Issues Shooting Red and Contrasting Edges
 

I just bought the camera and I have been shooting on a bright high colored contrast set. I have been shooting on tape in 420/60i on scene file 3 (spark) I have been finding that my edges especially where there is contrast to be pixilated and fuzzy. What can I do to fix this. Here is some sample footage. Thanks

www.joshsilberman.com/badness.mov

Josh,

Since you're shooting in low-res interlaced mode I'm definitely seeing the interlaced scan lines.

I would not use the "spark" setting ever. If you look into the menu when using SPARK you'll find that "edge detail" is set to "thick". This coupled with the ultra-contrasty gamma settings that SPARK is set for and the fact you shot in low-res interlaced mode explains why your image looks the way it does. Maybe something can be done in post to clean this up (ask around, I'm not aware of a methodology to do this), but the camera appears to be operating just fine - it looks like it should based on how you shot it.

THICK wouldn't really factor into it if shooting interlaced; it's always in THICK mode when in 480/60i interlaced mode.

The bigger factor appears to be some sort of excessive aliasing that the HVX does when in standard-def interlaced mode. Standard-def 24p and 30p look fine, but interlaced appears to be creating aliasing/stairstepping edges moreso than it does on the DVX. You can bring that under control to some degree by lowering your detail level and v-detail-level settings, but at the expense of making the image look softer.

Besides, if you're shooting to tape, keep in mind that you'll be shooting 4:1:1 chroma, and all DV cameras have an issue with 4:1:1 chroma sampling, so that may factor in somewhat as well.

Thanks you guys. Next week when I am back on set I am going to change my scene settings to Scene 1 and shoot on 30p instead of 60i. Hopefully this will solve my problem. So this is not a FCP or a HVX issue but mainly a Josh issue correct?

I have found other people that are having issues with RED images in FCP and I am having similar issues when I am importing Show Footage via DVD thorough a convertor. However I believe that these two issues are not related. Thank you guys for your help

Josh,
As Barry said, you have stumbled onto the hidden weakness of the HVX.

480/60i can be virtually un-usabled because of stairstep aliasing which is always present to some degree in interlace video but is much worse with this camera. Your first shot is a classic example of where it shows up worst.

I'm kind of on a campaign to get users familiar with this problem before it bites them as it obviously did to you.

Red is always a problem in video and I don't know if that is specifically an interlace issue. In my experience it tends to get soft and smeary, but other people can explain that better than me. The Jaggies on hot diagonal edges though are an HVX problem. Much will improve in Progressive if you can afford to re-shoot.

Just a heads-up: If you're editing in Avid, 30p is not a supported format. Needless to say, I'm really ticked about that, since it's what I'd prefer to shoot all SD material in.