It's nice. I like it. Good DOF shots too. God I can't wait to get this camera. XD

Still of the day
 

I took this a while ago but just came across it. It's part of a timelapse.

No Letus, no brevis. Not an expert, just me trying to figure out how it works...
 

So, if you're like me, having bought the XHA1 as your first prosumer camcorder, after extensively shooting with consumer Sonys (a couple of TRVs and the odd FX1), then this is what you should expect to get at your first real testdrive...

This also served as a testdrive for my FCS-workflow.

http://www.rogepost.com/n/0039654355

My A1 arrives on Monday. - Can't wait! Was this straight out of the box? It seems to look a little soft in the colors and contrast which is what I understand the standard settings reflect - or did you use one of the posted presets?

I did use some of the presets (I think it was the first four + panalook) which were mixed together with the standard looks. Everything was filmed in Manual modus and I think sometimes the autofocus was on. Today, I went through most of the presets from the preset thread, also today I used -3dB and different shutterspeeds (1/500 and 1/2000) and f-stops (6.7 and 3.4). I did this so I can watch them later tonight on an LCD-TV.

I noticed that a lot of footage had grain to spare, so I also switched off the Auto Gain Control. I hope the images will be better now.

perfect MOOOOOD :)

Nice! Looking good.

thats looks like one of the CG shots in my movie

I'm looking for ET flying accross on the bicycle.. he's gotta be in there somewhere. Looks good.

24f Video
 

I was bored at home so I put together some video of my daughter and myself for fun. 24f sd edited in vegas

http://www.mayosproductions.com/videos/24PTEST.wmv

Wow, camera shoots great SD also!

Yeah It's great!

Another music video
 

It's not much, and the quailty is pretty bad (You Tube), but never-the-less... My first contribution to the "sample clips" page:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYB0e4FyDZ0

Stacy Dudley

...Wow...

I really hope you were on drugs when making this video because if you weren't you have an insanely trippy mind. lol.

Well I know what video to show my stoner friends. XP

Springtime footage
 

A couple of pleasant evenings recently... couldn't resist trying out the new XH-A1 - back yard shots plus a few of the locale..
Still learning about how much I can modify things - but used VIVIDRGB for most shots. Hand held shots were hard - should've taken the tripod...
http://web.mac.com/rossdjones/iWeb/Movies/Spring.html
Comments welcomed..
Rgds, Ross.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Access:
Username: Guest
Password: Movies
Size: 83.2MB
Type: QT (H.264)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It's asking me for a username / password...? IE 7.0...

Ah, good point..!

User: Guest
P/W: Movies

Sorry about that..!

Rgds, Ross.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Its a big file... But it looks really nice!

Looks like you live in a cool area. Its very nice looking!

I am impressed how well you can hold the camera stable! I have the hardest time with freehand..

Cool stuff, keep it up!
~Gabriel

Might try the spider brace... Reasonably cheap $69...


Looks like good stuff man... I really like the VIVID RGB preset... One thing I seem to have noticed with the A1 is that the footage overall seems to be flat... In post I usually make a brightness / contrast adjustment to really push the color envelope almost to the sureal point but not crossing it... Just my two cents...

Believe it or not, I take that as a very big compliment! Thank you.

NO, I don't do drugs. I am a drummer in a band and when I got my A1, I told my guitar player I would like to use her as my Guinea Pig for my first test video. I had another song in mind but this is the one she chose. When I think of Timothy Leary, I can't help but think of all the 60's acid trip stuff so I took extra time in post to try and achieve that feel. The feedback I have received thus far (family, friends, coworkers, etc.) leads me to believe I managed to pull it off.

As far as the "footage" goes, I am rather embarrassed to post the link here on this site because of all the great video footage I have seen from everyone else. The "extremely" compressed You Tube footage looks horrible but since I don't have any other site to post my footage to (at this time), I decided to go ahead and link what I have.

I have never used a camera like this before so I really don't do it justice. All the settings were straight out of the box. I used this video as a learning tool to get familiar with the cameras functions, etc. I can't wait to get into the custom presets, etc. Not just yet though. I have to become a lot more familiar with shooting good video first.

