And since TV movies and documentary is where most HD is being used, that is what I was referring to. There aren't all that many movies being shot with HDCAM either.

Pretty much, yes.

I donwloaded the DVCPro50 raw MXF files offered and all I can say is NOISE. I'm looking at them raw with no transcode or anything (my editor supports the raw MXF).

I wish I could report better news but it is "rub my eyes" noisy.

it looked like webcam! :(

It's simple, the DVX100 delivered in a way no one had dreamed and now it created a loyal fan-base, though some may not want to admit it. I love Panasonic and am pretty loyal to them because they deliver. I think Sony sucks for a number of reason (mostly their corporate culture and they don't seem to care about their "fans" = buyers) but I'll probably buy a Sony FX1 this year. I'll probably sale the Sony and get an HVX next year. (Or maybe keep them both if money's good). The fact is Panasonic is known to deliver based on not only the needs but the "wants" of the prosumer market and this will get you far everytime. Canon seems to do this also. Sony, not so much.

-Nate

No it's not good. I can't understand why. The HVX can be such an awesome camera. I fear it may be inferior ccd's that are causing this.

By the way I just got back from Promax after and exhausting capture from an XLh1 of material I filmed at Birns and Sawyer. I will be posting jpegs for now taken straight from the tape via sd card. look for them later. Early thoughts on what I have seen are they look good. I hate log and capture, I wish the H1 had P2 slots.......


Michael Pappas
Arrfilms@hotmail.com
PappasArts & Arrfilms Main site

XLH1 and HVX200 frame grabs and news here:
http://www.pbase.com/Arrfilms

http://www.PappasArts.com
http://www.Myspace.com/

Michael,

you've worked with both the HVX and the XLH1.

Wich one do you prefer ?
How would you compare the image quality ?

I know it is subjective, but...

Hmmm.... Are you sure there's no pixel shift (at least horizontal) on the HD100? I could swear there is....

Sorry if I confused, I kinda started rambling. Yes, I think the pixel count is inferior to the H1. I do believe that the vertical pixel count is greater than 720 - looking at individual frames, there is definitely more vertical detail in the 1080 footage than the 720, so I doubt it's simply up-scaled 720. Look at raw frames in Photoshop or other app and look at the edge "enhancements" and halos. They like to stretch horizontally. Is this a sign of lower horizontal res (rectangular CCD pixels that are elongated horizontally) or is it a factor of the DVCPROHD codec using 960x720 & 1280x1080 resolutions which must be stretched horizontally for proper playback or is it a combination of both?

The HD-100 uses full resolution 1280x720 chips. They use no shifting. JVC gambled on native rez chips and I think it pays off in great quality and predictable results.

I have seen some very impressive results from the HD100. It's actually kind of shocking...I think it has the best 24p "look" of them all. It's a subjective thing for sure, but it seemed to have the most filmic motion of them all.

Things I've seen look like really good Super16. It's too bad JVC has a bit of a stigma to overcome. I look forward to their next version. Hopefully with higher bit rates, frame rates, and SDI.

On the contrary. Sony listens quite intently. But it isn't going to make something that conflicts with its own overall strategy.

I take it that you are referring to progressive scan when you say that they don't care about their fans or buyers? There's more to life than a 'p'. Do you actually think that a company is going to sacrifice customers just to be awkward?

If you want to see corporate attitude at work look no further than Panasonic. Or ask any product reviewer unlucky enough to say anything negative about their stuff. Panasonic do not welcome criticism of any form. Sony on the other hand don't mind at all. In fact the very reason why Showreel mags Sony XDCAM supplement was created by an independent magazine was precisely because Sony wanted an independent viewpoint, warts and all. Panasonic would never ever even contemplate such an idea.

Okay fellows, that's enough Ford vs. Chevy for today.

My fault for letting the "I think Sony sucks" post get through, that has no business here, sorry.

