At the risk of appearing, I don't know- like a shameless self-promoter,
I just thought this community might like to hear about a DV movie
that just got 4 stars from USA TODAY and was called
"the HOOP DREAMS of high school football."

I made it with an XL1, at frame movie mode,
and it turned out great.

Nationwide BLOCKBUSTER VIDEO release in January,
or, you can get it (and the reviews and a TRAILER on quicktime)

at

www.TheLastGame.com

Thanks!

T. Patrick Murray

Hate to be the bearer of bad news...none of the links work on the page.

John


Thanks for the news about the site-

We just had a new one put up...

We will fix it today!


Thanks

I went to B&H and saw the JVC HD1 for the first time (never saw an HD10, by the way.) I wasn’t gonna go at first, cause the B&H people said they didn’t even have the camera hooked up to an HD monitor. (never mind the fact that their HDTVs were some twenty feet behind the camera.) Anyway, I stopped in B&H regardless, and saw the HD1 there. I could only look at the image through the camera’s LCD screen, which didn’t really tell me much except for the fact that the camera was obviously true 16:9 and working in progressive mode. So I moved on, and scanned over the cameras that were hooked up to professional monitors, mainly the other prosumer cameras. I gotta say, that PDX10 is sweet, nice image from a strikingly small camera. Then I looked at the DVX100 again, and I was mesmerized by the 24p image coming through the monitor, yup, looks comparable to 16mm, except the whites blowout easier then 16mm. In any case, the DVX100 is definitely king of the prosumer cam hill. So it was time to leave B&H, and low and behold, in a wall mounted glass display, they had the JVC HD1 hooked up to an HDTV LCD screen. The first thing I thought when I saw the image is, “Man! My skin is f@cked up!” I never knew I had so many pock marks and pimples until I saw my face through the JVC HD1 via an HDTV monitor. An old man with slick gray hair even stood in front of me for a bit and I couldn’t believe how fine his hairs were coming through the monitor. (He probably had no idea that a stranger would be looking at his hair roots that day) No question about it, the JVC HD1 is High Def. Now, what I didn’t like, and maybe it was just the HDTV LCD screen itself, was how bad the highlights were blowing out. I gotta say, from what I saw, I didn’t like it. The dynamic range/latitude of this camera looked so bad that it reminded me of those old VHS camcorders, except this VHS like camcorder has High Definition, weird. But, like I said, some of the blown out highlights COULD have been due to the HDTV LCD screen. I don’t like LCD screens at all, by the way, because they do tend to crush blacks and blow out highlights all by themselves. So my conclusion is that I still need to see the JVC HD10 (not the 1) on a CRT HDTV monitor. Also, I believe the HD1 has excessive over sharpening, but if what I saw was just like the HD10, then all those JVC HD Cam people better invest in a good make up artist and A LOT of Black Flags.

"and maybe it was just the HDTV LCD screen itself, was how bad the highlights were blowing out. I gotta say, from what I saw, I didn’t like it. The dynamic range/latitude of this camera"

I agree, that there is a tendency to blow out highlights.

One thing I did notice though, is that this effect is hugely affected by the device you view the image on. Through the vlan player on my computer's lcd, a lot of detail completely washed out in the highlights. However, when viewing the same clip on my HDTV, the effect was much more subtle, even closing in on the margin of being acceptable.

From my experience with the camera, the 3 things you really have to watch and control carefully are focus (the AF is useless), exposure and white balance. All 3 can really be hit or miss and produce massive variances on final image quality- they can be wildly beautiful or downright awful.

General rule of thumb- it is better to slightly underexpose then slightly overexpose.

Experience and patience are probably the 2 best qualities to posess when using this camera.

<<<-- Originally posted by Michael Hyun :

General rule of thumb- it is better to slightly underexpose then slightly overexpose.

Experience and patience are probably the 2 best qualities to posess when using this camera. -->>>

It's funny how exactly opposite this is to shooting film where you can overexpose by several stops without worrying too much and spend the whole day doing run-and-gun shooting with good results. Video, the supposedly more convenient format, requires painstaking control of the lighting and contrast ratios and a lot more setup time in general.

Of course, you get to see the results immediately and you can do 30 takes if you want without worrying too much about how much the media is costing you.

I'm practically counting the days until the next CES. ;-)

The JVC HD cam is on display at FutureShop on Broadway (Vancouver) - it will be there until the 23rd of August. ---Arseniy

So how would the HD10 fair with dolly and jib movement? Would it be a problem?

