I believe the V1 is using fields so that it is compatible with other 1080I HDV equipment.

How can you say 25p etc can never look perfect, you keep hammering this point and yet offer no justification. Every R50 country has been broadcasting 25p SD since the first day of broadcasting. Now they're doing the same thing in HD, sorry but it works and works very well. Many R50 shooters spend considerable time/money running their footage through de-interlacers to produce 25PsF, simply because it looks better then 50i, the de-interlacers in the display devices (if not CRTs) don't have to think very hard to do a perfect job of combining the fields to produce a frame.

The implication of what your saying to anyone with a vague concept of how this stuff works is that the V1 is producing defective 25PsF that is somehow fooling de-interlacers. Maybe your right, I can't really say if you've unconvered some new concern. From what I've seen though I doubt it.

As you said the de-interlacers should be able to detect that there's no temporal separation between the fields in the 50i and simply weave (merge) the fields. This is a no brainer. I'd have serious doubts that this wasn't reasonably well taken care of in most EDTV and HDTVs, the device designers would obviously realise that telecined film would be one of the most common things displayed on their products.

What DOES pose a challenge for de-interlacers is 50i, not 25PsF. If you want to hammer the point about de-interlacers in display devices 50i is their nemesis, not 25PsF.

How do I manage to get 25PsF back to tape?

Simple.

Vegas can capture the 25PsF from tape to a file. The file has the P flag set. I can print the same file back to tape, the flag goes along for the ride and the file is not re-encoded. Vegas's HDV PTT permits a direct m2t file to tape print.

What I cannot do as Vegas doesn't support it, is encode a file with the same flag, that's all.

Why doesn't Vegas support encoding with the P flag?

Well according to Sony it doesn't matter, if mastering to HDCAM or XDCAM the results the display device gets will be the same whether going directly to tape or mastering to HDV (compression isssues aside) and then dubbing to HDCAM or XDCAM for broadcast.

What makes you think Vegas doesn't convey the P flag to it's 1080/25p or 720/25p encoded output from a V1E's 25PsF file? Both Vegas-encoded clips I posted above are properly recognized as progressive by Vegas, Canopus Procoder 2, Ulead Mediastudio and VideoStudio, and other NLE's. Unlike the raw .m2t files, which are only recognized as P by Vegas; other NLE's treat them as 50i (Upper Filed First).

Bob, pure logic says it should be done this way - just weaving when no temporal difference is detected between fields, but apparently it doesn't work this way, at least not with the majority of HD tvs and monitors.

Why?

It beats me. It'd be so much easier to be done than all the sophisticated and expensive methods of deinterlacing 50i...

You just confirmed my tests -- P does not get a "busy" pix until you go above 10. And, you can go to 12+ with I. The V1 does not add much EE, it only increases bandwidth.

And, you are correct -- because the deinterlacer can find the 2-3 cadence, 24p does have an advantage IF you are willing to live with motion judder and cadence judder and editing issues and monitoring issues. It seems far simpler to only shoot 50i -- it solves all problems and IMHO it looks so much better.

"Bob, pure logic says it should be done this way - just weaving when no temporal difference is detected between fields, but apparently it doesn't work this way, at least not with the majority of HD tvs and monitors."

You found the issue. Bob always says "should" but he is clearly not reading what the experts are saying about how deinterlacing "actually" works. I'm not an expert, but I'm BEGINNING to understand what the experts say. Everyone is free to read the original, and they should.

For example, 24p is perfect ONLY if the logic that checks the cadence works. Testing revealed 80% of our HDTV'S fail to pick up the 2-3 cadence. This is why there is so much interest in 1080p HDTVs. Logic says it should make no difference if the signal is sent from your HD DVD player via 1080i because the the deinterlacer should be able to turn it back to P. Yet, tests revealed this doesn't actually happen. So although it should't matter, but it does.

(Watching the Oscars, so many of the clips they showed were I that was not --even at the pro level -- correctly deinterlaced. It's clear many video pros do not understand how to convert I to P.)

And, the idea of converting to 720p is an interesting one for production. Some folks do convert to DVCPRO HD which is very EZ to edit and is 4:2:2. By the way, this might filter out the aliasing.

Sorry maybe I'm not being clear. You can encode to 25p but that will NOT PTT, you can try, Vegas will try, the deck will just come up with a "Invalid Format" error.

