Hi all

I work for the Beeb as a news videojournalist. I use a PD150 and edit on Avid Xpress Pro and FCP.

I hear my bosses are looking at replacing the PD150s with the HVR-Z1E, so I've been reading up whatever I can find. I'm on leave at the moment so can't find anything out from my colleagues.

I know we don't broadcast in HD, so I'm wondering whether this means I'll have to stick to shooting in DV. If this is so, what would be the point in upgrading to this camera?

Many thanks.

future flexibility?

HI Damian I am at the other end of the country to you in sunny Dorset!

I have been shooting with an FX1 since the day it came out and love it. Shoot everything in HDV to make it future proof. Edit in FCP in dv mode for the North West Tonight program, or whatever its callled. The quality is amazing and will blow your PD150 footage out of the water.


Cheers
Steve

Hi Steve

Thanks a lot for the reply. Just to be clear - in order to get a good picture, and one that is in the correct format for broadcast, I shoot in HD then import it into FCP - do I have to convert it into DV before I can edit it? If so, how? Can Avid do this too?

If this is the case, I'm excited. The PD150 is OK but the pictures can look mushy, IMO.

I guess the DV performance of the HVR/FX1 is pretty similar to the PD150?

Thanks again for the reply, much appreciated.

Cheers

Damian

Hi Damian,
you just capture the footage as standard DV in FCP. I hear that by June the new version of FCP5 will have a built in capture facility for capturing and editing HD without the need for outside software.

The quality in standard DV mode is excellent. Native 16:9, Better than the PD150/70 IMO.

You can of course now use LumiereHD to capture the High Definition footage to FCP, edit in real time, and send back to tape. So once edited, you can output in standard DV mode and have a High Definition copy on tape for future broadcasts.

I have never used Avid, too expensive for me to have two setups!

What Steve means is that the camera can do the downconvert to DV for you. So you can use your HDV material just as if you were using any other DV material, expect you ofcourse have to use the Z1/FX1 as the deck, because no minidv-deck can play the footage. So avid will work for - shoot HDV, downconvert in-camera while capturing, edit in DV - workflow. Then possibly in the future you can then use the material to do an HDV online if you keep your project files.

The DV material will ofcourse look like downconverted HDV which has some sides you might want to look into. This basically means that the MPEG-2 will show in your downconverted material sometimes. You propably can't see it from a moving image, but on some material, and looking at a still image from the material, there might be some notable MPEG artifacts there.
I'm not trying to scare you, because this is the way I currently do all my stuff. It's just that you know that it's there. Do some tests, if they please your bosses, then HDV might be a good option for future proofing your material.

Try downconverting to DV dark branches aganist a light 80-90 IRE BG. The edge is rimmed with a white outline that's very noticeable. It may be taken care of by turning the sharpening filter way down but I don't think so.

This eliminated for me the possibility of using downconverted footage for broadcast.

Hi David

Interesting. So do you stick to shooting in DV for broadcast? If so, how would you rate the quality?

Damian

Yeah David, me too...
I'm interested in hearing more of any downconverting artifacting issues as we hadn't previously thought of it!
I'm shooting a documentary series on two Z1s over six weeks starting Late March. The workflow is to shoot HDV and downconvert to DV using the new sony HDV player (which is a beautiful piece of kit BTW!) over firewire for the offline. Then to post and conform a Digi master as normal. But if there are downconterting issues for broadcast... hmmm... darn these new technologies!

I'm shooting a broadcast doc on tree surgeons, so there's lots of branches against sky! I'm shooting in HDV and downconverting and I'm not having any of the problems mentioned...

Robin

Robin are you downconverting in the camera or in the NLE?

In the camera...

Robin

<<<-- Originally posted by Damian O'Neil : Hi all

I work for the Beeb as a news videojournalist. I use a PD150 and edit on Avid Xpress Pro and FCP.

I hear my bosses are looking at replacing the PD150s with the HVR-Z1E, so I've been reading up whatever I can find. I'm on leave at the moment so can't find anything out from my colleagues.