Personnaly, I used quite a bit of dolly and crane movements with the camera and it holds up very well, pretty much like a miniDV camera. No compression noise seems to appear. Ideally you should keep your shutter at 1/30 or 1/60.

Eric

Just thinking out loud, but if the HD1 and HD10 encode their HD MPEG using a 6 GOP structure, then it might be fairly easy to convert 30p to 25p by simply reducing the GOP structure to 5 GOP and recalculating the B and P frames from the 5 original I frames per second?

I dont know the original structure but you could go from say 5 of these per sec:

IBBPBB

which give 30fps, to 5 of these per sec

IBBPB

which would give 25fps.

I haven't written an MPEG encoder before, so if this is nonsense let me down nicely :)

Well, it's an interresting suggestion, I think there is a chance that it would do only a drop frame each 6 frames but it's worth the try...

"If you don't intend to try, you might as well not think about it..." Laurient de Medicis

Eric

Dropping a frame per GOP was my first thought for a solution Eric, but I was actually trying to avoid doing that as just dropping a frame would mean a slightly larger temporal gap between two particular frames in every GOP. I was trying to propose a method that would yield smooth motion and maintain temporal integrity between frames (i.e. by recalculating the B and P frames).

I've no idea if it's feasible though?

Does anyone remember the old Michael Jackson music video, Black or White, which was one of the first examples to use morphing technology?

Couldn't this sort of thing be used to interpolate frames in video for conversion to/from 24, 30, 60, etc?

I have a freeze frame comparison of HD1 to 10 with same subject material (jpg). could someone post it? It's pretty representative of several clips I took while evaluating the cameras at Industrial Video here in Cleveland area. These are crops (no resampling). Everything was auto, so exposure varied somewhat. After reviewing several clips I thought the HD10 might have a slightly lower auto exposure.

Also, while preparing the clips I noticed notches in the histograms of the shots from both cameras. Anybody else seen this? It's like there are certain brightness levels missing - all evenly spaced. I can't really see anything in the picture that I think is a result of this.

I bought the HD10!

I don't see why not. But it would be a huge job unless it was automated, and then it would take serious time. It may be worth it to do that at specific moments when the pull down process leaves a noticable "jerk"

Most people posting in these threads have an intention of using the camera and want to know about it's plusses and minusses. Gather information and make a choice. Not all of them will use the machine in HD in the end (though they may shoot HD). Let's not forget this machine has a very interresting SD 60p, for people making indie DV movies this rocks because you can do incredible progressive slo-mo's. Of course it's the first step to affordable HD, witch means that most of us will have to update all of their gear to take full advantage of the beast, this is a major concern. But still this camera packs an incredible definition when down-converted to SD so it might be usefull for a lot of people.

I will be doing comparative tests between the HD10u, and both the pannasonics DVX-100 and the new SDX900 for the feature film "Pure". I will make a thorough review of that in the comming week. I might as well make editing tests with a Pinnacle Cinewave for HD editing, (depending on availability).

Eric

Sounds good, looking forward to it.

I know a great program for that:
It is called Twixtor, and it does great slowmotion and frame conversions http://www.revisionfx.com/rstwixtor.htm
I have used this software for a long time now, and it is great!
- And Twixtor Pro can do HD aswell!! -
/John Eriksson

Can I get a smooth 24fps slowmotion by shooting in the SD mode? I mean because of it´s high framrate (60fps)?

I wrote this question on the wrong thread, so I re-ask it here:

The MTV VIDEO MUSIC AWARDS (re-running on MTV all the time)
were the FIRST time I have seen a broadcast (live) that looked
unmistakably and unbelievably like film...

Since it was live, we know it was video.

Was it 24p HD?

I don't think this is a casual issue- I think it's REVOLUTIONARY.

Sure, STAR WARS proved HD can look like film years ago,
but I was startled to realize that the entire future of broadcasting-

from TV news to sitcoms to meaningless awards shows-

will not only be in HD,
but with a wonderful 16mm slightly grainy wonderful look.

It's funny- some Kodak filmstocks look so sharp now (the low speed ones)
that sometimes it can look flat and video like.

And now the cutting edge of video (HD) employs progressive scan (and whatever other enabling technology) AND LOOKS MORE LIKE FILM than some filmstocks themselves!

Anyway- DOES ANYONE KNOW what cameras were used for the MTV show?

The reason? We will all be able to afford such a camera in a few years.

Until then, I am happy with my HD10u.

