JY-HD1OU New Footage etc.
 

HI folks, I hope you're all well.
I have quite a lot of clips from the JY-HD1OU that I filmed yesterday that I think show off it's capabliities (and problems) quite well. Including one shot of the Golden Gate Bridge that I deliberately framed to be close to identical to a shot made by a high end HD camera (CineAlta or Varicam, I don't know which) that is available on the internet for viewing. (I will find the link for this and post it) This will enable people to do a cursory image quality comparison for themselves. If anyone has a server I can upload these to where everyone can see them, please let me know They range in size between 24mb and 70mb. They are straight out of the camera and unedited.
Some further observations:

1) The shutter/iris non-manual control problem seems to be the same on the HD1OU as I see reported on the GR-HD1, I have not been able to make both the shutter and the iris independently locked and set at the same time. JVC need to adress this problem urgently IMHO as it will be a deal killer for many if not most people. I tried Steve Mullen's suggested tips on this but couldn't get them to work.
Steve, are you making these suggestions from just reading the manual or have you actually got them to work on a camera you have in your hands?

2) Manual white balancing with this camera is a MUST, as it should be with any well shot video, but with this camera it is even more important as it seems to radically affect how the CCD interprets color. My images improved 50% after manual white balancing.

3) I think you will need to carry a full range of ND and polarizing filters around with this camera to make it work it's best. It blows out whites easily and adapts verys slowly to changing lighting conditions, and as it doesn't seem possible to lock it down, seems like you're stuck with it. The thing is, under extremely bright lighting conditions the camera seems incapable of shutting down the iris sufficiently, and as it won't let you do this manually you will have to use ND filters. I haven't been able to get hold of any yet but I bought a polarizing filter yesterday and will try it out shortly.

4) The MPEg studio Pro LE program that comes with the camera is a complete waste of time. I spent half the night last night just trying to trim and output a few clips as a short movie, and it kept crashing and wouldn't even load half the clips from the camera.

5)My impressions about this camera's image quality remain the same after further shooting experience. That is, it is possible to get images with this camera that are of a quality level way above anything you can film with an SD DV camera (of any model or price range), and that the images can be extremely film-like in quality This camera has a lot of very very serious flaws, but I will keep it just for the image quality and hope that JVC will come up with a way to fix the manual shutter problem for me.

6) I would not reccomend this camera to anyone who can only afford the one camera and is hoping it will do everything for them, especially the casual home user You've got to know what you're doing to some extent to get decent stuff out of it. I think it will be a niche camera that will be of interest to serious film and videographers who are into image quality or people making low budget films, who can take the time to work around it's many problems and test light and shoot everything first to see if it works.

7) How do the the VAricam/CineAlta clip of the GG ridge and my clip compare? Well I've only viewed them on a PC monitor at HD res so far, but from what I see I'd say that the JVC has a lot more compression picture noise, especially visible in mid-tones on larger flat areas of color. But overall, I'd say the that for me, or for the average casual viewer, the difference is not as great as you would imagine it would be for the $115,00 difference in price it costs to get that image. Is it worth paying the $115,000 difference in price to get that quality? Most definately YES, if you have that kind of cash handy. Personally I don't have that kind of money, so I'm very happy with my "$3,500 crippled Varicam wannabee" till something better comes along. It's got big problems, but I'm in love with the image already, you could do some "art" on this thing I think!!


8) I will not be selling my IKegami HLDV7W any time shortly. If you're trying to do profesional video you need a tool that you can dial in accurately and predicably to deliver constistenly high quality. The JY-HD1OU is not that camera, nor did I expect or hope it to be, and nor has JVC tried to sell it as such. I think that for the price, it'ds quite amazing what IS possible with this camera though.


All the best

Ask Chris Hurd if he will host these clips for you!

Michael Pappas

<<<<Steve mullen, are you making these suggestions from just reading the manual or have you actually got them to work on a camera you have in your hands? >>>>

I wondered the same thing. Steve you have pushed the 101, but what you have said has not worked. Why is this? Have you gotten your hands on the camera yet or did JVC tell you this?

