HV20: Cinemode Softness (loss of image detail) Pic
 

Hey everyone, I've been growing increasingly frustrated with the lack of sharpness in the image details with the HV20 - using Cinemode all the time, so I thought I'd do a quick check to see if Cinemode was softening the image and boy was I suprised. Check out the comparison pics I posted.

http://www.vettaville.com/canon_hv20...e_softness.htm

Easy fix. Don't use Cinemode. The lack of sharpening is part of that mode. I believe you can slightly sharpen it using the filter in camera but it doens't do much.

Nathan,
I spent some time yesterday doing similar tests and reached a very different conclusion. I found no loss of actual detail from cine-mode.

http://www.12south.com/video/Joe_Close-up_24P.jpg

My settings:
24P
CINE
All image adjustments OFF
Image stabilization OFF
manual focus

I have a question. Is Cinemode the 24p conjoined setting or is it a seperate mode that plays with gamma not completely tied to 23.967 fps? (Don't have my HV20 yet) otherwise can you shoot 24p without Cinemode?

Nathan, are both your examples shot at 24p?? What did you have for shutter settings? This affects sharpness in a big way.

The reason I bring it up is that there will be a sharpness difference between
24 fps, 30 fps, and 60 fps. A 60p camera like the JVC HD 200 shooting 60p will look sharper than 24p. So it makes sense to compare like frame rates.
1080/60i derived isn't the same as 1080/24p to 60i. Apples and oranges.

Anyway we really should be using a resolution chart in order to be more accurate. Shots of people's faces are not in my opinion the best baseline test. I'm getting my HV 20 in a couple of days and I'll do some rez tests next week in addition to lat tests.

Cheers.

There's your problem.

You simply can't come to a definitive conclusion by doing a quick check. It looks like your focus is a bit off in the first picture. Without seeing your test parameters...

And .GIF isn't exactly the best picture format to present your images. There is a strong amount of .GIF dithering affecting your images.

Cinemode is a settings "program" that is not directly reated to 24P recording "mode." It does a bunch of things, including (but maybe more):
- A flat gamma curve
- Tries to stick to 48th sec shutter
- Tries to open aperture before using gain.

That simply isn't correct. There is more temporal resolution, but the frame rate has no direct affect on the sharpness of any one given frame. (Though it is definitely true that the HV20 takes longer to focus in 24P mode.)

Just to tell you how I tested...I hooked the HV20 up to the computer via firewire and then started HDVsplit set to show "fullframe" on the pc monitor. Then you just toggle the camera between cinemode and av (or any other setting) and you can clearly see on your monitor how soft the image goes in cinemode, it has nothing to do with the image being out of focus in the first picture - that "out of focus softness" is the direct result of the Cinemode setting and nothing more. It's an easy test and anyone can do themselves. I just used shift+prtscn to capture the desktop and then cropped the images in PhotoImpact.

GIF, JPEG, or PNG would not make any significant difference in showing the softness of cinemode, both images were captured identically and saved with the exact same GIF settings, so all things are still equal in this equation. Yes, there is obviously some dithering taking place in the GIFs I posted, but the overall softness of Cinemode is what I'm showing. If you have another file format you would like me to post, I can do that.

So just to be clear, these are not frame grabs taken from tape, they are live images coming into the pc via firewire and captured.

Nathan,
I believe you're getting what you're getting. ;-) All I can say is I'm definitely NOT getting the same results. I even shot a grid printed from a 1200 DPI laser printer and was able to resolve it tack sharp. I promise. I was monitoring from the HDMI port on a 32" HD monitor.

Joseph,

That's true. I was thinking temporal resolution per one second of time vs. one frame. But, therein lies the danger in printing a single frame. It doesn't tell the near the whole story. Unless you plan on shooting still frames I guess.
I'm just saying that comparing stills without dsc charts is very unscientific and lends itself to inaccurate info.

Thanks for the info on Cinemode.

Joseph, I agree with you that my results and yours (or others) may vary. Not sure if this can be due to slight tolerance differences that may be inherent in each individual camera - but you would like to think that all things are equal between every single HV20, but perhaps not. It may be that when using Cinemode, the lighting requirements must change for a better quality capture...who knows. But when all things are equal in the testing environment and just switching between Cinemode and Av shows such a drastic difference in image details and softness it still shows what can occur with the HV20...just perhaps not every single HV20. Who knows for certain?!?

I'm certainly no expert professional here but I think there is some logical basis for thinking that if Cinemode is a preset that is supposed to help emulate the "film look" alongside the 24p capture, then it sounds reasonable that Cinemode also softens the image alongside all the other adjustments it is making. Now, how "noticably soft" the Cinemode image will look also depends upon how close you are zoomed in on your subject matter. In other words, you may be using Cinemode and have a fantastically sharp image such as Joseph has posted - but unless you can also show the exact same non-Cinemode image as well, you may not be aware that there can be differences.

