I got my "european" PAL XL-H1 yesterday - so far so good. Unpacked everything hooked up the cam and captured straight into vegas.

And there they are - HUGE magenta and green borders between black and white surfaces (black frame of my monitor to white wall in the background - black chair to white wall...)

Is there any chance to avoid that -
Is that normal or is this very extreme with my cam??? -
or in other words - can i go to the canon support and they can fix that or at least make it a little better? - .... pretty chaotic thoughts going on in my head...

Links to some still pics:
(Settigs doesent matter / appears in all modes with all settings so far)
http://www.actimation.com/fileadmin/xlh1_1.jpg
http://www.actimation.com/fileadmin/xlh1_2.jpg

Holy @#%# Yea thats not a good sign, take that thing in man.

Given the relatively balanced bounced light you have set up for the demo shots, this amount of C.A. seems to be excessive. It would be quite revealing to see a side by side with 2 H1s.

I sure hope the Canon optics aren't on a path toward this ugly malaise such as has been seen with other manufacturers.

http://www.canon.com/bctv/faq/chrab.html

I took the cam out to shoot some trees and stuff - the same amount of purple and green fringing - THIS SUCKS - sorry but - THIS SUCKS!!!

Am I really the first and only one who got this problem?

What do you think are this pink and green horrible thick borders from the lens or from the chip?

I really hope that canon sees this extreme CA as an issue and not an "NORMAL" amount - if this is what this cam does i really regred that i bought one...

Anybody any idea - did i miss something - some setting or firmware upgrade?

*feeling heavily depressed*

Have look, most abberation of the HDV cams. But also best resolution and Low-light. I Also experienced som CA behind black surface and borders.

http://www.videoaktiv.de/text.php?pos=|36|125&nav_id=125

All the Best // Jonas

Michael, definitely the sample you've posted look akward. I have not noticed anything similar with my XL H1.

To remove the possibility that the problem is created somewhere after taking the footage (say by the codec of your edit system), download the Console program from Canon US pages. Then store footages directly to the hard disk, and check with Console preview whether the magenta and green borders are there.

If the borders are still there, then try different kind of adjustments of the custom presents (the Console gives you a preview of different adjustments) to check how they affect the image. Although Im not able to say where this effect is generated, would not be surprised if you had to (and are able to) finetune your camera to get a satisfactory output.

Lauri - Didn't you say in a earlier post that experienced AC on 20X at wide? How did you get rid of these?

Anyway you can try this with a different lens? Your right though, it sucks. Keep us posted.

Might be worth a try to do a manual back-focus, if you haven't already done so.

Michael,

What program did yo run these image clips through?
I'm trying to reproduce the problem with my XL-H1, but I am not getting the same results as you.

Can we have some snapshots that come directly from the camera to take a look at? I'd like to see the raw unaltered images and try and setup the same shot here at my office.

The EXIF data on these images indicate these photos are not directly from a Canon XL-H1.

- ShannonRawls.com

Thanks for all the help!

I tracked it down:

It's all on the left side in the image (as seen by the audience). If an object is in the middle or on the right side CA is ok in the middle its pretty good - on the right side there is a visible green border but still acceptable.

BUT then there is this *&%#% left side of the image (with the lens at full wide angle) - horrible a thick mangenta border on the right side of the object and a not so but still pretty thick green border on right side... *snief*
it gets better if i zoom in but still way too much magenta for my taste - hopefully for canon too and not just for me!

I did FB at Auto will do it manualy too right now - downloaded and used the console programm for the tests - Some of these days...

Here are the links to direct (photo function) captures of the problem - thanks shanon for the hint.

http://actimation.com/fileadmin/xlh1_a.JPG
http://actimation.com/fileadmin/xlh1_b.JPG
http://actimation.com/fileadmin/xlh1_c.JPG

it is a little better now - fb adustments and so
BUT i'am still afraid of turning the saturation up ... there is this ugly huge magenta monster waiting just right next to the edge of this suspicious scarf...

In the DVX boards I also addressed my concerns for CA/"purple fringing", I used cropped copies of the sample frame grabs captured by the 4 cam shootout as examples.
HERE ARE THE IMAGES (http://www.dvxuser.com/V3/showpost.php?p=416160&postcount=101). IMO, when compared to one another in this set of cirumstances, the H1 performed the best. Not too far behind were the Z1 and HD100, and then the HVX exhibited the most amount of CA, very heavy around the light source.
Unfortunately, this particular entry on the HVX boards didn't really get much of a response, and neither did a previous entry from another test. I think it's a sensitive subject or something, maybe it's just not important on the small screen, I don't know.
Thanks for your post Michael.