You can bring that file into Vegas and yes sure it'll see it as "P" as you've seen.
As Steve pointed out with mpeg-2 you've got three options:

1) Encode frames - flag says P This is 25P
2) Encode fields - flag says I This is 50i
3) Encode fields - flag says P This is 25PsF

Option 1 is what the Canon cameras do but it's outside the HDV spec and no VCR will play or record it.
Option 2 is obvious.
Option 3 is what the V1E/P does. This is what I trying to get Vegas to record to tape. This is what the Vegas engineers have confirmed Vegas cannot do.

This encoding needs to be done at the encoder level, I suspect it's a limitation of the MainConcept encoder.I t might be possible using a mpeg-2 utility that gives you direct access to the flags.

Sorry Bob, I misunderstood. I'll try printing back to tape over the weekend. So you say it's impossible from Vegas timelime, or from a separate (rendered to 1080/25p) file within Vegas?

Steve,
you're still ignoring the issue of what can happen even if it doesn't do what it should. And you're still unable to explain how us PAL folk have been coping with 25PsF all these decades without this problem coming to light.

Now here's something new. I've always though this aliasing, or line twitter or crawling ants or whatever you want to call it thing was a bit of a red herring, I really hadn't seen it, until today. Funny thing is I wasn't even looking for it, I was testing our new HDMI to HD/SD SDi converter, great little box, stunning SD from that little V1 and box.

Anyway I just wanted to compare the HDMI from the camera straight into the monitor.

The camera was locked of, the subject was totally static. In this test scenario the camera is always sending 50 fields per second to the display device and there's no temporal separation between those fields, no motion vectors or whatever can be derived because nothing moves between the two fields. Regardless of that, no matter if the camera is in 25p or 50i the display device has no way of knowing, it's always getting 50 fields. Whatever de-interlacing errors the display device might be making it'll make the same mistakes whether it's getting 50i or 25PsF, it simply has no way of knowing. Any differences in the results have to be the result of what the camera is doing.

Now, hopefully you've taken that on board.

In 25p there's serious artifacts on horizontal lines, anything within a few degrees off horizontal has serious issues.

In 50i the problem decreases dramatically but I'm far from 100% certain that it's gone either.

Now please keep in mind this is not recorded video, this is straight from the camera head, live. No mpeg issues involved, no flags, nothing.

But what are those issues? They're certainly not line twitter, they're something quite unique. If you look very carefully you see that they seem to be happening at around the pixel level.

Now when we looked at the rest of the frame where we had white paper there was the typical chroma noise, all looked 100% normal. However when we pointed the camera at our blackout cloth again we go that really major noise as the gian came up. But this stuff looks nothing like normal video noise. The noise pixels are black, there's no chroma in them and they're bigger than a pixel, now that's really odd. Yet we still had some bright white areas in the frame, they're fine, a reasonably amount of pixel sized chroma noise. Getting back to the noisy parts of the frame, the noise is worse in as the levels fall off and can suddenly change nature at an edge or as you approach a high contrast edge.

So, going back to the horizontal lines and the whatever it is. I really can't say just what's happening there. I've spent enough time staring at problems with interlace video etc to know this is something new. I've eliminated display device issues what else could it be?

Well, elsewhere in the frame, I looked at the black text on the white paper. That text was riddled with that same blocks of noise, the stuff bigger than a pixel with no color in it. So what happens I wonder when that hits the EE circuits in the camera. Maybe this is something. Those lines were very thin, maybe only a pixel or two high. so the EE in the camera is trying to decide if there's an edge to enhance or not but the noise is fooling it. So the edge is being enhance sometimes and not others due to the random noise. Bingo, this fits the observed effect.
We know from other observations that the noise level is dramatically worse in P than I, we know the display can't tell the difference between I or P from the camera as it's always getting fields.
And it might explain why Sony suggest turning Sharpness down to 3. With too much EE the circuit can push the edge into an adjacent pixel but the noise confuses the logic, sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. The effect of that on a horizontal edge would look like line twitter or more precisely as some have described it "marching ants"

Bob

If it is any help. I observed _exactly_ what you have detailed above. I have been calling those running horizontal lines twitter right from the start. I think it might have been confused with twitter being generated by poor displays. I know that what I have, many examples of, is generated in camera and not as a result of the display.

