My story about migrating through different cams
 

First of all I want to thank Chris, Barlow, Frederic and Jonathan (xtream.ne.jp admin) for supporting my service, and Mr. Ryohei Sekiguchi/Appex (Canon professional lens and Vinten dealer in Japan) and Mr. Yamaguchi of Canon Japan to let me use the cam.

When I tried XL H1 last year, I was impressed with the resolution and the ability to shoot well in low light situation, but the form factor did not suit me, because I take my cams to mountains in my Kata bag, riding my downhill mountainbike or allmountain bikes (another words trail bike). I started shooting video seriously with XL1 then tried PDX10, then AG-DVC30, and migrated to HDV with HDR-FX1, HDR-HC1 along with FX1, then switched HC1 to HVR-A1J. Sony HDV cams are fine most of the time, especially FX1, but to me could not beat the footage I shot with XL H1. Then AG-HVX200 came out and I jumped to it expecting its 1080/60i would be not much less quality than FX1 or XL H1. But actually, HVX200’s 1080/60i was very disappointing although its 720/60p was very useful especially for shooting fast motion and overcranking was nice technique to adopt (60 frames over 24p). Then Barlow Elton kept showing me XL H1 footage that he shot and composted with slowmotion effect and rendered to progressive frames. I was trying to shoot better video with AG-HVX200, but I had problems to shoot in the low light situation and worst of all, I started having problems to unload clips from P2 cards most of the time. I missed few opportunity to shoot video with DVCPRO HD format and ended up shooting with DV and although the quality of DV format shot with HVX200 was very good, it was very frustrating that I kept having problems. I sent the cam back to Panasonic but they could not find anything wrong, but I kept having problems. It could have been the problem caused by using the firewire of the front panel of Quad G5 (I hear about the same problems), but since I was quite busy with straighten my business, I was simply could not spend time with this issue. I was not about to spend more money on Firestore, then I started hearing the rumor on XH G1/A1 then I decided to sell my HVX200 quickly.
I also confess another thing. People kept telling me about how well I shot the Makuhari Panorama pan video that I shot with XL H1, so I also tried to shoot as good footage with HVX200 but it was very frustration, I could not get the same resolution nor brightness out of HVX200. Since I could not get a good result, I did not post that clip to assure the reputation of HVX200 thinking I must be doing something wrong.

So out of all of these points, I need a cam that is good for low light situation, small enough, high resolution and able to shoot casts that are going really fast without getting compression rubbish. FX1 was pretty good, but even with some effort to stay well with the fast going riders, I noticed some blocky rubbish around the blurred tires or when riders ride through fast in front of me, also the back ground being trees and grass, I would get a second of bad compressed frames. Some people told me that it is because of the 1/3 CCD, maybe not because of the HDV compression scheme, but I though I had to live with it (Nate, Michael, Heath, Barlow and others stick around with me on iChat to discuss about that). For the compression issue, I even thought of buying GY-HD200 if I won’t get the compression issue, but then again, HD200 is little too large for me.

So, I was expecting lighter and smaller form factor on XH A1/G1 than XL H1, as good controls on zooming and focusing (the iris control is a big plus!), the famous high resolution picture and better performance in low light situation (I’m a naturalist and don’t want to use video light as much) for night street shooting for Xtreme sports. Also, as much as FX1 was good for back lighted situation, I was hoping that XH A1/G1 would provide me the similar quality.

Then I got the G1 for few days, I pretty much had no problem shooting what I wanted to shoot, most of the time amazed with its performance comparing to the headaches I had with other cameras to control the brightness and getting high quality video out of its price range. Chris helped me to get good fucntion control setting like the focus sensitivity, zoom speed and other things which really helped me to just go and shoot without getting puzzled with responsiveness of the functions.

First day, I received the cam early evening, but I had to get used to it, going over the parameters that Chris told me to change. Then after over midnight, I started testing to shoot my balcony. I liked that stone ornament photo I shot before, then since it was raining hard, I thought I should shoot that video to get that subtle feeling. HVX200 did really good with overcranked video of my balcony, too, so I wanted G1 to do the same or do better in low light situation.
I stayed up ‘til 4am in the morning to capture and upload the clips, but I had to catch some sleep hoping the first daylight shooting would be better weather.

Since it was almost like the typhoon the night before, it was clear sky in the morning and said bye to my wife and I went around to shoot some things under the daylight. There are some things that I didn’t post but I was getting more confidence with this cam time after time I shoot various things. I noticed the CA, but I think this is a trade off for this cam being sensitive to the light. It wouldn’t be m2t but I will post some clips from FCP captures later to show you how I liked. Over all, I had the deja-vu feeling because G1 was performing like H1. At night, I had to go to a farewell party of friend of mine (it’s actually James Ishido who demonstrated nice riding of video) and I thought it is a perfect opportunity to shoot in the low light situation, I had no problems getting everyones expressions on their faces, although the place was very poorly lighted. I also shot everyone’s favorite, the night time taxi ride video on the way back. Since I had to wake up early morning to go to Makuhari, I could not send more clips for the day 2. Frustrating knowing people in other forum talking about how little I provided for the first day, but gave up to shoot more with better condition by getting enough sleep.