Lauri - Didn't you say in a earlier post that experienced AC on 20X at wide? How did you get rid of these?

Jonas, yes, but I have not seen myself anything as bad as Michael's example. Second -not sure this is right- but have an impression, once I got the colors fine tuned, the problem diminished. (I'll test this) Still, the wide end is where CA seems to appear.

Michael -- were these shots at full telephoto? If at 100% telephoto it wouldn't be too worrisome. But if this is happening at 1/3 of the way through the zoom range, then you might want to take it to your dealer and ask to see another lens.

If it's on one side of the picture only or prefferentially it is not chromatic aberration. CA manifests itself by red or blue fringing on the outside or inside (depending on whether the lens is over or undercorrected) of a circle centered on the center of the image. The simplest way to detect CA is to transfer the image to a program like photoshop and to toggle between the red and blue and green images. If the red or blue image is bigger or smaller than the green i.e. if the picture appears to grow or shrink when you select one of these then you are seing CA. I've measured CA on the H1 and found it to fall on the boudary between low and moderate with the latter meaning that it is detectable on a large blowup of the image.

I don't know what is plaguing Michael's images but I don't think it's CA. It could be "bloom" in which some of the light from a highly exposed pixel splashes over to a pixel in a dark region. I must say that overall I don't think the pictures he posted are as sharp as they should be for an XL-H1. I think checkout by Canon is in order.

a problem like this was described to me as possible misalignment of the sensors. i agree with the bring it to canon philosophy.

vince

I threw this together real quick and updated my post at DVX.
Both show the consistency of this heavy CA anomaly. LINK HERE (http://www.dvxuser.com/V3/showpost.php?p=416160&postcount=101)

I'm in process of capturing about 40 hours of XL2 material from tape to hard disk, and found today the following kind of image (be aware, it's 16:9 but resolution is still 720x576)

www.luontovideo.net/ca-example.tif

Although it's not taken with XL H1, the effect seems to be bit like Michael's example. Especially, the magenta color appears in the footage when the image is not in focus. Still, this is the only footage where I've found such an effect.

Thanks to all off you!

I will do a lot more testing tomorrow - and i will post all results here on this forum.

I have to say that i really like this cam - if only this magenta will go away... if it was a shift to the blue i would not mind that much but magenta is so obvious in most cases...

I played with this horizontal vertical detail frequenze settings - they seem to help - does anybody know anything about them?

Last question for today: is there a test chart for A3 (not A4) that i can print out?

i know this question was asked elsewhere but if you could give me any link for a good chart or just some chart you want to see...

Thanks!

Maybe this problem is worse on PAL cameras because I have seen nothing of the sort from either my XL2 or the XLH I have been using.



ash =o)

I did some more testing the whole day! - I tried to get it as worse as im able to - here is the result:

http://www.actimation.com/fileadmin/xlh1test.jpg

Please look at the different channels!
On the Red channel there is a thick red line around the edge
On the Green channel there is a pure black line around the edge
On the Blue channel it seems ok ... at least nearly or?

Some ideas from what it could be - could it be from the pixel shift and a wron offset or some sort of sharpening or what - seems pretty much a problem of the compression or the processing to me (dont think this is from the lense).

What do you think - any clue? I will bring it to canon tomorrow but like i said before support in Austria is very poor and so i have to nail it down as much as possible!

it looks like the green channel is moved to the right. it's allowing the red in nearly full. on the right edge of the right monitor the green is clearly offest into the white back ground. they have to fix that. i tried to replcate it today and couldn't.

good luck

vince

i had a similar problem with my xl-2 it turned out to be delamination of one of the sensors, canon have a policy where they replace the camera if there is a fault in the first 14 days (here in australia anyway) looking at the pictures i would bet u have the same problem, i would contact canon asap

regards, anthony mcfadden

Talked to canon today - there is no replacement for austria and none for germany - there is one in switzerland ... ???

Probably they replace it anyway because i talked to bruxelles today and i think they are smart enough to replace this unit... hopefully


Do you really think this is just an offset of one of the sensores - i personally dont think so because there is a thick black border in the green channel and a thick white border in the red channel - the blue channel seems to be ok!

For me this is some sort of signal processing error where they try to get sharpness or extra resolution for the cam - maybe it is from this pixel shift thing and the integration is set too aggressively - otherwise the whole picture would have a shift and not just a black border appearing next to borders between black and white or dark and light horizontal borders in the red and green channel only... or am i missing something here - strangly this phenomenom is most visible on just one side the right side of the cam... ?

Is someone here who has a lot of knowledge in terms of signal processing or how pixel shift gets realised - is the pixel shift in the canon horizontal or vertical?