I know we don't broadcast in HD, so I'm wondering whether this means I'll have to stick to shooting in DV. If this is so, what would be the point in upgrading to this camera?

Many thanks. -->>>

Are the Beeb expecting you to buy your own cameras now? I now the charter is coming up for renewal and all thatm but I didn't think the budgets were THAT tight... or are you freelancing?

Though there are no plans to broadcast in HD at all at the present time, BBC policy is to shoot everything in High Definition by 2010 (apart from that cruddy videophone stuff from warzones I assume).

It seems likely that you'll have to upgrade at some time. Howver there is still some confusion whether the EU broadcasters will go with 720p or 1080i (Sky has made up their mind, they going 1080i in 2006) so it seems likely you'll have to switch over at some time..

I gather in the past that BBC has required that PD150s/170s had to be altered, in order to bypass what the BBC technicians regard as the PDs' inadequate sound quality. Maybe the Z1E will be subject to the same requirement.

Just to add to that, as I understand it the BBC are looking to move to fully HD ACQUISITION by 2006. The 2010 deadline is for braodcasting in HD...

James, then you have different info from me. From what I picked up at VideoForum, from BBC representatives, was 2010 for 100% HD acquisition, but no timescale at all for HD broadcast. This was stated at a seminar entitled "The BBC and HD" or something like that.

Apparently SkyTV do intend to start HD broadcasting, in 2006, starting with the world cup.

Hi Dylan - I'm staff, not freelance, and no, we're not expected to buy our own cameras!

Regarding the PD150s, as far as I know the only change to the audio that we made was to substitute the Sony mic for a decent Sennheiser shotgun.

Certainly Dylan,
I won't stand behind my info 100% as it wasn't from the horses mouth, so to speak.

> I gather in the past that BBC has required that
> PD150s/170s had to be altered, in order to bypass
> what the BBC technicians regard as the PDs'
> inadequate sound quality.

No. I understand they did that to VX2000 cams, before the time of the PD150 I think. They bypassed the preamp altogether and wired the audio I/O connector straight to the ADC, which meant great line audio input but loss of audio output capability.

If done to a PD150 or PD170, it would probably also mean better audio, because the AGC and preamp on Sony cams are not the best and when in line mode, an attenuator is inserted and the preamp is still used, god knows why.

<<<-- Originally posted by Robin Davies-Rollinson : I'm shooting a broadcast doc on tree surgeons, so there's lots of branches against sky! I'm shooting in HDV and downconverting and I'm not having any of the problems mentioned...

Robin -->>>

Hi All,

Robin, if you're shooting against the sky what's the luminance of the sky. If it's blowing out then the artifact I'm seeing won't show up as it would be white on white. Black branches against 80-90 ire really shows it. Another question is what sharpness setting are you at. I was pretty high in that shot - 14 or 15. Lowering it may have an effect.

Probably the best way to downconvert is either in software with Procoder, or via the component outs to SDI and digibeta and avoid the additional level of DV compression.

<<<-- Originally posted by David Cherniack : Try downconverting to DV dark branches aganist a light 80-90 IRE BG. The edge is rimmed with a white outline that's very noticeable. It may be taken care of by turning the sharpening filter way down but I don't think so.

This eliminated for me the possibility of using downconverted footage for broadcast. -->>>

Mmmm, I'd just avoid shooting dark branches against bright skies. It's true that sharpness should be turned down to about 5 as opposed to the 11 which is default in PP2. Every camera I've ever owned or shot with has had strong points and weak points - I just avoid shooting certain material with a particular camera if I know it'll accentuate that camera's weakness.

It comes as no surprise that BBC will embrace the Z1. I bought my VX9000 in London from the guys who supplied the BBC with a truckload of VX1000's when they came out. Perfect ENG camera's -lightweight, good quality pics, cheap enough to throw away in a war zone. Imagine shooting on a F900 and coming back without it because you had to flee for your life and had to dump your rig!