Well I'm shocked that you would even consider it! ;-)

As Stephen already said, yes the HD100 uses no pixel shift. It's the only full resolution under 10k HD camera in the market today actually.

That was one of the main reasons I bought one. Full resolution and the 24p look the most filmic in my opinion too.


The so called JVC stigma is mostly with people who doesn't own JVC gear, believe me. Most DV500, DV5000, DV5100 are very happy owners. Besides SSE, most complains about the HD100 has been in the post path, because it's a new format. But I would say most of the people who DO own one are happy. I know I am.
The thing about JVC gear is that every little thing is blown out of proportions and with Panasonic every flaw is somehow twisted into something little or swept under the carpet by the Panasonic fans. Just look at how all the flaws pointed in the HVX200 have been dismissed as not a big deal and immediately given workarounds and how flaw in the HD100 has to be talked over and over for weeks like there’s no tomorrow and like they have no workaround as well. That’s where JVC’s stigma is. Surely not with who interests JVC most, which are the people who actually own their gear.

No probs Chris. Just trying to redress the balance as I feel Sony get an unfair rap a lot of the time as a company.

When people complain about a company not listening to users desires for features they want in equipment I think they are passively expecting the companues to read each thread in a forum such as this.

People, if you want a company to listen you have to contact them directly. You'll get a lot further if you find the product manager of a particular line (not difficult) and send them your comments about the product directly. You have to take the bull by the horns.

Thanks Simon, in my experience all of these big corps have had their attitude problems. They're all pretty much guilty in one way or another. All I'm asking is, on this site let's please stay focused on the technical aspects of the gear. Much appreciated,

looks like there's gonna be a shootout...
 

I know its still early to draw conclusions, but I agree that Panasonic's marketing dept. seems to have a split personality when it comes to releasing information. Mike, rest assured that if (and I do mean IF) the HVX turns out to be no cleaner than a DVX100b in SD mode, then I won't be singing its praises either. So, far the XL-H1 seems to have the most favorable unveiling. I'd like to see a side-by-side of all the HD cameras in all modes, but human nature being the way it is, I'm sure the debate will last longer than the most of the cameras do.

Maybe I should just buy one of the XL2s being dumped by people who need the latest, greatest toy.

I'm sorry about that. I did say "I think" as a matter of opinion but I also said I was going to buy a Sony. I will rephraze and say I don't really care for Sony.
Was 15p part of the overall strategy? If they could do 15p (unuseable) then no one will never convince me they couldn't do 30. It seems like they did a progressive mode just to have one. But it's obvious they know people want 30p at least.
Yes, happens all the time. I doubt they think they're being awkward, they think they're the best. Think about it. I've never heard anyone say Sony produces a poor image. Can you image a 24p (I'd even take 30p considering I've shot 30p and people still couldn't tell the difference) image from a Sony FX1 style HDV camera? Do you know how many fans Sony could steal back from Panasonic?
That's not good either. It's not a thing of Sony being bad as much as the image quality being so good but them not giving me anything I can use under $10k versus Panasonic that has given my a line of cameras around $5k and under that are very useful. The only reason I'm looking at a Sony is because of how the produce night scenes in 60i, so assume in 1080i it will be that much better.
Like I said, it's completely personal. The same is true for Panasonic. I hate the whole P2 idea "right now" (for the same reason many other do) but you better believe if I could get a 120GB card for about $1500 I'd do it in a heartbeat. My dream would be if the Panasonic HVX did DV, HDV and HD and came out with a 120 P2 card. I think Firestore would lose their minds at the loss of business. My main gripe is in my opinion Panasonic tries to do it all (and seems to be pretty good at it) while Sony can do it all but chooses not too. Then they try to pretend to do it all but since they know they don't they design a better camera body. (The FX1 does look hot).