Thanks again for any help - btw. canon is watching this forum too :)

Michael, this really sucks, specially that you seem to be the only user of this cam having this problem. The bright side of that is you being the only one around here means this shouldn't be there, so you have good chances of replacing the camera. In the worst case you can still work around it, depending on what you do with the camera. What's the type of production you use the camera for by the way?

michael,

i just showed this to an engineer friend of mine with no knowledge of the specific camera and the first thing he said was it was a registration problem. A misalignment that maybe mechanical, maybe electronic.

he says he's 99% sure it is not from CA. He also suggested you get it back to canon if you have not already.

HTH

Vince

Horrible Support from Canon in Austria...

- No exchange of the cam.
- No technician to talk to
- No direct Support from canon


It sucks - it stinks - and i think i will sell my XL-H1 and go the panasonic route.

I called canon they told me the whole service in Austria for the video cams is done by an external company called teletek - I called teletek and asked if i can speak with an technician there too show him the pictures before he gets the cam AND send him all information we already found out. They told me i have to have an professional number to talk to the technician? "But where do i get such a number from?" i asked - "From canon" they say...
Called canon again - technician i already talked too - he was not reachable...
Got a call from teletek - they told me that even if i had such a number it is not possible to talk to a technician because i would have to pay for that hour by my self even with this professional number because this number is only valid for slr cams...

So if i had bought an slr for about 3000.- EUR I would have "professional" support ... If i buy an 9000 EUR camcorder i have to pay an hour if i want a simple phone call with an technician helping him with soving the problem...

What options do i have?

A) bring it in: If i bring it in i am not sure if they repair it, probably they tell me the cam is working ok - who knows? nobody wants too see the error before.

B) Ask the shop where i bought it for another one - looooong waiting times

C) Sell mine and buy a panasonic

D) Nagging Canon again and again...

Wait ... i get a phone call right now ....

AND There it is! : while im writing this a technician from canon called me and told me that he is sorry for thath but the stupid teletek isnt smart enought to distinguish between professional and the comsummer area - a technician from teletek will call me soon - this kind of support is simply not installed in austria for pro camcorders... yet

Stay tuned...

I keep you informed - Thanks for all the repilies

Michael, you know that in EU the consumer has some rights as well. You've bought an equipment which seems to have some faults, and according to the EU rules you have a right to get it fixed or get the product changed.

I would advice you to contact the Canon headquaters in Austria (call the Austrian salesmanager) or the European headquaters, which I think is in Holland where Canon seems to have all the European store. If nothing else works out, why not contact the Canon headquaters in Japan?

Michael,

your report really, really scares the hell out of me. I am in Austria, Vienna as well, and I am really interested in this cam.

I just got a call from a Canon rep who said I might be able to test a model over the next weekend. And I am quite sure that I will like it.

But I am afraid that when I say, ok, I order one, they will give me a new box and the cam inside that box will have the same problems as your's. (Maybe here in Austria we get the sub-standard goods that did not pass for the US, who knows :P )

If support is really as bad as you describe, I am also concerned about lit/dead pixels that will occur over time. Normally it should be a simple mapping out process (at least on JVC/Pana it is that way) in one of the cam's menus. But if it is impossible to even reach a technical person here and I have to send the cam to Germany or wherever it will take weeks till I will get it back.

Btw, here is a res-chart you can print that should show your problems better than the office shots you made so far.

http://fabforce.net/various/ISO_12233-reschart.pdf

If I get the cam for this weekend I can offer you to meet so we can do comparison shots that will outline that you have a defective model and get a new one.

I really hope this works out for you.
Jack

p.s.: It costs 600 Euros to enable NTSC in the PAL model. Once enabled, one can switch between 50i / 60i / 24F / 25F / 30F.

The story goes on ...

The technician from teletek called me - he was pretty friendly apologized for the previous phone call where this secretary or whatever told me that i cant talk to a technician - made sure thath i send him the material and promised that he will repair the cam quickly!

so far so good... - an hour later - got a call from teletek:

this secretary is on the line very upset that canon called and made a complaint about her that she had sad that teletek would not repair the cam...

Come on i never sad that too anyone at canon - i said that i dont belive they are able to repair it and i would like to get another unit quickly - BUT i sad to canon that teletek did not allow me to speek with the technician who will repair my cam - and this is exatly what this secretary told me...

Where on earth am I? I thought i live in the heard of europe but in terms of hd and support it feels more like somewhere near the pole caps.