>>Mmmm, I'd just avoid shooting dark branches against bright skies. It's true that sharpness should be turned down to about 5 as opposed to the 11 which is default in PP2<<

I think any dark edge against light BG will exhibit the same effect. If it were only trees...

The default sharpness on the Z1 is 13. I found that anything below that degrades the image detail. At a sharpness of 0 the image quality isn't any better than a PD150.

<<<-- Originally posted by David Cherniack : >>Mmmm, I'd just avoid shooting dark branches against bright skies. It's true that sharpness should be turned down to about 5 as opposed to the 11 which is default in PP2<<

I think any dark edge against light BG will exhibit the same effect. If it were only trees...

The default sharpness on the Z1 is 13. I found that anything below that degrades the image detail. At a sharpness of 0 the image quality isn't any better than a PD150. -->>>

That's very interesting - it's 11 on the FX1. Sly of Sony to just turn up the sharpness to create the impression of slightly sharper images on the Z1. I must admit I havn't tested the sharpness control much. I shot stuff using 5 and it looked great - but I don't have a 1080i HD monitor so that may explain that. This warrants more testing.

I've been running the FX1 at a sharpness setting of 13 anyway.
It appears to give the best results (for me) as well as colour up by +1.
Still looking for that effect with tree branches.
Still, if I have to look hard for it, there's certainly no point in worrying about. The subject matter should transcend all that ;-)

BBC Wales has just shot a short drama with the Z1. My mate was the lighting cameraman on in - I'm hoping to see some of it next week.


Robin

I guess the best thing to do is post the frames - the original and the downconvert. I looked at the original again on my HD monitor and there is some atrifacting around the branches - not objectional there but it certainly becomes so when downconverted,

Where's the best site to post stills for this purpose - Ideally I want to post tiffs so they HD pix will be about 5 megs, I guess.

Can't anyone suggest a site for pix?

David,

Zip them all up and send them to me via http://www.yousendit.com

I will post them on my site for you.

Well when I created the tiff off the DVCam downconverted tape I didn't see the outlining I was seeing on my PVM component monitor. Puzzled, I checked the setting on the monitor and found that the aperture was turned way up creating the white outlining around the branches.

My bad and I do apologize to all. OTOH I'm quite happy that the downconverted footage is more useable than I thought it was.

OTOOH I'm still convinced the best downconvert would be from the HDV NLE to uncompressed SD and out via SDI to Digibeta. It's gotta be better than compressing to DV.

David

Uhumm - don't worry David, apology accepted. By now of course your reservations have been repeated on other boards and are accepted as facts by naysayers and Z1 haters. I read just yesterday that the Sony camera's are "bad with black against white backgrounds" somewhere else. Well, as long as you're happier with the downconvert, it's cool.

David, please send your images to me as well; I'll be happy to host them for you here at DV Info.

<<<-- Originally posted by Derek Serra : Uhumm - don't worry David, apology accepted. By now of course your reservations have been repeated on other boards and are accepted as facts by naysayers and Z1 haters. I read just yesterday that the Sony camera's are "bad with black against white backgrounds" somewhere else. Well, as long as you're happier with the downconvert, it's cool. -->>>

Derek, as you well know, it's impossible to stop th naysayers and those who are, consciously or not, doing other manufacturers bidding to try to slow this camera's momentum before NAB. It's practically funny. I experimanted with downconverting a few different ways yesterday. The biggest issue seems to be translation of the colour space from 709 to 601. What I can do is post some stills over the weekend

You're right of course, David. At the end of the day it's the images we produce which will establish HDV or not. I'll be spending a week in Cuba later this month as part of a South African Arts & Culture delegation - amazing opportunities visually to test the FX1's abilities. The true test will come in June, when I spend two months filming in the refugee camps in Kenya, with temperatures of up to 100F. I'm excited at the prospect of capturing pictures with substantially higher definition than DVCAM - normally I would have shot this kind of stuff on a PD170. I've just bought a video camera backpack - the FX1, Sennheiser and Century Optics wide angle fit nicely into it. I'll be a one-man production team shooting HD - it's almost too good to be true!