Until now I have only used small camcorders in automatic mode. I didn't even understand what it means to "white balance"! Even after going through every part of the manual and studying everything in it, I was quite overwhelmed when I actually went to shoot. I really started to think I bought way too much camera for my needs. So... I have a LOT to learn yet but thanks to the information I have gained so far here on DVi, I am excited to continue my painful yet pleasureful journey into my video hobby.

Honestly, I should have just taken up guitar or keyboards. I didn't realize learning how to use a camera was like learning a new instrument! I have definitely gained a new respect for those who do this for a living.

Stacy

Yeah, I haven't really had much experience with a professional camera at all either, so when I get it (tomorrow, weeee!) I'm sure it'll take awhile. It doesn't seem that hard though. I mean I've played with everything imaginable on my little Panasonic 3CCD consumer camera, and I took a TV Productions class, so I'm sure that all helped. Not to mention Myspace and everything I've learned in DVi. There are really only five basic things you need to learn. White Balance, Shutter Speed, Iris, Frame Rate, and Composition (specifically Rule of Thirds). There are a lot of other things I learned about this camera just from the internet (Gamma, Color Matrix, etc.) but you can just look at the brochure on the Canon website to learn about that.

But I am really impressed with the music video. It seems like you know more than you think. It made me laugh hysterically and question my sobriety. XD

HD-DVD Test 1.0---Shot in 25f with A1---
 

Hi guys I found after a very very intensive research a good workflow to create a great quality HD-DVD disc from HDV video even from 25f.

The workflow is posted here:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...241#post683241

and the test is:

This is my HD-DVD test 1.0
Download it here:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=VUG4KNN7

It's an ISO file (burn it with IMGBURN or NERO) in a DVD-RW (You don't need to spend DVD-R, rewritables are fine).

It will only play in HD-DVD players. It's been tested in xbox add on, and Toshibas A1 and E1. The magic is that the video was shot in 25f with an european Canon XH A1).

The video itself is 2:39 long and it's a 359 Mb. The firsts shots are not very steady sorry about that (I was in a rush) but this proves to all of you that a great quality HD-DVD is possible with any progessive capable HDV camera.

Please post here your impressions and in the other thread about the workflow.

For some reason I am unable to download the file it downloads a 0byte file, i will try again at a later time.

it¡s weird. More than 30 people downloaded it in Spain without problems. Remember to type the requested code in the grey box next to "download".

A Hot Cup of Bliss (student movie)
 

Wow, I really do love how the XH-A1 makes my stuff look. I haven't been able to use it to it's full potential yet, but I'll get there.

Anyways, this is a student film project. It's under ten minutes long... and... enjoy!

Comments and criticisms will be much appreciated.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=x3SOR3v7OGY

I hate how YouTube rapes the quality... If you convert the video to an ".flv" (flash video file) on your end they will not re-compress it once you upload it...

As you progress you may try playing around with some lighting which can be fairly inexpensive such as China Balls and work lights... It will dramatically improve the quality from something that looks DVish to something that looks more cinematic...


A wise man once said "the only thing the camera sees is light!"....

Good video man....

Nice video... shot well.. just need some background music..to help move it along. :)

Doug: FLV, huh? I'll keep that in mind. Mmm... Yeah, I'll admit that my lighting (or lack of) does need a lot of work. The quality isn't that bad though, the non-youtube version of course.

Rick: Music? I dunno... I like to keep dialogue scenes mostly free of music, except when it gets dramatic.

Thanks for the comments guys.

DVD First Play Clip
 

I'm putting together a DVD for my daughter's soccer coach. Here is the First Play clip (DivX):

http://www.diamondrosevideo.com/videos/PSN_B2_full.avi (16MB)
or
http://www.diamondrosevideo.com/videos/PSN_B2_med.avi (6MB)

All of the clips were recorded with the XH A1. Half of them were down-converted by the camera during capture and the other half were m2t files pulled directly from a Fire Store 4 HD into Liquid. Liquid encoded the DivX files from the timeline.

Hi Glen,

Very nice clip loved it.

Glen I have to do the same thing next week can you please tell me your preset and the set up? i.e( 60i or 30F and the shutter speed?) I would really appreciate it.


Thanks
Matthew

You're gonna laugh...
 

