And that seems to be emerging as the real question here (to me anyway):

Given that this camera has so many factors that conspire to reduce detail, i.e. bayer filtering, low-pass filtering, and heavy compression, is some in-camera sharpening a good idea?

One question that then follows is, does CINE MODE take over the custom sharpness settings, or can they be used in conjunction with it? Could SHARPNESS be set to +1 in CINE MODE to get back a little detail?

And then the question would follow from there: Does this little bit of sharpening risk any ringing or other artifacting? Because while ringing makes video look "sharp," it also makes it looks like hideous video, especially when it gets converted to some other format, like film.

I ask all this in the context of CINE MODE rather than Tv mode, because my own testing and some I've seen here show unquestionably that the increased dynamic range of CINE MODE is something I'd hate to give up.

-Stu

Stu,
I shot the different SHARPNESS settings in CINE. Check `em out for a first impression of what they do.

Awesome! Looms like the first and third in that sequence link to the same image though. Could you check?

-Stu

But I found the missing image by guessing the name. They kinda look the same to me—what do you think?

-Stu

Stu, I have seen tests of Cinemode in +1 sharpness. It's almost negligible, it does not bring any real detail, neither it makes the image terribly worse either. It's like being neutral to cinemode. Just use an ND and contrast filter to simulate cinemode.

http://vettaville.com/images/canon%2...%20capture.bmp

Here is a .BMP image I had posted here in the forum several weeks ago showing that the sharpness setting does indeed have an effect upon the image in Cinemode. I couldn't begin to answer about your other more technical questions, but at least I can definitely say that the sharpness setting does work in Cinemode. That's what I had been using originally: Cinemode with Sharpen +1 and I got used to capturing footage like this until this past weekend when I started re-evaluating everything.

I'm really keen on looking into Eugenia's suggestion of using at least a Low Contrast Filter Lens - though I'm not sure if an ND in addition to that would always be necessary, but I think she brings up a good alternative plan worth investigating.

I wish it was that simple. Low-con filters are just broad diffusion. Not a bad idea, unless you're doing effects work. Also, the effect is very similar to what happens with 35mm adapters. But there's no replacement for real dynamic range.

-Stu

I'm sorry, but this is a spurious conclusion. Eki's point was to show that if you add contrast back to a CINE MODE image, you increase the perception of detail. You can add contrast without clipping highlights, but that's not what he was trying to show. And even if your choice is to clip highlights, better to make that choice in post where you can control exactly how you clip, and then change your mind later!

Not everyone is obsessed with image sharpness. To some, other factors, such as color fidelity, are more important. That's OK, and it doesn't make you wrong for liking the crisp look of Auto mode.

Recently I spoke to a very well-known film DP who confessed that when he knows that a movie will have a 4K DI, he adds diffusion to the camera because he feels the 4K images show too much detail and make actors look unattractive! All these tests and charts and opinions ultimately boil down to information one should use to create images that evoke a particular feeling. This is a highly subjective process, and different folks will assuredly prefer different settings.

It's just too bad that this fun little camera so often puts us in the position of having to trade one feature for another.

-Stu

> if you add contrast back to a CINE MODE image, you increase the perception of detail

Yes, but not by much. Detail is not totally recoverable and I think everyone agrees to that.

> he adds diffusion to the camera because he feels the 4K images show too much detail

Yes, but the HV20 is not 4k. It is a consumer camera with quite some hard compression on it, and so the more detail we can squeeze out of it, the better it is.

> It's just too bad that this fun little camera so often puts us in the position of having to trade one feature for another.

Which is exactly why I will put up with the HV20 for 2-3 more years, and when AVCHD will have taken the market (simply because of its user convenience rather than picture quality) and the format/NLEs have matured more about AVCHD, and pro cameras have become more commoditized, I will put put down $4000 and buy a semi-pro camera that comes with a Canon lens adapter. By then, such cameras should be available for that price range.

Until then, it's TV mode for me, with 1/48 shutter speed on the HV20 for my music video clip work and 1/60 Auto for my travel/dog home movies.

