I would also like to point out that the clips I have from the camera, image quality wise, are no match for the clips from the FX7 as posted by Wolfgang. He had obviously far favourable light as yesterday when I captured the clips all we had was very dull overcast light. Same again today.

Even so a camera of this alledged quality should be able to function even in such overcast conditions. My clips do not have that "pin sharp 3d" feel to them that was so obvious from the FX7. My clips also feature much more noise even though I have manually set gain to zero and turned off any influence from the AGC.

Let's hope this turns out to be a rogue unit or at most a rogue batch.

Still haven't heard back from my dealer. They are running capturing tests to see if they can repeat the problem their end.

Peace.

Tony, I'm about to order mine from one of the UK retailers, as this would be against the policy of this forum to publish the name, could you please e-mail me with the name of your dealer you got the V1E from? Or at least the machine's serial number? I'm from Poland, and really wouldn't like to end up with a faulty unit, bought overseas:( Thanks mate!

This is what PM options on the forum are for, guys. Please don't create more moderation hassles by "attacking" a dealer if this is indeed, a case of a defective unit.

Douglas, PM-ing is disabled here, and Tony doesn't accept e-mails. Sorry for that, but I hope you understand my anxiety.

Then I guess you'll need to enable PM's, and so will Tony. Any links to a non-sponsor, or link/post that questions a dealer's stock or calls their integrity into question will be deleted.
Go to your profile and enable PM's.

Sorry Spot, private messaging is purposefully disabled across the site:
See http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=81230

You guys will have to use email please. If a member chooses not to
disclose their email address, then that's certainly their prerogative.

And no we're not going to use this site to attack any dealers.

Ooops! Didn't realize PM's have been disabled. My mistake.

Piotr

There shouldn't be any need to send emails as you should have complete confidence when buying from any reputable dealer.

If I was in your situation the safest thing to do would be to wait until I, my dealer and Sony have come to a complete understanding of the issue. You will then be able to buy from anyone you like.

Knowing the dealer I purchased from won't give you any guarantees that they received a duff batch or just one or any other dealer is in a better position.

I can assure you and anyone else interested that I will post the definitive answer when I have it.

Believe me, I am so hoping this is a duff unit because the camera in every other way is the dog's bollox. The ergonomics are superb.

TT

By the way folks, I have happily removed some posts from this thread which were made in extremely poor taste, insinuating that one person called another a liar. That's horrible, and such behavior will not be tolerated here. DO NOT flame other members on this site!

DO NOT RESPOND if you think a flame has been directed at you personally. Instead, use the "report bad post" function, which is the little red triangle icon at the bottom left of every post. This will send a message to a moderator and we'll do the cleaning up ourselves. If you reply to what you think is a flame, why then your reply will be removed as well, and you're just wasting your time and ours.

DV Info Net is a flame-free zone.

If you think you've been flamed, REPORT IT. But DO NOT RESPOND to it.

Once again, I'm going to ask folks to please keep their delicate sensibilities in check when posting here. There will be no emotional outbursts allowed on this site. Nobody is calling anybody a liar. If I see that kind of accusation again, I'm going to start locking accounts, starting with the so-called "victim" for first for making the mistake of taking an issue personally and second for not following forum policy by failing to properly report what is suspected to be a bad post.

DO NOT RESPOND to this message either. I'll simply remove any replies. If you have a problem with how I run this site, feel free to vent your anger at me via private email.

Okay -- now we return to our regularly scheduled programming. Thread remains open.

I will have access to a PAL V1 today. One of our clients has been sponsored by Sony with a camera for a doco shoot they are about to depart on. This is a 'as sold by a retailer' model, not a pre-production or factory demo.

Given these reports I have asked him to bring the camera in to allow us to check the camera doesn't produce the same effect.

We briefly had the camera in last Friday and had it connected to a Panasonic BT-LH1700 LCD via component. Nothing lept out at me as being soft or the 'water colour effect'. I have seen Simon's and Tony's sample frames.

I will let Chris know if we have anything that is worthwhile posting.
Chris if you can find my missing 't' I'd really appreciate it!

Well I know Tony is bumbed out and rightly so... we all feel for ya and of course we all hope that this issue is just a bad single Cam....

There are others reporting on other newsgroups that the Sony is working fine, at least in PAL land, no reports of any Cam's in the USA yet.....

If you look around there are also at least one site that has the user manual that can be down loaded too..

Sorry Tony, the V1 we have demoed does not display any of the loss of detail as per yours or Simon's frames. Everything is sharp, clear and detailed in 25p. The camera LCD and Pansonic BT-LH1700 can't be faulted.

Tomorrow we'll have more time to put some material through Final Cut and see if anything is turning up when going to tape.

