SONY HDR-FX1 vs JVC JYHD10U Shoot Out
 

Hello again all.

I have SOME, but not all of the comparison footage that I made using both the Sony FX1 and JVC HD10 at the same time. Much of it was lit with softlights, practicals, and a little daylight.

There is a SIGNIFICANT difference between the two cameras. I only wish I made a video of me making the comparison video.

Anyway, I should have the footage available on DVD this weekend. I would need to charge a fee for the DVD itself, maybe a DVD Box if you want one, postage etc. I'm not trying to MAKE money by doing this, I just can't afford to LOSE any money.

There is 30 minutes of footage under a variety of circumstances which I will list later.

My question is, what would be a fair fee to ask for for making and shipping this DVD.

ALSO: Can any HOST the comparison footage? It's several gigabytes, but I'm sure I can trim it down.

Every body know JVC HD sucks. Why need to make a compares DVD of 1 CCD vs 3 CCD footage? If JVC HD not a big seller, people need not to compare it with the Sony, right?

You DVD will not sell.

Why don't you just post a few relative "stills" to the web showing the most obvious or important variables. I don't need to look at 30 minutes of crap to see if it stinks.
Also, if you put it on DVD, we would be looking at MPEG-2, not HDV, unless you made it a Data DVD, in which case, what are we supposed to do with it? Most people can't even edit it yet. Just a thought.

I am actually quite interested in the Professional model when it comes out but if I have to lose low light performance (3 lux vs 1 lux of my PD170) I think I'll just wait until it catches up to the rest of the market. Maybe the second revision or so.

I can certainly post some stills. Just thought people would be interested in seeing the footage - I'm not trying to SELL anything. Just cover the costs of burning a dvd and mailing it.

But your right, who needs to look at 1/2 hour of crap.

I personally love my HD10 Dovi. And untill another progressive HDV cam comes out I don't think I will be too envious. The HD10 is an enigma of sorts and maybe not favorable in a direct apples to apples with the FX1.
For one, ALL footage we produce with the cam goes through post. We never shoot to have it best we can get visually straight from the cam. We shoot with a set post routine in mind. Our footage often looks very dark and unimpressive befor processing. I am more than confident that the HD10 can hold up to the FX1 especially when the progressive look is appreciated, but straight head to head would be suicide unless the shooter truely knew how to get the most from the HD10.
The FX1 is a lot more freindly to amatures and will give them a much nicer shot straight out of the box. The HD10 REQUIRES expertise in lighting and filters, and post or your just not going to get good results.

"Why don't you just post a few relative "stills" to the web showing the most obvious or important variables. I don't need to look at 30 minutes of crap to see if it stinks."

Your going to grade a video camera based on stills? Are you kidding? The most important aspect of video is the VIDEO. Do you like the look of interlaced or progressive video? How does each cam handle motion? How do the various shutter speeds give motion blur? Your going to get this from a still shot? I don't think so.

I think one could just offer maybe 10 or 15MB *.ts or *.m2t files from each camera, for playback in VLC. As Ken mentioned though, that wouldn't account for the post work needed to make the HD10 footage shine.

I agree with Ken. If you don't know what you're doing with the HD10 it will show. That sort of ruins the "control" aspect of the shoot out / experiment / demonstration. The conductor of the shoot-out should have many hours of experience with the HD10. Otherwise it's like someone who's never driven stick comparing a manual-transmission car to one with an automatic.

Also, everybody does *not* know the JVC HD "sucks," especially those shooters who understand how to use it and consistently get great images out of it all the time.

For Bill Piedra, I could host a couple of short clips here. Not several gigabytes, but perhaps a couple hundred megabytes. Choose your best clips and shoot me an email.

I not have first hand experience with HD10, but I saw images from IBC Amsterdam, in broad daylight, the camcorder has very bad color rendition. Almost like no color, and detail of grass, etc, very wishy-washy. I was put off immediately.

And this handled by *so-called* experienced peoples. But I also reads somewhere about someone shooting lower exposure to compensate for non-existant exposure lattitude and compensating for it in post. I have to laugh when I read that statement.

