Has anyone found chroma noise to be a significant problem? I remember seeing some posts early on and heard that some editing software was going to address it. But in the real world how does it translate? Is it only seen in certain colors like red? Is it only manifested in shadow areas? Is anybody really concerned about it to the point of being irritated by its presence? Will this always be a limitation of HDV or just of the JVC camera?

Lynne,

I actually find the chroma noise (CN) more objectional than the edge enhancement that many others complain about.

CN is in about 80% of everything I shoot regardless of lighting. I was actually surprised to find it so prevelant in bright daylight shots, with and without filters.

Red isn't the only color it affects, almost all other bright colors are affected as well (green, blue, yellow). I just got back from Jamaica and while watching the footage I shot, it stood out like a sore thumb... :(

If I had one complaint, it would be the CN problem. I would think that the chipset has a lot to do with the chroma noise, so if the next gen of HDV camcorders have a different chip or even three chips, the CN would pretty much be eliminated.

Troy

Thanks for letting me know...altho' it's curious that you're the ONLY one to respond to this. I wonder if the type of monitor one uses affects their perception of this problem? Has anyone tested their footage against different monitors or with a top-of-the-line broadcast quality monitor to come up with a benchmark? David Neuman created some software to deal with this issue. Any input from him on this subject?

Lynne, I have the CN too. But, I am trying to pretend my footage doesn't have it...otherwise, it's pretty annoying.

Overall, it's actually easy for me to pretend it isn't there because I'm so happy with the overall picture this thing makes.

Murph

Lynne,

Not to disconcert your efforts, but I have a 55" HDTV that I spent close to $600 on getting professionally calibrated to the ISF standard.

CN also shows on my 17" PC display set to 1280X1024 res. This monitor was also calibrated professionally.

I've also had my camera connected to DLP sets, front projection sets and LCD panels both with component video and firewire connections, they all show the CN.

Troy

So there you have it. It's there and it's a product (probably) of the first generation chips JVC uses. I guess the good news is there are software solutions to minimize it. And the next round of products will hopefully be cleaner. Thanks, everyone, for establishing that fact!

The reds are very bad for sure, almost unwatchable.

Filtering makes this problem worse ( atleast using Cokin System) I have not noticed to much in the edge enhancement in the JY HD10u and I am seeing what I can do with Vegas 5 to help with chroma noise

Are you thinking that even the 10U has some edge enhancement? I thought it was just the HD1 that had that "problem."

Here's JVCs official statement to that regard;

There is some difference in picture quality, especially edge enhancement which has been balanced, shaped and reduced to match professional applications.

Troy

You do get chroma noise with this camera, that is for sure.

However, the good news is that there are fairly easy ways to get rid of it. We have had really good success using VirtualDub to remove the chroma noise. After we have rendered out our final product, we run it through VirtualDub and all is fine. VirtualDub will occasionally give us some small artifacts, but you can only see them if you know to look for them.

There is a free chroma noise plugin for VirtualDub that we use. We use that filter (with the "wide" settings) along with the Temporal Smoother set at level 2. The chroma noise filter gets rid of the color part of the noise, and the temporal smoother gets rid of the noise in general.

VirtualDub is pretty fast (a lot faster than going frame per frame in Photoshop). On our AthlonXP 2000 it cleans up our video at about 4 fps.

Another somewhat cool side-effect of using this filter combo; it gives any scenes with fast motion an EXTREMELY subtle motion-blur like effect.

If you have AspectHD (we don't, we have ConnectHD though), there is a free chroma-noise removal plugin for it as well. We have heard it works better than VirtualDub (basically the same results, but without any artifacts caused by the TemporalSmoother), but we are quite satisfied with VirtualDub for now (and we are pretty anal).

The bottom line is that we will NEVER go back to DV after using HDV. Sure, our lighting setups take more time, and we have to check every shot on a monitor, but the end result is the most filmic looking picture you can get for a camera under $50k.

Here are some quick tips to bring out the best in the HD10:

1) Use shutter-priority and lock the shutter at 1/60th. Force the exposure to be manual by using ND's. Keep several ND filters in your filter kit. We suggest (1) .3 ND filter and (3) .6 ND filters. That allows you to go up all the way to 1.8 ND (6 fstops!) in 1 fstop increments. We had to use all 6 fstops last week in the bright summer sun in order to get shallow DOF.

2) Avoid white clothing on your subjects. White is about the only color that reflects light enough to force the HD10 to change exposure in the middle of the scene.

3) Use a small color TV as your field monitor (if you can't afford better). We use a Toshiba 13" TV from Best Buy that was only $80.00. We picked it because of its light-weight (only 20 lbs), small size (only 12 - 14" along each dimension), and black tube (better contrast). A low-res color monitor is much better than a high-res B&W for this camera. It saved our butt last week when we forgot to white balance after switching from outdoors to indoors (on the LCD you couldn't tell, but everything was obviously red-cast on the TV).

Also, for people saying this camera is only good if you plan to output in HD, that is just not true. The truth is that there is no easier and cheaper way to output "Blockbuster-style" wide-screen DVD's. People with 4:3 TV's get a letter-boxed picture, and people with 16:9 TV's get a full-screen picture with better resolution than an SD picture that is stretched to fit the screen.

Anyway, if you have patience and want to go for a big-budget look on almost no-budget, the HD10 is the way to go.

We will be posting clips from our latest project very soon. It was a video press kit for this 17-year old girl trying to get a recording contract. It is a mix of music video, interview, and modeling style shots. It helps to have a subject who is very easy on the eyes :)

Regards,

Ben

Ben

Could you describe how to get chroma noise reduction using the tools that you have? I've virtual dub and if I'm not wrong it takes a specific filter and a bit of skill to do what you are saying. Can you tell us a bit of "how to" and where download the filter if any?