The first image looks the nicest. Very cinematic. Great image for film-out. If your final output is TV and DVD, then auto may be the best choice.

I think you're placing too much emphasis on sharpness. Overall picture quality... I'd give the edge to CINEMODE.

stu, i'm out and about right now, but i'll double check my links when i get back.

I am sorry Ian, but that just doesn't make any sense. Look at the treated image (and I have seen this problem on my own tests too):
http://eki.pp.fi/temp/Eki/HV20/Cinem...nd_sharpen.png
Look at the wood at the bottom and see how much it has noise-color. There is one big patch of grey in there (that also exists in the original cinemode picture, it's just that it's not as visible yet just because the colors/contrast were not boosted yet), so I doubt that this is "cinematic". It's more of a bad blur to me, with fewer colors.

Look. We can go on with this for ever and ever. I *ask* anyone around here, especially Stu who has a lot of experience with color grading, to get this cinemode image: http://osnews.com/img/vegas/2.png
and make it look as good as possible. And then get the original auto image ( http://osnews.com/img/vegas/1.png ), and try to "fix" it too. And then, we can decide if treated cinemode is better than treated Auto or TV mode.

Use your own outdoors or otherwise well-lit picture too if you don't like mine. Offer us, the previous, after, in both cinemode and auto/TV mode.

At this point, I have made up my mind against cinemode, but what I am waiting to see is ACTUAL WORK from the pros to treat the image as they would their own movie/image for a professional job. Because, at the end of the day, the FINAL cut is what matters. That's what people are going to see.

So, surprise me.

Eugenia,

I like the cinemode image as it is, "unsharp" and all. I understand that you want to sharpen cinemode images so it is as sharp as auto mode, but it's not as simple as picking low hanging fruit.

The second image has been sharpened post-HDV compression, whereas auto mode has been sharpened before hitting the HDV compression. Trying to get the images (cinemode and auto) to have same or similar sharpness is a fruitless endeavor. This has been mentioned in the past posts, so I don't see the debate over whether one needs to use cinemode or not. If you feel sharpness is most important to use, then use TV mode. If you want added latitude and zero sharpening artifacts, then cinemode is the logical choice. This is a case of wanting your cake and eating it too... perhaps it is... HDMI uncompressed might provide such.

That said, mon ami, you found grosso modo the difference between le cinéma et la video . . . That's why this Canon, more than a videocamcorder, it is a true cine camera. Its price is just an addvalue, a democratic one. Not a liability. And the camera is still a cine camera, anyways. To be or not to be a little one (consumer) is completely irrelevant. It's the juice what counts. This kind of juice counts.

I have the perfect (and true-life) analogy for all of the differing opinions regarding Cinemode...it's like unto a painting, some like to see the painting - others like to see the brush strokes. For me, I like seeing the finer brush strokes because the overall painting will still always be there to look at. If you can have both the fine details and overall image, that's more of a plus than just overall image alone. But as we all know, artistic and visual perception of what we find appealing is all individually subjective.

Joseph, thank you for your work in putting those images up - I agree, the JPEG format is fine at 100%. There is just too much information there to process, but I think we've concluded you really do have less detail with CINE mode using the standard in camera HDV recordings. Surprised we didn't all notice before, but thank you all for posting. CINE mode is out for me. Perceived attitude was why I used it.

Well said Nathan. If detail was not as important, cameras like the 4k digital ultra-sharp $20,000 RED wouldn't be considered as the next big thing in cinematography that it's here to kill off the $120,000 panavision film cameras.

As I mentioned in another forum using cinemode is no different than a professional (or whatever) using his/her favorite external filter on their cams. Some add certain colors..softens the image with less finer detail.....helps with latitude etc... etc. Bottom line... it's an effect. Love it or hate it.....it's what you do with it that counts. We all knew from day one that Cinemode softens the picture.....but...that's what its supposed to do. So..what's the debate about????? Cinemode is not for everything....but it is a rather nice effect on the image and very useful for "certain" things.

