Shooooooowww meeeeeeee the cliiiiipppppppppppppppppppppppsssssss!



ahhhhhhhhhhh, glad I didn't hold my breathe on this wait!

Chris could be out playing cowboy and indians with the horses.

Chris is probably playing the Lone Ranger...

ext. late evening

............Chris- Lone Ranger!

" bang bang,,we're on our way tonto!"

............Tonto- his buddy!

where too..


............Chris- Lone Ranger!

We must hurry back to the ranch...The clips..I forgot the clips..


............Tonto

ahhhh, the clips..

Cut to wide panoramic shot..
...Ride off to sunset..

The End...


However this could be a scene from Brokeback Mountain too..............!

I thought that was Bareback Mountain.

I'm currently at MacWorld. It's tough to orchestrate this stuff away from my office, but I'll do what I can. If I can get Nick's clips moved from the upload area over to the media server from this hotel room, then I will do so. Stand by,

Hey chris if you can, the only one that I think is a new(ish) clip is the one called xl-h1 production. That's the one I'd like to get people's input on the the most.

OMG...O M G, still no clips. Ahhhhh, what is the hold up. lol

PS: Btw How is MacWorld Chris?

I WANT TO SEE SOME CLIPS, more then anything elses I can think of, PLEASE upload them!!

Ok here's the m2t clip that I sent chris I think My Idisk is working. We're off tomorrow so I may be able to pull some of the clips from the past few days. we shot some fun stuff, I jsut don't want to put out too much stuff before they edit it.

http://homepage.mac.com/edgefox/FileSharing11.html

Nick,

Thanks very much for your update - I'm downloading as I type.

Can you please send the details about the clip (60i, 24F, etc), mini35?, what type of lens/focal length, etc?

Will look forward to future mini35 clips with the H1 as any/all have them available.

Thanks very much,

Shawn

Ok here's the m2t clip that I sent chris I think My Idisk is working. We're off tomorrow so I may be able to pull some of the clips from the past few days. we shot some fun stuff, I jsut don't want to put out too much stuff before they edit it.

http://homepage.mac.com/edgefox/FileSharing11.html


Thanks Nick. What were your settings. It appears to have gain up.

I see the dead pixel. YUCK! Keep us up to date on that.

pappas

Nick,

Your movie looks scarry already!

Who is that guy about to stab with those knives?? he seems freaked out like he's about to go kill some zombies that he just watched eat his girlfriend or something! *smile*

I can't wait to see it color corrected. The high-Shutter speed got me trippin' like I'm watching 28 days later (without the grit). The very first feature ever made with the Canon XL-H1. Distribution is guaranteed! *smile*

- ShannonRawls.com

I think that's my issue with the groundglass on the mini 35, there was NO gain at all on this, it's just thick grain, I think P+S needs to come out with HDV ground glass to keep it from being too big. We were shooting at around 1/120th in 24F on the mini 35 with an 85mm zeiss superspeed set at 1.3T.

Shannon, you're somewhat right in your guess. But it's not my job to promote the movie, however it definitely has a 28 days' later feel. (I hope the distribution is guaranteed as well!)

I'll post my full opinions on this shortly, but right now I need sleep.

I think that's my issue with the groundglass on the mini 35, there was NO gain at all on this, it's just thick grain, I think P+S needs to come out with HDV ground glass to keep it from being too big. We were shooting at around 1/120th in 24F on the mini 35 with an 85mm zeiss superspeed set at 1.3T.

Shannon, you're somewhat right in your guess. But it's not my job to promote the movie, however it definitely has a 28 days' later feel. (I hope the distribution is guaranteed as well!)

I'll post my full opinions on this shortly, but right now I need sleep.

Nick all I can find on the P+S website is that there are 0 - 8 speed settings for the oscillation movement on the glass - because you are shooting at twice the normal shutter speed for 60i cameras and 2.5 times the normal shutter speed for film, I would suggest you would have to run it close to maximum speed in order to avoid freezing the grain in your image,which could account for the problems. Also the more you stop down the relay lens, the more obvious the grain pattern.

John, maybe it's a problem with our unit but we're running at full speed (8) and wide open (1) on the mini 35, I'm not really sure what else we can change. Could it be the fast shutter speed makes the grain more pronounced? I'll try and post some 1/48 stuff soon.