I can also confirm that the MC 101 methods from Steve do not work. I've spent over 10 hours working with an HD1 and there is nothing on the camera that is full-manual. I'm sure the HD10U is essentially the same, if not identical. I will know for sure tomorrow afternoon as I have found one to go look at and take for a test drive.

But I found with the HD1 that even locking the shutter or iris, which it will let one or the other to be set, it won't hold the setting in a lot of situations. It seems that if lighting conditions change too rapidly or drastically, the camera will jump back to auto mode and my guess is it does this to maintain bit-rate and compression levels. It's as if it jumps to full auto as a "fail safe" if the DSP starts to choke.

My DSL should be fixed tuesday and I'll try to post some clips/images then.

Also, I'm demoing a Panasonic DVX100 and I'm seriously thinking of keeping it instead of purchasing the JVC HD unit. So far, the Panasonic is a very impressive camera. It is producing much clearer video than my XL1s and richer color! And its progressive scan abilities are excellent.

The edge enhancement MPEG2 mosaics/artifacting on the JVC will make compositing and animation and effects (a lot of what I do) very difficult, if not impossible. The clarity of the 30p and 24p video out of the DVX100 is astounding for a DV camera.

I've done some quick tests with upconverting frames and clips off the DVX100 to 1280x720 and also cropping them to 16:9 and re-scaling to anamorphic 720x480. Both give superior results to the JVC HD camera's HD and SD resolutions in terms of artifacting and color range!

The ability to work natively in 24p will also be a godsend. Just like 24FPS for film is an economic issue, so is 24p for 3D animation. When it takes a 2GHz CPU several minutes to render a single frame of 3D animation, this adds up, even with multiple CPUs/systems. I usually render to 24p and then convert to 60i to match with DV video it's being combined with. But If I can also shoot in 24p and continue the 24p workflow all the way to the DVD output stage, that would be a wonderful thing. If I were to purchase the HD1/HD10U, I would be buying for its native 16:9 and 480p60 mode, not so much the 720p30 mode.

My mind is pretty well made up, but I'm still going to take a look at the HD10U. If the controls are identical to the HD1, then I probably won't even do more than play with it at the camera shop a bit. I just also want to confirm that the picture quality is the same, which I'm sure it is, but I can't get a definitive answer about that.

As far as the shutter/iris problem, it is exactly the same on the JY-HD1OU as is being reported on the GR-HD1. You cannot lock the shutter/iris independently of each other, and the camera insists on compensating by changing the shutter speed if you lock the iris, and visa versa. The AE mode, where you can lock the "Exposure" / iris to a setting is only available in manual mode, and is mutually exclusive to the S/A mode, so what Steve Mullen reoprted as a possible fix, in fact does not work.
JVC really need to adress this problem and report back if it is fixable or not or just a planned feature of the camera, it seems crazy that a camera would have a "manual" mode that in fact is not manual at all..
Though I have not done tests myself, I do not believe that the DVX100 would have an equal picture quality (in terms of resolution) to the JVC, when blown up to 1280*720 and viewed on a large HI-def monitor. I have seen footage from the DVX100 blown up to 35mm and projected on a 40' screen, and it looked downright horrendous. The pixelation and artifacting were very evident, and that is why I would never consider this camera if my ultimate goal were to project on a large screen. However, if your ultimate target is standard def television, I'm sure the DVX100 does a reasonable job on the small screen.
One thing that has become evident to me is how consumer and prosumer DV camcorders "taint" the coloration of the picture electronically, usually giving the picture much more color saturation than in real life, to the eye this is very pleasing, and i think a lot of people have got used to it and regard anything that is not super-saturated to be "bad" or "muted" color. I much prefer the colors on the JVC cam to any DV cam that I've seen for this reason, I prefer to have non-electronically tainted colors in my original, then add the look I want by color correction in post.

p.s. for Chris Hurd. Can I post some footage on your site please?

Just my 3 1/2 cents.

After my post earlier I went back and double checked the JVC HD cam. I took Steve Mullens post with me (repsost below) and followed it to every degree. It does not work. I guess what frustrates me is that this was spoken as gospel. Telling me that I was doing it wrong, implying Steve has done it before and knows matter of fact. I have made many trips back and forth. -->

Sorry, but you and others kept saying what the camera wouldn't do -- but never said what you did.

