Interesting - I think Barry Green is absolutely right about his 24F theory. Objects in motion seem unaturally soft compared to still background. The look is very much like motion adaptive deinterlacing you get with a software product like DV Filmmaker. I'm liking more the theory that 24F is two 48i half rez 540 line frames that the DIGIC processor puts together. Maybe that's the reason 24F cannot be wrapped in yet another stream and Canon had to create a new HDV format - too much processing?

That also means no real 1/24th shutter speed like DVX, Varicam, CineAlta as well. I don't use it that much on my DVX, but very handy in low light scenes where there is not much subject or camera movement.

I could be way wrong, but that's what I'm seeing.

Haven't seen those two clips yet (conversation & chromatic-aberration) but that just reminded me -- Tim Smith, the Canon rep at ResFest, did say that the XL H1's lens "resolves 1200 lines".

The reason the Canon 24F tapes don't play back in Sony equipment, is because it looks like Canon is using repeat flags like the JVC. You can't use old-style pulldown (putting redundant whole frames or fields) in the stream with HDV because you'd have to recompress to extract your original 24fps.

The JVC uses repeat flags, a way of just putting 24 real frames inside a 60 stream without wasting stream bandwidth on redundant frames. Repeat flags are well known MPEG2 spec according to David Newman, but I've run into plenty of software that doesn't recognize it.

It appears to me that Canon did the same trick, using flags. It has nothing to do with how the Canon got those 24 frames from the CCDs....that's another issue entirely.

My monitor is calibrated, and I can second Eric's observations. Still, looking more closely at the bike sequences, the guy's shirt is purple every now and then, as well as the street. Look also the last frame of bikeseq30. In the upper right corner the wall of the building which is in light has a magenta tone. So, I wonder, whether this is a white balance issue? However, would like to emphasize, this is just a question from my side: Obviously the heavy compression must have some side effects. No free lunches available.

Wow this is going to be one heck of a braodcast camera. It should make for a very nice HD camera for those wedding shooters who do not mind spending $9,000.00 on a camera. I haven't checked out things very well yet but so far I do like what I see. I do agree however that I have a hard time deciding if it is worth the cost. This is even more true now with Barry Green's find of the tapes not working in any current HDV deck. I cannot remember the last time I actually used a camera for editing.

Barry do you know or think tapes in 60i would work fine in a current other 1080i deck/camera? I can see why the 24f and 30f may not work because of the flags but what about straight everyday 60i?

Kaku maybe if you get a chance you can see if tapes recorded in 60i playback from your HC1?

That's classic chromatic aberration. One edge will have magenta ghost, the other will be green.

Sure. Do some super shaky handheld work and take a close look at how the picture will soften up during fast movement. That's the easiest viewable artifact of HDV under stress.

Well, I'm tempted to say that I can't imagine how the XL H1's 60i tapes wouldn't play in the Sony gear... but then again, Canon appears to have deviated from the spec by including four channels of audio (each channel using 96kbps, for a total added-together rate of 384kbps). So will that play back in the Sony? I don't know. I would be very surprised if 60i tapes from the Canon don't play in the Sony.

Excellent idea, and yes, Kaku if you could test that we would be most appreciative! Please test 30F also, if you would.

One thing I will say whatever CANON is doing to get to 24p it does it very well. Without looking at the lines of resolution or detail the images are very clear with no sign of deinterlacing or aliased edges. I tried checking many different angles of lines with different levels of motion and so far I haven't been able to find any aliased edges due to an interpolated field of data.

While some of the early footage from the H1 may look like video the very first footage from the HD100 in my opinion at least looked much much worse. It wasn't until the HD100 was really pushed that we saw it's potential.

My only concern at this point is to see what is happening to the chroma during CANON's conversion to 24f/30f. If it is like the frame movie mode or even just 540 lines duplicated we kind of end up with 4:2:0 all over again. Of course this doesn't matter on HDV tape but it does matter for the HD-SDI output where we would have been able to get 4:2:2.

In this case it might actually be better to use the component uncompressed output from the JVC HD-100. Even though it is 720p at least you know no tricks were done to get it to 720p and you will get a true 4:2:2

I'll pretty much always defer to Barry Green, but isn't this a hallmark of HDV, not the frame rate? Canon has something similar to JVC's "motion smoothing" in the XL H1. They're not calling it motion smoothing, but something like it is in there, no matter what the frame rate. It's just more apparent at slower frame rates.

By the way folks with regard to any more clips from Kaku today, I will have those posted and linked for you as soon as I return this afternoon. Going out on a shoot right now and will be back in about eight or ten hours or so.

quick note
 

I labeled the clips by the display shows what mode the camera was playing. I was relying that so if that was not displaying correctly, they could be labeled wrong. I would double check.