All in all I know no camera does everything but sometimes it seems silly not to do something that is pretty standard in 2006, when you know the money and market is there. And let's not forget Sony did lie about the FX/ZU1 doing 24p until they were pushed about the matter so they do know there's a need and want for it. (And it's a fact Sony did initially lie about this initially). Panasonic may not be giving you all the info but they're at least pretty much saying "Hey we just won't tell you. If you like the image, buy it, if not dont." Again this is all my opinion based on my needs and wants.

As for the reviews of the HVX I think the most important thing is the image, the motion and the sound these are the things I most want to know about.

-Nate

Hi Antonie,

I have shot with both untethered as well. I think both are amazing cameras; I wish I could smash them together and make a H1-200.

The HVX is noisy. I have worked in formats that put the best HD to shame, so I'm sensitive to artifacts. I am also very forgiving when you take price to performance. The XLH1 is very close to, if not biting the heals of a 750 to 900 hdcam's.

That's amazing.

The HVX200 can not do low key to medium key cinematography with out generating ccd noise in the mid to low grey tones. This tone level is how 90% of the greatest films and TV dramas etc are shot. So when I see the HVX200 do this, it's not good. Panasonic used a noisier ccd and it's obvious. I will have my third chance at the HVX200 soon and it will get a true test. I think the HVX200 is an amazing small professional size HD camera that can be amazing. But the noise issue in a digital age is not good when compression systems get all mucked up trying to deal with that.

The XLH1 speaks for itself, it's silky and clean. You can make the H1 have any look you want. It's all adjustable inside. If I had to buy now, It would be the H1 hands down no questions. But I don't, so I get to explore the HVX200 more..

Take a look just posted Canon XL H1 frames from footage I filmed in Hollywood.

LINK TO XLH1 MATERIAL: http://www.pbase.com/Arrfilms


Michael Pappas
Arrfilms@hotmail.com
PappasArts & Arrfilms Main site
http://www.pbase.com/Arrfilms
http://www.PappasArts.com
http://www.Myspace.com/

Hey Michael - images are not loading on Mac or on PC. If I click the image placeholder I get 404.

Anything we can do ?

Ah !

thanks Michael,

I am in a very uncomfortable position now...

I like the H1 low noise, but i prefer the HVX200 color richness...

Ah...I is not funny...

could we see a few second of the clip that has a lot of shadows in ?
I see some noise in the H1 stills (very dark areas like hairs), but i dont know if it comes from the jpeg compression...

thanks

Everything is working here. Try to clean out your history and cache.



LINK to XLH1 frames etc: http://www.pbase.com/Arrfilms


Michael Pappas
Arrfilms@hotmail.com
PappasArts & Arrfilms Main site
http://www.pbase.com/Arrfilms
http://www.PappasArts.com
http://www.Myspace.com/

The H1 can be rich too in color. You can adjust all this internally. The H1 comes to you pretty flat, so do Canons D-SLR's which I use.

That's a good thing though.

You make the camera what you want.

File sizes are way to be big for me and yes the Jpeg capture induces noise as well. If you want the most clean HD camera under 10K it's the H1. The Z1u is clean too, just no where as sharp as the H1.




LINK to XLH1 frames etc: http://www.pbase.com/Arrfilms

Michael Pappas
Arrfilms@hotmail.com
PappasArts & Arrfilms Main site
http://www.pbase.com/Arrfilms
http://www.PappasArts.com
http://www.Myspace.com/

links work here, too
 

Its probably been pointed out before, but the comparison shots between the two cameras have such vastly different lighting that I wouldn't want to make a judgement on which has better colors. Still, I really enjoyed looking at the H1 stills, they look pretty good considering the lighting would have been a real nightmare on a lesser camera.