Matthew,

Thanks for the compliment. I produced this clip before I was a member of this forum and therefore had not played with the Custom Presets yet. So what you see is the factory setting...oh wait, That's PRESET01...

I cheated on the exposure settings. These scenes were shot in direct sunlight so after verifying with manual mode that I could keep the shutter speed faster than 1/60, while stopping down the apperature to 9.5, I put the cam in aperature priority mode. This allowed me to keep the lens stopped down making the focus less critical. Since I didn't have my focus assist monitor with me, I used the viewfinder in B/W mode to do that.

I used a monpod to aid stability. The down side of using a support in this scenario is that the kids subconsciously think of it as a "target". For example: take the final freeze frame in the clip...2 frames later I was hit with that soccer ball. I guess it goes with the territory. At least it didn't hit the camera.

The format is 1080/60i. Since the final product was DVD, I downconverted the clips. Half of them with the camera and half with Liquid. I am now going to experiment with this sequence in DivX, H.264 and HDDVD.

Hope this helps and good luck on your shoot.

A1Day1
 

Recieved my A1 a couple of weeks ago, but haven't really had time to use it until this past week-end.
It's my first camcorder and first time using a NLE, so I guess this is the very minimum you can expect from an A1 ;)
Shot in manual mode, manual focus (I know, some shots are slightly OOF)
Not very interesting footage, just trying to get a feel for the controls, OIS, judging exposure with LCD, focal range etc.

Shot with "-3dB clean" preset from http://www.fxsupport.de/20.html
PAL DV 25F
Minor CC

H264 .MP4 (Quicktime):

http://s1u.net/480

The second link does not work!

Sorry, using a free file host. Link works for me though.
Try http://www.mediafire.com/?awjlukwm4qj instead.

Link to my latest XH-A1 film: Back
 

Hey all, here's a link to my latest film, Back, that I just completed on Canon's XH-A1. Comments please!

http://stage6.divx.com/user/yummount...o/1293317/Back

You'll need the DivX Codec... free and easy from their main site!

i can`t seem to have Divx installed with premiere on my machine, or premiere crashes. You may want to try a different codec, as well as have this moved to the 'A1 clips' sub-forum.

Just my two cents here:


Dislikes:
I am struggling to understand the overall story line if there is one (Beginning Middle and End)... It seems like things were really drawn out when they didn't need to be (could have easily been a three minute (or less) video).... The audio for the cell phone calls was difficult to understand at times... The cuts had Audio pops or clips that made it distracting to what was going on... If you ease in to the audio it makes it seem like it's all one big clip even though it has been edited...

Likes:
The grain and black and white... Not sure if you cranked the gain up or did the B&W preset in camera or did it all in post but it had a very vintage antiquated feel...

General thoughts:
Zoom out what else is going on in the room... Is there a room? Not sure... Manual focus is a marvelous thing...

Anyway take it for what it's worth... Only about two cents...

New Link
 

Sorry all... the above link was trashed... here's the new one:

http://stage6.divx.com/user/yummount...o/1295837/Back

Please, keep the comments rolling!

Here's what I have to say about your comments... no confrontation, just healthy discussion :).

When I wrote this film, I decided that I was going to take a simple concept, and explore the things that revolve around it: getting a drink of water, waiting, being alone, waiting, miscommunication, and waiting. It was odd actually how much WAS there with such a simple idea. I kept lighting to a minimum... only using one key, often without a fill (a delibrate choice, as I did have the ability to do so). This lead to a lot of dark faces. The location had plenty of space to show, but again, I didn't. I felt like I wanted to create a sense of fixture with the body instead... something I kinda' picked up from my ex-girlfriend who makes dance films for the camera. The people are the location rather. A little far-fetched, I know.

I know there are parts missing, I can feel it. Then again, I get the feeling that it's all there. I could shoot some more, I'm just waiting for some more comments to really sell me on that idea right now. I also know very well that these themes I constantly explore, and I can easily start another piece fixing the problems there instead of re-shooting here.

Keep em' coming, please!

First HDV
 

Please, take a look at my first attempt with HDV. I used XH-A1 and FCP 2. The file is 55MB, about 1.5 min.
http://web.mac.com/milankalus/iWeb/Site%202/Movie.html

Thanks,

Milan