Could it be the fast shutter speed makes the grain more pronounced?
Absolutely! Nick dammit, you know better then to even ask that question.....don't you?? The high shutter speed is going to catch the ground glass/relay lens in the mini35 much easier then if you were at 1/48th. Just like it catches water droplets when filming water gushing from a hose or pouring from a glass. Nick are you drunk again? *smile*

I am sure P+S is working on an update. They are advertising the XL-H1 on their website, so I hope they are prepared for people having concerns like this. I was considering buying one, because I hate renting them. But I won't if it can't handle HD.

- ShannonRawls.com

Hi Nick,


If it were me I would scrap the mini 35 and go with either a 16x or 14x manual lens. I guess it would be to late though. I hated that ground glass look many years ago when it first came out, and I hate it today...

Nick where is your sharpness setting, it appears to high. If it's at 0 you should go down between -3 to - 6. If its down, go a little lower then. The hyping on edges is to extreme. If it's for effect, still lower it. you can always add the hyping look back in post. I like to shoot for a clean and healthy neg or digital master and then F%#& it up in post all I want......


pappas

I think that's my issue with the groundglass on the mini 35, there was NO gain at all on this, it's just thick grain, I think P+S needs to come out with HDV ground glass to keep it from being too big. We were shooting at around 1/120th in 24F on the mini 35 with an 85mm zeiss superspeed set at 1.3T.

Shannon, you're somewhat right in your guess. But it's not my job to promote the movie, however it definitely has a 28 days' later feel. (I hope the distribution is guaranteed as well!)

I'll post my full opinions on this shortly, but right now I need sleep.

I am the owner of the Mini35 rig that is working on this shoot. I have observed the "ground glass" problem that is being talked about here. The problem being described is actually not the ground glass. When the ground glass is spun the grain virtually disappears. Nick is reffering to an addtional frozen grain that appears on top of that. This grain is independent of spinning the glass. Tommorow, if they have a few seconds I am going to try a few experiments to see if we can isolate the problem. I suspect the problem is from the ziess lens (I have discovered a similar problem on a lens with a sky light filter), however I will take my Nikons to set tommorow a try some experiments to see if we can discover the root of the problem.

I have spoken with Guy the engineer at ZGC who told me the ground glass used on the mini35 is the same ground glass used in the pro35, so if this were the problem the pro35 would have similar problems with the big cams.

Michael, I'll check that sharpness setting, maybe that's what's introducing our extra "grain" for some reason I think it's at -1 now but I could be wrong.

I also, did some shooting with XL H1 and mini35. I also experience grain problem. And I also checked it with PS technics technical support, and they told me that high resolution of xl h1 couldn't be a problem with grain, since it the same ground glass is used in pro35, thus used with Cinealta they didn't have problems.

I did a lot of tweaking and finally arrived to some shots that seems to not have grain at all, or at least some grain, which is even nice and gives the shot more filmick look.

So, I thinks it is a matter of experience and experimenting. I will post my clips shortly. and seek your opinion.

But it's the first 1/3 ccd that has this high of res that's like a f900. This might be one reason. Maybe!


I also, did some shooting with XL H1 and mini35. I also experience grain problem. And I also checked it with PS technics technical support, and they told me that high resolution of xl h1 couldn't be a problem with grain, since it the same ground glass is used in pro35, thus used with Cinealta they didn't have problems.

I did a lot of tweaking and finally arrived to some shots that seems to not have grain at all, or at least some grain, which is even nice and gives the shot more filmick look.

So, I thinks it is a matter of experience and experimenting. I will post my clips shortly. and seek your opinion.

But it's the first 1/3 ccd that has this high of res that's like a f900. This might be one reason. Maybe!


Well, ok, it is first 1/3 ccd, but resolution is resolution, and I don't think that grain has anything to do with the size of the ccd.

Other than that, I did a lot of experimenting, and now I achieved pretty nice pictures with mini35. I don't seen any grain, at least not more than film has. Actually, I think some grain that stayed make it look much better and more filmik. So, if any of you can share web space, I could upload them and you could watch. I am also looking for some web space myself and whenever I'll have it I will let you know. Meanwhile I do some more shooting with it, and I think even improve the picture quality, as my experience with mini35 gets broader.