Likewise, I get a laugh out of people who make sweeping statements about equipment they've had no direct experience with. As for myself, I enjoyed a personal tour of the HD10U's capabilities -- including its remarkable color accuracy -- from Steve Mullen, one of the most proficient HDV users in the U.S. His statement to me was that if he could get such good looking video out of this camcorder, then anybody could. While I regret that you have not seen impressive results with the HD10U, rest assured that I have, and many other people have also.

And as a freindly reminder, making remarks such as "everbody knows XYZ camera sucks" will earn you a fast ticket out of here. Please realize that we don't tolerate that sort of nonsense here and DV Info Net and please consider carefully your choice of words in the future. This is not your typical internet message board. Thanks in advance,

Please don't get me wrong, I was able to produce REMARKABLE images from the HD10, but it took some work. Lighting was critical, there seem to be more chroma noise than I would consider acceptable, and though the color was good, I think you will see that the SONY color seems to be much more brilliant.

One of the things that ALWAYS impressed me by HDTV was COLOR. I'm finding I can produce images that are much closer to that which is being broadcast today with the Sony than I can with the JVC.

And I have only had the Sony camera for a couple of weeks.

<<<-- Originally posted by Chris Hurd :

And as a freindly reminder, making remarks such as "everbody knows XYZ camera sucks" will earn you a fast ticket out of here. -->>>

My apologies. You see how much ignorance I have. Not everyone live and breaths DV and is knowledgeable to the bone of these matters.

<<<-- Originally posted by Chris Hurd : from Steve Mullen, one of the most proficient HDV users-->>>

Not to be trite but let me ask you this simple question. How MANY people are of of Steve Mullen-calibre when it comes to his breadth of technical knowledge?

I answer for you: very few. So you need to be a Mullen to enjoy using this camera?

Davi:

<< Not to be trite but let me ask you this simple question. How MANY people are of of Steve Mullen-calibre when it comes to his breadth of technical knowledge? >>

I admit, not that many. But Steve would say (actually he has said, to me) that since he could get a beautiful image out of the JVC HD10, then so could everyone else. And doing so would not require his breadth of technical knowledge.

<< So you need to be a Mullen to enjoy using this camera? >>

He would be the first to tell you that no, you do not have to be him to enjoy using the HD10U.

Re: SONY HDR-FX1 vs JVC JYHD10U Shoot Out
 

<<<-- Originally posted by Bill Piedra : Hello again all.
ALSO: Can any HOST the comparison footage? It's several gigabytes, but I'm sure I can trim it down. -->>>

I've emailed Chris, but I think that in this new world of super hi-res video that's several gigabytes, or even in the old world where people want to share 50mb-700mb, we need to start seriously considering Bittorrent. I'm sure people around here have used bittorrent and it's perfect for this type of data movement. There's dozens of people who want to download your video, it only makes sense that they help to distribute the video to other people using their bandwidth. That way even someone without a webpage or any type of webhosting can share his clips with the forum without having to ask for someone who can host the footage.

I agree 100% - BITTORRENT is the way to go for the distribution of large files.

someone care to setup a tracker?

For Hayden and Bill, thanks fore the tip, I'll be looking into that.

Chris I not think it would be impossible to setup up a bittorrent tracker on dvinfo.net. It would certainly reduce your monthly bandwidth, especially the beating the server took with Ito's m2t clips.

I use bittorrent all the time, and it's very good to use for large gigabyte-plus files, with hash checking for intergrity. Dvinfo member population is large enough to support very fast downloading speeds. I think its a excellent idea to get bittorrrent support on this site. It will completely erase the need to have users sending out DVD demos, and make it easier to distribute DVD demos for peoples who were thinkning about it but dont cuz the costs too high and take to long to mail out all the DVDs, plus shipping costs and dealing with handling and all that sorts of stuff, which I would be very willing to sharing my work if we all have a central place to upload our bittorrent files to.

Thanks for the input, Davi. I appreciate your comments very much. When I meet with my webmaster this week I'll definitely discuss this with him.

I think it's great this is being done...
 