Scott Webster
www.rocketrentals.com

Ask the Sony techs, but I'm pretty sure the V1 doesn't work at all how you describe. For the 50i/60i mode you're describing conventional interlaced scanning, but AFAI can tell, the V1 doesn't ever scan interlaced, it only scans progressively, and does an HVX-style 1080/60p scan which then gets sliced into fields. All frames are scanned progressively. I don't have one in front of me, but a simple way to tell would be to see if there's a sensitivity difference between 24p mode and 60i mode. If it gets a stop faster in 60i mode, it's probably scanning interlaced. If there's no difference in sensitivity, it's almost unquestionably scanning progressive.

As for this part: "Region 60 UNITS in 24p mode: Choose 24 of the 60p frames and add pulldown to get 60 fields."

That's completely wrong. The CCD isn't scanned at 60Hz when in 24P mode; if it was the motion would look awful -- more akin to CineFrame 24. In the V1, HVX, HD100 etc. the CCD is actually reclocked to 24Hz, and scanned at 24Hz. The fields are generated in the recording, but it doesn't have 60p frames to start from, it starts from 24 frames.

It's only going to tape or capturing live through firewire that the loss in resolution and blurring occurs.

Live output to Sony production grade HD monitor (via component) showed no change in image quality between 50i and 25P

It's only when 25P undergoes HDV compression to tape or through live capture.

As a test I de-interlaced the 50i captures and they still retain more information/detail than the 25P captures. That alone should send warning bells to anyone considering this camera.

Also be aware that capturing is flaky in FCP with the V1e. I thought I had a duff FW cable but the same fault was repeated by my dealer. The capture starts, captures random lengths between 12 frames and 3 seconds then loses sync. The for no apparent reason will then work fine.

We didn't get very far yesterday. Apart from me being told a complete and utter load of rubbish. As a result I was extremely cranky yesterday. No excuses.

Today is a new day. The sun is shining.

Any help anyone can give to this problem will be gratefully received as I am losing confidence in those around me.

TT

As someone who has ordered a V1P, I have a question.

If all models arrive and, as reported, the 25p mode is truly useless, do we have grounds to return the camera for a refund?

Or can they just say something to the effect of "Well that's just the capability of that camera, so suck on that?"

I'm getting nervous about it.

John

My worries exactly.

Let's just hold on and hope my unit is duff....But it's scaring the s..... out of me.

If this camera is a representative model then there to my mind there is a clear case of misrepresentation with the marketing of this camera and what it delivers.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. I am clinging on to the hope this is a dud.

TT

Tony, We'll go into FCP tomorrow and double check. The team using the camera are doing a once in a lifetime doco. I would hate for them to spend 2 months documenting this story only to find the camera has let them down.

http://www.onfilm.co.nz/editorial.as...ID=23920&src=H

http://www.takuufilm.blogspot.com/

Scott Webster
www.rocketrentals.com

Barry is right; when I switch the DVX100a from 24p to 30p to 60i, the image gets brighter without me touching the exposure controls. Same thing with the V1u when I go from 24p to 30p to 60i, but NOT the Z1u--I can go from CineFrame to no CineFrame but see no difference in exposure.

As far as I can tell, the way the progressive scanning is put into an interlace stream is the same basic way that Panasonic is doing it on their cameras.

heath

Before you jump to conclusions, why not call Sony up and talk to their excellent pro tech support (all pro Sony models come with it; all tech support for consumer models like the FX1 or FX7 are routed through the consumer division) and see what's up.

heath

Heath,

No change in brightness going from interlace to Prog on my V1e.

TT

Hmmm...The V1u I used has a slight variation in brightness between 24p and 60i, less so with 30p to 60i. Just like the DVX100a's I use.

Already done that. Sony do not support the HVR models themselves and use a 3rd party. There are no technotes on their system regarding issues with the V1e.

The person I spoke to said that the problem "simply cannot be right."

I have not heard anything from my dealer having rung and left messages chasing for an update.

I was given a name to chase at Sony and will do that tomorrow.

It appears that the dealer i purchased from is not a authorised Sony Broadcast dealer. Hindsight is an exact science...

TT

I have no idea what leads you to think I said the chips are scanned in interlace mode. Of course, they scan every frame -- all 1080 lines, 60 times per second. Here is what I wrote:

Region 50 UNITS in 50i mode:

ODD 1/50th second: RESET all CMOS elements; allow integration time; read 960x1080 elements from chip into EIP; up-scale 960 to 1920 and low-pass filter vertical by 30%; encode odd lines from EIP as an Odd field.

EVEN 1/50th second: RESET all CMOS elements; allow integration time; read 960x1080 from chip into EIP; up-scale 960 to 1920 and low-pass filter vertical by 30%; encode odd lines from EIP as an Even field.

NOTE THE "READ 960x1080 INTO EIP."

------------

You are correct about 24p. I had a email from Sony Japan and in my memory I reversed it: "At 24p scan mode, we only read 24 frame per second, not select 24 frames from the 60."

-------------

But, that does not tell us how 25p and 30p are captured. So my test for Region 50 units remains valid -- is there a quality different between the 2 "fields" of an 25p frame. Specifically, is one "field" better than the other?

So back on topic -- what's the result of this simple test?

Which is why we have a list of sponsors and dealers that we all work with often.