I posted frame grabs which prove that fact. But again things like that get missed. Turning down the sharpness can mitigate those artefacts to some extent but not before drastically affecting the resolution of the image. I describe it as turning to "mush."

Steve's explanations have never come close to explaining the problems. As I stated in discussions way back the artefacts have nothing to do with de-interlacing.

My dealer explained a what the issue is and that it inherent to the the way the camera works in progressive mode. He was given the info by Sony UK.

All the firmware fix did was to bring the V1E more into line with the V1U by reducing the oil paint effect. Brett Sherman's video of the red shed showed the V1U has exactly the same rendering problems as the V1E when in progressive.

The remaining artefacts are nothing to do with PsF. Fact.

There should not be the necessity to endure all these crazy workarounds and I can't believe it has been suggested to render to 720P. The whole selling point for the V1 was 1080P!!!

I viewed Piotr's video at sharpness 9. Well, if the noise on the green roof is seen as being acceptable then good luck!!

TT

Tony, nobody ever said it was acceptable! My point was to show it doesn't get "linearly" worse with the sharpness increasing from the "3" setting.

I'm still seriously considering to revert back to the A1, where such artefacts are simply not present (at least I haven't noticed them on my unit during testing). The picture is very "quiet", but IMHO it lacks the vividity that the V1 at sharpness 9 produces. Now that I have to make my decision, I'd be very grateful if you posted a clip from your A1 with colors as vivid and natural as those in my V1E clip, edges eqally sharp but not overenhanced - and still NO noise whatsoever. If you can do that, many of those still on the fence would benefit. Thanks!

PS. Of course, do not mimick my bad panning and zooming in progressive, as the clips I posted were intended to take the V1E's 25p mode to the limits; the stuttering is very excessive. The A1 seems more forgiving also in this respect.

Also true, Tony. If I encoded and posted my clip in 720p as well, it was only to prove the point the artefacts are still there.

So, Bob, can we narrow down our tests to using black text on white paper to test the 25P and see what results we get straight out of the camera. I have done some repeats of the original footage where I observed edge problem but could not repeat the results. I would like to see if all PAL owners repeated the same footage of the same test (black text on white paper) we may be able to find a common issue that we could work on.
Camera settings would need to be noted or preferably just set it to full auto. Also if we put the clip through a NLE and render it and provide feedback as to the results.
Michael.

Because the simple chips can't see the picture. They don't know what the picture is so they basically treat everything interlaced.

I did create a custom profile approximating the look of the V1 but have since reverted back to less colour and edge enhancement. I guess I prefer the flatter less edgy look that the Canon gives. All the edges are sharp but just not over enhanced. That is my preference. But is it yours? Judging by your posts on this forum you do like the aesthetic of the Sony image. And there is certainly nothing wrong with that.

You are kidding yourself if you think you are going to get no noise from any camera. As soon as an image is compressed you'll get noise. The question is whether you find that noise objectionable or whether that noise is consistent. Personally I found the noise from the progressive mode of the V1 objectionable and not consistent either as Bob's detailed post explained.

The Canon does have slightly more noise to begin with BUT that noise is consistent even in poor light and in dark areas of an image. It certainly does not produce the block noise that the V1 produces.

I concur with your observation that the Canon is superior when dealing with motion.

I think you worry far too much what other people think than your own opinion. If you like the V1 image despite its obvious flaws in 25P then stick with it. Are you really going to 25P all that much? I had no complaints about the 50i mode of the V1. It was great.

Comparing the 25F mode of the Canon to the 25P mode of the Sony I prefer the slight V resolution loss of the 25F to the noisy edgy Sony. When the sharpness level is reduced to mitigate that noise an edginess then the Canon wins hands down and has no less V resolution to the V1 in IMO.

Other more important factors regarding image quality is the less DOF of the Canon and its bokeh which is gorgeous.

Ultimately image quality is subjective and what floats one person's boat might sink another. With the XH-A1 I have found I can achieve the image I have always wanted from a video camera i.e to not look like it was shot on a video camera. Other people have different requirements and tastes.

Cheers

TT

Tony,

I get it you're not going to post any video that would be comparable to mine in sharpness and colour vividity, and yet be as quiet and free from aliasing as default A1 settings can provide. It's a pity, and it's symptomatic.

