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I'm a believer... Now where can I get a cup holder.
Well it's official I'm a believer and further, now I'm an early adopter. Got the go ahead today to purchase the camera and will be using it to shoot a feature "the signal" (working title) in Atlanta. The camera had everything I need except I've got to figure out where I can get a cup holder for those long shoots.
I'll try to keep as detailed notes as possible during the shoot (slated to begin on the 5th) and let you guys know what I find, of course by then everyone will be drooling over the panasonic camera so we'll see if anyone even remembers what the canon is... Anyhow I think this is the first camera I've purchased in 3 years (ever since I swore I wouldn't buy cameras anymore) I was that impressed with it. |
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All the best Carl |
wow,
and this coming from an F900 user/technician/DP. So you mean to tell me..... *AND LISTEN UP PEOPLE* You mean to tell me that after personally testing the XL-H1 in 24f mode at 1/250th & 1/48th shutter next to a $100,000.00 Sony F900 that you and the production company that you're working with (whom have previously shot on F900 and sold its movies that are probably now available in Blockbuster & Circuit City) has decided to use the new Canon XL-H1 HDV camera rather then using (a readily available and within the budget) Sony F900 for a y'alls next feature film? Yes, I know you did super quick pans with the camera seemingly whipping yourself around and around at 2G-Force speeds. Yes, I know you recorded fast moving subjects speeding past your field of view in various colors and skin tones at various focal lengths. Yes, I know you tested the resolution capabilities of the camera to ensure the camera can record the best detail. Yes, I know you witnessed fast moving subject recorded to tape in HDV and watched the output on both Component and HD-SDI on a Sony HD Reference monitor. Yes, I know all this was done with all camera image settings on DEFAULT. and after all that.... after the HDV codec testing. After the HDV camera movement testing. After the Subject motion testing.... YOU GAVE THE CANON XL-H1 A GREEN LIGHT? WOW.....Who woulda thunk it? *smile* - ShannonRawls.com P.S. As promised, I am mailing you the tape we shot on for you to keep. Thanks for the replacement. I still need to capture it though. My wife will mail it today. |
Interestingly enough....
now that I think about it.....If the Canon XL-H1 can do this with HDV format. Just think about what that sexy new Panasonic HVX-200 can probably do with DVCPRO-HD!!! Reminds me of the Hatfields & McCoys. - ShannonRawls.com |
After downloading some of the footage from the infamous thread that we shall not speak about, and seeing teh side by side of the hvx and the xl-h1 I think they're both amazing camera's. But there are two big reasons for me choosing the xl-h1. 1) The HD-SDI out, I'm probably one of a few people who really wnated this feature and I believe I'll be abel to use it. 2) the camera is out now, when I need it and have work for it. Which if you scroll through our search options you'll discover that is the best time to make a camera purchase.
And as a quick addendum to Shannon's original post, it's not entirely true that money was no object, by going with this camera we're able to spend a little more on production, I think it's a fair trade. But yeah other then that all of shannon's points are accurate. As soon as I have the camera in hand I'm hoping to get some "looks" up, If I can find a way to post them I will. |
Nick, I will make a way for you to post them.
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Nick, are you guys shooting separate sound? I'm pretty sure the H1 doesn't do embedded audio through SDI. I think you can record to HDV tape simultaneously, but if you want uncompressed, sync audio, you'll need to go dual system.
btw, are you guys going to shoot with a mini35 and primes? Now THAT would be awesome to see. |
"I'm pretty sure the H1 doesn't do embedded audio through SDI. I think you can record to HDV tape simultaneously, but if you want uncompressed, sync audio, you'll need to go dual system."
That is correct. I'm getting ready to shoot a sync job in mid January and I'm curious about solutions that people are considering. Vince |
Might want to consider one of the new Flash memory portable audio recorders. This way your sound could be instantly retrieved and synced to picture, even on set.