I think the real answer would need to come from Canon as to whether or not "image softness" is part of what is programmed into the Cinemode preset...(but I'm convinced it certainly softens the image details). But it can still be all subjective, because one man's sharpness may look like another man's blur. LOL!

David, I agree with the caveats about proper testing, but Nathan's results are so dramatic that something is clearly wrong.

Nathan,
Something's just not right on your camera. I don't know if it is a setting, a different firmware, or if it's an actual malfunction.

I did similar A-B testing under fairly low levels of natural light, and although the other P modes added more edge enhancement and contrast, the level of real detail remained the same.

If cinemode really was that soft, there'd be a lot more upset people, myself included!

Can you do a test using HDVSplit like I did and post some image results? I agree that I'm not liking what I'm seeing with "my HV20" and would be keen to have others do a like test using HDVSplit and capturing like I have.

Okay, I know what I need to do then...another test, but this time I'll pick non-human subject matter so that all subjects can be static and completely motionless. That would be a much more accurate and representative test I think.

Nathan,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Siemens_star.svg

Print the Siemens star from above link. This is a very basic chart (used for back focus) but should at least help you out. Please don't use people's faces only.

Let us know what you find. Cheers.

I happened to shoot most of the modes yesterday. Give me a bit and I'll post some grabs.

Thanks, I'll give this a go as well. Just to give a brief update. I put a printer cartridge box in front of the HV20 so that I would have something with definite edges to it (meaning the text and line drawings).

And there is still an image softness that occurs when switching to Cinemode, under manual focus, auto-focus, and instant-auto-focus. I'm telling you, I really do believe that the image softness is intended to be a part of the Cinemode preset to help better emulate the film-look that the preset is meant to create.

You are probably right. I keep having to remind myself that this is a consumer targeted camera.

Look forward to seeing your results. thanks for all the info and work that you're putting into it.

I have done extensive testing with sharpening cine in post and have come to the conclusion that no actual detail is lost. When I compared frames without cine to cine frames with a medium sharpen in vegas the detail level was very similar. As you sharpen the percieved level of detail increases. I belive that what cine is doing is just bypassing the in camera sharpening and giving you a more raw image from the CMOS. So you have a choice of in camera sharpening ro to sharpen in post.

For me the benefits of latitude outway the hassle of sharpening etc in post. also cine provides a much better raw file for colour correction etc.

Fergus, I agree with you that not sharpening in-camera was intentional, however, there is detail lost. You see, there are three places where a special effect can be applied, and the earlier it is in that chain, the better it will be:
1. On the lens, analog stage.
2. In-camera.
3. Post processing.

So, by doing the sharpening in post processing instead of stage 2 (or even better, in stage 1), you already lose detail no matter how good your sharpening tools are.

The only way to go around the problem, is for Canon to develop a better CCD that captures sharp images without the need of in-camera sharpening. But that of course, can be expensive for them.

In other words, the CINEMODE shows how good (or bad), the HV20's CCD really is. Pants down! :)

BTW, Nathan and everyone else, please upload PNG images and not GIF or JPEG. Normal gif files can only show 256 colors, so it's not a good point of comparison. JPEG files tend to compress a lot, so the only format friendly for the web and good for comparisons is PNG.

I'll upload PNG for the next test shots I just did and I think they even further prove that Cinemode softens the details within the image. Eugenia, question - from your post here, I wasn't exactly sure what your thoughts were about Cinemode. Were you saying that you definitely think that it does soften the image because it is "removing" in-camera sharpening that is going on in normal operation of the camera?

Fergus, as far as detail being lost in post-sharpening - that's not my initial concern, because like you I find myself wanting to sharpen post in Vegas as well. But the details that can be lost have everything to do with what kind of fine details are in the subject matter being captured. However, my concern is for the details that are being lost from using Cinemode, since you can't get back super-fine details that Cinemode has smoothed out to look less detailed.

I've got a pretty comprehensive comparison coming as soon as I can finish a paying gig and get them posted.

I did some tests, and my conclusion is that Canon on purpose applies a SOFTEN filter on their raw CCD image. I believe they did that in order to emulate the professional camera's and lenses' DOF ("background blur"). But instead of blurring just the background, they blur the whole picture as that's easier to do. And yes, there is definitely detail lost, detail that is NOT recoverable in post processing (see in the first picture, my attempts did not create sharp lines but noise, check the visible circle in the first sample that is barely visible in the cinemode).

It's too bad, because the rest of CINEMODE's qualities are very helpful, e.g. it's the perfect picture for color grading. The only thing I haven't tried is to boost the in-camera's sharpening and see if that helps, or makes things worse by making the image noisy. The trick is to know if the in-camera sharpness removes the soften filter or not. If not, then there is no hope for Cinemode.

