can anybody translate the above link ( post 80)

I used Babelfish - inputted the URL and it translated to loose english. It was a bit too much to post here, and it should be it's own thread if it's going to be of interest. Personally, I think it looks to be more trouble than it's worth, but thank you for sharing Greg.

http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/tr

IMO, this little tool is amazing. Like Greg said, you get to see Gain values. You also see effective Aperture (a combined Aperture / ND value).

Now, if I could only figure out how to lock the exposure at 1/48...

Let me know if anyone needs a specific translation from German (from the mentioned website). I just hope my english is good enough for you...! ;)

Well, Enea, that's very kind of you to offer! If it's not too much of fa hassle I for one would be interested in a decent translation. Perhaps it needs its own thread.

best,
elmer

ps now if you could translate a couple Thomas Mann novels...

Hey Chris, do you mean in Cinemode one can lock the exposure by toggling with the SET button?

Also, I'm a bit confused, nothing new I admit, but from "Again" in your post I don't quite get what you mean. Is that the way to lock exposure or to get more latitude in the settings? And not having a cell phone or a PS2 (yes, I live in a cave) why wouldn't a sheet of white paper do?

jus' curious,
lmr

It would have to be an evenly, brightly illuminated sheet of white paper to work.

Roughly translated, the goal is to saturate the sensor with enough light to force it (the automatic controls) to close everything up (high F-stop/high shutter speed) and turn down the electrical gain (because it's so bright). Then with exposure locked you have as much manual control over the optical system (by way of the Exposure setting) as you can get before electrical gain kicks in.

...At least that's my understanding of how things are working.

Aside: I've found the white background of my video iPod works too.

Andrew.

(edited to change "open everything up" to "close everything up" and "low F-stop" to "high F-stop")

Use a limestone cave wall, lighted by a torch,,,,:).

The point is before you activate exposure adjustment by depressing the joystick, you can first lock it in a non gain mode by pointing it a a fairly bright light source. As you are doing that, you activate exposure using joystick, at at that point, the camera is locked at the current exposure. You can then use the joystick to slide up and down the exposure. Eventually as you go to the plus side of exposure, you are going to break back into the gain being added, but at least this gives you a choice. If your scene is dark, you can make the choice of adding the exposure adjustment up. What people are saying here, is they want to have situation where or the ability to let the shadows go black, without camera trying to adjust exposure.

Andrew and Chris describe it well - of course, it helped I saw the Quicktime video they're referring to too - highly recommend everyone watches it!

http://www.dvinfo.net/media/canon/hv...urecontrol.mov
Patrick Jennings video about HV20 aperture control.
I'd think pointing at the sun should work too ;)

Actually, I like translation work, no problem! Now what exactly would you like to know (I suppose technical information is most important)? I'm just asking because the thread on that website is 9 pages long (close to 200 posts!), that would come close to translating Thomas Mann! ;)

Since everyone has started talking about controlling exposure on the HV20 again, I thought I'd post the link to the MUST READ article by Barry Green about doing this. I suggest you print it out, then read it over and over again, because it may not technically click in your mind too quickly...it didn't for me. It took several days before the light went off. LOL!!!

Controlling Exposure on the Canon HV20 by Barry Green
http://www.dvxuser.com/jason/hv20/

Hey...I was out shooting footage from inside my car and used a white napkin to point the camera at before locking the exposure. Now, I did have to move the napkin around to find just the right amount of light falling upon it that gave me a usable range of exposures (either side of 0) that didn't change the shutter speed. I found using my PSP to lock the exposure works best for indoors. So I improvised using the napkin outdoors in the car.

Hi Enea!

Hopefully a couple wiser voices add to what I say, they may even say it's not so special, don't bother, but if as Greg Tay says, it's "a really nifty software that tells you the gain so you can calibrate your cam," if you could translate what specifically speaks to that, that'd be great. Only if it isn't novel-length!

best,
elmer

@ Chris Barcellos, Andrew Plumb, Nathan Shane

I just got a call from Geico...

Oh, your the guy in the Geico commercials......:)

Screen grabs using Cinemode in my post in http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=93569

Here's how you can calibrate your cam using the HDV monitor program. I use my cellphone o2 XDA atom where I can adjust the lcd screen brightness in varying levels from 1-10. You can use your nokia to take pictures of a range of different shades of white/greyand use that. I then put the lcd in front of the lens and let the hv20 automatically adjust the exposure. I can see the values in the HDVmon. I readjust the lcd brightness until I get a reading that gives me 50 shutter(PAL version), f1.8 or 2.0 (wide open) and 0 gain, then I lock exposure. so 0db exposure is really 0 and anything above that is adding gain.

I did a test by shooting an entire party using this mode. It was an evening party and it seemed to help in minimizing low light artifacts. (Im a beginner on this camera) I tweaked color and light in post with pretty good results. I have Final Cut Studio 2 which has “Color” a new app that Apple acquired for color grading and finishing work. WOW !!! This app when owned by Silicon Color cost like $25,000. Used a lot in motion picture work and Apple is just giving it away in the new suite for $”0” The code in that app is far superior for this kind of work than anything else on the market unless your ready to spend what you ordinarily spend for a luxury car. :-)

http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/color/

After reading the whole thread on that german website, I really don't know what to translate. The tool itself seem to be self-explanatory. Just a few things that might be important:

By the checkbox "pref. M.C. Decoder", you can force the tool to use the Mainconcept Mpeg2 decoder...when you've got that one installed on your system, that is. There seem to be some issues with other decoders not correctly displaying the whole picture (black lines on the bottom).

The latest version of the tool explicitly supports Canon HDV cams, stabilizer, white balance and manual exposure settings are not being displayed, though. The highest gain amplifications (+18 db) are correctly displayed now.

All the other posts concern Sony cams and DirectShow issues only. So be sure you've got a proper working DirectShow capable Mpeg2 decoder installed (PowerDVD 6 seems to install one) and the tool should work.

I hope I could shed some light on a few things. Ask away if you've got issues with the tool and I'll have another look on that site (and try to find a solution, of course).

Is that ok for you, Elmer? Ah, I just love the internet: people from all over the world exchanging information and knowledge. And it's always a good excercise for improving my english! ;)

I think this tool has some quirks in it in regards to reading shutter speeds. I purposely set my shutter speeds in different ranges and the software was unable to read the. it just displayed a "0". This happened most of the time I used it. Also it shows the 1/48 to be 1/60. The Iris and gain information showed up correctly every time however.

Thanks, Enea! That's fine by me.

It sounds like an app for PC and not Mac. True?

best,
elmer

True.

(are we redoing a particular and well known Budweiser commercial here, or what? ;)))