When Pros use some of those Tiffen..ProMist..softening filters on their lens...don't they do the same thing????...soften the picture???....taking away facial blemishes..wrinkles...etc???....These are things you can't get back in post....yet professionals use these filters all the time.....what makes Cinemode any different??? It's a tool...among many other types of tools. If you don't like it...don't use it. If you use it on everything you shoot.....then you will get sick of it.....human nature .....right?

>We all knew from day one that Cinemode softens the picture

I am sorry, but this is not true. We have had many forum posts about people who were claiming that this was not true. They were simply not accepting the fact.

>So..what's the debate about?

That cinemode softens the picture too much and that detail is NOT recoverable in post.

And for me, I see no real reason to use cinemode. As soon as I color grade it, I end up with the Auto/TV picture, so I just don't see the reason of shooting in cinemode in the first place.

IMO, the "film look" is not about 24fps, or shutter speed, or contrast, or latitude or grain. It is about DOF and shallow focus and how well lit your subject is. That's all there is to it, everything else is a myth and an old perception. And this camera can't do good DOF without a 35mm adapter. Everything else is fixable in post, so as a filmmaker, all I am interested is a 35mm adapter and I am good to go. I just don't see cinemode as a good shooting mode.

1) I fixed the incorrect link Stu found. (If anybody notices any others, let me know.)

2) One thing I learned from the tests is that the -1 option for all of the image options is the "true" setting, or as close to the true, unaltered signal as you can get from the cam. Going up to 0 usually yields a more or less natural result, but +1 almost always looks artificial.

3) It's not correct to imply the CINE mode is just an artistic tweak. Neither is it mana from heaven. Nor is it from the devil. Each of the modes is a whole collection of settings, some of which aren't attainable any other way. Each one requires certain compromises. Some settings record more detail, CINE records more lattitude, and is less likely to be accidentally blown out. Nothing subjective about that, it's just what it is on a sub $1k consumer camcorder.

4) HDV sucks. Big surprise! ;-) These tests really drove it home for me though. The image I monitored was so much better, makes me want to cry what HDV is doing to the little wonder's image.

5) CINE is not lacking in true high frequency detail. Adjusted for the same levels, high contrast areas are virtually identical between modes.

6) CINE mode loses mid to low frequency detail (contrast.) Whether this is because of a design decision on the part of Canon that is inherent in the signal, or if it is merely the fact that low contrast details are being obliterated by MPEG-2 compression is not entirely clear yet.

7) I REALLY wish I could record via HDMI. If there is anybody who can, I'm sure that we would all love to knew definitively if the loss of low contrast detail in the CINE mode picture is an intentional filter, or an artifact of HDV compression. This is a really big deal to me.

8) A good compromise setting for 24P "film" shooters who want the extra detail might be Tv 1/48th, NEUTRAL image processing, and all image settings set at 0. Just have to watch your exposure closely.

Nope, it's about all of the above.

Ian, I understand what you're driving at, but it's misleading to label CINE mode as an "effect" ... its a bit more complicated than that. It offers greater lattitude, it tries really hard to stay at 1/48th shutter, it opens the aperture before using gain, etc. Unfortunately, it also loses low contrast detail.

Eugenia, if you check some old post here and in other forums back in April when users started uploading their videos in Cinemode you will see a lot of footage and comments about it being less sharp. I can remember some footage taken in the NYC streets of people walking towards the cam..it just seemed so muddied compared to the straight up TV mode footage. When I got this cam in mid April I stayed away from Cinemode due to the footage I seen and the comments that were made. It has been a month now that I have been using this feature and found some use for it. So like I have said....Cinemodes effects have been well documented....even before you surfaced here about a couple of months ago.

What I've seen people try to "convince" themselves with is the sharpening of Cinemode within the cam...I have been stating for the last 4 months or so that the sharpening in Cinemode does not have any effect on the picture (at east not noticibley as much as in TV or Aperture Priority modes..try it yourself and see).