Steve,

I have a disclamer there. ''' Don't judge these cameras from these examples. They were shot at different times. There just here for you to see''"


Just imagine that, lighting would have made the H1 really shine. But if you can get good shots in basic lighting situations, that says a lot about the XLH1

LINK to XLH1 frames etc: http://www.pbase.com/Arrfilms

Arrfilms@hotmail.com
PappasArts & Arrfilms Main site
http://www.pbase.com/Arrfilms
http://www.PappasArts.com
http://www.Myspace.com/

oops, so that's what those sqiggly things are for
 

Forgive me, I'm from broadcast journalism and never learned to read.

I guess I got too wrapped up in the images and missed the fine print.

Like you said, I can't wait to see the output when someone builds the lighting around this camera.

Hi, Steve

I come from a family of print journalist. I was raised from day one on watching 60 minutes, Night-line, 20/20, Front-line, Charles Kuralt Sunday Morning and much more. Broadcast Journalism is in my blood, the only unfortunate is that industry has cheapened itself to tabloid level of investigation and has thrown journalism ethics 101 out the door.

Oops, sorry for the soapbox, this is one of those subjects I get passionate over...


You can't read, well I can't spell to save my life.. Thank god for spell checker....


LINK TO XLH1 MATERIAL: http://www.pbase.com/Arrfilms

Michael Pappas
Arrfilms@hotmail.com
PappasArts & Arrfilms Main site
http://www.pbase.com/Arrfilms
http://www.PappasArts.com
http://www.Myspace.com/

Cheap lens leads to soft resolution, small imager leads to noise. Both are problems.

Panny is in trouble with these specs. People want big numbers for proof of resolution, but small pixels causes noise. Which way to go?
I'd prefer less resolution & noise.

I'm still waiting to see rich color from the H1. The watch maker sequence was very nice but the "up and down the street" stuff I've seen is off the chart when it comes to highlights.

You're right. I'd like to see the H1 mate with the HVX200. With the Canon they clearly concentrated on low light characteristics and with the HVX it seems they abandoned the notion of low light shooting.

I still maintain that of the new HD(V) camera's the HD-100 is the all around champ not in any one category but overall it is the best balanced in all areas.

It's not low light, it's low key to medium key lighting they went to support.

The reason is most films and tv dramas are made in low to medium key. Canon works closely with us in the film industry so they have gotten a lot of feed back about this. Many years ago we did the same with Sony on the Hdcams.


LINK TO XLH1 MATERIAL: http://www.pbase.com/Arrfilms

Michael Pappas
Arrfilms@hotmail.com
PappasArts & Arrfilms Main site
http://www.pbase.com/Arrfilms
http://www.PappasArts.com
http://www.Myspace.com/

Hey, Mike! Don't get me started on how journalism has gone down hill. After watching every major TV news outlet reporting rumours as facts yesterday, I'm ready to go back to Tarot cards. What's the first rule of journalism? VERIFY! What's the first rule of broadcast journalism? Wash, Rinse, Repeat.

All good info. In my time with the XL-H1 I didn't really dig into the menu's to see what I could really do with it. I do know the highlights were severely blown out even under auto exposure and further under manual exposure settings. I'd like to get another crack at it one of these days.

About the HVX noise. I notice some people are rationalizing it but from the stuff I've edited so far it is very real and very bad. I hope the engineers can get some adjustments in place but with that much 'colored snow' it seems very difficult to imagine they can get it cleaned up. Ouch! Low light is a NO GO. As it turns out so far the hype was just that, Hype.