Well, from what I see now on my 23 inch apple HD monitor, picture is great, everybody thought it was shoot on 35mm.

I use, Canon K series aspherical superspeed cinema lenses.

Levan,

Email Chris Hurd - he has been most helpful and generous in finding host space for test footage. I'm sure we'd all love to see your tests - most certainly myself.

I'm very interested in acquiring an H1, with a strong wish to use it with one of my mini35's. If you have any footage of the H1/mini35 with zeiss superspeeds in 60i and 24f modes, it would be incredible.

Thanks again,
Shawn

Chris is on the road this week (MacWorld), so I don't think he is going to be able to help right now...plus we are all taking so much more of our time lately to keep the flamers, trolls, profanity, and off-topic rants under control we have little time left for moving forward with interesting new content -- WHY, OH WHY can't everyone just respect the DVIinfo POLICY? (http://www.dvinfo.net/network/policy.php)

When he can, I'm sure Chris will respond about whether or not he can host some clips, but it might be a while.

Well, ok, it is first 1/3 ccd, but resolution is resolution, and I don't think that grain has anything to do with the size of the ccd.

Are you using "grain" as a synonym for "noise"? Smaller sensors imply smaller pixels (assuming same pixel count) which typically have more noise than sensors with larger pixels (assuming similar sensor technology). That is why P&S digicams with very small sensors have considerably more noise than 35mm SLR digicams with full-frame sensors.

Best,
Christopher

Are you using "grain" as a synonym for "noise"? Smaller sensors imply smaller pixels (assuming same pixel count) which typically have more noise than sensors with larger pixels (assuming similar sensor technology). That is why P&S digicams with very small sensors have considerably more noise than 35mm SLR digicams with full-frame sensors.

Best,
Christopher


Well, what I mean is, the grain that is on the Ground glass. The first time I connected my xl h1 to mini35 and shot something, and then watched it on the monitor, I thought that I just lost $12000 which I payed for mini35. Because, you could actually see the ground class over the image, and you could even detect the movement of the ground glass. It was terrible. Then I called PS technics, and they explained to me that it couldn't be because of the resolution of the camera, rather it was from me not having experience. They told me some tips, and I applied them. Every next shot I did was improved over the last one, in terms of grain. Yesterday, I did some shots, and I achieved such a clean image (in terms of grain) that I even didn't like it, since usually film also has grain. From what I wrote here, I am not sure if I am confusion the right terminology of "noise" and "grain", but my understanding is that noise is something that is produced with video cameras in low light situations, and grain is actually the ground glass stucture, that can be seen.

So I hope that unswered the question. Also, I was promised a free web space, and I hope I will be able to post the clips shortly.

And I will post all of the new ones also.

Hi Levan, I too have a mini 35 and am having grain issues with my XLH1. Could you let me konw what they said about reducing the grain.

Thanks Martin

Here is the file you can download. It is an indoor shot as you will see, with a lot of dark areas in the picture. And in times the guy goes out of the focus. This is because, I have noticed that outdoor shots with a lot of light, have no problem with grain (also I have daylight shots, but there is not enough space to upload all), also grain tends to appear on darker parts of the image, and also when something in the picture is out of focus. So, I tried to solve that problem, so see for yourself, I think I overdid it, because now I think it is very clean, I think some more grain might not harm the picture.

I will be waiting for your comments.

so I am not sure if I write the link correctly but I uploaded the file to: http://209.82.46.115/H1+mini35.mov

It will take about 5 more hours to upload. so be patient.

Levan,

Do you have the ability to upload the original .m2t file by chance?

Thanks,
Shawn

To redeem myself (a little at least) I want to clarify that when I say "fast shutter speed" I'm talking about 1/90 typically. And to be honest, I didn't notice the groundglass when shooting at a SUPER fast shutter speed like 1/3000. So while I agree that it definitely effects what happens on the ground glass and in fron of the lens, I don't think that in my case it was the problem. The majority problem that Dan and I noticed was there was some non moving grain, which could be digital noise in dark scenes but there is also something there in the highlights as well.

in the p+s forum people were talking about perhaps the relay lens could be at fault, I'm not sure I really understand this but hey these are people who would know better then I.

Well, I don't have the mt2 files at all. I captured directly in FCP. I don't have web space, or I have bunch of clips I could share.