The day 3, the weather was beautiful although the wind was strong. We took chances to go to Makuhari, combining video shooting session for the Makuhari Panorama panning and bike riding. It is like farewell riding session with James Ishido, so it was perfect. So, I took sometime setting up the Glidecam (thanks to some posts in the Glidecam forum to perfect the imperfection of Glidecam off the shelf), I went full on with rigs hoping that I could show people in this forum good footage. I went for the panorama video and ocean video before bike riding and besides the wind being so strong and shaking the cam, it was so easy to reproduce the same video as H1. I felt doped.

After that I tried the Glidecam, but it was hard to get the final balance in the strong wind, so I could not do too good job with that, so didn’t spend so much.
One thing I regret is that I wanted someone to press on zooming out button on the cordless remote while I go backwards with the cam shooting the riders from the front. I will try that next time.
Then I wanted to have some fun, too, so I switched shooting video with my wife Nancy, she had done many shooting with me, then she shot most of the tripod shots. The tripod shots demonstrate how well the cam performs under bright and dark area at the same time. I also wanted to try how well the auto focus would work because Nancy would not be able to do manual focusing. She will be busy working with the zoom and worrying about panning the cam for the better framing.

I thought we did enough things, a lot more than how much I shot with XL H1 (both coffee shops were closed this time), so for the third day, I spent most of the time selecting the good footage and worked on capturing with m2t format using LumiereHD version 1.7. I also used Matrox MXO provided by Hitachi Hightech Solution and ProVideo Station Shinjuku, to monitor the quality of the footage I shot through Nanao full HD resolution LCP panel and down converted interlaced video on regular TV monitor at the same time (this way, I can look at interlace motion and the resolution on HD with LCD panel).

I can probably do better job with focussing, and be more selective with cinelook and format, knowing that 1080/60i is good for the fast motion stuff and Canon’s 24F format is good even played on regular 29.97 monitoring (because 24F plays without any unnecessary interlace frames through FCP, so MXO can be set at 60i setting to monitor 24F format).

I love this cam. I will but A1 this year and maybe but G1. Knowing Canon, they will keep these models for few years, so I would concentrate shooting than thinking about other cams. I’m committed to Canon now because it shoot the best video. And I was going through the video and found out that the drop pan video, I did not notice bad compression on myself dropping in the 6 feel drop even the back ground is all edgy grass. Amazing. Also, with the tripod video of James and me doing the triple or James doing the triple, I inspected when the riders come in to the frame, all of the edges on the cast is nicely blurred, without blocky noises!! This wasn’t possible with FX1. How did Canon do this? Better HDV compression? DigicII?

So, that is all for my story for now. I’m pretty sure my story is only good until people receive their cams but at least somewhat useful for now since there are not many stories around for XH G1 yet.

Special thanks to all of my friends sharing their rides at Makuhari and sharing the time at the party.

Kaku, I did take note that the XH-G1 compression artifacting while fast panning seems better than Sony Z1U. I did forgot to comment about that observation before, but Canon Digic II compression processing seems good.

I share most of the same conclusions as you.

I have said it many times before, but I really appreciate all your efforts. I am glad the XH-G1/A1 lives up to your expectations.

I hope to hear from you again with regards to future camera's.

Thanks for the detailed update Kaku. Glad you finally found a cam you're really happy with!

this is quite an interesting story, thanks for sharing it, because you're one of the few truly disinterested people who has managed to handle all of these cool cameras.

Nice work Kaku and really appreciate your effort in getting clips to the forum so people like myself can check them out.

Thank you Kaku
 

Kaku, thank you for your impressions, and all of the video clips. (and to Chris for generously hosting all that bandwidth). Your time and energy is much appreciated. You've addressed all the curiosities that I had up to this point. My next test will be to purchase one and see how it works for my specific needs.

awesome post.

let me know if u get any action sports footage

mahalos

My efforts rewarded
 

Thanks to every single member that responded in this thread and posting threads. I really feel happy that people actually take time to post their feeling of appreciation.

I will add more info here according to my findings.

Little tips.

Hoodman H300 (provided to me by Mr. Nagai/Bogen Japan) is perfect for the LCD panel. It was very handy for the outdoor shooting.

I was provided to use the wide conversion lens, but simply I had no time to use it, nor I felt the needs to use it (I also care too much about visual distortion with wider lenses. I like to keep how the casts really look, sick and tired of underground sport video with fisheye lens scenes, too).