The following clips are presented on 1:1 scale, but feel free to zoom in to see that there is indeed detail lost.

http://osnews.com/img/vegas/cine1.png
http://osnews.com/img/vegas/cine2.png
http://osnews.com/img/vegas/cine3.png
http://osnews.com/img/vegas/cine4.png
http://osnews.com/img/vegas/cine5.png

To evaluate yourselves in full mode, here is the normal picture:
http://osnews.com/img/vegas/1.png
and here is the cinemode one:
http://osnews.com/img/vegas/2.png
The pictures are true 1:1, but they are not 1920x1080 just because I grabbed my visible screen while having frame-by-frame paused a progressive LOSSLESS version of the video rather doing it inside Vegas which does not let me grab in 100% quality/size (so I had to export in lossless first and then grab my screen).

The image format that is posted has nothing at all to do with the sharpness. Remember this isn't a post on how beautiful the HV20 is but to figure out why one mode causes a loss of detail. In this case the amount of color does not in any way matter in regards to the sharpness of the image.

Regardless, having the full gamut of colors helps in the evaluation rather than having only 256 colors.

Everybody back away from the ledge! ;-) Do you really think pro's like Stu Maschwitz are deluding themselves shooting in cine mode?

P.S. There is no such thing as "normal" mode. Do you mean "auto" ?

Yes, I mean auto, that's what "normal" would be for most users.

As for Stu, it's his prerogative to use that mode. Stu is a sucker for color grading, and that mode gives him what he wants. It gives him a blunt look, which he can later do whatever he wants with it. It empowers him. But if you want DETAIL out of your video, Cinemode is not for you.

Someone could argue that Canon added the softness in order to simulate the film look, but the problem is, by losing the detail it's like using... cheap film, not pro film.

So, it depends what you are after. Tweak color power, or clean and sharp images from the get go.

Canon didn't "add softness," I'm almost possitive. Raw sensor data always has a lack of low contrast detail. Images coming next.

Okay people...I just posted my new test pic that proves beyond any doubt that Cinemode softens the image and causes a real loss of finer detail. If this image does not convice you then I don't know what will. Also, Eugenia has only further proven that Cinemode softens the image. Just so everyone understands - you can clearly see all the finer dots in the image in Av mode, and then by simply switching to Cinemode, all those fine dots just disappear in a soft blur. And these are PNG images. :o)

http://www.vettaville.com/canon_hv20...e_softness.htm

They certainly did something. Detail is lost and it's not recoverable.

As for the color grading abilities, I am able to tweak the "auto" images as well as I can the cinemode ones. Check my video. The first image is cinemode untouched, the second one is cinemode graded, the third one is auto untouched and the fourth one is auto graded. Grading between the two images is the same, except that I removed the contrast and sharpen filter on the auto picture because the auto mode is already contrasty and sharpened in-camera. These two filters are enabled in the cinemode picture. The rest of the filters used on both pictures under Vegas are: curves, Aav6cc, color corrector.
http://osnews.com/img/vegas/cine.mpg
If you grab the shots and view the cyan wood under zoom on both the graded pictures (cinemode and auto), you will see that even after sharpening, detail was lost for the cinemode version.

A quick little test
 

1. All images are high quality JPEG. The small amount of compression applied does nothing to impact the ability to judge the sharpness between the different set-ups.

2. I did not light this, and the exposures are not as consistent as they ideally should be. Some shots have been corrected for this, and they're noted.

Okay, first set. A blind test. The gamma has been equalized to match, but that's it. Which is which?

http://www.12south.com/video/hv20/correcteddetail.jpg

The answer is, that's CINEMODE on the left, and AUTO on the right. What you'll most notice is that the unprocessed CINE image lacks some of the fine detail that AUTO has in low contrast areas. In high contrast areas, the real detail is virtually the same, even before any sharpening. Especially note the fine grid at the bottom.

Next, a bigger set of corrected images. The lack of low contrast detail is even more evident here. (My exposure was pretty off on the CINE image, which is why the HDV artifacts became exagerated when corrected.)

http://www.12south.com/video/hv20/correcteddetail2.jpg

More to come.

http://www.12south.com/video/hv20/24p_auto.jpg

http://www.12south.com/video/hv20/24p_cine_manual.jpg

Okay, these two are full-res, uncorrected, straight from the camera. (Only molested by HDV.) Histograms are in the upper-right.

What becomes really clear is that true edge detail (high contrast) is not altered by CINEMODE either way (good or bad) but low contrast detail is missing. This may simply be the real data captured by sensor, or Canon might be applying a filter to this range in order to create smoother transitions. Either way, it's definitely not there.

More to come.

Joseph, your pictures also show the lack of detail when on cinemode. I was able to spot it very easily. Even in your corrected image, the text feels blurry. Check the brown wood on the background of your corrected cinemode picture. It has no details whatsoever, while the auto one has. Your pictures only empower what Nathan and myself are claiming.