Dennis has gave me some ftp adress, (thanks Dennis) but I have some problems with uploading.

But I promise by the end of tomorrow I will have some space on idisk.mac.com

OK.. so I just tested my XL-h1 against the Sony, the JVC and a Panasonic Varicam.

I am not going to go in to a bunch of detail here.. but

Varicam beats them all, on all fronts....but not by a lot. Certainly not $90,000 better.

JVC had better color rendition than Canon and Sony... a lot better than Sony, not all that much better than Canon.

Canon was the sharpest, followed by JVC and Sony a distant 3rd.

The guy who owned the JVC couldn't stop talking about how awesome the Canon XL-h1 was.

then... we put P+S Technic Mini 35 on the Canon XL-h1.

I have shot with this adapter before, so I know what to do... unless someone else has a trick for me that I don't know... I could not get the spinning center of the ground glass to disappear. Just for grins, I switched over to SD and guess what???? It disappeared. I suppose I could try to soften the image coming out of the camera, but that would be defeating the purpose. I think I'll stick with the 20x lens for now.

I was extremely happy with the results of the test head to head with all the cameras we had there. It was a rather unfair test though... We decided to use the best possible "out" on all cameras... so the Canon image was HD-SDI out.. the others, were composite. Doh!

Chüc

I think that's my issue with the groundglass on the mini 35, there was NO gain at all on this, it's just thick grain, I think P+S needs to come out with HDV ground glass to keep it from being too big. We were shooting at around 1/120th in 24F on the mini 35 with an 85mm zeiss superspeed set at 1.3T.

Shannon, you're somewhat right in your guess. But it's not my job to promote the movie, however it definitely has a 28 days' later feel. (I hope the distribution is guaranteed as well!)

I'll post my full opinions on this shortly, but right now I need sleep.

I had this problem too on my HD100/Mini35 shoots.

I've decided I'm probably NOT going to use the Mini35 again with HDV. Too much grain, in addition to the fact that if you use any sort of Cinegamma that depresses the mids, you wind up with something like 50ASA!

[edit: actually, the gaffer on the last shoot I did with it rated it at 32 ASA]

Nate, yeah our gaffer put the adapter et. all at around 50 asa which seems about right as the f900 is about 320-400 asa, and this is 1 1/2 stops slower with the regular lens, and then another 1 1/2 stops or so with the adapter. I should check my math but that puts it at around 50 asa.

I'm still not completely convinced that there isn't a way to get the excessive grain out. Right now it seems like the trick is to-

stop down to -3 gain.
drop sharpness to -9
raise coring to 9
turn NR2 on (as needed)

light for 50asa
use some fast lenses
and have the ground glass spinning at 8 and the iris of the unit open to 1

Anyone else have suggestions?

JVC had better color rendition than Canon and Sony... a lot better than Sony, not all that much better than Canon.
Did you guys tweak the settings on the Canon or just leave it in the center? Remember, there are 12 color adjustments that you can make to enhance the colors, not including the skin detail which has another 4. But you gotta give it up to JVC....it makes a nice picture out the box.

THanks for that Mini35 comparison of SD & HD. To see it in HD and to not see it in SD means allot. THis proves Graeme & Barrys theory on how a 1/3" lens needs almost double the resolving power of a larger 2/3" or film lens needs.

Anybody have a 3x wide "AND" a 16x manual to sell?

- ShannonRawls.com

[QUOTE=Shannon Rawls]Did you guys tweak the settings on the Canon or just leave it in the center?

Hi Shannon,

Both the Canon and the JVC were at their default settings. The look was really close and I think even I could tweak both cameras to match each other... BTW... 30F looks better than 24f... we did the comparison with the Canon H1 on 30F.

We also figured out that 130 min. of uncompressed video would take a terabyte. Whew! That's a lot, but it looks awesome.

Chüc

I had this problem too on my HD100/Mini35 shoots.

I've decided I'm probably NOT going to use the Mini35 again with HDV. Too much grainFrom HDV?

Or from the 720p resolution?

Or from the HD100's noise? (other noiseless cam will it present better results?)

Or even from the combo: lens + 35mm adapter itself?

A terabyte for just 130mins? - And there was me thinking my little desktop PC with 580GB had just enough memory to work with the 50-hours of MiniDv tapes that I'm trying to edit at the moment...! It's a good job that I didn't film the project using the H1, or I'd be searching for a mega 25 Terabyte hard drive...