T. Patrick Murray

What ohters on the forum told me:

Barry Green said:
Theoretically you should be able to get exquisite slow motion, with motion rendering comparable to the VariCam, by shooting in 60fps. But, you're sacrificing the HD image resolution in exchange for higher temporal resolution, so I don't know if the two would intercut well. If you want to shoot your entire project in SD 16:9 MPEG2 mode, you should be able to get the best slow motion possible on any SD-format camera (making allowances for the camera's other limitations, such as narrow latitude, etc).

And David Newman said:
Currently Aspect HD doesn't support the 480p mode, but supporting 60p as a slow motion source is an excellent idea that I hope we can implement in the future.

And I want to say to JVC and Aspect HD and Barry Green + David Newman, Thank you! Very nice!

Go here:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=13858

This is kind of off-topic, so go to TOTEM!

heath

I partially agree this is off-topic
(since this is a JVC forum)

but since the essence of the JVC is HD/progressive/filmesque imagery,

I thought it relevant to talk about the HIGH END of this technology
(the MTV Awards cameras- whatever they were)
as we currently discuss the LOW END (the JY-HD10u)...

The reason? We see how good it can get,
and the road to get there.

Anyone agree?

T. Patrick Murray

I'm very interested in this package and I know today is suppose to be the ship date to the folks who bought it early.

Since I have yet to buy the camera or of course Steve's package, I thought I'd post a question to see if anyone has tried it and can confirm it works as great as it sounds it will.

So, what can you tell me.

Thanks in Advance

DBK

I just sent 4HDV to those who had pre-ordered it.

Thank you for waiting for it to be finished!


Hopefully, some of these folks will post comments.

Remember it covers both the HD1 and the HD10.

And the Shooting Guide includes a Chapter on both Mac and PC editing solutions.

I’ve come to notice that there is one little overlooked advantage that the JVC HD10 has over all other SD cams: Bigger internet video windows for the same, or even less bandwidth then standard SD clips. Am I wrong?

Only if Media Player and the like start supporting the MPEG_TS. But Windows Media 9 can always be configured to use less bandwidth, even for SD, so I really don't see what the advantage would be, except with this camera your source material is overcompressed already

Internet delivery never uses the same codec as the cam.
Popular Internet codecs are WM9, DiVX, and Quicktime. You compress your usually huge files with these codecs to make them net friendly. The size of the files will depend on the resolution and the amount of compression you set.

So did anyone have a chance to test this yet?

I'm really interested in it, but would really like to read a review?

Cheers

DBK

I’m looking to get the HD10, but its not available in the UK and the PAL version which is due soon will not have the HD enabled. Can anyone see problems in using a US purchased camera here in the UK?
My plans are to use it only for capture of high quality/high resolution HD and SD for editing within FCP on my G4 Mac, and then output to DVD for the education market. I presume I can configure my DVD’s for use on PAL or NTSC televisions? I don’t do film work.
I presume that I will need Steve Mullen’s software, but other than that and the relevant transformer for the different electrical output, can anyone see other problems with this set up?

Many thanks

You don't need a transformer.

Your DVDs will be NTSC not PAL. Which isn't a problem in many cases.

You should purchase an LCD projector for viewing. It will present 720p60.

We just purchased the JY-HD10u last week and have found that it doesn't meet our needs for Visual FX production because it does not have manual control over the iris like our work requires, and post is a major issue with our existing post pipeline.

We rolled about 10 minutes of tape, and after 2 days of extensively looking at its features, we decided it doesn't meet our requirements. We are selling the camera instead of returning it because the vendor we purchased from wants to charge us a 15% restocking fee but it isn't worth taking the steep loss. (Beware of Broadway Photo!)

The camera is listed on ebay right now and comes with 2 extra long life 300MaH batteries, 3 filter kit, and n AC/DC rapid charger, all unopened and brand new. Bid rpice is $3099, Buy Now for $3199. We just paid $3700 with the accessories, last Monday.


Best Regards,

Jim Clark

Jim,

I feel your pain, but the losses would be too great for me to sell my HD10. Lesson learned for us! (But the image quality is great and it's only a matter of time before we can edit without any problems.)

JVC, make everything MANUAL in addition to auto!

heath

wow, I just got back from B&H with my new HD10 and have been doing A/B tests with my 3 chip GL-1. The resolution is drastically better, but what I didn't expect is it's superb color reproduction. The GL1 was never especially good, it tended to blow out the reds. the A/B tests showed a DRASTIC improvment in color reproduction over the GL1 and in my opinion it can rival any 2/3" 3xCCD broadcast camera I've seen. This is in moderate to to good lighting (interior). Saturation suffered in lower lighting - but ANY camera would to some degree. There has been much written about the light sensitivity of this camera, I've found that it's much better then I expected. In low light it's contrasty. In the same light, my GL1 would be brighter, but far more grainy. I would opt for the HD10's look.