BTW, please do not save as JPEG, because a LOT of the clarity on both pictures is taken away by the jpeg compression. It's important to save as PNG for the best evaluation. You can crop the pictures a bit if the PNG filesize is too big.

I'm in complete agreement with Eugenia - I could have easily told you which images were cinemode without you telling us because the loss of detail is undeniably noticable for each cinemode pic. You have only further supported our claims. Which is good in my book that it's not just me or my camera seeing things that aren't there. Cinemode certainly softens the image significantly in my book to NOT use it any longer. I love what Cinemode does for the contrast because it gives more to work with, but as far as image sharpness - Cinemode is sucking the life out of the fine details.

Okay, okay, nobody could wait for the kicker, but here it is:

http://www.12south.com/video/hv20/24p_shutter.jpg

This is shot in shutter priority mode, and it suffers from the same lack of low contrast detail as CINEMODE! The same holds true for aperture priority mode, as well.

SO, whatever is going on, it's not CINEMODE exclusive. It's also not severe. I'm not seeing anywhere NEAR the level of lost detail that Nathan is, no matter what I try.

I had all image adjustments turned-off. Next time I get a chance, I'm going to see what affect the sharpness control has on each of the modes because the reality is that there is no way I would want to shoot full-auto for slightly better low frequency details. Without being able to control the shutter speed, 24P is nothing more than a silly gimmick.

Nathan,
There's NO WAY simply going to CINEMODE should have caused the separation pattern on your box to completely blur away, no way. Look at the grid on my tests. There's no real detail lost, just less contrast.

I agree, that there is definitely a loss of subtler, low contrast detail, but whether this is artificial or not, is still not completely clear to me. The fact that the same data is missing from the other program modes is what I find the most telling.

I hear you. Personally, I have decided to shoot in 60i program auto (just so I can control exposure) and leave everything else on defaults. It produces the best image and I am personally most interested in the image clarity rather than the overall feel. I know that it's not the same thing because of shutter speed/gain/aperture differences when shooting in 1/48 and 24f, but if I can export my final 60i stream as 24p, I would do so, even if it's not "real 24p".

I guess we either found a "design bug" or a "design decision", or Canon engineers did not spend a lot of time testing the other modes because of time constraints or because the main market for this camera is plain consumers so these extra modes were put together really fast without much thinking or testing.

>the separation pattern on your box to completely blur away, no way.

Your paper had bigger patterns, maybe it's losing detail after a specific visual point.

Well, now we could begin a conversation about what one considers to be "detail" and what that means to each seeing eye. You may be seeing the grids and saying that no detail has been lost because the grids are still there. But I'm seeing grids that look softer and less sharp then they had looked. And what I take notice of most is the fact that you can pretty well see the fiber-texture of the paper in your non-cinemode pics, and as Eugenia brought up, you can see the texture in your background board as well - but those finer details are softened and far less discernable in the Cinemode pics.

But your test grids have a more softened look to them in Cinemode - that's obvious. Hey, I wish going to Cinemode didn't cause the separation pattern to disappear on the box and blur away, but it did and does. It doesn't matter what subject matter I stick in front of this HV20, as soon I switch it to Cinemode is softens the image. Can someone else perhaps try some really closeup captures with some similar material - maybe my HV20 is just more extreme in it's Cinemode setting than other cameras. ???

No, not to that degree. You really only have to look at the shot of Nathan's face to see that something there is VERY, VERY different than what I'm getting. He seems to be losing a great deal of detail EVERYWHERE, not just in areas of low contrast.

I'm gonna shoot a well-lit res chart next time. But I can almost guarantee you that it won't show hardly any difference, since a res chart is all high contrast.

It would be great if someone else could confirm what I found, that auto mode is the only mode that doesn't yield this result. (i.e. that low contrast detail is missing from the other program modes, as well.)

This is a good observation worth investigating further Eugenia. And I'll see about gathering some grid paper and test with that. However, it was in my regular footage (not closeup stuff) I've been capturing over the past few days that I started really feeling that the images lacked the detail that I had previously been seeing on other tapes, and that's when I realized it was when I switched to Cinemode that I took notice of the differences...which has lead to all these postings. But I love looking into this kind of tech stuff with others here. We're all helping each other learn more about this camera we love.

Nathan,
Look closely at the grid again. Every line is really there, and just as defined (i.e. it is not blurry) it just has less contrast, less edge enhancement. The auto mode image just has blacker blacks and whiter whites and more edge enhancement (ringing.)

I don't know if you've ever worked with RAW images from a high-quality DSLR, but if not, you'll see the exact same thing. The raw image from a CCD or a CMOS sensor is relatively soft and has to have some level of sharpening to even look "correct."