130 mins. of uncompressed

A terabyte for just 130mins? - And there was me thinking my little desktop PC with 580GB had just enough memory to work with the 50-hours of MiniDv tapes that I'm trying to edit at the moment...! It's a good job that I didn't film the project using the H1, or I'd be searching for a mega 25 Terabyte hard drive...

It's a good job that I didn't film the project using the H1, or I'd be searching for a mega 25 Terabyte hard drive...

HDV is smaller then DV. So your 580 megs would be fine.

- ShannonRawls.com

"...580 megs would be fine..."

Don't you mean that my 580 Gigabytes will be fine...not megs?

I obviously need to read up more on the editing needs of the H1. I was under the impression that the H1 needed more Hard Drive memory space for editing the raw files, than is needed for editing and working on raw (XL1s/Xl2) DV Avi files (prior to final compression to mpeg for DVD burn).

So, Shannon, are you saying that my home PC with Pentium 4 CPU 3.00Ghz, 1GB Ram, with combined 280GB internal hard drive & 300GB external connected hard drive, will be enough to cope with editing many hours of footage taken with the H1?
If the answer is yes, then that will be good news.

yes, I meant GigaBytes
and
yes, your 280GB & 300GB drive would handle roughly fifty(50) hours of HDV from any HDV camera (including the XL-H1), easily.

- ShannonRawls.com

Thanks Shannon.

I know the other link didn't work. So, here are my shots of H1+mini35 in work. I have only 3 clips at the moment, and some new ones are being added.

http://homepage.mac.com/sarke/FileSharing3.html

It is only indoor, some outdoor shots will be added shortly.

Thanks for the uploads.

I'm having trouble playing the .Mov's on a PC. I have Quicktime installed, but apparently I don't have the correct codec.

Can you please tell me what I need to play these back on a PC?

Canopus Procoder suggests that the codec is HDV 1080i50. Perhaps I don't have a quicktime PAL codec? Frame rate is 25, vid frame 1920x1080.

Any advice is most appreciated.

Thanks,
Shawn

Honestly I don't know. If you tell me what codec you can playback, I could do the conversion for you.

Let me know.

Oh, and yest it is HDV 1080i50. This is how I capture in FCP.

Thank you Levan, I appreciate so much your contribution but is it possible to convert them to wmv or m2t (better yet) to PC users?

that would be mpeg4 right?

I don't know! It's like these Kaku's files:
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=52110

It plays very well!

Or like Run Dan Run from Nick Hiltgen (page 3), it plays OK at PC side.

BTW, the noticeable luma noise from the other Nick's clip that you can see here: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showpost.php?p=410127&postcount=56

-- does it appear at your footage?

And what about the combination between softness (I like it!) from the Run Dan Run's clip and the XL-H1's sharpness? Is it promising to 35mm film-out work? I hope so!

If you purchased XL-H1, do you prefer it rather the other russian camera that you thought to buy (I'm not sure if you bought it or not) ?

ok, I just uploaded the new file, please download it and if it plays well, I will convert all of them the same way.

Thank you! By now I'm on dial-up but I already begin to download it: 2 hours!... But if it works I can go to my office where I have broadband for to download the others after your upload of the remaining PC compatible files.

thanks Levan!






Michael Pappas
Arrfilms@hotmail.com
PappasArts & Arrfilms Main site

CONTACT VIA AOL INSTANT MESSENGER
AT { PAPPASARTS2 }


XLH1 and HVX200 frame grabs and news here:
http://www.pbase.com/Arrfilms

http://www.PappasArts.com
http://www.Myspace.com/

OK! It runs at vlc (at quicktime, it plays slower and softer) but not so smoothly as the Kaku's files, for instance, here:
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=52110

Or like Run Dan Run from Nick Hiltgen (page 3), it plays perfectly at PC side.

Are you sure that it's not possible to get a m2t conversion?

Well, m2t or not I'll be waiting for the remaining files at PC side. Thank you!

Regarding this file, I see compression artifacts at left of the screen, is it from the mpeg4 conversion right? And it seems a little bit soft, is it from the Mini35 device?

I appreciate to have these answers because as you I'd like work with this specific solution and I'm worried if it goes well or not...