Ron, thanks for that clip. I think you turned the FX7 into an FX1! That sharpening makes it look much like the FX1, but I still think the colors are better. I also have noticed a fairly strong difference in the clips when viewing with different media players. The difference between VLC and MediaPlayerClassic (not windows media player) is at least a gamma difference and maybe more. I'm not sure what other people are seeing on their machines, but the FX7 has FAR more resolution when viewed on my 1600x1200 LCD. The FX1 isn't bad, but the FX7 blows it away in detail. If there is any softness, it is because it shows tiny things that the FX1 can't see and therefore those tiny details aren't sharp. I'm just happy that they show up at all. Some people like the look of the FX1 with it's fairly high level of sharpening filter, but give me vague little details with no "black glow" any day.

Ron, this link gets me to a toolbar download for Windows only. Any specific link?

Unfortunately in Tony's case it is a production model, he has posted this a couple of days ago when he had received the cam as one of the first copies in the UK. I am worried because my order must be from the same batch and if the issue is really there, I can but hope that Tony has received a bad copy.
I would love to see comments from Sony cam experts.

Here's where an understanding of HOW a camcorder works can help.

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.

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

Region 50 UNITS in 25p mode:

ODD 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 Odd field.

EVEN 1/50th second: encode even lines from EIP as an Even field.


Now it would take an engineer about one second to see that 25p mode would involve a different process than 50i. This could be simplified if 25p used the same process as 50i with one tiny exception -- inhibit the second CMOS RESET pulse as shown below:

EVEN 1/50th second: read 960x1080 from chip into EIP; up-scale 960 to 1920 and low-pass filter vertical by 30%; encode even lines from EIP as an Even field.

IF, and this is a big IF, the signal were to degrade in the chip between the first read-out and the second read-out -- then the frame quality might degrade in 25p mode.

Simple to check this. Just deinterlace what you consider to be a "bad" frame and see if there is a "good" field and a "bad" field. If not, then I'm not sure I can see ANY way for 25p to be different than 50i.

==========

Interestingly, Region 60 models might operate differently because of the need to add pulldown!

Region 60 UNITS in 60i mode:

ODD 1/60th 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 1/60th 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.

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

Region 60 UNITS in 24p mode:

Choose 24 of the 60p frames and add pulldown to get 60 fields.

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

Region 60 UNITS in 30p mode:

Choose 30 of the 60p frames and add pulldown to get 60 fields.

OR

ODD 1/60th 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 Odd field.

EVEN 1/60th second: encode even lines in EIP as an Even field.

OR

ODD 1/60th 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 Odd field.

EVEN 1/60th second: 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.

IF either of the two latter processes is used, then 30p works like 25p.

And, if the latter process is used, then if its true 25p is degraded, so should 30p.

However, if either of the first two proceses are used, the Region 60 models will not -- as I'm convinced they do not -- show any degredation in either P mode.

Steve

25P and 50i looked identical on HD production monitor. The problem seems to be during/after encoding.

There is no good field they are both "smoothed".

We made the mistake of not running tape during the demo. We didn't imagine there would be this problem. The moral of this story is to run tape and on the camera that you walk out the door with!

My dealers are on to it.

TT

Ken, I did not just use a V1 at a 'show'. I had one in my possession for nearly a week and had the time to examine the picture at my leisure.

Thomas is a V1 owner. The screenshots speak for themselves. The shots I posted had NO post processing, and on top of that Sony themselves confirmed that there was a problem.

Steve, on the camera I had the problem wasn't just one of vertical resolution. Colours and shades took on th appearance of a 'watercolour' style filter in Photoshop. The shots that Thomas posted suffer from the same issue.

Tom, I'm not sure about those posted clips, but you could be right about some issue with the PAL version vs. the NTSC version. The one I played with was indeed an NTSC version and had no issues in terms of resolution/sharpness. Very strange.

Marcus, that's the thing that I also find interesting. Viewed on my 50" HD Fujitsu plasma, the image is tack sharp and highly resolved, yet my plasma is only 1366X768, so I'm not even seeing the full potential of the FX7 or my Canon HV10! I'm not sure if the FX7 will have the same high measured resolution of the HV10 (which has a full 1920X1080 sensor), but it should look even better on a full rez monitor.

Tony,

I never wanted to sound harsh. Thank you for posting your opinion, sure it's important to be aware of an eventual problem. But it's easier to understand with raw samples from different cameras, not only to refer to one. Well, let's see what Sony has to say...

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.