Because if I saw such an A1 clip, my decision would be obvious: say goodbye to the V1 and get the A1 for good. Otherwise, it's still a matter of a very difficult process of weighing pros and cons, and either accepting this ammount of dancing dots here and there as a trade-off for vividness and sharpness, or not.

Because I'd like to stress it again that all the other "flaws" described earlier are IMHO line twitter, which is only visible when a viewing device input is deinterlacing the progressive 1080i stream from the V1. Just returned from the local Sony retailer where I watched my video on the newest Bravia HDTV through both the HDMI and component inputs: the line twitter is simply unacceptable, just like what I get on my monitor via component. Now, why am I so sure it's coming from deinterlacing? Because the same clip played back from my PC with VLC shows no line twitter at all, and when I switch the "bob" deinterlace option in VLC, the line twitter is back - even throuh the DVI interface.

So, the question on how to paly back the progressive material from the V1 remains unanswered. I can see just one possibility, that I am unable to validate: when the progressive material goes onto the Blueray or HD DVD, the HDMI or component input on high-end HDTVs "know" they are getting progressive from 1080 DVD player and switch deinterlacing off.

Can anyone confirm this?

Piotr,
if you can try what I did above, just straight from the camera, not tape, into the X series Bravia. Try switching the camera between P and I and see how the "twitter" looks. Try this in fairly low light on a horizontal edge.

Only reason I ask is I've only got a V series Bravia and they're none too flash, should have a full broadcast 1080 LCD in a few weeks for testing other things.

Still by my calculations my test takes the monitor out of the equation.

Bob, I did it on the 51" X2000 Bravia, and yes it shows what your're describing in P. But it's no worse than what is happening on my 1920x1200 LCD monitor through component. It vanishes when playing back a captured P file with a software player with deinterlace off, and returns with deinterlaced on (bobbing).

Surely it is completely obvious what is happening? No?

The Bravia is not receiving or understanding the P flag being sent or not as the case may be by the V1 when you connect to it via hdmi.

When you capture the NLE can read the P flag encoded in the m2t stream hence there is no deinterlacing error.

TT

It has always been obvious to me, while you kept saying that the "flaw" has nothing to do with deinterlacing, Tony.

Anyway, I'm compiling a short DVD with BlueRay-formatted, 25p clips from my test V1E and will give it a try at the retailer's on his Bravia. If the twitter is gone, for me the V1E is the winner as I never intended to watch my video straight from the camera, anyway.

The real flaws are not those introduced by HDTV deinterlacing.

Bob Grant has posted the most complete appraisal of the V1 progressive issues and I wholeheartedly concur with his observations. Let's not forget Brett Sherman's red shed clip which shows the same flaws.

I can see the same flaws in your footage you posted. My monitor is not deinterlacing and neither is the software. I can see aliasing aplenty. I can see the oil paint effect in the dark areas of the garage and I can see the dancing noise round contrasty edges.

TT

Tony, I am more than aware the picture is far from perfect. Could you please indicate more precisely where exactly you can see the oil paint?

However, the ultimate test will be for me that of trying how a Bravia HDTV can interpret a progressive material, put on a BlueRay player.

Therefore, I'm in an urgent need to put some HDV 1080/25p file (around 2 GB) on a regular DVD (don't have HD or BlueRay burner) in such a way that it be readable by a BlueRay player. Is it possible? Which authoring application will allow me to create the structure on my HDD, so that I could just copy it to a DVD as data? I've heard this is possible with Ulead VideoStudio, but only with HD DVD. What is the BlueRay folder/file structure, and what file format is playable (it's \HVDVD_TS\*.mpg for the HD DVD). Please help!

Regards

Piotr

The ONLY way your monitor is not deinterlacing is if its an interlace CRT display. Since almost no one has HD CRT monitors at home or in public -- the "issue" is no issue.

The question is what P mode looks like on a Bravia or other high quality flat-screen monitor. At 3 the line twitter and aliasing are gone. They are gone in Europe and Piotr's video played in the USA show no signs either.

The only open questions are "is 3 too soft" and if so where is the point where aliasing looks worse than a too soft pix. You can't answer these questions. Piotr can.

I can tell you the V1 offers equal H. rez to the Canon and much much better V. rez than the Canon in 24F. Even when the Canon is in interlace, the V1 matches it.

