"I use it, but I probaby use TV mode more to keep my shutter at a constant 1/48."

What's the advantage of 1/48? I mean, are you more concerned with the shutter speed dropping UNDER or more conerned with it going OVER 1/48? I'm fine with CINE as long as the shutter doesn't obviously go too low..

There's been quite a few of these cine mode discussion threads already, not complaining, just saying.

The DVInfo HV20 overview page references the A1's preset #8 in regards to cine mode...

"There's a Cine color mode available as well, which can be used with or without 24p. It's actually based on one of the Custom Presets included with the Canon XH A1 and G1 camcorders, number 8 (Cine.V.) The parameters of that preset are Gamma: Cine 1, Knee: Low, Black: Stretch, Sharpness: -4, Color Matrix: Cine 1, Color Gain: -20, Color Phase: +5, Red-Blue: -5, Green-Red: -5, Blue-Red: +5, and Red-Green: +12. When the HV20 begins shipping in April, it'll be interesting to see how this Cine color option matches up with Custom Preset 8 from an XH A1."

http://www.hdvinfo.net/articles/canon/hv20overview.php

1/48 is the ideal shutter speed you want to use when shooting 24p. It is equivalent to a 180 degree shutter on a film camera. If you don't lock it and it goes up or down you can get different effects. If it goes up you'll start to see more of a "Saving Private Ryan" look (studdery), and if it goes down the image can "streak" or have "trails".

The camera will try and auto adjust this to compensate for exposure if it's not locked. However, if you lock the exposure in Cine mode the shutter will lock too, but when/if the exposure changes the shutter can/will move if you're not careful. That's why I've mainly shot in TV mode.

Blake (or anyone else for that matter) if one did not want to use cinemode wouldn't lowering the contrast setting in TV mode also help you in regards to dynamic range thus preventing you from blowing out the highlights?

Ian, I haven't messed with that much myself. Pretty much been shooting with the Image Effect on OFF. The Neutral setting looks descent to my eye though (haven't tested it however).

But, yes, if you tweak contrast and lower the sharpening I'm fairly sure you can achieve the same thing (or close) to help protect highlights (and I always use zebras). Just need to do some test/comparisons.

Only thing I'm not sure of is if there are film style gamma curves being added to the Cine mode that help out.

I've been shooting -1 contrast, -1 brightness (and color depth 0 or +1) (sharpness 0) in the custom settings for this reason (I shoot Tv mode, 24p.)

Blake and Peter thanks. I assumed the same answer but lately I have been reading a lot of user opinions on Cinemode and how that function is doing something "extra" in the background to establish more dynamic range. I was hoping one could at least come close to doing the same thing in TV mode. I see from your answers that keeping contrast and sharpening down can help protect your footage from blown highlights (and of course using zebras to possibly underexpose your aperture a little).

The small amount of contrast adjustment afforded by the "-1" setting doesn't match what the cinemode setting does.

agreed

When in TV mode I also use contrast -1 and brightness -1 and while this helps to prevent the highlights being blown out it is no way compares to the latitude of cine. I like both looks but prefer cine for most things. I sharpen in vegas and am happy with the results.

I was assuming that a brightness-1 would merely shift all brightness down, thus "floor-ing" some of the darker areas while introducing a sub-white cealing. Not your experience?

From what I understand, brightness only effects autoexposure. It just causes it to tend to autoexpose down a little. If you are locking exposure and setting it manually, it shouldnt really make any difference.

That is correct.

If you want to lower the overall brightness while you're setting the exposure manually, you just lower the overall brightness by dialing down the exposure.

Well, I did a little bit of experimenting last night with the HV20 connected directly to my TV so that I could visually see what was happening to the image when I manually changed the different parameters on the camera. That was a helpful learning experience that helped me to better comprehend what takes place with the settings.

I will say this about CineMode, seeing what it does to the image while looking at my TV, I actually did like what it was doing to the image overall. At first, the overall colors seemed far more dull than I would have preferred, but once I did a manual white-balance, that made them appear more pleasing to the eye, while still retaining a somewhat duller nature. But at least the CineMode setting still looked very natural to the point that any image changes you might want to make could easily be done post.

But the biggest improvement I noticed when using CineMode (while looking at the TV) was how much more detail was uncovered in the darker/shadow areas of the image. With CineMode OFF (and trying some of the other settings), there were areas of shadow that looked very dark with no discernable details - details that I could clearly see with my own eyes that the camera could not see. But when I switched to CineMode, I could suddenly see into those shadow/dark areas, there was much more viewable detail in those shadows.

I think I like CineMode after all because it seems like it creates a safer, easier to work with in post image that may initially appear somewhat bland or very neutral looking, but at least you could easily alter that neutral look into something more. So I think it might be good for others to hook the HV20 up to their TV/HDTV and play around with the settings to get a better idea of how they can affect the captured image.

Cine mode gamma demo
 

I'll back that up: there's much more shadow and highlight detail in Cine mode. Because I haven't seen any other links, here are two stills (full size, high quality JPEGs) of Cine- and P-modes of the same scene, taken one after the other. They're hardly great shots, but they illustrate the gamma change nicely. Check out the blown highlights, dark shadows and general oversharpening in P-mode. Ingest via Final Cut 6, then copied and pasted from QuickTime Player into Photoshop.

http://twelvefives.com/images/HV20-cine.jpg
http://twelvefives.com/images/HV20-P.jpg

Hey Iain, thanks for posting those comparison pics. That's something I had thought about doing to prove my point about CineMode, but you did a great job and those pics clearly show how much of an improvement that CineMode can have upon the image overall.

Now I've just got to convince myself that 24p is as equally as good running alongside CineMode. LOL!!!