You say "Soften the picure too much" is the debate....too much for who...me? You? Joe Blow? It's an effect....a tool. I've seen some of your footage (they are all nice by the way)...but the next guy can probably argue againts my very subjective opinion of your videos and state that he thinks they are oversaturated...or overly sharpened.etc.....it's "ALL" subjective.

I "like" what Cinemode does to the picture...so it's not "too much" soft to "me." I didn't like it 5 months ago.

>And for me, I see no real reason to use cinemode. As soon as I color grade it, I end up with the Auto/TV picture, so I just don't see the reason of shooting in cinemode in the first place.<

There you have it..... You don't have any use for it.

Oh...I agree with you to a certain extent in regards to the "Film Mode." I believe everything comes into play. Lately I've seen Soap Operas with great shallow DOF and color grading....but...guess what>??? they still look like Soap Operas.... The 24P cadence does (IMO) have a lot to do with the "Film Look." It's the combination of all these techniques that gives it that dreamy like film look.

ok...when I say an effect...what i mean is that it is a setting (Placed in there by Canon)...which comes directly from it's big brother cam. I believe it's the setting #8 on the A1. On the A1 cam it is obviously tweakable.....so you can not call that an effect.....in this cam (HV20) it's not tweakable....for me it's not diferent than clicking on the black and white preset.....or the "Sepia" preset....or the "Cinemode" preset. Kinda like what you see is what you get.

I know what you are saying though....it's not necessarily like color grading or dissolves etc...cause it actually tweaks more parameters of the picture....and you are right. But as i mentioned above...if it's more like a what you see is what you get function....then i treat it like an effect. You can't do much with it in cam....in post is another story.

Edit: LOL...I call this "The Glass Half Empty and Glass Half full Mode." I think we are just coming to the same conclusion but from different perspectives.....I concede...you're right.

Thanks for the recap Joseph. I don't think you can have #1 without #6 though, on any digital camera. More latitude = less contrast. It's a good thing, as the contrast we add later can be much more bitchin'

-Stu

>8) A good compromise setting for 24P "film" shooters who want the extra detail might be Tv 1/48th, NEUTRAL image processing,

What do you mean by "neutral"? How do you get that?

You guys are putting way too much on this. It isn't even an issue really. Why do you think nobody noticed it before? Because you are all making this out to be bigger then it really is. I mean look at how you are testing the images by putting them side by side. If you have to look that close to see the difference then is anybody just watching the footage going to notice anything?

You are all making this out to be some kind of problem when it isn't. The raw tap from the chip without the electronic sharpness is going to be soft no matter what camera you use. The reason why 4K is desired is because you can have the raw feed without any sharpness added at all and still have a clean image.

Canon actually had the vision to think what film makers usually want and that is a clean but soft image. In my opinion super sharp images are a curse of the computer game and flash generation who think video should be as crystal clear as a flash animation. If the HV20 didn't have a normal mode nobody would have ever had a problem with the softness of the Cinema mode.

Give me an image from a live HDMI capture and I will try to give you a result close to what you can get in a normal mode. I cannot beleive out of all the details in the image the tiny window in the background is going to be pointed out that the cinema image cannot be sharpened as much. Did it ever occur to anybody that the reason the window may be softer is because the DOF is slightly different for whatever reason due to a change in the shooting modes? Clearly that window is more of a focus blur and not jut raw detail.

There is no reduction in detail going on. There is no magic chip in the camera to perform a blur on the image. If there was it would be the first camera or hardware chip I have heard of to blur the image. Of course hardware blurring in the camera is going to be different then software blurring. Chances are the camera sharpens the video while it is still as a bayer pattern. The RGB image will be sharpened as it is created from the bayer pattern. This is something you could never do with a compressed HDV image that is already RGB or YUV. This is where you will still notice a little bit more detail in a sharp image from the camera and doing the sharpen yourself. If this slight edge in detail is your cup of tea then hey thats your thing I guess. If you want more detail with better control go out and buy a Cinealta F900 and quit trying to whine about a $1,000.00 camera not being perfect.