I'm not a sound guy, but if I were shooting the movie and wanted to review dailies as quickly as possible, you gotta get the sound on the timeline as fast as possible. Edit: Had a thought. You could record to DAT, but also attach a DTE Firestore to the H1 and retrieve the audio from the HDV clips. Wait, no HDV DTE's are 24F stream compatible yet, right? |
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They both support the XL-H1 in ALL modes. *smile* For me, this eliminates the need for a DECK and there's no wear on my camera, because..well...I don't need to play back the tapes at all. After shooting out a tape, I simply take it out the camera & store it in the closet for backup in the future never needing to touch it again. I want to buy the CitiDISK. I think that's a better solution then the big firestore. My only hesitation.....is.......timecode. Citidisc doesn't record timecode in HDV mode yet. This means, if I ever need to refer back to my backup minidv tapes, I will have to match the timecode manually. but that's no problem......all you gotta use is a clapboard at the head of the take and that problem is solved. (you actually have to CLAP the clapboard to make this work) I make it a habit of using a slate on all my shoots anyhow, but many times we just stick it in the frame, call it off, and pull it out. I will have to ensure the Loader actually claps the slate if I plan to use the CitiDISK DTE solution. But now...what about script supervisor notes & sound mixer notes? They all become worthless if the timecode is not the same as the cameras minidv tape timecode (where those two people get their reference from). And this is my MAIN reason why I am hesitant to get the CitiDISK DTE right now. now, the FIRESTORE FS-4 PRO HD does timecode in HDV. However, I have read so many damn problems with that thing (battery life, heat, loud fan, buggy software, etc...) that I am too scared to buy it. Especially when it costs 70% more then the CitiDISK HDV DTE recorder. I dunno. I'm still weighing my options. This timecode support problem with HDV is getting out of hand. As if it's something these hardware & software companies "DON'T KNOW HOW" to do but won't admit it. - ShannonRawls.com |
Well, that's interesting. You can review and edit dailies instantly with DTE, and then view the SDI acquired source (to HDCAM/DVCPROHD/Cineform Wafian/ or computer, most likely) when it's really needed.
But it sounds like it wouldn't really be necessary until post. |
I thought you can record uncompressed audio with the console ?
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Well, Shannon I don't expect 800 lines and above with the HVX200. The varicam on it's best day will do 700 lines. Soooo, do you think there going to let the HVX200 pounce the varicam spec, NOPE. Respect the flagship product is what is going to happen. Jan showed res charts and said that they are on par with other HDV cams. She ment the Z1u, not the H1. She won't compare res of the 200 to a H1. I wish is would do 800 lines, I think the HVX200 is a good system. The good thing for canon is, the XLH1 is their flagship HD camera, no upper line to worry about because this is their upper line. Shannon do you have an ETA on H1 footage? >pappas |
Yeah the plan is to shoot with a mini 35 and zeiss super speed primes, the audio question is an interesting one, I was told we have a sound guy, but I'm not sure to what extent that means.
Chris I appreciate the offer to host the files, Now, assuming I can figure out how to get the saved files off of a memory stick (shouldn't be too hard) I'll have some looks ready asap. Also for those that are interested IN bigboy f900 world The Evertz Fiber Channel Backs (for events and concerts) have an HD-SDI input that transfers over over fiber cable and a genlock out, now I'm just curious to see if it's just as easy connecting wires, more on that later. |
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If you switch the HVX-200 to its 1080p24 mode....it MIGHT do 800 lines. Don't chaya think? No ETA on the footage. I think imma just give the tape to Nick and let him do it with his sexy new Canon XL-H1. - ShannonRawls.com |
[QUOTE=Nick Hiltgen]Yeah the plan is to shoot with a mini 35 and zeiss super speed primes,/QUOTE]
Nick, Birns & Sawyer did tests with prime lenses. The results were amazing what I hear. There Lens guy is well known, and he just was very very pleased with the quality the primes added. Good luck Nick! |
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I hope your right Shannon. Again Canon used the f900/HD750 type of HD cameras as a target. That's why the camera is so good. Panasonic didn't use the Varicam or f900 as their target for the HVX200 to get to. Again, I hope your right. The HVX200 is an awesome camera to. Lots to offer it does, the HVX200. >pappas |
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Resolution charts are subject to a few variables anyway -- framing, how "square" they are to the camera, and the subjective interpretation of the individual doing the reading of the charts. The only way to fairly compare them would be to have the same shooter shoot the same chart to the same standards of framing/etc., and have one individual read both charts, applying their same subjective standards to the reading of the wedges. |
Very true Barry! I will say this, the film-outs from the HVX200 were very good indeed.