Hey, these are the sorts of comparisons that everyone should be interested in seeing - if done right, it could be quite informative to understand how the cameras are limited as compared to how the HDV format itself is limited.

Bill, thanks for your efforts - I'd be interested in your "report" on this - you should probably set up an article at www.hdvinfo.net for regular reference, including still frame grabs...

Keep up the great work.

It would be interesting to see comparisons with XL2.

Great idea, Mark. I'd be more than happy to help facilitate an article submission from Bill.

Comparing HD10U and FX1
 

Why isn't anybody mentioning that with the JVC you could only get 30p on HD, and with the FX1 you could get 60i on HD, I think this is very important in the HD world. Everything you shoot on HD with the JVC will always look like it is on stobe or try to have the film looks. You cannot really achieve the real HD video looks. If some of you who has Voom might know what I am talking about. There is a extreme sport channel on Voom call RUSH HD, and I've seen some programs shot on the HD10U. But you will alway notice that stobe. And when you switch to a channel like EQUATOR HD or Discovery HD, it really give you more of a real HD picture (imo), what HD should look like, OF course they probably shot most of those footages with a HDW-F900 or a AJ-HDC27. But when footage that are shot in 60i, it just capture the feel of HD better than 30P. Bottom line is that, with the JVC you only could get the film looks((more of a strobe,I think) in HD and with FX1 you could get the film looks with tweaks and the HD video 60i looks, Thats just my opinion. Lets hear yours.

I do not think it is useful to come back on the interlaced versus progressive deathmatch.
Again the pro of progressive:
picture is clearer, sharper.
it support better fast moving pictures.
mpeg compress better on progressive.
the data stream is more steady and do not degrade as fast as on interlaced.

The pro for interlaced:
action is smoother.
technically almost every video system is usually based on interlaced. compatibilty is then more probable than with progressive..
(i guess most of us still own a good old CRT TV).

If i had to choose, i would prefer 720/30p because if needed i can easily uprez to 720/60p and get very nice picture while keeping the smooth if interlaced.
additionally 720p is easy on editing since the amount of data is smaller.
i deliberately mix here two factor (resolution 720 vs 1080) and interlaced vs progressive, because i doubt we will see soon a consumer camera offering 1080p.
so basically the choice today is 720/30p or 1080/60i.
it is a shame that sony do not made a 720/60p camera.

I think 60p would be *my* ideal. You get the pros of progressive + the smooth motion of interlaced. Plus, any camera that does 60p I would imagine would do 30p or 24p for when I actually want some motion blur...

Oh well--honestly, I'm just happy HD is within the reach of the masses...

But is 60p a real HD format? What HDTV sets playback 1080p. The standards are 720p and 1080i.

<<<-- Originally posted by Bill Piedra : But is 60p a real HD format? What HDTV sets playback 1080p. The standards are 720p and 1080i. -->>>

HDV itself has 60p as a standard--720p @ 60 frames. I never said I wanted 1080/60p. That would be nice of course, but if the numbers crunch out correctly, 720/60p is roughly the same amount of information as 1080/60i, so I'm cool with that...

The ATSC standard defines 1080/24p, 1080/30p and 1080/60i.

It also defines 720/24p, 720/30p and 720/60p.

HDV provides for 1080/60i, 720/30p and 720/60p.

<<<-- Originally posted by Chris Hurd : Davi:
I admit, not that many. But Steve would say (actually he has said, to me) that since he could get a beautiful image out of the JVC HD10, then so could everyone else. And doing so would not require his breadth of technical knowledge.
-->>>
Chris, if I remember correctly, Steve also said that he preferred some aspects of the HD10's look over the FX1's -- I believe he said that the Sony's look was colder and more like HD video, whereas the HD10's look was warmer and more filmlike (I admit that I may be oversimplifying what he said). Further, he said that in the time he'd been using the HD10, he never experienced the motion artifacts (i.e., blocking) that crop up with the FX1 when panning at certain speeds (or when objects move relative to the camera at those speeds).

In any event, I'm certain that in no way would he want anyone to think he considered the HD10 superior in all ways to the FX1/Z1, or vice versa. Each camera has its advantages and uses.