Amen Thomas! With much gratitude to those who have shared their test results with all of us, it's back to work for me...

-Stu

In the "IMAGE EFFECTS" menu. Third option, after "VIVID."

I'm shooting another 48 Hour Film Project this weekend, using the HV20 with a Letus Adapter. In the last one, I shot in Cine mode. My feeling at the time was that color correction would be easier... Turns out we didn't have time to color correct, so this time I am going with TV setting, shutter at 1/60-- since the 48 Hour Film Project says " no 24p. I will let you know my impressions after that. I expect to lose some shadow detail shooting this way....

What? Then they should call it the 48 Hour VIDEO Project!

-Stu

What he said ;-)


...Even though i agree that this is kind of silly nitpicking, I shot my own quick tests, these should clarify a bit which kind of artifacts we are dealing with when working with different settings. It's all a matter of picking what's important to YOU personally, and doing the best you can with that.

My workflow was the following: i took the raw .m2t to After Effects, and exported .psd files of all the frames i needed. On some of them, i did some simple curves adjustments and unsharp mask sharpening.

There's no additional compression in these images, only the HDV compression (I'm pretty sure Eugenia's "lossles video compression" is not really lossless) and of course the lossless .png compression of the final cropped images (crop to more manageable size was done preserving pixel per pixel detail).

Some detail has probably been lost when converting to RGB, but that should be minimal, and affect all the images the same way.

Here we go.

First, here's TV mode image at automatic settings. Highlights are blown out, and there's some clearly visible sharpening artifacts:

http://eki.pp.fi/temp/Eki/HV20/Eki_tv_auto.png

Here's TV mode exposed for highlights. the sharpening artifacts are still there, but there's good details in the highlights. Unfortunately, shadow areas are quite dark...

http://eki.pp.fi/temp/Eki/HV20/Eki_tv_highlights.png

Here's Cine Mode at automatic settings. Some of the highlight detail is blown out, but we can see quite well in the shadows. Contrary to what i thought, there seems to be a tiny bit of sharpening also in this mode, seen i.e. at the balcony chair's legs near Otto The Cat's head. Also, when looking i.e. at the door details, it looks like the detail we get is about one pixel size - i wouldn't call that bad. The overall image looks less sharp than with TV mode.

http://eki.pp.fi/temp/Eki/HV20/Eki_cinemode_auto.png

Here's Cine Mode exposed for highlights. There's still some detail in the darker areas of the shot, and highlight areas are nice. This is how i would have taken this shot.

http://eki.pp.fi/temp/Eki/HV20/Eki_c...highlights.png

Next up: adjusted images

Here's the Cine Mode image with adjusted contrast only.

http://eki.pp.fi/temp/Eki/HV20/Eki_c...t_tv_gamma.png

Here's the same image, with unsharp mask sharpening. Overall, this is rather close to the TV mode, IMO. There's some lost detail, visible especially in the shadow parts of the curtain. Note that i wasn't trying to make the image look "good", i tried to make it look like it was shot in TV mode auto exposure (the same goal as in my previous example, Not Pretty But Similar).

http://eki.pp.fi/temp/Eki/HV20/Eki_c...ma_sharpen.png

Here's highlights-exposed TV mode image adjusted to look like Cine Mode image. The overall look is quite close again, but there's a lot of noise, loss of detail and compression artifacts in the shadow areas, and the sharpening artifacts rear their ugly head. To me, this is a major turn-off, i find the sharpening in i.e. the balcony chair horrendous.

http://eki.pp.fi/temp/Eki/HV20/Eki_t...mode_gamma.png

That's it - what's left is to pick your poison. *Lost detail in low contrast areas* versus *sharpening artifacts and noisy shadows / blown out highlights*.

It's all a matter of preference.