PS: Another week of V1E sales and you are still the only one posting they can see the supposed oil paint effect on fixed units. Simon no longer does, nor was it reported in the dvinfo UK review. And Piotr's video shows no signs either.

Of course if you bring up a frame in PS and blow it up 4X you can see a difference, but who does this?

ALL the artefacts are clearly visible viewing the clips viewed in QT Pro and VLC displayed on a 23" Apple Cinema Display and also on 24" Dell. Both displays are 1920x1200 showing the full 1440x1080 HDV.

Neither display are deinterlacing the content and neither VLC nor QT are deinterlacing it either.

If you cannot see the artefacts in Piotr's clip then I can only assume you have not viewed it or are incapable of viewing it correctly yourself.

Until I am told otherwise I shall counter your arguments at every opportunity as they do not reflect accurately the reason for poor progressive performance from the V1.

Have a great weekend.

TT

Likewise.

I'm not claiming line-twitter aliasing is CAUSED by the monitor! I'm only saying a monitor can create artifacts when none are present and remove artifacts that are present. You can see that by switching between the various VLC modes.

I have a very good idea why the Region 50 units need a setting of 3 to virtually eliminate line-twitter and aliasing. At 3 these artifacts are no longer a problem -- hence THEY cannot cause any "performance" problems.

Since P mode is 99% used for a film look -- the softer look at 3 matches the goal of film look.

Now IF you consider the softer video at 3 to be poor performance -- that's your option. I'm not going to fight over this point since I want a high detail pix. But, i would use 50i.

Have a good weekend.

Sorry but I cannot find any post from Simon saying he no longer sees the problem. His last comment on CML (that I don't have access to) seems to be that the excessive coring issue has been reduced in the V1E post the fix.

I've had one email from a V1U user saying he's returned the camera because of the oil painting effect that he can clearly see.

On the V1P, I can see the problem also.

As for another week of V1 sales, well I have no hard evidence to back this up, no one does, but I seriously doubt this camera is selling in anything like the quantities the Z1 has. Most of the early adopters have already bought a Z1, those that wanted P probably already have a suitable camera.

And out of those that have bought a V1 and seen the problem, well they're hardly being welcomed with open arms here. So far they've been told screen grabs mean nothing, they don't know what they're doing, their monitors are at fault etc. You'd have to have a pretty think hide to stick you hand up around here.

Just a further interesting note.
The HDMI output from the V1P is capable of rescaling, it would seem the HDMI spec permits a display device to define the resolution it needs and the sending device will rescale. So it's quite likely when you connect the camera to a HDMI display the camera's HDMI output is being rescaled by the HDMI chip in the camera to match the resolution of the display device.
That could maybe, perhaps, explain a few things.
This was something I never knew until we tested the V1P with another device that we wrongly thought had a rescaler, turns out it doesn't need one, it forces the camera to do it.

At this time, you cannot play it on BluRay. HD-DVD doesn't help either since there is no 24p output. HD-DVD does have 60p output but unfortunately there is an internal conversion from progressive to interlace before going to 60p.

Simon sent me an email saying the problem was fixed. Since he found the problem, I'd put his post-fix evaluation ahead of anyone elses. And the UK review had no mention of oil paint. Plus, I believe my eyes and equipment since I've got both V1U and V1E samples.

If I blow a single frame up 4X in PS, I can see that solid color areas in P mode are less filled with noise than in I mode.
The absence of noise shows coring in action. Of course, an absence of noise is also a good thing.

Moreover, we have no idea if there is a camera to camera variation. I lived thru the JVC SSE problem. There were huge unit to unit variations. So maybe we should call a truce.

Let me ask a question, simply because there's something that I really don't understand.

I certainly agree based on what I've seen that "sharpness" is very likely the key to avoiding this problem. I don't really understand what Sharpness is in this context. I undertand resolution, MTF, and what edge enhancement attempts to do.
Is the Sharpness setting in the camera reducing resolution i.e. by reducing the setting are we doing irrepairable harm to the image or are we merely reducing the amount of artificial edge enhancement.

Where I'm coming from is you were saying the only question is is "3" acceptable. In my view if "3" is only reducing the amount of artificial EE why wouldn't it be acceptable. My understanding is it's quite easy (render times aside) to add edge enchancement in post. Doing something in post is way more preferable to having something happen in camera that cannot be undone in post.