The HVX200 and H1 are both great new additions, you can't go wrong with either one. >pappas Quote:
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Barry the 24f function was my biggest concern with this camera, if I'm going to suggest to a producer (and not just a producer my good friends as well) that we use this camera instead of an f900 I'm going to make sure I run it through and give the best analysis I can give. The resolution of the 24F function definitly is not that of a 900 but I sincerely believe that the estamates of 810 are pretty accurate, I don't know how they do it, but a solid resolution test did seem to confirm this to me. Hopefully someone will also be able to do some res tests and confirm this or that I did something wrong, but until then I'll go with the 810 estimate.
Further the drop between 1080i and 1080 24F did not seem that drastic, though again I will admit that the 60i looks REALLY good, sharper then the 60i. Anyhow I am really excited about working with this setup and reporting some feedback on the process. Oh here's something that maybe someone can shed some light on. The producer called up canon and asked about using other lenses with the mini 35 and if there was any problems with it. The canon person said that there wouldn't be any problem in SD but it wouldn't work with HD. Now I'm assuming the canon person just got confused and thought he was talking about the old canon glass, but for those of you that have used the 35 with this camera or seen the results, were there any issues? |
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Birns & Sawyer P# 1.323.466.8211 Michael Pappas Arrfilms@hotmail.com PappasArts & Arrfilms Main site http://www.pbase.com/Arrfilms http://www.PappasArts.com http://www.Myspace.com/ |
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That's better than Varicam on a res chart! Wow! The H1 is performing damn hot! Again Nick, thanks for all your time and I look forward to future reports >pappas |
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In 60i the res is higher, yes, but in 24F it loses somewhere around 150 to 200 lines. |
Well there you go, Maybe my res chart is off, but the still of it on shannon's site was pretty much what we got. Seemed to resolve around 800, maybe my set-up was wrong (entirely possible) but I mean I was alternating between the 900 and this camera and the canon seemed to me to hit 800, I guess I'm wrong.
I would say that maybe I just was reading it wrong but when we hooked up the z1u we could see the degredation in signal and lines resolved (this was with the z1 in 60i mode.) Like I said it's entirely possible I read the results wrong, but TO ME it seemed to resolve @800 lines. There was a slight difference between the HDV and the straight HD-SDI out but definitely not 100-150 lines worth. Maybe the discrepency is in my chart, It is after all primarily intended for color alignment but it has the "hyberbolic resolution trumpets" on it. If you're using a full on HD Resolution chart then I'm sure your results are more accurate, I was just reporting it as I saw it, I think anyone interested should definitely double check them. Out of curiosity what do your charts read an f900's resolution as? Oh and Michael I'll swing by burns on my way into work tomorrow and talk to jim in person and see if he has any suggestions. |
600 & 650? *smaking my head*
six hundred and six hundred and fifty WHAT?? Lines of Resolution????? Lord no. I shutter at the thought of even remotely thinking my man David Newman did someting wrong, but he MUST have to claim this camera can only pull 600 lines. Now I will say this....Maybe our CamAlign resolution chart was no good and the manufacturer did someting wrong in making it, but it was the newest version and I think it was OK. Other then that, as long as the chart is accurate, the HD monitor don't lie. The sweet thing about res charts is they are no-brainers. Only way to report an inaccurate number is if somebody don't wanna "BELEIVE" in what they are seeing. it's an easy setup: 1. Camera must be on Manual 2. The chart must be illuminated with adequate lighting. 