Edit: here's one more image - i took the highlight exposed Cine Mode image and the highlight exposed / curve corrected TV mode image, separated the luminosity part (lab color) and enlarged to 300% with nearest neighbour scaling. This comparision is of course a bit unfair for TV mode, because of the gamma adjustment which brought out the compression artifacts and noise. But it shows the compression-related loss of detail in cinemode, and the edge sharpening artifacts in TV mode quite well.

http://eki.pp.fi/temp/Eki/HV20/Eki_c...omparision.png

One more thing worth mentioning: all post sharpening in the examples so far has been done with simple algorithms, better looking results could probably be obtained i.e. with Virtual Dub's free warp sharp filter, or something like Focus Magic photoshop plugin (which is good but not free).

Eki thanks for that post.

As you can see when you sharpen the HDV cinema image it can get closer but it will never be the same. That is due to the fact that the camera sharpens a raw RGB image and that it sharpens it as it processes the image from the bayer pattern.

The realstream guys had the same issue with the modification to the DVX100. In that case however they were pulling a bayer pattern because of the pixel shift so they could work the sharpening back into the image during the image processing from conversion from bayer to RGB image. It really helped pull back in some sharpness.

To me your cinema image looks much better and more natural. It looks almost photographic although slightly soft. It really does down to personal choice though. Some people like me love the natural soft filmlike look of the cinema mode while others want the extra sharpness. Look at the comparison image for example. In photography there should be a natural transition between edges into the background. The normal image has too harse of an edge and isn't natural at all plus it creates a ring that shouldn't be there. For compositing the normal image will never have as clean of a key as a cinema image would. You will either have to live with a ring around your subject or mask the edges which already screams out fake composite. I learned from a compositor from ILM who told me that the edge should always look exactly the way it would in nature which means no sharpening or matte chokers. If you do have to use a matte choker make sure the edges look how they would if you photographed that subject in front of that background for real.

It needs to be said though that the cinmea mode is not killing or stealing detail. It is just that the normal modes add in a lot of sharpened detail which make the image look like it is more detailed. For a lot of consumers this is great because they may not want to sit around and adjust all their footage.

Again like I said however we really do have to give Canon props for having the vision to actually give film makers a choice on how they want their images to look. While the camera is aimed at the consumer market it is clear that Canon also wanted to tap into the budding film market as well.

So for any new people...

1. Cinema mode is softer which is the natural way it is supposed to be. It is not a reduction in detail but the lack of added electronic sharpness.
2. Normal modes are sharper because the DSP can work with the raw image to add sharpness to the raw image.

You choose which mode works best for you and which one gives the most pleasant look for you.

Lol

You've taken the words right out of my mouth. Above and below, all included with no exceptions.

Canon's cinemode is the best way to get it.

Thomas,
There is no "NORMAL" mode. ;-) That implies the CINE is an abnormal choice. There are several program modes, of which CINE is one.

Sorry I was just too lazy to write out all the other modes. :)

You should be able to still shoot 24P and deliver it "telecined" in the 60i HDV stream. (That is to say, shoot in 24P mode, but edit it as 60i. Works great, keeps the feel, everybody's happy.) I think they just don't want to deal with the vagaries of a bunch of different formats.

There may be another reason for using Cinema mode for 24p shooting.

The reason why some people find 24p from digital cameras to not be as smooth as 24p from film cameras is due to the edge sharpness and DOF. unnatural sharp digital edges make 24p motion seem a little bit more jittery then film. It is a little bit more subtle effect something like how 24p animation with motion blur will always look better then 24p animation without motion blur. The soft natural edges of the cinema mode help transition each frame by not creating an abrupt sharp change in position. It is subtle but it can help.

Just another thing to keep in mind about the cinema mode if you plan on shooting 24p.

Gonna have to call you out on this one, too. ;-)

I didn't want to believe it, but for whatever reason, CINE is trashing low contrast detail, real detail, not artificial sharpening.

Compare stock CINE mode footage to Tv footage with -1 SHARPNESS. The high contast details will be virtually identical (little to no ringing in the Tv image) but the Tv footage will have preserved more low contrast detail, generally yielding less MPEG-2 artifacts.

I wish it weren't so, but it is.

Exactly.

And i totally agree with everything else you wrote too ;-)