Great Derek. Need somebody to hold the Senn? A two person team, even better than a one man team in order to get great sound to go along with those great images.

I've recently watched (several times) Sony's promotional DVD for the Z1. All footage was shot HDV and edited HDV; then it was downconverted to SD for the DVD. It looks great. I was prepared to dislike the look, but I have to admit that I'm impressed.
I've heard from Avid (I'm in the U.S.) that they will have HDV capability by around June, about the same time FCP will have it. However, Avid's Mac version may be a bit behind that.

If this is so, what would be the point in upgrading to this camera?

Most obviously:

PD150/170 - fake 16:9 SD
FX1 - real 16:9 SD

From the comments made by an ex-BBC guy on another forum, that seemed to be the main reason for switching to the FX1, with the ability to shoot in HD a secondary concern.

AFAIR he said they have used an FX1 to shoot some behind-the-scenes shots at concerts to test out the HD abilities of the camera (while the main footage was shot with 'real' HD cams), but that's not the primary reason for switching to them from the PD150/170.

I wonder if the mac version of AXP and FCP are waiting for the release of Tiger and MPEG 4 H.264?

<<<-- Originally posted by Bill Pryor :
I've heard from Avid (I'm in the U.S.) that they will have HDV capability by around June, about the same time FCP will have it. However, Avid's Mac version may be a bit behind that. -->>>

I just read this morning that Apple is going to have HDV in FCP by the summer too. They have it in their cheapo FC Express for $300 (U.S.). Odd they would do it that way...but I guess they can get the bugs worked out courtesy of the early adopters.

I've heard rumors that they are working on a new intermediate codec for FCP.

Here's the link to the downconvert comparisons. The results are interesting.

http://www.hdvinfo.net/articles/sonyhdrfx1/cherniak1.php

The HDV material was pulled into Premiere Pro via Aspect HD2.51 at highest setting. A frame was selected, its waveform captured, and the frame was exported as an uncompressed tif.

The Z1 to DV downconvert was sent via firewire to a tape in a PD150 and then captured in Premiere Pro. The same frame was exported as an uncompressed tif.

Another downconvert was done from the AspectHD timeline transcoding via the BlackMagic 10bit YUV codec in the Procoder 2 plugin with the 709 to 601 color space conversion. The downconverted material was brought into a new Premiere Pro project, the waveform captured, and the frame exported.

It's apparent that the camera downconvert has a much narrower luminence range than the software downconvert which is a very close match to the original.

It's also interesting that the uncompressed tif of the AspectHD frame shows a very subtle ghosting of the black branches. This is not visible in the AspectHD material and must be introduced by PPro in the tif export.

That link is now www.hdvinfo.net/articles/sonyhdrfx1/cherniack1.php. Thanks,

Does anyone know of any programmes that have been shot with the FX1/Z1E that are being broadcast soon in the UK?

I am down for on (damn things have sold out everywhere) and should be getting it at the end of the month. Studying TV Production at Bournemouth Uni (final year) and cannot wait to see what my images look like compared to my mates' PD150 and even the DSR-570!

I know the cameras have just come out and that it takes time to get things on air but if any news or antique show type programmes are being shot with these cameras please can someone give a heads up as I am sure all of us would love to see just how they look to the people it matters the most, the audience.

HI Chris, I am close to you and went to Bournmouth Uni myself ten years ago.

Drive past it every week and bring back some good memories!;)

Don't know of any show yet on TV where these cameras have been used.

I am making a documentary at Poole Speedway with the FX1, starting next week! I am following a group of speedway fans around the country following the Pirates. Should be fun.

<<<-- Originally posted by David Cherniack : Here's the link to the downconvert comparisons. The results are interesting. -->>>

very interesting, and rather clear when someone sees it on the waveform. nice work!


filip

Due to some questions on another board I glanced over my methodology and discovered that in copying the test clip to a new timeline I had inadvertantly copied an effect with it that skewed the luminance range. In fact the HDV frame and the software downconvert are very close to the camera downconvert in a waveform comparison.

It's a dumb error and I do apologize.

David