The prob. with MY HD10 is it's missing a pixel (or small group of them, so it's going back for an exchange. Is this a common prob.?? Just hope it doesnt happen on the road--

Thanks!!


Steven Galvano

The single chip depate? There's nothing wrong with 1 CCD cams, it's just that some are better than others. I've got 2 older JVC 1 chip cams, and I use them to put bread and butter on my table. Concerning the GL1, perhaps compare the GL2's footage of that with the HD10 in DV mode, this way you will be comparing only 1 apple with 1 orange, instead of 2 with each. :)

I've read some messages about the camera loosing a pixel in transit. Air shipment seems to do it from what I read. On the other hand, it could also be a pixel missing on your viewfinder, and not on the camera.

The good thing is B&H is great about exchange and returns

DBK

I needed to shoot a little something extra for my DVD's documentary (audio only), so I busted out the HD10 and aimed it at my face (so I knew which take to use--so much for a raw interview; I had something specific today). I had the camera low (and in DV mode, also fully automatic) and aimed up. The ceiling fan was behind my head and I did my thing.

When I played it back, the fan looked like it was almost standing still (off), yet there was a slight blur. Not sure what shutter speed I had on...And though it was cool-looking, not something I'd want to repeat in a possible film. Any ideas what happened and how to fix it?

heath

It is because of the speed of your fan and the speed of your shutter. let's say you have a 3 pal fan turning at 10 revolutions a minutes straight, with a 1/30th shutter you would not see the pals moving because each 30th of a second, the fan makes 1/3 of a turn so you end up seeing the fan still because there are 3 pals so each 1/3 revolution the next pal is at the same place as the preceding one. You can have a lot of fun with a fan and a dimmer in video. Back a few years from now I experimented quite a bit with that... you can see it go forward, than change the speed and it looks as if it goes backwards. A good example of that is shooting cars on either side, when the car starts or stops, the wheel looks like its going forward, then backwards, it always look pretty weird, it does that even with the human eye.

Of course, once shot you cannot fix it.

yeah, it looked like it was moving both fast and slow forward, then backwards. Just like a tire/rim on a car. (Of course, now rims move automatically on some of these "pimp-mobiles," and it's just another attempt to screw with our heads.)

heath

Posted on Mon, Sep. 15, 2003
Europe's First HD Channel Gets Trial Run
DOUGLAS HEINGARTNER
Associated Press

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - Europe's first high-definition television channel went on the air over the weekend with a trial broadcast of music and sports programming. Only next year is the technology set to go mainstream.


Europe's shift to the sharper images and clearer sound of high-definition TV is moving much slower than in the United States, where several million HDTV sets are already in use.


While the U.S. government has mandated a switch from analog to digital TV signals, which make high-definition broadcasts possible, Europe has yet to enact such rules.



The new HDTV channel, Euro 1080, broadcast live coverage Saturday from the World Athletics Final in Monaco and the "Night of The Proms" concert in London to an audience of journalists and TV executives in Amsterdam.



The official launch of the channel, owned by the Belgian company Alfacam, is slated for January. The name Euro 1080 refers to the number of lines in the image, double the quality of "low-definition" regular TV.



Viewers will receive four to five hours of daily programing, ranging from the Euro 2004 soccer championships to Vienna's annual New Year's concert.



The broadcasts will be free, but the equipment certainly won't.



While the quality is undoubtedly superior, viewers must purchase a new television set, ranging from $1,800 to $4,000, and a set-top box receiver costing up to $550.



Although the prices have been dropping about 15 percent each quarter, it's unclear whether the cost is low enough to attract Europe's 380 million television viewers. So far, HDTV sets haven't sold well, mainly "because there's no content," said Euro 1080's technical manager, Jacques Schepers.



Industry analyst Vamsi Sistla of Allied Business Intelligence described the dilemma as "a classic chicken-and-egg problem."



"If you don't have the content, people aren't going to fork out a few grand for the set," he said. So, while broadcasters wait for viewers to buy sets, viewers wait for content, which is more costly when shot in high definition.



In the United States, about 2.5 million digital TV sets - most were HDTV-equipped - were sold last year, and the average retail price dropped to $1,688 from $3,147 in 1998, when only a few thousand were purchased, according to the Consumer Electronics Association. No figures were available for European sales.