I posted MC 101 a full week ago and it wasn't until Friday night some finally posted they had tried it.

Once I could see they were doing what I thought was correct, I knew it wouldn't work.

The manual, which I was going by, does NOT not say the EC dial can not be used with the S/A control. This omission by JVC is going to cause the lots of pre- and post sales problems! Just as it has here.

<<<-- Yeah I thought the same thing. It has a manual mode on the dial. M for manual, but the camera is not truly manual. -- >>>

You are right. The M really means NOT FULLY AUTO. Which should have been stated in the manual.

possible artifact filtering with PSP
 

Paul Mogg said, "the JVC has a lot more compression picture noise, especially visible in mid-tones on larger flat areas of color. "

I've been researching whether there are filters for the Discrete Cosine Transfer (DCT) artifacts you're talking about. Many mathematical studies on this, including sometimes source code in C, turn up on the Web.

I queried both Sonic Foundry (Vegas Video) and Cineform, who are making a Transport Stream plugin so Adobe Premiere can edit the HD MPEG2. Neither has anything--yet--for this issue, which is a pity, considering that DV, Motion JPEG, and MPEG video are all affected by the limitations of DCT.

Is there any product today for Windows that makes a dent in this? Well, here goes one crazy idea--but it's a stretch! Starting with Version 7, the wonderful Paint Shop Pro from JASC started offering a JPEG artifact filter. I recently did a quick test and found that it works quite well.

Now, it just so happens that the new Paint Shop Pro version 8 has assimilated another of their older products, Image Robot. This means that the program is scriptable, and can automatically perform the same operations on a series of images.

If you have no other alternative on the short term, maybe you can export your footage in short sections as JPEGS and clean them. Sure, it would be tedious and would consume a lot of disk space and your precious time, but....

Oh well, maybe there are better filters on platforms I don't know.

Thank you for the info on the compression arifacts processsing, that's interesting.
I just wanted to let people know that I tried a circular Polarizing filter on the JY-HD1OU today on a beach in the bright sun, and at first look it seems to have helped a great deal the problems with the whites blowing out in bright conditions. Just an observation.
Haven't tried straight ND filters yet as I don't have any 52mm thread types.

Cheers

<<<-- Originally posted by Paul Mogg : As far as the shutter/iris problem, you cannot lock the shutter/iris independently of each other, and the camera insists on compensating by changing the shutter speed if you lock the iris, and visa versa. --->

The camera is operating exactly as it should. Once you set aperature or speed, the camera MUST do what it does!

If you MUST lock the speed you set it.

If you need a certain F-stop, you set it.

THIS IS NOT MANUAL MODE -- even if you are in M mode. (M is like Sony's non-Green mode.) The camera is in Aperature or Shutter Priority AE mode. You are still in AUTO!

In the JVC's Priorty AE modes you are forced to accept the AE exposure. With-out the EC dial to bias the exposure one is going to have blown high-lights -- which is what you have found! UNLESS, one can also set SPOTLIGHT mode. Can the camera do this? This will stop down 1-stop. Can you set Spotlight after locking the the shutter-speed?


<--- The AE mode, where you can lock the "Exposure" to a setting is mutually exclusive to the S/A mode, so what Steve Mullen reoprted as a possible fix, in fact does not work. --->


Unfortunately, the manual does not point-out this SERIOUS limitation. Which means my method cannot work! BUT, now that I have thought about it more -- there may be a way around this limitation. But it will be clumsy. I'll post in EC 102 when I get time.

Re: JY-HD1OU New Footage etc.
 

<<<-- Originally posted by Paul Mogg : I think you will need to carry a full range of ND and polarizing filters around with this camera to make it work it's best. It blows out whites easily and adapts verys slowly to changing lighting conditions, and as it doesn't seem possible to lock it down, seems like you're stuck with it. The thing is, under extremely bright lighting conditions the camera seems incapable of shutting down the iris sufficiently, and as it won't let you do this manually you will have to use ND filters. -->>>

Paul, when you say the iris cannot stop down enough -- are you saying this because the overall scene becomes washed-out, or because high-lights blow-out?

These problems are caused by very different things!