If you're right I'd have to ask why 3, why not 0 or less. If we can add EE in post surely the cleanest possible recorded image is the way to go.

Bob, IMHO lower sharpness reduces bandwidth, thus killing fine detail - you won't get them back in post!

But I still have the gut feeling the solution to what constitutes the main problem - line twitter - must be simple and obvious. If a software player, feeding a progressive LCD monitor through DVI, doesn't show line twitter, it implies it is the method of de-interlacing (bobbing) on HDMI or Component inputs that produces it, not the camera.

Tony, could you please tell us what settings on the A1 did you use to aproximate the V1 look? How much did you have to crank up the sharpness, and was the picture still quiet (I'm not talking about the "grain" inherent to the A1, but the aliasing artefacts that spoil the V1 progressive picture)?

Thanks!

I've googled for the Blu-Ray disk format and found this white paper:
http://www.blu-raydisc.com/assets/do...2955-13403.pdf

What strikes me, there is no 25p mode in the specification! (page 17).

What the heck, I mean how is 25p going to be delivered, and if through 50i, what is the point of shooting in 25p?!!

The BBC reports on the A1 and Z1 actually have graphs of frequency response and edge response. At NORM, the frequency response (detail) is very good AND EE is low. They say it is the best balance. And, unlike the pro camers they and you are used to, there is no separate H and V control. I assumed the V1 was the same -- until I ran tests from 0 to 15.

Amazingly, there was no big increase of EE even at 12. This explained why Sony could set Portrait at 15. In my tests the EE seemed relatively constant from 3 to 12. What did change was detail. So it seems in the middle range, Sharpness really means detail. And, Piotr tests seem to confirm that EE isn't a big problem.

I've been sent Rez charts of V1 and it appears the V1 does an honest static 800x700+ resolution. But, there is a good bit of aliasing on the V axis. Aliasing is not new to Sony. Every review by Adam Wilt points to Sony getting max detail even if it means aliasing. Canon chooses the opposite tack.

I'm not defending Sony in the least. It's that with the U the aliasing is acceptable -- perhaps because I'm used to aliasing with Sony DV camcorders -- up to 8 with P. My review of the V1U will definitely point out that even at 5 -- with P there is a bit of aliasing.

In the 25p Piotr sent me, at 3 the image is free of line-twitter and aliasing, just like the V1U at 5. Cutting the frequency response naturally removes line-twitter and aliasing. The problems is that while lowering the frequency response is good in the vertical axis -- it is not needed on the horizontal. And that is the problem. The pix is too soft!

Can Piotr live with 3 softness OR find 4 an acceptable compromise OR find a way to V. filter in post. FCP has a FLICKER FILTER:

Reduces flicker caused by interlacing in still frames that have thin
vertical lines, such as title pages with small text. Three settings are
available: minimal, medium, and max. These settings allow you to
selectively trade off between the amount of flicker and the amount
of vertical softness in the resulting video image.

Seems like this real-time filter is just what you guys need to use with Sharpness set to 5 to 9.

We watch 25p material daily here in EU. You can send 25p easily in 50i worlds.

I'll try and look for my notes when I get home and create the settings again. It was not rocket science though. I had a FCP showing a frame of V1 footage on one monitor and the live input from the XH-A1 into another monitor. The two monitors were colour matched to make the comparison reasonably accurate but not absolute.

The Canon sharpness control is much more simplistic than the Sony V1's. The Canon employs simple edge enhancement while the sony employs a routine more akin to an unsharp mask operator so the looks are not identical.

The any edge enhancement/sharpness setting can increase the visibility of noise depending on the threshold it is set to. I have the Canon set to -2 sharpness and even when toying with +ve values did not notice increased visibility of noise.

I boosted the colour and use the steeper gamma curve along with quite a lot of fiddling with the matrix controls to mimic the colour reproduction and balance of the V1. The standard XH-A1 look is not great it has to be said.

Anyway a month of fiddling and my preset of choice has evolved into something I am extremely pleased with. As far away from the Sony progressive look as possible.

TT

But the fact is that BLEND eliminates line twitter completely - even when I send the video from VLC through component, and even at 12 sharpness setting! The image loses some resolution, but is still sharper than Canon's and almost equally quiet in terms of aliasing.