Part of the reason for the greater U.S. popularity is cheaper sets, and most major American broadcasters, such as HBO and ESPN, offer considerable high-definition programming, a trend echoed in Japan, Korea and Australia.



The fragmented European broadcast market and linguistic diversity have been largely to blame for the slow growth.



Euro 1080 will initially serve 30 countries with programs of minimal spoken content that easily cross borders, such as music and sports. A second channel will broadcast to movie theaters or sports bars where audiences can watch the Olympics or a Rolling Stones concert.



Euro 1080 produces 10 to 12 high-definition programs per month, and plans to supplement those offering with programs from the United States and Japan.



The channel still has some hurdles to clear. Sistla, the analyst, estimates that cable TV companies need to spend about $1,000 per subscriber to upgrade their equipment for HDTV -- costs the European cable industry cannot afford.

I checked, but didn't find this covered in here yet, sorry if it has: I just found this link:

http://www.royalcamera.com/jvcjyhhigdef.html

I called and apparantly it's true - Royal camera has the HD10U in stock and they are selling the Japanese menu version for $2'349. They also have the English version for 2'800....something. Is this too good to be true? I know the prices are starting to come down now. They said it's a new camera sealed in the box - no extras.

Is there a translation available for the Japanese model? I know a lot of Americans buy Japanese import cams, and don't have a problem desifering the menus.

Kevin,

It's always available at Royal, but you will never actually get it.

They will insist on selling you overpriced accessories that are standard with the camera, like the battery, power supply and cables. If you hold your ground it will suddenly become out of stock.

To make a long story short, you will not get it for $2349.00.

Cheers

DBK

Please try to support our Sponsors, that help make these forums available and with not ads, pop-ups etc. Zotz (http://www.zotzdigital.com/) will give you an honest, fair and competitive price (don't forget to mention you're a member here). Thanks for your help.

Why does the HD10's footage look so much better than SD footage when downconverted and viewed on a NTSC monitor?.

Probably the same reason 35mm film looks so good on VHS.

Also- What media do you guys recommend? B&H suggested JVC's standard DV tapes (3.49/ea).

Thanks!

Steven

The basic logic is:

When you start with a lot more information (pixels, resolution etc.) - your computer has the opportunity to come up with a better final version.

If you shoot on VHS and make a VHS dub it's going to look crappy because the resolution is low to begin with. If you shoot 35mm film with such high resolution and transfer it to a computer at VHS quality - it's going to look pretty good. Even though it's a low quality version - it still had TONS of informaiton to "encode" the best possible flow of information.

When you see on a DVD that says "remastered from a high-definition source tapes" - it does matter. The higher definition source material you use - the better "encode" your're going to get.

Although, it also depends on the encoder doing the work too. I've seen people butcher things that could have been beautiful!

Hope this helps in some way. If you'd like more information - just go to Google and type "encoding video" and "source material".

Chris

Good point Chris.

I would also add the following: In SD cameras there are many chips with different sizes/definition. A camera with a 1/3 chipset having 270 000 pixels of resolution like the XL1(s) will have to "upconvert" to get true 720X480 (345 600 pixels), compare the image to a camera witch has a 2/3 - 510 000 pixels chipset and it is easy to tell the difference in sharpness between the two. The better the original definition, the better the final image, even in the same format. Imagine when the original format is of higher quality (definition)...

Can somone answer 3 questions?

1.Is the JY-HD10E fully supported with Aspect HD?

2.Does the JY-HD10E record PAL on any mode HD/SD/DV?

3.Does it output a PAL signal from the S-VHS and the compoite port?

..Or is that also NTSC, what is the diffirance with JY-HD10E and JY HD10U?

Thanks!

The JY-HD10U and the JY-HD10E are the same camera. It has no PAL mode. It is compatible with Aspect HD.

This site lists its specs.
http://www.provis.com.au/products/video/jy_hd10e.htm

JVC GR-PD1 for thePAL world

Digital Full Progressive Video Camera

• 1/3-inch 1.18 Megapixel Progressive Scan CCD with Hybrid Complementary-Primary Digital Filter

• Hi-Def F1.8-F1.9 Optically Stabilised Zoom Lens

• MPEG-2 Recording on MiniDV Cassette

• Multi-Format Recording and Playback:

* DV PAL Interlace: 4:3 625/50i

* MPEG-2 PAL Progressive: 16:9 625/50p

* MPEG-2 PAL Progressive: 16:9 625/25p

* MPEG-2 PAL Progressive: 4:3 625/50p

yes, I have heard of this, but there is no HD on that one.. thanks anyways..