The ultimate preset.
 

The ultimate XHA1 preset.

EXPLANATION

The Trend:
When we use high end digital cameras, sporting more than 10bit, high res, no compression 4:4:4 color space, we tend to shoot with few contrast, in order to correct it during the post production process.

The Exception:
With highly compressed HDV cameras featuring only 8 bit the trick above can't be done without affecting the quality drastically, because only use few o fthe 8 bits are used to describe the image, obtaining banding and having a heavily deteriored footage after cc.

The Solution
Creating a preset that uses the most bits possible, with REAL BLACKS AT 0 IRE, and that can be used without any CC

Here is it:
VISION02 PRESET TEST on Vimeo

VISION02

This preset sports high contrast, 0 IRE blacks, less banding and better SN ratio.


VISION02 SETTING PARAMETERS

GAMMA CINE1
KNEE LOW
BLACK PRESS
PED 0
SETUP -9
SHARPNESS 1
HDF LOW
DHV 0
COR 0
NR1 OFF
NR2 HIGH
CMX CINE1
CGN 0

all other parameters at 0 (default)

this is great thanks

I'm not too keen on what affects what on the settings, all I know is what "looks good". Would any wedding people recommend this setting? Looks pretty good from the footage.

I'm shooting with vividrgb atm.

Thanks

Giovanni, your videos are extremely impressive! I'm super-impressed with the low-light footage, great stuff man. It makes me happy that I know I have the option of creating such nice lookin' footage with my A1.

This preset looks beautiful, I can't wait to try it out... And if you can specify, please, what's the lighting setup you've got there? Are those kinos?

And the lenses are wonderful - if you can specify what you're shooting with I'd appreciate it. I'm shopping around for a lens kit for myself.

Thanks!

I am definitely going to try that one out. The footage looks great.

Not sure I'd call it the "ultimate" preset because it's such a subjective assessment. That said, it's a preset that can be used in a lot of situations. Great for dramatic pieces which I do, well, none of.

Alright I did a test of this present compared to Truecolor (/w -4 Sharpness to reduce the appearance of grain). It doesn't stand up in terms of low light performance. Your video shows almost ZERO grain at such low light, but mine shows a lot. What gain setting were you at?

Does pressing the blacks crunch blacks? I have a modified TrueColor preset near identical to this in terms of pedestal and setup (no noise reduction, though, as I'd rather have the noise than deal with noise reduction issues), but with blacks stretched for fear of crunching them. Thoughts?

I shot some stuff with it on the weekend and also shot some stuff with a 35mm adapter in low light and looks pretty good to me, I will need to do some comparison but I think its pretty good.

Giovanni,

thank you for your time doing the research.

imo, to crash the blacks, get higher contrast, it's not a hard thing to do , the codec hold it pretty well, hardest thing is to keep a widest dynamic range, for that purpose I try to keep the pedestal and setup at 0.
Also black pressed is not a good idea, look at the lips of your character, there is an edge on the shade side of the lip looking like a black line, looks kind of strange...

your preset seem to be a "special application" one, IMHO..

if anything you want to stretch black and press, crush it later via color corrector.

When you set the SETUP to -9 there is no compression, no crushing, no waste, it's just resetting the BLACKS to RGB 0,0,0 instead of RGB 19,19,19.
So i RECOMMEND to all XH A1 users to try all their settings with the SETUP moved to -9.

And finally i think that VISION02 isn't any better than the others, the only great thing in it is that the SETUP is -9 (and obviously PEDESTAL must remain to 0)

All this is said watching to a parade oscilloscope that showed clearly that SETUP=0 means IRE7.5.

Why set NR2 HIGH? What's the advantage? Surely you will get a softer image with risk of ghosts from moving subjects? It may help in low light with the gain turned up, but not in normal conditions, surely?

I think that it's NR1 which generates ghosting.
NR2 soften the image a bit.

Here is something from what was the second camera in a shoot using the preset. Shot with the XL-H1A. I think this frame has a bit of a soft focus and or the softness from the preset of NR2-High, but that said, the Gain was @ 6 and this was @ 20x so I think it held up nicely. Sadly I am not allowed to post any videos.

what frame rate?

25 fps (PAL camera)

25fps PAL = 24fps NTSC ???

well it does not = 24fps, but it is the equivalent ; ).

thanks Giovanni, I'm going to try this out today.

JS

Actually I guess NTSC's 30fps would be the equivalent to PAL's 25fps when speaking of standard frame rates...my bad

Is there a way you could post the custom preset file on this forum? It would be immensely appreciated.

Perhabs this one :

Thank you kindly, mate.

YW Travis (Y)

I will be trying this out for my paintball tutorials. If I can remove levels correction from my workflow it will definitely speed up render time.

Thank You!

Presets
 

Is there a way to have the preset name appear as opposed to the number...for instance Vision2 instead of CP1...I only want to have 2 presets available..I'm not always sure which preset I'm using. thanks

No, you can't unfortunately :(.

as far as i know, the updated XH-A1s will display the preset name on the lcd screen

Hopefully us XH-A1 users get some sort of firmware upgrade to do so also! But don't see it happening....

Have 2 presets named CP1 and CP2 and go back and forth.
You can manually change one of the custom keys to reverse the preset button.

JJ

I'm having trouble installing it!


I downloaded it and placed it in the folder none as Presets.

But it doesnt show up on the camera!

help

thanks!

The folder name is PRESET not Presets. Singular. Made the same mistake myself the first time.

I also have several Presets saved, my method to remember them is to simply have a laminated card listing the Preset number & Name in my pocket.

Alternatively you could ..
-Save the Preset data with a photo which is took when in recording-to-tape mode [set Custom Function #8 to 2 .. see manual page 84].
-With each Preset take a relevent photo which will show differences in the Preset's colours etc.
-In Photoshop (etc) superimpose the Presets number & Name and resave to the XH-A1's memory card then following the 'Loading a Custom Preset File from a Still Image' instructions [manual page 78].
-You could either import the one you wanted to use to Custom Preset 1 (CP1) each time or probably better would be to have several presets occupying CP1, CP2, CP3 etc mirroring the labelled photo's on the memory card for reference.

.. I think the card in the pocket is easier though the photo method is good for reminding yourself of the Presets differences - maybe taking the same photo with different Presets would highlight the differences better!

I was able to test out this preset at a voice recital. It seemed to hold up pretty well even with 12db gain. I probably could have gotten by with just 6db, but it turned out OK. It's hard to tell, but most of the light was backlight from the left.

Camera settings:
HDV 60i
White Balance: PRE Indoor
Gain: 12db

The DVD looks great with absolutely no color correction!

My new 12db preset!
 

Yesterday, I spent about an hour testing different presets, all from this wonderful website against this new one.
I specifically used 12db gain and different frame rates and shutter speeds, and what can I say, this preset ROCKS!
While most consumers watch their new HD TV set on the default "DYNAMIC" mode with a lot of sharpening and contrast cranked up, switching to standard, proved that this preset looks like there is a +3db gain, not +12!!!
And I tell you, all other presets might be great without gain, but this one is my new "LOW LIGHT" preset!
I bet that this preset might even beat cameras 10X the price with this kind of low light performance.