In bright conditions, with the iiris shut down as much as possible, i.e, at f22 (p.s. you cannot close the iris) the whites blow out while the mid-tones are not blown out.

SORRY PAUL -- hit edit not quote. Can you repost.

<-- In bright conditions, with the iiris shut down as much as possible, i.e, at f22 (p.s. you cannot close the iris) the whites blow out while the mid-tones are not blown out. --->

When very bright light falls on tiny CCDs with over 1M pixels, high-light areas overload and blow out to white. This is what you are seeing!

An 4X ND will help move the iris setting back to about F8. An F5.6 to F11 stop will help the CCD from overloading. It will also offer better pix quality. So, use a 4X ND.

But to really prevent overloading you may need to go to an 8X ND. Anyway you can try both -- plus a 16ND?


The CCD has very low light latitude which I wrote about in March. All small chips with over a M pixels have -- and will have -- this problem.

The bright light allows scene CONTRAST to get very high. The AE system aims for the mid-point. But the range will be greater than the CCD and/or DSP can handle. To solve this, one must bias the exposure darker by 1 to 3 stops. (The DVX100 builds in a 1-stop bias.)

This is what the EC dial should do AFTER you add the ND filter.

<<<-- Originally posted by Steve Mullen : Can you set Spotlight after locking the the shutter-speed?
-->>>

No. You get a choice of Program AE, backlight, EC, or S/A. Any one of those. The backlight and EC controls will be locked out by the S/A control. Otherwise, activating one control will override existing settings.

<<<-- No. You get a choice of Program AE, backlight, EC, or S/A. Any one of those. The backlight and EC controls will be locked out by the S/A control. Otherwise, activating one control will override existing settings. -->>>

Somehow i thought that was going to be the case. Darn!

That means the ND needs to do the job. Now that's not surprising given even the VX1000 had one. But JVC should have included one!!!

But, that may not get the exposure right in high-contrast situations. That means the EC dial will need to be used, but that will allow the shutter to head above 1/60th. Which i think explains all the strobing some get, but others don't.

Thus a 8ND would be best since it would keep exposure down around F4 so the camera wouldn't alter shutter-speed from 1/60th.

By the way -- the correct shutter spedd is one-half the frame rate. For 24fps (1/24th S for each) the speed is 1/48th. For 30fps (1/30th S for each) the speed is 1/60th. Thus our goal is to keep speed at 1/60th (or 1/50th in 50Hz countries).

A couple of more happy discoveries through actually shooting this weekend.

1) If you use 1/30 shutter speed and lock to that, all the juddering that was reported during panning and tilting etc. goes away. This also gives a nice filmic motion blur to faster moving objects, I do not reccomend any other shutter speed unless you want some kind of special effect.

2) If you're playing back footage on a PC monitor, make sure your PC is fast enough for the job, as this also causes juddering. A 1ghz PC or a dual 450 G4 Mac is NOT fast enough.

3) A polarizing filter will fix many of the problems with the whites blowing out in very bright conditions, I haven't tried ND filters yet, but I'm sure they will work equally well if not better. The camera is not capable of shutting down the iris sufficiently on it's own in bright conditions, so it needs a little help.

Hope this helps.

Paul do you have that link to the HD material of the golden gate bridge?

I did some searches and you would think with todays speed etc there would be sites with sample HD footage to look at as well as frames. I never found one site. I know there out there but the search engines can't find them.

Michael Pappas

8) I will not be selling my IKegami HLDV7W any time shortly. If you're trying to do profesional video you need a tool that you can dial in accurately and predicably to deliver constistenly high quality. The JY-HD1OU is not that camera, nor did I expect or hope it to be, and nor has JVC tried to sell it as such. I think that for the price, it'ds quite amazing what IS possible with this camera though.


I agree; I bought the camera to make my literally NO-budget films!

heath

Michael,
I downloaded it some time ago from the Heuris site at http://www.heuris.com/MPEGProducts/HD_samples/index.htm but it looks like now you have to send them an email first before being given access to download it. It's the clip at the bottom of the page by emotion studios, they used to have it on their website too, but I can't see it there now. When you get it let me know and I'll send you my version of the GG bridge clip so you can compare.
Heath, I think you should be able to get great quality for low budget films using this cam, with a little forethought and working around it's problems. I intend to do the same thing with it myself.