Now, I'd appreciated it very much if somebody told be how to implement the same effect in Vegas. Which filter should I be using, so that the H-rez is intact? I could then re-encode some of my test shots, print them back to tape and ruch to the Sony dealer to check it on a Bravia HDTV again.. But I'm running short of time!

Tony, thanks for the info. You're confirming what I remember as my impression when fiddling with the sharpness settings on the A1 - it adds more EE instead of increasing fine detailness. As to the colour though - well, I played with Console so you don't need to convince me that virtually any look can be squeezed out of the A1...

I've used Gaussian Blur on 1000s of high res stills for 16:9 SD DVDs. That FX lets you adjust H & V sharpness, very handy tool.
Back around V5 days it did have a problem, it seemed to calc the blur at project res not source res, so even 0.001 was too much. For that reason I used to run HD projects and then downres. SInce V6 the problem seems to be fixed.

Well Vegas has it's Reduce Interlace Flicker event property switch, to be honest I avoid it now, makes the images way too soft for my liking, the GB FX as I mentioned above is far more selective.

Your observations re sharpness are interesting. What I've seen directly from the camera in they way of noise down towards the blacks looks really odd, no chroma just black chunks. I thought that could have been from EE applied to noise but then elsewhere in the frames is normal noise, very strange.

Problem seems to be that whatever it is when it hits the encoder it goes into overload and that's what's generating that smeared look perhaps. Prior to encoding it doesn't look so bad I think but I'd need to run some more detailed test to be 100% certain.

What's really confusing now is learning that the camera is probably sending 720i (or is it p) to the monitor out it's HDMI port, yish, if this wasn't confusing enough.

Now here's another thing.
Aliasing occurs when the frequency of a signal reaches half the sample clock rate, the Nyquist frequency. One reason stills are always problematic with video in NLEs is the 'cost' of implementing a brick wall filter. Vegas tends to let things go a bit too close, it keeps resolution really high but you can get some real aliasing headaches. Now for DV the sample clock always runs at 13.5MHz in both PAL and NTSC but what about HD, DV can keep the clock the same despite the frame rate as the frame resolution keeps everything the same but this doesn't work for HD, I think.
Could it be that the R50 versions of the camera runs the sample clock at a higher frequency than the R60 variant. Only problem with this theory is that should produce the opposite result, the R60 variant would have more aliasing.

OK guys - I encoded my test clips in Vegas, using minimum possible ammount of vertical Gaussian Blur (0.001). While it removes aliasing completely (even with original sharpness 12), I like the result of the BLEND de-interlacing option of VLC better. When used with the original video, it removed 90% aliasing while not reducing perceived resolution.

I guess we have done what I can call a quantum leap in understanding what's going on with the 25p video from the V1E. Thank you, guys.

The question remains open, though: what can be done to make the HDMI/Component inputs of our HD monitors and TVs stop deinterlacing the 25pfs video, or at least blend it instead of bobbing?

PS: Somebody is cutting away sections of our posts. Oh well:(

What you've done is the same as I do with high res still for SD, when I say high res I'm talking about images from 10M pixel DSLRs. Thing is how this problem can only happen when you downscale, you need a frequency higher than the sample clock in the source to bring it on. I could probably dig up a post from one of the Sony engineers about SinC functions etc, etc.

Just to further expand that point, the other way HD stills are usually handled is to batch convert them in PS to target res, when you drop that onto a FCP or Vegas T/L there's no problem with line twitter.

So this opens the question as to just where this is happening, given that we're dealing with HD and a camera with a vertical res of say 800 something is fishy. The camera would have to have better V res than 1000 to bring this on I think. Of course if your display device is less than 1080 then this explains it all very nicely.

But even then, working with my HD stills in SD I could never, ever see any aliasing problems using Vegas's internal preview monitors as they are always field merged (aka weave). That's all Vegas can do as the refresh rate of the LCD displays used on a PC is typically 60 or 75 Hz. Could it be that some of these HD LCD and plasma TVs are really displaying interlaced, I can't think of any reason why they couldn't be refreshing the display at the video's frame rate. If so then the problem isn't de-interlacing the de-interlaced, it's that it's NOT de-interlacing. It's displaying the two fields from the 25PsF, 40mS apart.