A JVC HD1/HD10 is better?

[Love Mov]

OK, I had my PDX10 for 2 days, video quality is very good, very close to good DVDs; however, resolution on HDTV is so-so, I wonder if anyone here upgraded to a HD1/HD10, or own both of them, what's your opinion? I know the color of JVC won't be as good, but wonder if it's acceptale on JVC..since I just got pdx10, I still have time to replace it worth doing so...thanks..

[Ignacio Rodriguez]

Hmm great question. Perhaps you could do it the other way around though, that is: ask people on the HDV forum if they have used PDX10's and can compare it to the JVC.

[Love Mov]

I did, but seems no one has ever used a pdx10 before or no one care to answer the question..

But, after download many HD1/10 clips posted, I will say, if that's all the average JVS HD performance, I'd keep my pdx10, and probably upgrage to HD 1-2 years later..

<<<-- Originally posted by Ignacio Rodriguez : Hmm great question. Perhaps you could do it the other way around though, that is: ask people on the HDV forum if they have used PDX10's and can compare it to the JVC. -->>>

[Ignacio Rodriguez]

> or no one care to answer the question

Hmm. I bet they don't want to admit they screwed up buying a more expensive camera with even less low-light performance and lousy color. Oh sorry did I say lousy? I meant lossy <grin>

[Graeme Nattress]

After viewing HDV at NAB, I'd wait until there's some more decent cameras for it! The current JVC's are a case one one step forwards (higher resolution) but 3 steps back (artifacts, (chroma) noise, colour quality).

The PDX10 in widescreen has one of the nicest all round DV pictures I've seen, and also looks superb in 4:3. In widescreen, it will blow up to HD better than most other cameras, and indeed, software to do this without loosing quality is the next project I'm working on.

Graeme

[Ignacio Rodriguez]

> software to do this without loosing quality is the next
> project I'm working on.

Cool. I have posted references to your plug-ins in posts about my 'film-look' techniques. BTW, there are several ideas you might want to work on that have to do with image shortcomings which can perhaps be treated with plug-ins:

(1) Chroma noise: it seems when in low light, noise appears in the chroma channel first, so a noise reduction plug-in that specifically tackles chroma noise would be interesting. There is chroma noise reduction in Compressor, but it would be so much nicer to have it in FCP...

(2) Vertical smear. One of the known problems with the PDX10. If you could somehow program an algorithm that could detect and fix it to some extent, that would be really awesome. I understand many expensive cameras actually suffer quite a bit from smear but use built-in circuitry to compensate.

(3) Chromatic aberration: often when using a cheap WA adapter I can se some chromatic aberrations, especially on vertical edges, I guess it would be possible to make a plug-in that can fix this.

Of course I am getting off-topic. I am sure that if you set up a thread to ask for plug-in ideas in the Mac NLE Forum you might get some interesting suggestions.

Keep up the great work!

[Graeme Nattress]

I do have chroma noise reduction in G DVNR, part of set 1. You can even pick the colour that gets noise reduced, and it works well. I need to update the set 1, because there's a bug in it, but that should happen at the weekend. I did, however, do a cut down version of G DVNR specifically for the JVC HDV cameras for Lumiere HD. It only does chroma noise reduction, and only to all of the chroma, but it is free!

I'd love to be able to tackle the other visual anomolies you mention, but I can't quite visualise how to do it... There'd have to be an awful lot of processing that I don't think my brain, or FCP is capable of. However, if I do have any ideas, I'll certainly try!

I'm working now on an update to Film Effects which improves it somewhat. I also tried it out on the 30p HD footage we got from Apple at NAB, and got some super results from the "looks". I can't wait to try it out all realtime, but that will have to wait until I can get a new mac. The dither option really helps with the film look, and I hope you'll enjoy that one!

I'm also hoping that "magic scaling" will make out investment in widescreen DV pay off - uprezzing DV to HD currently doesn't look too hot, especially with the poor scaling of FCP.

Graeme

[Shawn Mielke]

What other cameras have you compared the PDX to, Graeme? Your high praise makes me very curious!

[Graeme Nattress]

I've mostly used the PD-150, the PD-X10 which I own, and I've spent a bit of time with the Panavision CineAlta camera, and at NAB, I spent a bit of time looking at all things HDV. I used to use a large Panasonic M-II camera back in England. Before buying the PDX-10, I looked around on what was to offer for DV, and although you have to treat it with care - no low light, no very bright light - in it's sweet spot it's very sweet. The other camera which is also excellent is the DVX100, which I considered, but seeing that I make software to do 24p, it would be a bit rich of me to buy a camera that doesn't need it, and the one thing I did want was proper widescreen!!

Graeme

[Glenn Gipson]

The HD1/HD10’s exposure latitude is simply horrible to me. It’s like the cam’s image can look really good, and then BAM! Something white and contrasty enters the frame and it looks like burning, bright, ugly video. I would buy one of these cams if it weren’t for that darn narrow exposure latitude.

[Love Mov]

Exactly!
Now, I am just wishing there is a pdx10 v2, that keeps the nice 16x9 and great color, but step up the resolution, oh well...


<<<-- Originally posted by Graeme Nattress : After viewing HDV at NAB, I'd wait until there's some more decent cameras for it! The current JVC's are a case one one step forwards (higher resolution) but 3 steps back (artifacts, (chroma) noise, colour quality).

The PDX10 in widescreen has one of the nicest all round DV pictures I've seen, and also looks superb in 4:3. In widescreen, it will blow up to HD better than most other cameras, and indeed, software to do this without loosing quality is the next project I'm working on.

Graeme -->>>

[Ignacio Rodriguez]

> Now, I am just wishing there is a pdx10 v2,
> that keeps the nice 16x9 and great color,
> but step up the resolution, oh well...

Your wish is quite on the mark. We don't know it's model number yet, but such a cam is rumored to be available by september and cost US$7k or less. It will probably do both widescreen SD in DV mode 'a la PDX10' and HDV, much like the JVC HDV toy but with better lattitute and color.

[Graeme Nattress]

Based upon Sony's showmanship and the complexity of getting a good, affordable MPEG2 compression chip for 1080i HD, and to make it fit inside an affordable camera, we might have to wait a bit longer for Sony's HDV camera - I'd say a lot longer than September! If it truely were availble so soon, I they doubt they'd have had to "fake" their NAB demo of it!

Graeme