The noise in the HVX200 it's sure reason to worry, but I haven't seen enough low light or low key footage yet. My feeling is that we will see a HVX200A not very far in the future though, ala DVX.
The H1 looks very sharp, but the turn off for me is that it looks like video. The 24f gimmick just doesn't cut it for me. I haven't seen anything in 24f that looked as filmic as the HD100 or DVX100 24p yet. Another turn off in the H1 is the auto lens. I know there may be a manual option in the future, but I need it now.
The color in the HVX200 for some reason looks like DSP enhanced to me. I’m not saying it is, as I know it’s 4:2:2. But for some reason it doesn’t look any better than color corrected HDV. It may look better in a HD monitor playing the original files though. But my feeling is that if one shoots with a H1 or HD100 and color correct it, then show it to an average Joe or even some video people, they will never tell the difference between that and the color in the HVX200. Maybe it’s because of the smaller chips, but the 4:2:2 from the HVX doesn’t look far from 4:2:0 as the 2/3” 4:2:2 does.
All in perspective I really think it’s about the right tool for the right job. The Z1 is mainly for broadcast, weddings and documentary stuff. The H1 the same, plus studio. The HD00 is more for filmmaking and the HVX200 should be as well, but we have yet to see how much of a problem the excess noise will be for filmmaking style shooting. Not saying you can’t do it all with any of them, but that’s how I would break them down.

Michael, is that fourth picture on that HVX200 filmout at LASER
PACIFIC HOLLYWOOD article a picture of a projecting screen or a monitor? I’m talking the one with the beautiful Asian girl. I think I understood it was from the projecting screen, but I wanted to make sure. In case it’s a picture of the screen, how big was it and what mode 720p or 1080p?

"We shouldn't have DV noise levels on and HD camera...... "

in a retail 6k camera you aren't going to have the best picture in the world. Even the Varicam is known to be very noisy in the blacks. And the DVX too. Heck every Panasonic camera is. What that is all the Panasonic cameras. Seriously noise is something one can deal with. Most all of these folks testing cameras have no real knowledge of the intricacies of video or even a serious background in video to say they are testing. Someday someone (I am about to) will do tests where they first try to make the cameras look the best they can and not simply turn the camera on and say wow what a piece of Sh*t.

Actually I have quite a bit of experience with Canon D Slr's and I'd have to say the opposite, they usually come with quite a vivid color setting as the default vs. lets say a nikon.

Michael, I didn't see this thread until today but seeing as I wrote the line you're reacting to I figured I should jump in.

First off - as far as how I wrote mainly about the ergonomics of the camera in comparison to the DVX - it was due to the fact that that was all I could really do that night. We didn't have proper monitoring at Mike's place, and I was lucky to have a few hours to check out the camera. Never having used it before the first hour of that time was spent just going through the menus and learning the set up before we even shot a single frame. So naturally, that's mainly what I wrote about.

Now about my comment about the 'noise'
I found the level of noise to be comparable with a DVX. It's not scientific, it's not a hard fast test, it is my opinion. It was my impression. As I said at the end of the entire piece, it was my subjective opinion based on the little time I had with the camera. Now, as far as to whether or not that level of noise is something to worry about? I don't think it is, but again that's my opinion.
Obviously you have yours. No big deal

I said the image had some noise.
I also mentioned that it isn't accurate to call this a 6,000 camera seeing as it only shoots DV out of the box. It should be called an 8K camera realistically.
I also said it would be a waste to get this camera if you don't plan on using P2 cards or a Firestore.
I also mentioned a few things I thought were bad about the ergonomics.

Yes, i said that for what it was it was going to be a hard camera to beat - but I haven't tested the XLH1 yet.

My point is for the price I think this camera seems pretty nice.
I was able to shoot with it some more today (outdoors, daylight) but haven't had a chance to see any of todays footage - hopefully I'll pick it up from Mike tomorrow.

And by the way, no one ever said this was a structured test. It was presented exactly as what it was - a first impression from someone who was handed the camera to try out.

Hi Michael,

Yes that is from the big screen at L P.

.
 

here;s info about new sanyo HD camera hd1

http://www.sanyodigital.com/HD1/features.html

http://www.sanyodigital.com/interactive_demos.html

.. sounds too good for $800

It's only an 8k camera if you include P2, which isn't anything to do with the camera head.

As Walter pointed out the Varicam was also known for noise issues, although I don't know what the situation is with the recent updated version.

In any case, you guys should be happy. You get high def grain and noise thus making it more 'filmlike' ;-)