Hey Jack: THANKS A LOT! I will use this chart to test the cam - im posting the pictures here! - I think i will send the cam with dpd to vienna tomorrow and i am in london this weekend so no chance of meeting now , but i think a week after there should be a good chance (will send you a mail)

I will ask teletek if they can enable me the ntsc modes too - curios how much they will charge for that

Next time I'd provide a link to forums like this and let the corporation decide how they should treat their customers in the future. The influence of the internet is powerful tool, but only if wielded properly.

I'd love to see the resultant images when you get that camera back from the shop.

I hope all goes well.

I got a new cam from canon! - Hurray i thought - but when the cam came it was pretty dirty - A new? cam dirty? I thought it was used so i wrote exactly that to teletek. The answer was thath they got it directly from canon so it has to be new... - but still this dirt is strange - What do you think?

So i tested the new cam - every setting factory default except the color gain setting pushed to the max to see any ca as good as possible. - AND THERE THEY ARE : PURPLE AND GREEN MONSTERS - Ok so is it just me or is this normal? Here is a clip - compressed with divx but looks VERY! much like the original! (It feels a bit softer than the original but is still close enough to judge the ca!) PLEASE HELP: IS THIS NORMAL?!?!

The Link to the File:
http://www.actimation.com/fileadmin/newxlh1.avi

DESPERATION is spreading in my mind...

Michael, check the serial number to see if it is the same one you sent back. Also, if the serial is a lower number than the first one, you can assume that something suspicious has happened since H1's wouldn't be sitting on the shelf during the first month of shipping.

Sorry, the whopping 400MB file won't play on my everyday computer for some reason; will try later on my editing box.

Thanks Pete for the quick answer! So - no its a new modell and a new lens both serial numbers are much higher... so i guess its a newer one.

If anybody would look at the file - would be sooo great - probably this amount of ca is normal - i mean color gain is set to max +9 so you can see ca stronger but still for my taste its a lot! - The file is mpg4 so you will need divx or xvid to play it back.

Thanks for any suggestions and opinions!

Looks normal only if the iris is wide open.If it is try satting it between 4 - 9 and it should be a lot better.

Michael,

Just curious, why did you max out the color preset. According to your original post you filmed right out of the box, assuming the default settings. How does it look with the default presents and preferably the same subject and lighting. Is the CA still there?

Michael,

I guess the CA can be considered "normal". I had a XL H1 from Canon Professional Support over the weekend and also experienced some CA.

http://fabforce.net/various/CA_left.png
http://fabforce.net/various/CA_right.png

It is not too bad in normal footage, but still noticeable.

Jack

Thanks a lot for the replys. - I turned up the gain because the ca is more obvious then. - I dont have a huge problem with normal footage but if i have to color grade it and need a look with very saturated colours then it starts to get annoying. Sure with very very carefull color grading you can work around but thats a lot of work...

I have too take the file offline - sorry but my bandwith is limited too.

Have just got my PAL canon xl H1 and am experiencing very similar purple/green borders to Michael was experiencing.

Anyone else got this/or found a way to seriously reduce this?

Many thanks in advance.

It appears that almost all HD cameras/lenses exhibit some CA. High Definition magazine ran some tests on a range of broadcast quality HD lenses from Canon and Fujinon that cost between $30,000 and $60,000 and they all produced noticable amounts of CA. The magazine article concluded that the manufacturers are usure as to whether the CA is caused by the lens or the camera optical block or a combination of both. Ther is a frame grab from one of the above lenses here:

http://www.definitionmagazine.com/fringing/

Given that the H1 plus lens cost a mere fraction of any of the lenses tested in the above feature I really wouldn't get too hung up about it. Much of it is down to the fact that the H1 is the first low cost HD camcorder with the resolution to actually show up the CA. Take a close look at the Z1, HC1, HD100 or HVX200 and they all exhibit CA.

And there they are - HUGE magenta and green borders between black and white surfaces (black frame of my monitor to white wall in the background - black chair to white wall...)


I've seen this too, but not so terribly obvious. I've had it happen to me at full-wide and telephoto with some CA, probably pumped up because I like to shoot Cinegamma 2 with +2 color gain.

I'm going to contact Canon about this. It's got to be rectified. Whether it's the lens or a problem with the prisms, it's got to be fixed.

I LOVE this camera, but it's something that's there and has to be addressed. I am going to post some shots I have where this is occurring. I'm also going to shoot more to see if it's a temporary or constant aberration.

Canon, there will be a storm of high-decibel complaints if this isn't addressed or acknowledged soon.

This should be approached in the same manner (expedient fix) that Canon employed with the old vertical lines issue in the original XL1.

You have to consider that if this is a permanent problem it limits your ability to control saturation...specifically to pump the colors. Your client may ask you to do this while monitoring, and be very unhappy with the results if given a scene with subjects that have very high contrasting edges.

