 here:
http://www.workingsheepdog.co.uk/vid...st-12s18fr.m2v
(If you burn that to DVD you'll see just how bad my results are with Compressor etc).

I'm most grateful for your help with this.

[Andy Nickless]

Originally Posted by Tom Hardwick

I tend to side with Perrone. If you're not happy with what the EX1's giving you then please don't move to the Z7 with it's far smaller (just over half the surface area) chips.

I know. This has been playing on my mind.

If it's interchangeable lenses you want then yes - a good move if you can't stretch to the EX3.

No. The budget won't stretch to lenses at the moment.
But (with help from all you guys) I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion the EX1's the right camera.

As I said above, I love the EX1 - but it's no use to me if I can't get quality SD from the footage. Perrone seems to be pointing me in the right direction though. I feel we're getting somewhere with Capture Cards. But finding the right Card and Deck combination without taking out a mortgage may be a problem.

[Andy Nickless]

Originally Posted by David Heath

Psf means progressive, segmented frame.

Thanks David.
I double checked and all my footage is 1080 or 720 - progressive in both cases.

[Perrone Ford]

Well, I have good news and bad news.

The bad news is that I could not open the original file. I don't have a mac so could you recompress that clip with lossless PNG so I can download it and see it? Uncompressed QT would work also but the file will be much larger.

The GOOD news is that I was able to open the mpg file and I can say without a doubt that it was the worst HD downconversion I've ever seen. And completely not representative of what you can do with the EX1. If that is what you think you'll end up with, I can see why you are unhappy. Keep the camera, lets fix the problem instead.

If you get me the original footage in a format I can open on my PC (PNG works great) I'll do a clean downconvert for you so you can see it. Then we can work on the Compressor issue.

-P

Originally Posted by Andy Nickless

Thanks Perrone, but I seem to have a mental block when it comes to Capture Cards!
Does this have to go to analogue at any stage?
Is there a Deck you would recommend for me?

I would dearly love to keep the EX1 if I can sort this.




There's just over 12 sec here - but it's XDCAM EX .mov:
http://www.workingsheepdog.co.uk/vid...st-12s18fr.mov

Let me know if this is a problem - and what format I can put it in for you.

There's also an MPEG2 here:
http://www.workingsheepdog.co.uk/vid...st-12s18fr.m2v
(If you burn that to DVD you'll see just how bad my results are with Compressor etc).

I'm most grateful for your help with this.

[Khoi Pham]

Originally Posted by Daniel Broden

I cannot recommend Z7 to anyone with high standards since it gives distortion in black areas when in lowlight situation even with no gain. I am certain that Sony has cheated with the software to give it better lowlight result or higher contrast in black areas by having a dark area gain that you can´t control.

Here are som unaltered m2t-files that shows what I am talking about.
www.medix.nu/E296283.M2T
www.medix.nu/00_0002_2008-05-09_113306.M2T

Sonys response was this is how it is... We will not do anything.

I would recommend any other brand.

Your footage looks worse than my old Z1 or FX1, perhaps you are not in full manual and auto gain is kicked on because that was some noisy footage.

[Andy Nickless]

Originally Posted by Perrone Ford

Keep the camera, lets fix the problem instead.

Sounds good to me, Perrone.

If you get me the original footage in a format I can open on my PC (PNG works great) I'll do a clean downconvert for you so you can see it.

Download from here:
http://www.workingsheepdog.co.uk/vid...est-1s12fr.mov

It's only 1.5 seconds (120 MB).

Hope it works OK

[Perrone Ford]

I've got the footage and am working on it. But this is interlaced not progressive, so that's your first problem right there.

-P

[Andy Nickless]

Originally Posted by Perrone Ford

this is interlaced not progressive, so that's your first problem

No - stop!
It shouldn't be (but I know it is because I just checked).

Here are my settings:
http://www.workingsheepdog.co.uk/video/picture_1.png

[Perrone Ford]

Originally Posted by Andy Nickless

No - stop!
It shouldn't be (but I know it is because I just checked).

Here are my settings:
http://www.workingsheepdog.co.uk/video/picture_1.png

It doesn't matter what your FCP setting are. It matters how it was shot in-camera. And this was shot interlaced. You can see the field teeth any time the man moves. I'll be putting up something here in a moment.

[Perrone Ford]

Video will show here:

Sheepdog test (uncompressed - interlaced) on Vimeo

I am doing another render and upload to my youtube page.

[Perrone Ford]

Here's the YouTube:

YouTube - interlaced.mp4

[Andy Nickless]

Originally Posted by Perrone Ford

It doesn't matter what your FCP setting are. It matters how it was shot in-camera. And this was shot interlaced.

http://www.workingsheepdog.co.uk/video/picture_3.png

I've never shot interlaced with the EX1.
The original clip shows Field Dominance: None - in FCP Properties.

Not sure what's going on here - I'm extremely tired - been working since 4am this morning and it's now 7pm (whimper).

When I set the QT conversion to "Interlaced" the resultant file was Interlaced again but Upper, rather than Lower Dominance (which if I remember rightly is what the file you have is).

Have you any other suggestions for a format I could send this clip in??

[Perrone Ford]

Andy,

There was nothing wrong with sending me the file in PNG. But why would you set interlace? And my version shows upper field dominance by the way.

Just create a quicktime file either as quicktime uncompressed, or quicktime PNG (Or photoJpeg at 100%). Any of those should give lossless results.

Leave the format progressive.