Since I got an another obligation, I had to shoot mountainbike race in 60i format, but thanks to my new employee who is also mountainbike lover helped me to shoot FX1 with the same angle. So these clips are coming after cutting and uploading 24f clips for filmmaking target member here. I managed to shoot a scenery of a sunny bay around 4 o'clock with no gamma curve, cine 1 curve and cine 2 curve. They are already being uploaded so you will see them as soon as Chris comes back from shooting. If these clips appear to be 30 or 29.97, I don't know what is happening. Maybe something is happening when Lumiere HD is capturing? I have to ask Frederic about that.

I also shot various scenes with Cinegamma 2 on. I will make short clips for that too. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to shoot the chart and green back since I have to capture all of the footage before I return the camera.
I will do my best to try those. Maybe have my employees work on them tomorrow morning before we return the cam. But people already see the aberration happening with my bike clips so it seems to be clear that the lense is not quite comparable for real HD because of the price? But what I see is that comparing the bikeseq files with XL H1 and FX1, I think XL H1 looks the best when I zoom all the way in at x20. And low light ability is clearly better on XL H1. What I really wanna see is the compression characteristics between the two.FX1 and HC1 are not capable of shooting mountainbiking race (cross race and downhill) without compression artifacts, I need one camera that doesn't in the same format. If XL H1 is excellent, then I would sell my FX1 and try to buy XL H1 and use HC1 for more handy use.

baygamma files are uploaded now (Chris has to put them listed for you), so I will search good portion of my footage for different situation. Be back soon.

I was discussing with Frederic Haubrich and all of the XL H1's 24 frame clips will be 24 frame simulation and it is based on 1080/60i format. So if you open them in whatever the softwareto playback, it might say 29.97. Is that the case?

Thx for posting the 24F clip Nate. I had seen your Hollywood clips before and now that I saw it back to back with the 24F clip I must say that Im more convinced that 24F doesnt give the same feeling as real 24P. I really dont know whats missing bc it looks much better than CF, but it still doesnt look like 24P to me!

Kaku, thanks for uploading new footage. Cant wait to see them!

Where are you seeing repeat flags? I'm not seeing that. The 24F has twenty four frames, the 30F frames etc.

24frame portion of XLH1 tape did not play on HC1. It said incompatible format. However, 60i portion of the tape played fine.

I thought JVC had motion smoothing to cover for the fact that it did not shoot interlaced. Why would Canon need this since it shoots interlaced just fine?

19 more 24 frame(emulation) files are uploaded to the server now including three gamma settings on ocean scenery. It seems to be no sense to go without the cinegamma setting, so I shot all of the 24 frame mode clips with "cine2" gamma setting and black parameter set to "stretched". I also did 60i comparison between XLH1 and FX1 but since I can edit that later (without the cam), I will work on that later.

Just wait for Chris to come home and feed you all.

Kaku, arigato gozaimashita!

Ok Nate, I'm now with you: Did not spot the green ghost at the first glance. Obviously, a simultaneous green and magenta ghost cannot be removed by adjusting the white balance.

I've been also thinking of this deck issue, for, so far, more involved editing has called for a deck. But if new portable hard disk devices for storage appear, then, perhaps, it's better to store both on tape and hard disk, and use the tape only as a backup. (Just read yesterday from the newspaper that these new dvd discs will be able to store up to 100 GB of data.)

My more immediate concern is, will my editing software (Premiere Pro) be able to import all the footages from XL H1. At least, it seems that currently the Premiere Pro HDV mode does not recognize 25P (25F).

Lauri, download the Aspect HD 15 day trial...its superb. I have only 3.2 trial installed but will download the 3.3 trial when my JVC arrives tomorrow since as far as I know only v3.3 supports the 25p of JVC and its physical interface.

I can almost promise that Cineform will support the Xl H1 and all its features (24, 25 & 30F) as well in future updates.

I'm not seeing it in the 24F I shot.

I see in a few of Kaku's shots what appears to be 1/24th shutter...which is east to do by mistake on that camera. There's a lot of buttons right next to that iris dial, including the two for the shutter.

I know it's hard to take one person's opinion for it, but what I saw yesterday, and have a little of on my drive now looks just like 24P from my HD100.

Nate, if you have more 24F footage apart from the ones already posted, can you plz upload them? Id love to see it, thx!

It's in a few of my posts back, in this thread. There's an HD100 clip right next to it also for comparison.

Well, I must say I'm impressed so far. I don't have any HD gear, so I converted the m2t files to DV and played them on a broadcast monitor from Final Cut Pro. I'm big on progressive capture and the 24p look, so I thought I'd compare the 3 "bikeseq" clips back to back.

1 - interlaced, when you need it, it's there - classic "in the moment" reality look.

2 - 30F - definitely more narrative and filmic, but still smooth pans and motion.

3 - 24F - It looks just like what I'm getting with 24p with my XL2. I removed pull down with Cinema Tools, and it fit right into a 24p sequence in Final Cut Pro, no problem. I don't know what the official workflow would be with FCP.

Regarding the dynamic range, it looks like it's still very sensitive to highlight blowout. I'd like to see some footage with controlled lighting with no blow out whatsoever.

I really appreciate the posting of footage. I think the community here regarding Canon is world class, and that's what led me to purchasing the XL2 - the sample footage was readily available, proudly posted, and gorgeous.