I saw it in my trampoline SDI footage and it's problematic, for sure.

If it can't be fixed in a $50,000 lens it is unlikely that it can be fixed in a $4000 one. There are laws of physics that have to be dealt with here. In a couple of quickie experiments I found the CA to be less than a pixel at the edges of the frame. This is actually quite good. Images from this camera are not intended to be viewed close up enough that you can see the pixels. It's for movies and TV, not the cover of National Geographic.

Well, the effect I saw was pretty strong so it has me a little worried, but not monumentally.

Point taken, but I'm still concerned. What I've seen almost looked like a problem with the prism block, but I certainly can't say with even a whiff of expertise. The girls jumping on the trampoline have a bit of a "halo" of green and purple when you inspect it closely. I did shoot with a + 2 color gain and Cinegamma 2, so that might have contributed, plus I was fully wide.

Are we dealing with a serious problem or a mild CA issue?

I guess my big worry is I am shooting a feature on Thursday with this camera. I love the image we are getting but I want to know will this 'CA' destroy the saleabitiy of the project. I have posted some grabs from FCP . We had to shoot 50i to get it on to the computer for the moment but a KONA is coming. Barlow did your fringing happen in 24f as well.I can't get that onto my computer to look yet. I only have a 9 inch 400 lines monitor right now. HDlink card for 24 inch dell is still on the way. As we speak I am planning to get up and drive the 4 hours to selling company to do an eyeball test with their demo gear.


Images posted at:
http://homepage.mac.com/thefeature/FileSharing2.html

Barlow I just looked at your slo mo trampoline again. Have a look at the trees on the right. That green fringe is what I am getting. Whoah that's bad. On the other hand the slow mo is great.

Hi David,

Oh yeah, it's there. I think I might have heightened it by adding a +2 color gain. I put up the CarlosDiego clip and it's ever so slight, but I think it's there too.

www.homepage.mac.com/mrbarlowelton

I think you're fine overall, but you might want to shoot flat for maximum latitude in post. Man, the CA would be the least of your concerns if the content's there. My low light footage has been phenomenal. You saw the "misc.Sundance2 clip", no CA. I have lit shots at slight tele that don't have the issue at all, and I bet a lot of your CU's will be max tele, if your going to use the 20x lens.

I think my advice would be to not push the color at full wide-angle. That's where I've seen the issue under specific circumstances.

It could be that the H1 is so damn sharp that it can't help but to have a little CA. I do know that it pixel shifts to achieve a full raster 1920x1080 SDI output...probably with the green pixels, so that might be contributing to the problem in some way.

David, I wouldn't worry so much. You'll get beautiful results, just watch for obvious contrasts (dark foregroud object, white background) and check for the anomaly. I doubt you're going to have any showstopping problems.

It just occured to me that everyone concerned over this issue ought to turn on the color bars, record them to tape and capture a frame. I've posted a frame at http://www.pbase.com/agamid/image/53638038 for those who want to see immediately what to expect. The point is that there are pixel (or more) wide transition zones between color bars. These clearly do not involve the lens as no lens is used but are rather artifacts related to the way in which color information is sampled and encoded. Could it be this that we are talking about in this thread?

As has been touched on before, most lenses exhibit CA to some degree and with these 1/3" sensors the problem will be magnified greatly. If you think about how much a set of digiprimes go for *and* even they probably aren't high enough resolution to form an HD sized image at 1/3" sensor size.

Even on full frame or APS sized stills sensors you easily get CA, and that's with canon 'L' glass. (it's funny but in the stills world most people are obessive about whether a lens is 'good' or 'bad' and go through many replacements to find one they're happy with, i would imagine the same QA standards apply here too, maybe 2 replacements isn't enough)

In this particular case it's a question of whether it's too much, i appreciate everyone's comments and research as this helps me to work out whether i'll head down the HDV route or skip it.

But to add something constructive (i hope): on a lot of stills/raw processors there are options to help tweak the CA by scaling the RGB channels differently. Isn't there a workflow out there that could be used to help 'reduce' these effects on HDV?

I've always believe the bane of HDV to be optical glass. I really don't see an easy way out of this...

paul

A. J. deLange, I think what you are seeing there is simply the MPEG 4:2:0 compression of HDV. That has nothing to do with CA itself. But it may even enhance the effect.

What I am waiting for is till Canon offers the XL H1 body kit seperately. Then get a G35 (http://www.cinemek.com/) with the new relay lense they are working on and that should be available in a few months.

With this setup CA will be reduced almost totally I think if they make the relay lense right.

Jack