All of my m2t capturing is done is with LumiereHD version 1.7 running on Mac Pro Quad Xeon 3.0 GHz.

When I made mistake setting the FCP to capture 24F format with 60i setting, it allowed to capture, but had some problems in automatic scene detection and timecode issue when I locate the points of the clips on the tape using the captured clips (naturally). Make sure to check the setting before you caputre each format becase it won't give you any alert.

The old Canon Lanc remote is working fine.

I mistakenly hit the gain switch once and changed the gain position. This happened only once.

I have a Formatte matte box but I could not fit it for now. Mr. Sekiguchi is helping me to build an adaptor.

I was able to fit XH G1 to Kata CC-191 small shoulder case.

Also, Kata FX1 rain jacket worked okay with G1, in case you want to utallize what you have for the former cam that you own ;).

So far, I loved the manual zoom ring of AG-DVC30 the best out of what I tried and owned. Wish G1's zoom ring was little more synchronize with your finger control.

Inspite of what the reviewer on VideoAlfa magazine, the focus magnify does say "focus" display while you are using. There's also menu parameters to set each focus maginification and peaking function to switch to B/W for more precision control. Only problem is that the maginification can't be turned on while you are recording although peaking could be swtiched anytime.

Thanks
 

Kaku,

I appreciate your time to share this. It has solidified my view, I am getting it! I had some worries when the first clips appeared on the web a while back, but you certainly made those qualms dissapear.

So the lowlight is the same as the XL-H1?

How well balanced does it feel?

Are there any buttons that feel akward?

You probably wont know the answer to this question but I will give it a shot. How many inches is it from the mounting screw to the back of the camcorder? I am building a shoulder rig and want to see it I can modify it to fit before I get the cam.

How fast can it zoom, and also how slow. Does the lens have a nice feel when zooming, focusing and changing iris? Is it as good as the DVC30 in this department?

I think that is all that I have for questions, thanks a billion for your work. i have been obsessively checking the net for any review, and you pulled through.

One more thing
 

How does the gain look when at full 18db?

oops, my editing missed your question about DVC30. DVC30 is still the best choice for the zoom ring.

Hvx200?
 

I am in deep worries about words said about hvx200. I have serious plan to purchase one. I have several times asked question about HVX's lowlight perfomance in different communities, dvinfo including. No word about problems. So HVX users can You confirm things said here.

One thing seems to be sure is that HDV has more information in the dark area than DVCPRO HD. Even with the black stretch on, I could not set it up to shoot like H1 nor G1 for sure.

Holly,

So the lowlight is the same as the XL-H1?
A:yes, it seems to be.

How well balanced does it feel?
B:it shouldn't be too bad that at indoor, it did not take long to get the balance on Glidecam that explains well balance.

Are there any buttons that feel akward?
I didn't think so. If anything, there were thought after.

You probably wont know the answer to this question but I will give it a shot. How many inches is it from the mounting screw to the back of the camcorder? I am building a shoulder rig and want to see it I can modify it to fit before I get the cam.

A:The screw whole was around the middle of the whole cam, I thought.

How fast can it zoom, and also how slow. Does the lens have a nice feel when zooming, focusing and changing iris? Is it as good as the DVC30 in this department?

A:As I mentioned in the other post. DVC30 is far better. Next was HVX200. The rocker works good with very intuitive speed adjustment next to it. This is great. But the ring can improive in the future.

Also, correction, I do see little bit of compression around the edge on the drop clip but knowing this is one of the worse situation, it is acceptible to me.

I just decied to get rid of HVR-A1j and get equipped with A1 and HV10 for now.

Kaku Ito

Thank you for all the work you did and the attention to detail with which you recorded the clips. Its very important for people viewing the clips to have as much information as possible and you did not disappoint!

I wondered if you had any contacts with Sony and were able to get hold of a HVR-V1 and put it through its paces?

A series of V1 clips with copius notes would, I'm sure, be gratefully received by many people here.

As 2006 comes to a close you could really help Father Xmas decide what to put in my stocking a Canon A1 or a Sony V1. Can you help?

:)

Cheers

TT

Sony seems to put its prototype cams into the hands of professional reviewers, and the information seems to come out in dribs and drabs, slightly filtered. Hope I don't take too many arrows for saying that. It's just my honest sense of it.

Canon seems to trust putting its cam in the hands of a professional "user" (Kaku) and let the opinion stand freely on that merit.

But Kaku tells you his purpose, his settings, keeps his opinion pretty much out of it, and the clips speak for themselves, which is the way I'd rather have it. Well done Kaku!