3. Camera must be square on the chart for X-Axis & Z-Axis. (Y-Axis can be off a tad bit, results wont change) 4. and....most importantly, the field of view must line up with the chart markers in all 4 corners. You can be further back and get LESS resolution results, but being closer in is cheating. In our case, we backed up from the chart further then we had to be, and the results were still clearly better then 650 lines of resolution. See for yourself: http://www.cinemahill.com/hidef/xlh1...s/IMG_0115.jpg and that is a horrible compressed .jpeg image captured from moving tape. Belevive me when I tell you, looking at that monitor in Bennett Studios is a night & day difference from that .jpg photo. and YES, we're talking 24f mode. When the camera was switched to 60i to see the results, ummmmm. Well, let me say this, and I didn't mention it to Nick. But I want a re-test! *smile* because when we switched to interlaced mode...it kinda seemed like it got worse then 24f mode. I COULD BE WRONG ..... we were moving fast and I wasn't really interested in 60i anyhow. But for some odd reason I kinda sorta remember 60i getting a tad bit worse. Either way, I CAN CONFIRM that the 24f mode was @ 800 verticle scan lines and went off the chart (800+) for the horizontal lines, no question. The Z1U was tested as well. To me, it came in at around 700 lines in 60i mode. I read somewhere back in the day that somebody got about 775 out of an FX1, but I don't see how. If that's true, then me and Nick and his editor must have did something wrong and ultimately not giving the XL-H1 true justice. Because if all truths are being parallel, then that means if an FX1 can come in at 775, then the Canon XL-H1 can EASILY touch 900 verticle scan lines of resolution on a chart when charted correctly. One thing is for sure.....if we messed up, we messed up to give the camera a WORST report card, not a better one. We didn't test the CineFrames on the Z1U. The Sony F900 wasn't worth testing....it went off the chart in all modes. *smile* I only wish we had a chart that went to 1920 like the new more expensive color ones do. Allot of people are 'printing out their own' resolution charts from downloads they find on the internet. LOL Dude, you can't do that, print it out on a 8.5x11 sheet of cheap copier paper with a brightness of 82 on your 300dpi printer and expect to run a resolution chart test....that's no good. Anyhow...I know the Canon XL-H1 is right at about 800 verticaly. The Sony Z1U in 60i mode (no cf24 or cf30) is at about 680 to 700. And Nick, yes the Canon rep was confused. A Mini35 in HD is fine for this camera as long as you use good glass on the front end. No more visually worse then an F900 using a Pro35 (which is done all the time). - ShannonRawls.com |
Lets just say your res chart is off Nick!
Who cares! Better than the res chart is the fact that you two were doing A/B between each camera on the fly and finding that the H1 was getting close and.......Sometimes you guys couldn't tell which one was which one the monitor, So that tells me that the H1 is closer to a F900. Now if it was only doing 600 lines on a a/b switch it would have looked like crap compared to a f900 output. Unless you had vaseline on the F900 lens- that A/B says more than the res chart. Your eyes don't lie! BTW Nick, I must ask, did you have vaseline on the f900 lens, just to be sure. >Pappas Quote:
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Hmm I re-read the posts about steve mullens article, it seemed to be a theory that @800 was accurate for still images. This was a locked off shot and a locked off res-chart, so perhaps that's why it clocked in at 800? I suppose next time we could put the camera and chart on a dolly and... nah nevermind. I'm sorry I don't have a full on res-chart but to be honest I really don't have much need for them (at least not more of a need then an alignment chart)
Shannon, thanks for the input dude, I'm really looking forward to working with the camera with a mini 35, and seeing what we can pull off. I'll try to get my shots up as soon as I can, but I'm pretty sure I won't have the camera in my hands (it's being shipped to me) until mid next week at the earliest, and I feel sorry for all the people waiting. But I'll do my best to also get some of the footage from our prep day (jan 5th) up before we start the process, I realize that's like 2 weeks away, sorry. Michael: No vaseline on the f900 lens just a soft fx 2 ;) |
How would you guys like an HD-SDI recorder, with NO compression, much like the CitiDisk.but out the HD-SDI port?