I'm looking forward to seeing more from the XL-H1, and also the mysterious HVX200.

I don't see any pulldown in the 24F clips - what are you removing?

If Barry is right, 1/24th would be a slow digital shutter as the CCD is grabbing images every 1/48th. That would soften the image although the images you shot showed the same effect to my eye, so "motion smoothing" or deinterlacing seems more likely.

I agree the motion looks 24fps but it does somewhat look like moving objects lose rez.

You're right, they do. But it happens on the Sonys, and also on my HD100. The effect is more pronounced in HDV 1080.

But on the clips you posted, it looked much more on the H1 - you are saying that's just due to codec issues on HDV and not 24F deinterlacing?

Stephan, I believe he removed the pull down after he had converted to dv (I.E. 24F to 29.97 to 23.98) I think it's also important to be careful how we compare footage, as the test that Charles did with hd100 also used the mini 35 adapter which would be another key issue in adding "film look"

Blade Runner type shot using H1 footage
 

Hi,

The resolution is very high as expected. So high in fact that you can scale the image immensely. I've made an example for you, you'll want to see this:

Click here for wmv

Couple of observations. The footage is slow to edit even on a twin processor computer (same as Sony). Get ready to wait for rendering because multiple streams in real time are almost impossible. The clips in the CX color corrector show the highlights blasting 100IRE. Japan's NTSC is NTSC-MJ which puts their blacks at 0 IRE. In the supplied clips the blacks are right around 6.5 IRE. The footage looks like video right off a handy cam and I'm sure the settings will need to be adjusted. Are there any preset gamma curves prebuilt into the cameras menu?

All in all, it has the real resolution but the editing goes slow. The camera needs adjusting to get some more color range out of it.

Yes. HDV1080 stretches the capabilities of the MPEG2 codec much more than HDV720.

My HD100 suffers (in my opinion) from less HDV artifacts than the XLH1, but the XLH1 has way more raw resolution. Pick your poison!

I was looking at uncompressed HD-SDI out of the camera straight to an HD CRT that had HD-SDI input yesterday. I saw nothing like blurred motion, I promise you.

Kaku's XL H1 clips, "Part Two -- The Sequel," now available at:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=52110

Please discuss those clips at the new thread linked above. Thanks in advance,

Download Aspect HD for Premiere Pro (www.cineform.com) that will support all released HD modes of HDV cameras, and it almost works with all the modes of the XL H1 (needs a couple of tweaks.)

I think I may prefer 720p on the HD100 at this point. I always have been a huge fan of 720p for many reasons other than resolution and framerate. Such things as rendering 3D scenes and other graphics are naturally much much faster at 720p. Now after finally seeing footage from 3 groups of 1080i cameras, FX1/Z1, HC1/A1, and now the CANON XLH1 I can see almost the same level of quality. While the CANON does in my opinion look better than any current 1080i HDV camera 1080i is 1080i. The 24/30f modes seem to have the same overall look. At first I didn't agree on the other people on here but now I do see it. No matter what camera you use trying to cram 1080i into 25 Mbits is a tough job. For most things it handles it well but sometimes it falls apart. 720p HDV right now seems to handle things much better. Well at least from what I have seen so far. I have yet to see any major artifacts from any of the 720p footage I have seen.

I do think the XLH1 looks great but it still looks like HDV2 video to me. While I am sure the SDI video will look even better it will still have the same overall mood and feeling. I guess I have to decide if that is ok for me or using analog uncompressed from the JVC going to be better for me. For me now at this point it comes down to the certain look I want. I do think I am now leaning back towards the JVC

It wasn't likely and probably too late, but I mentioned in my VideoAlpha Magazine last month about Canon should be supporting everything in this camera, 720p/i and 1080i/p because some people needs higher resolution once they see 1080, but people like me needs the format that does not break up for fast motion. It seems to be correct of what I said, if they had done that, people might be accepting the higher price tag.

PLEASE WATCH THE SECOND BATCH TO HAVE OPINION ON FILM LOOK AND FEEL, because first batch don't incorporate with extra gamma settings.

Most of the clips in the secont batch uses cinetonegamma.

Thanks

My feelings exact Thomas Smet!

Kaku, thanks for all your hard work, man. I'm sure everyone is very appreciative. I do want to chime in and say that I saw footage at Resfest today (part of another thread.. sorry Chris) but I have to go on record in saying that although this footage is good it is not under "controlled" conditions, or at least as controlled as it would be in a normal film production with attention to lighting, composition, color pallette, production design and tweaking of the camera's settings to get the best possible picture.
The footage I saw today at Resfest was, at least to me, blow away. It was up on the big screen and professionally done.
While I was watching it I thought back on Kaku's clips and thought they were good but do not do this camera justice.
This thing from what I saw can kick some serious butt when the right people get their hands on it.
That being said, it's hard to give final judgement on the images just because we are obviously only seeing shades of what it is capable of.

Cosign. Amen.