Thank you very much
Gabriele

Ben, great tips....thanks for taking the time to post them!

Murph

Yes, it is NICE to hear such a positive and vigorously enthusiastic vote of confidence about the only camera on the HDV horizon for the next year at least!

I have read, but not tried, that Lumiere HD (www.lumierehd.com) and Aspect HD (www.cineform.com) both have chroma noise reducers.

heath

Here is the link to find the Chroma Noise filter we use with VirtualDub:

http://www.ifrance.com/freevcr/virtualdub/cnr-en.html

We check all the "wide" boxes when using the filter. We do not mess with any of the other settings.

In addition, we use Temporal Smoother set at Level 2 (the 3rd "tick" on the slider).

Most importantly, you must set your compression to Cineform under the Video menu.

Finally, choose "Save As" and it will generate the filtered .avi file.

> Also, for people saying this camera is only good if you plan to
> output in HD, that is just not true. The truth is that there is no
> easier and cheaper way to output "Blockbuster-style" wide-
> screen DVD's. People with 4:3 TV's get a letter-boxed picture,
> and people with 16:9 TV's get a full-screen picture with better
> resolution than an SD picture that is stretched to fit the screen.

If your target is not HD but a widescreen SD format like anamorphic DVD or PALPlus, I would still suggest that there are several 3-CCD native 16:9 cameras well below $50k which can can also give you "filmic" results if that is what you want, such as the PDX10 and the XL2, the latter also has 24p/30p (NTSC) or 25p (PAL), both have real Time Code and work very easily with all existing NLE products. Sure, when you uprez 16:9 DV to HD someday, you might whish it had been shot in HDV, but if HD is not required for what you are doing, don't leave SD aquisition out of your price quote requests just yet, you can still save some money now for when the real pro HDV hardware comes along ;-)

True, the XL2 does sound nice, but it isn't readily available yet, and it will start at $2,000.00 more than the HD10. However, it will likely overtake the Panasonic DVX100A as the premium 1/3" 3CCD DV camcorder.

The PDX10 is another way to get 16:9 images, but in my opinion the quality doesn't match the HD10. I also think $2,000.00 is a bit pricey for a 1/5" 3CCD SD camera. However, I've seen some stuff shot on the PDX10 that looks very nice, and in the right hands it is probably a great SD camcorder.

As far as costs go, the HD10 adds $0.00 to our production costs. We can edit the HD10 just like DV, and use it in any DV NLE (using ConnectHD). Yes, ConnectHD did add a one-time cost of $500 to our production budget, but that was the extent of it.

To be honest, there is also a business component to this. Since there is so much competition in the DV market, we have chosen to shoot HD only and we advertise our services as such. Like it or not, HD is a reality. Every primary and secondary market in the US has been broadcasting HD for a couple of years now; all 3 networks primetime lineups are all HD now; every major cable and satellite provider offers HD for less than $10/month extra. If nothing else it future proofs your work and your demo-reel, and we are talking about a very imminent future ("the future is now", as they say).

Thus, we will only shoot with the HD10 until another affordable HD camera becomes available (although I'm not holding my breath). If we get a project with a large enough budget we would also consider renting a Varicam.

Ben,

thanks for bringing us back on subject.

Everyone,

We have a great XL-2 page for more info.

hwm

Lynne,
It is wrong to consider chroma noise a bug in the JVC camera (attitudes of third party developers to blame other manufactures will not get them anywhere.) I completely understand the nature of the chroma noise, and it is a trade-off JVC made that makes the luma so clean for a single chip sensor. This trade-off effectively delivers a higher apparant resolution without the need for a 3 chip design. Using this knowledge the chroma noise filter for Aspect HD cleans it up color noise very well. It is true a 3 chip design will have less chroma noise, but then we would have nothing now if JVC waited to do that first. I'm liking the JVC camera even more after I recently finished a two camera shoot with it -- the pictures were very clean.

David, any chance that CineForm will add a chroma filter for the ConnectHD product?


Thanks....

Of course Connect HD can be used with so many applications it is hard to select which apps to create the filter for, although Sony Vegas would be a popular choice. The best move would be to include the chroma noise reduction as part of the capture process. This is the path we hope to take if the market allows and time permits.

Just to add to Ben Buie's very helpful post ... be aware that it's possible to use VirtualDub filters within avisynth scripts.

'What's the advantage of that?' you may ask. Well, several good encoding applications, for example Mainconcept's Procoder...will load avisynth scripts directly. This means you can, for example, apply the chroma noise filter that Ben recommends at the same time as you encode your footage to DV, or high-def WM9, or whatever.

I use a similar approach so that I can experiment with various gamma settings when I encode for DVDs, without having to mess with the master version of my edited HDV footage.

This avisynth scripts you're referring to...could the VirtualDub program be applied to something the Solitaire ediitng appliance generates. In other words, assuming one can output an edited piece via firewire from the Solitaire, could you then input that into or thru another device or program using VirtualDub noise reduction? And finally, input the result back into the Solitaire? (I don't know how much longer I'll be a fan of theirs. I'm starting to lose enthusiasm.)

Unless you apply the noise reduction during capture, at David proposes, or during the final encode (e.g. to mpeg2 for DVD), then you would probably be adding an extra recompression step to your workflow (I'm assuming the import and export steps from Solataire don't in themselves require recompression?).

So unles you can edit uncompressed, that probably isn't going to be an ideal method...

If you're editing native MPEG-2, then filters will require recompression, but AspectHD, for example would not.

...which reminds me - Attn: David Newman - my production is almost done with over 50 hours of shooting. If you do plan to include chroma noise reduction in a future release of your capture utility, please let me know ASAP before we start capturing footage.

Thanks so much,