We are working on one, would you buy it? Also, I am reading about softness issues from the mini35, are you sure it's all good and sharp WIDE OPEN on the HD cam? |
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I just recorded some H1 SDI output into my Kona card. It looks quite good, even though it's still compressed into DVCPRO HD, but I would much prefer a full raster capture. |
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But seriously, I WOULD NOT WANT ONE, and here's the reason why..... For starters, I can get a 100gb HDV compatible CitiDisk that ALSO records audio & (coming soon)timecode for $850 bucks out the door. That's about 8 hours of HD video & audio with timecode in one small package. Now the Canon XL-H1's HD-SDI port contains the video stream ONLY. No audio, no timecode......ever! So the only advantage a portable/compact HD-SDI recorder would give me is 4:2:2 uncompressed video. Is it worth it? NO Why not? BECAUSE..... How would I get my audio? I AM FORCED TO USE DOUBLE SYSTEM SOUND. How would I get my timecode to sync that audio with all those uncompressed hd-sdi recorded video clips? I DON'T, I AM S.O.L. So this is why a citidisk-like HD-SDI recorder really wouldn't really help at all. I mean, it might for those who do not need audio, but how rare is that? Recording HD-SDI is "ONLY" helpful if you have a deck recorder or computer that will also record Audio 'and' accept Timecode IN or create it's own timecode track that syncs with the recorded audio. - ShannonRawls.com |
Well, I don't know about you, but I am recording DOUBLE audio on the feature that I am shooting...why? because the risk of haveing bad audio because the cables from the dat deck get stuck on under the dolly wheels, or warpped around the a/c cords etc is not worth the risk, not to mention the sound guy needs to listen to his own levels all the time...but then again this is a feature film, not a commercial or doc video...
We sure can't do VFX work on dvcproHD and lets not mention HDV! so again do you need HD-SDI for vfx feature work? yes. You must have it. HDV is about 3MB/sec HD-SDI 24p 1080 is aorund 75MB/sec it's not dead pixels taking all that room, it's image information. |
The only option for HD-SDI capture as I know it is a bulky computer...if you know of anything let me know.
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Obin, my man....you're missing what I'm saying.
Double sound is cool....But if you can't sync it in post....EASILY, then trying to save time in one area is just creating work in another. For narrartive film making, creating audio tracks that are tottaly out of sync with your video is just crazy. You really want to have those two married somehow, and timecode is what does it. Now if you have no audio concerns and no script supervisor's notes to go by, then yes, a 'video only' hd-sdi solution is just fine. And Obin, let's be real here. You DO NOT 'have to have' hd-sdi to do Visual Effect bro. Canon comes out 4 months ago with a sub$10k camera that has HD-SDI and now all of a sudden we MUST have it to do stuff. LOLOLOL So what did we do before then for low budget projects that needed visual effects? *smile* I know you're excited about your new product, I'm just telling you its limitations and how it won't work for everybody. NOW....if you can somehow get that puppy to record timecode and audio info.... you just created yourself a new product that breaks all world records!! and I will be happy to pay for it. - ShannonRawls.com |
Obin,
If it would record time code and picture with matching timecode being fed to the audio guy, that woud be just as good as what Shannon suggested in my opinion. I don't think the audio needs to be embedded as long as it is easily sync-able. It also allows for more flexibilty with sound for different recording mediums. Vince |
THX for the feeds on the unit design, we are listening!
BTW Shannon, to answer your Q about "how we did it before canon"?? Well we did it with 2k fim scans and 1080p 4:2:2 un-compressed from cams like the f900 bro, never with a consumer cam...ever! the canon takes "consumer" to a new level, and we can get 4:2:2 out the side now! Why not use it? ;) |
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