<<<-- Originally posted by Paul Mogg : Heath, I think you should be able to get great quality for low budget films using this cam, with a little forethought and working around it's problems. I intend to do the same thing with it myself. -->>>

I've already written up a two page, non-dialogue tiny zero-budget film (with the exception of tapes and food, maybe 50 bucks) I plan on doing in a few weeks. One day. Should be fun (though it's kind of a depressing film).

I'd like to keep my "film muscles" flexed and worked out, so I'm sure I'll do more projects like this in the future before 9:04 AM (to be shot on a CineAlta, likely).

heath

Paul the company that you got the GGB HD clip from told me that they don't have them for download anymore since it overloaded there system. Since you have it, If you would be so nice to send it to Chris Hurd for me. He will upload it for me so I can download the file.

Michael Pappas

I'd love to do that, plus I'd like to send him my versions of the shot on the JVC to post. Can he accept this stuff as an email attachment or is there and upload site? I'm at work right now, so it will have to be later tonight.

Paul

Paul, I don't have an upload area yet, but you should be able to push them through email to me if you have broadband (I'll have supposedly-high-speed net access from my hotel in L.A. the next few days). If not, maybe you could burn a CD and snail-mail it to me, if that's not too much trouble. Thanks a bunch,

Paul, I'm curious about the following.

1) In very bright light:

If you press S/A once -- what is the shutter-speed displayed?

If you NOW press S/A twice -- what is the F stop displayed?


2) In low (bright enough to get accetable video with AGC off) light:

If you press S/A once -- what is the shutter-speed displayed?

If you NOW press S/A twice -- what is the F stop displayed?


3) In the same light with AGC on:

If you press S/A once -- what is the shutter-speed displayed?

If you NOW press S/A twice -- what is the F stop displayed?

Steve, why don't you go to some store and try it. I think it is about time you started playing with this toy. There are plenty of them here in LA in stores. I'm sure NY is the same. As to the speed and aperature lockup; it can't be done. JVC confirmed this.

Does anyone know what is the low light rating on this? The original Japanese version was 35 Lux. When I tried it in a store, it appeared a lot better than that, but it was not hooked up to a monitor. Can anyone compare it to PD150, using light meter, and tell us how many times more light you need for the same image quality/noise/contrast in low light?

<<<-- Originally posted by Joseph George : Steve, why don't you go to some store and try it. I think it is about time you started playing with this toy. --->

Because I'm waiting for one from JVC. And, a store is no place to test a camera as you should know.

<-- As to the speed and aperature lockup; it can't be done. JVC confirmed this. -->

I was asking for the readouts. By now we all know it can't be locked.

< -- When I tried it in a store, it appeared a lot better than that, but it was not hooked up to a monitor. -->>>

Well george, you just proved my point about going to stores. It's 90 at 99% in NYC -- so don't push my NYC buttons. :)

<-- Can anyone compare it to PD150, using light meter, and tell us how many times more light you need for the same image quality/noise/contrast in low light? -->

And why don't you go to one of those LA stores with all the cameras and compare it with a PD150? I'm sure they'll be happy to do it just for you.

Hey Steve, we have Entertainment Technology Expo here this week. I heard that Color TV Expo is coming to NY soon. You guys should quit trying to replace vacuum tubes in the JVC camcorder. I am very serious.

Steve you don't need a full testing system to test functions. The other day you spoke as if it were the gospel when you told others and I we were not doing it right with the S/A control. Don't tell people there wrong if you have not tried yourself. If your going to guess then say it's just that, and not fact.

I am the kind of person that believes in accountability, and it tells a lot about a person when that individual makes a mistake and stands up and takes account of their actions. Big or small it doesn't matter. Small ripples in a pond eventual become big ones.

Michael Pappas
Http://www.Pbase.com/PappasArts9

<<<-- Originally posted by Michael Pappas : I am the kind of person that believes in accountability, and it tells a lot about a person when that individual makes a mistake and stands up and takes account of their actions. -->>>

I'm very, very, very sorry that I said you "did it wrong." Perhaps if I had said you "might" be doing it wrong -- you wouldn't be so miffed a week later.