A note to everyone, if the deal on a new camera or whatever is too good to be true, it is. You won't be picking up a V1u in the US for $2500 without getting scammed on a lot of other items, like paying $500 for a $10 tripod (this happened to both a friend of mine and even me).

Sorry to go offtopic, but everyday I hear friends, students, colleagues and more telling me about this incredible price on a unit. Sigh...My mistake 8 years ago should be a lesson to avoid those guys!

heath

Don't rub it in :)

To be fair I have deal with these people for many years and never had a problem.....until now.

Bad firms improve and unfortunately good firms also go bad..

TT

Good point, Tony, good point.

heath

I replied earlier, both fields are bad.

The Progressive image appears to be a deinterlaced 50i frame, that has been filtered heavily. There is absolutely no one good field.

You can easily recreate the "progressive" look in any image manipulation software. Deinterlace (no interpolation), then apply a median filter.

TT

Update:

Dealer's camera show same reduced picture quality in 25P. Not just my camera is affected.

So if there are any US V1 owners out there could you record some 30P and see if you get similar results. 30P vs 60i how does it compare?

Cheers

TT

Zane Holmes using HDV!? i never thought i'd see the day.

V1P HDV capture into final cut pro.

Handheld - Not the best cinematography in the world. Don't flame me. I only work here.

Sequence setting is HDV 1080 50i - CAPTURE is only able to be set to HDV, so footage can only be brought in 1080 50i...which is how the camera records anyway, so no worries. When set to HDV 1080 25p footage requires rendering...not good so not done*

On playback it looks okay to me.

*NOTE - CAMERA SET TO 25P RECORDING*

Not so much HDV but 25p. 1st choice was the HVR-Z1 but was going to de-interlace. The loss in resolution made him go to the DVX for 25p. HVX workflow was too hard for this project. Really wanted HD, managed to talk Sony into a V1, who want a Zane Holmes seal of approval. Back up camera is a DVX.

2 months on a sinking island should make good copy for Sony.

I'm pretty sure Zane was involved in the SPP/Prime TV 'Interrogation' series which was all Z1.

Ah fair enough, yea Zane has a thing for those DVX's.

Interlaced footage looks good, now all we need to see is some progressive from the v1p.

Do we know of which Auckland retailers have them in yet? Last time i checked DVT were very keen on them.

Just edited my above message: screen grabs were recorded at 25P

Best of luck fellas - V1 looked like a dream camera.

Everyone has assumed that the V1 can be clocked at 24, 25, 30, 50, and 60. If this is the case, then all frame rates should/must have the same quality.

But there is an alternative: the camera can be clocked at 24, 50, and 60. These all have the same quality. Then 25 is "derived" from 50 and 30 is "derived" from 60. I say "derived" because I have no idea what process would be used. You say it could be deinterlaced, but since the video is already 50p or 60p that makes no sense.

We'll soon see if 30p looks "bad."

Trouble is that there's more going on here than a simple reduction in vertical resolution.

I know Steve, it's unfathomable to me. The thing is when a live output from the component cables is viewed on a HD production monitor there is no visual difference between 50i and 25P. The difference comes after HDV compression either to tape or live out through FW. The HDV compression engine is over smoothing the image. If you have a look at the clip on shapidshare you can see this perfectly well. There is a lot of mosquito noise around edges. In 25P the edges in an image "buzz" which they don't in 50i.

The oil paint effect is in those images posted Matthew. You can see high frequency filtering of the tarmac in the foreground. The effect is not so obvious in Matthew's pictures as mine because there a huge areas of low detail.

I am perplexed by the whole thing but at least my dealer is on board now so I am close to a resolution.

Safe travels

TT

Wild speculation on the source of the poor 25P performance
 

A disclaimer: I know little about the electronics that's behind these wonderful machines so take what follows with a spoon of salt.
First a prediction: 30P would look just as bad. But how come 24P looks good? Because the tape must be “aware” that it is a 2:3 pull-down so it knows the frames are progressive. On the other hand, there is probably no indication that the movie is taped in 30P: Sony promises compatibility of 30P with all its existing HDV products. That places an unacceptable burden on the MPEG2 encoder since it probably takes into account the fact that the lower and upper fields are time shifted when analyzing any motion. With 30P the two fields are all of a sudden “unexpectedly” synchronized so if the encoder takes the time shift that's not there into account it would make a mess. What we are seeing might be a result of Sony's attempt to deal with this potential problem.

Either 25p and 30p are generated differently than 24p OR the NLE is chroma filtering the two interlace "fields" which is fine for interlace video, but damaging to progressive where the two fields are not fields but simply odd and even lines.

If this is the case, it should look fine being played from a V1, but look bad if processed by certain NLEs. Does it?

DSE -- how does Vegas deal with 25p and 30p verses 50i and 60i. It seems the chroma filter for interlace should be turned off for 25p and 30p.

There is another problem then. And it is not exactly technical. My money has been printed tack sharp and its not the result of my attempt to get it printed in a color printer with slight "oil paint" looks.
Sorry for being emotional.