Tony,

Canon trials were possible in the past because of Mr. Ryohei Sekiguchi from Appex always wanting me to know what Canon cams can do, and he is so supportive of what I do. I did Sony clip postings (the action is verbalized different here already) are done because I bought them. So was Panasonic.
I could get help from Mr. Masuda at Provideo Station Shinjuku to get a loaner, but that will be when it is start selling.
Knowing Sony, they would not provide me the prototype because I'm too honest even on my articles in the magazines. I kept saying they have to put their act together in many things. You can also find some posts of mine here about that, too. But one thing they are good about is that Sony never seems to put pressure to the magazine about the truth, unless I make mistake in writing something wrong in the article.

Thanks Tom for your words.

Kaku how do you find PV station generally? As a foreigner here in Tokyo I have found them generally disinterested. Way back when I bought the DVX100a, they were initially not even going to let me touch the cam in store unless I was definetely going to buy. Wierd. They do have pretty good cam prices though.

I was recommending people to go there to buy their HVXs and there was a small list of those that did, and after that you think there would be some improved service to me, but same nonchalant disdain. So basically I stopped recommending them to foreigners.

I have since moved all my purchases to Fujiya Avic in Nakano. They are always very helpful and kind. Anyway interested to know if your experience differs to mine.

Noel,

Just mention my name next time and you will be treated better.
But their problem is the command in English....

Kaku, I agree that would be difficult. But I speak mostly Japanese with them :P

Also, when do you intend on buying the A1?

If you are happy with Fujia, might as well stick with it.

I'm placing the order with Appex next week.

Ok cool, Ill wait until you get yours then just rob you as your walking around Shibuya shooting! Free cam :P

Hi Kaku, thanks for doing such a writeup..
Just a question, how is the weight of the camera distrubuted? - When you hold the camera(right hand on the side handle). Is most of the weight distrubuted on the front?

I own a XL2, and its pretty heavy on the front. (:

Noel, k, I will be extra carefull and tight the cam to my wrist or something.
I will also go to Fujiya Avic and pick up your cam pretending it is for you. Hehe.

David,

The weight distribution wasn't anything weird. I could not stand H1, but this cam is okay. I hear A1 has better balance because of less stuff on the right hand side (HDSDI stuff) which I'm glad because I would put my A1 on Glidecam a lot.

One thing... LCD is little too small for focusing.

Microphone from HVR-A1J worked okay with G1. I'm also planning to test the VideoMic from RODE, soon.

Hey Noel, I bought a HVX200 off PV Station, Mr Masuda was very friendly and gave me a great price, I think it was because of Kaku's connection but all in all they helped me out great, Good work Kaku, Hope your going hard with all your shooting and mountain bike riding.

Jemore,

Too bad we could not get together while you were in Japan.
I think I'm settled with XH A1 for awhile, especially the HDV workflow is already proven and Matrox MXO seems to be great for monitoring.
I connected MXO to my ProjectionDesign DLP projector projected to 120inch screen and it is awesome (although the model I have don't really support the full resolution but it somehow works better than AJA HDP when AJA HDP display only part of HDV footage).

Let's stay in touch!

NP Kaku see you when I come back! I'll probably have a another cam by then maybe a HD200 or a V1 so we'll definately compare.

Take care big fella

How good was the OIS, compared to the OIS on the XL2 and XL-H1?

Kaku

If the LCD is too small for manual focus........... did you find the auto focus to work good enough for HD?

Thanks again for your thoughtful responses
JohnG

Adam,

I have clips that show difference in on and off, so I will post them at my site later this week, then. I thought it was effective enough but not overly effective comparing to FX1's stronger mode.


John,

I mostly had the autofocus to be less sensitive setting when it was on.
Like in the triple jump clip, the autofocus at less sensitive settind didn't quite work well. But I did not thest the sensitive setting under the same situation.
I have a clip that has continuous zooming in with fast focus and auto focus being too busy.

Kaku, a filmmaker friend of mine will be in Tokyo at TIFFCOM starting Saturday. He has an XL-H1 and is interested in seeing the A1/G1. Are you in or near Tokyo? If so, I could give you his contact information.

Hey Kaku, on the subject of focusing, how well did the "insta-focus" thingy work? I'm a little skeptical about its functioning.

Bill,

I'm right in Tokyo, Shibuya. I don't know if A1 would be out, but I could try to make a contact with Canon if he can go to Shinagawa to see it. I've done something like that before, but Canon has to feel like it is worthwhile I guess.

Jack,

I used more manual focusing, didn't have time to look into that much.
In some clips that my wife took with autofocus (I should have tried the fast focus setting which I regret), it is satisfactory, I don't think anything less than good.

I'll give him your website so he can contact you if possible. He said there will be equipment exhibitors at the show, and Canon and Sony should be there. This is the show:

http://www.tiffcom.jp/index_e.html

Bill, right, if he is attending with his film then that would be easy. I would just find out who from Canon would be there, so your friend would get treated properly.

He works for a film distribution company in L.A. He's there representing films and/or looking for films. He doesn't have one of his own at this time.