But pleeeeze -- adding a couple of paragraphs of "ain't I a great guy" after offering the wisdom "Steve you don't need a full testing system to test functions" is very revealing.

You too seem to miss the fact I was looking for readings under different lighting conditions. Now if you want to try that at B&H -- come on out and be my guest.

In any case, I was asking Paul. Not clear why anyone else felt they needed to get involved by making negative posts.

Joseph, I live in LA and I'd love to play around with one of the cameras in store. What area stores do you recommend?

Betsy -- come on downtown to the Entertainment Technology World show at the convention center this Fri and Sat, and play with all the camcorders including the HD10U all you want while talking to manufacturer's reps. It's a free event. I'll be in the Canon booth; please stop by and say hello.

Thanks, Chris, if I can get away from work long enough, I'll do just that.

I am not miffed at you Steve! Since I'm not able to see this camera on a HD monitor, I focused on the functions of the unit fully. I was sure it didn't go full manual from the first tests. So when you posted 101 I went and tested it again, Still did not work. Then you said your not doing right. And reposted the 101. In my mind, I'm thinking "wait I've ran cameras a thousand times more complicated, why the hell is this such an issue to figure out. Then I'm thinking, ok this is Steve, he knows far more complicated stuff then this camera. So I go back again, and as I discovered before, it still does not do it. Then finding out you have not used it enough to know either way, it was just frustrating that's all. I guess if JVC did it right we would have not had an issue.

Now that we know what the camera can't do, I guess we should figure out how to manipulate it to work right. I notice that the camera is more conservative to adjust from bright scenes to darker ones.

Michael Pappas




<<<-- Originally posted by Steve Mullen : <<<-- Originally posted by Michael Pappas : I am the kind of person that believes in accountability, and it tells a lot about a person when that individual makes a mistake and stands up and takes account of their actions. -->>>

I'm very, very, very sorry that I said you "did it wrong." Perhaps if I had said you "might" be doing it wrong -- you wouldn't be so miffed a week later.

But pleeeeze -- adding a couple of paragraphs of "ain't I a great guy" after offering the wisdom "Steve you don't need a full testing system to test functions" is very revealing.

You too seem to miss the fact I was looking for readings under different lighting conditions. Now if you want to try that at B&H -- come on out and be my guest.

In any case, I was asking Paul. Not clear why anyone else felt they needed to get involved by making negative posts. -->>>

<<<-- Originally posted by Michael Pappas -->>>

I sorry to blast you. Actually I did say I was sorry -- but not directly to you in a post on one of the threads.

I wrote MC 101 based upon how it looked like it would work from the manual.

The manual that is wrong, wrong about this. And this is not a tiny point to leave out! And with everyplace in NYC charging a 15% restock fee -- you can't use the PDF to judge the product -- so you could be screwed.

My hope -- which is what I'm asking Paul to check -- is that the AE is always biased to keep exposure at 1/60th until the iris can no longer handle the exposure.

My thought is that you could check the speed, then check the F stop -- and then click the EC dial up/down. Every 3 clicks should be one stop. So -- although you couldn't read the stop -- you would know it. And, you could be confident the speed had not changed -- unless you clicked below 1.8 or 22.

This bias by a stop or 2 would help reduce the blown highlights. Andm hopefully you could lock or semi-lock this exposure.

Do you think this might work?

And, I am sorry.

Steve

Betsy Moore, I saw the camera at Best Buy -- the HD1 model.

Steve and Michael,

I'm hopefully going to pick up the camera (HD10) sometime soon and will also do the tests. It's hard to picture what you're saying without the camera in my hands.

heath

Thanks, Joseph!

I've called around to some of the Best Buy stores without success, do you happen to know which Best Buy has one?

Betsy, I went to see some friends in San Diego and we just walked into Good Guys at Grossmont Center and there it was displayed.

If you want to get to the expo for free, you need to register today.

Sorry about the Best Buy mixed up. It was Good Guys, and you get a free DVHS deck with it.

<<<-- It was Good Guys, and you get a free DVHS deck with it. -->>>

Which DVHS deck?

Price?

Does the Good Guys allow returns?