Kaku

thanks, can you repeat the test but this time with the cassette loaded in the camera and tell me if the delay is the same or more

thanks,

It's the same.

"I posted a small file with 0db/F6.2. Sorry, but no tripod since I had other bike things to carry."

All the noise I was complaining about is gone. Sure, there are MPEG 2 compression artifacts (little squares) here and there in the trees, but it's minimal and completely acceptable. If you look at all th eother daylight shots (except GAP), they had so much noise on the trees it almost looked like it had been shot in super-8!

P.S. I hope the sun comes out soon in Japan so that you can give us a few shot on a bright, sunny day. I bet THAT footage will be awesome!

For what it's worth, after renaming Kaku's HDV clips to have the ".tp" extension, they play perfectly through the MyHD MDP-120 HDTV card hooked up to my Sony XBR910 34" CRT HD monitor. The MyHD card is capable of playing MPEG2 transport streams that have been encoded at up to 40 Mbits/sec. The MyHD card can also upconvert and downconvert to various resolutions in hardware and I viewed these clips at 1920x1080i where the card was scaling the 1440 horizontal pixels to 1920. The clips look excellent and better in some cases than the HDTV broadcasts I receive here. (HDV is 25 megabits/sec vs. 19.4 for broadcast TV.)

Kaku's clips do exhibit a little grain in the nighttime stuff, but otherwise no serious motion artifacts of any kind. If there were going to be any problems, the XBR910 would probably have revealed them.

In case anyone is interested, here is one place to get the MyHD card:

http://www.digitalconnection.com/Pro.../mdp120_pb.asp

John

Hello Kaku, could you film close ups of people talking etc. Medium shots as well. Also please at 0db gain and no high shutter speed above 1/60th and no lower then 1/60th.

Kaku, I am curious if the 1/30th or lower shutter modes do not discard a field like the ( vx2000-2100-pd150 ) do. Kaku can you try this. Please if you could, let us no what the simple settings are like gain, shutter speed and aperture on the clips you are showing. Thanks

Michael Pappas

Lorin good find! I saw the flicker and couldn't understand it. I was thinking that looks like 50hz flicker, but Japan is a 60hz country. Now it all makes sence.

Lorin I have aquestion for you. Did you by any chance take photos of the Panasonic P2 HD camera they showed off at NAB ( the $3000 one ) in April?




<<<<Checking out the frequency of electricity in Japan from this page: http://kropla.com/electric2.htm, it says that Eastern Japan is 50Hz, and Western Japan is 60Hz. Kaku is from Shibuya, which is in the Tokyo area, where electricity is 50Hz.>>>>

help in playing footage?
 

Doesn't play in Windows Media 9 (which is the best I can have on Windows 2000), so tried it in Windows Media Player 10 on wife's computer (running XP) and get a COOD1199 error. I *did* briefly see a frame of footage when I tried to run it on my computer. Is there somewhere I can download something so I can view this sucker? Thanks.

Re: help in playing footage?
 

<<<-- Originally posted by Jeff Nelson : Doesn't play in Windows Media 9 (which is the best I can have on Windows 2000), so tried it in Windows Media Player 10 on wife's computer (running XP) and get a COOD1199 error. I *did* briefly see a frame of footage when I tried to run it on my computer. Is there somewhere I can download something so I can view this sucker? Thanks. -->>>

Hey Jeff, I posted this earlier on page 2:

I'd suggest viewing with VLC player. It plays m2t streams smoothly, and allows you to watch them deinteralced without a noticable performance hit.

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

Guys, is there anyway that one of you could post frame grabs from this camera? Even in JPEG format. Right now I am using a 433Mhz computer, and there is no way I can play an MPEG stream. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

A little grain aint gonna *hurt*
 

You know, allthough it seems in the digital age us folks seem to hate grain.

Sometimes just sometimes i find that a *little* not too much is actually a good thing (in terms of mpeg compression) i say this beacuse when I was compressing old 8mm (camcorder not film) I noticed that clips that had some grain/noise compressed without macro blocks/ blockyness (VCD).
Someting about the compression algrothim working hard at atually compresing the noise thusin turn persving overall image deatil.


Anyway i think its time to upgrade my computer :) , HDV or HD rather is very demanding( damn! just when i was getting comforable with DV)

Thanks Brad -- and screenshot
 

I thought the VLC player was for Linux systems only, but worked great and was able to view the stuff.

Couldn't figure out how to do a capture so just made a screenshot and saved as bmp.

http://www.vegsource.com/fx1/

It's about 5 megs. If there's a better way for me to extract a grab, just lemme know.

You can take screen grabs from Media Player Classic:

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=82303&package_id=84358

It is quite slow at playing the transport streams, so I suggest using it for screencaps alone.

Thanks for the grab, Jeff. Does the footage look a little soft to anyone else?

Why do my Kaku clips look like 30P video as apposed to my live 60 field look. I have HD NTSC 60i clips that play back with the live video look. Kaku's material looks like frame mode/30P like my Iwerks films and DVX100 30p mode material.

Converted to other formats....
 

Hey guys, I've got a workflow to convert the posted clips to other formats in case anyone wants to see them....from every type of Quicktime format to various AVI's, DiVx, TS. MPEG4 and and many different resolutions and deinterlaced etc........if anyone wants to see a specific clip converted, let me know and I'll send to Chris.

<<<-- Originally posted by Michael Pappas : Why do my Kaku clips look like 30P video as apposed to my live 60 field look. I have HD NTSC 60i clips that play back with the live video look. Kaku's material looks like frame mode/30P like my Iwerks films and DVX100 30p mode material. -->>>

Hi Michael, this is perhaps due to the fact that the full 1920x1080 frame size is too large for your monitor, so a video player will have to scale it down to fit to your resolution. The scaling process usualyl ends up blurring the fields together.

Here comes the sun
 

I should get out to shoot daylight stuff for you very quick (thank my employees for their understanding).

I had enough time today and help from my employee for better shots
 

I will capture these clips and upload them tonight.

I hope this will be feasible level of production to you all.

YOU ARE GREAT!

very very Kind!

Best Regards


Gabreiele

Just been watching some of Kaku's clips on a Sharp Aquos 83cm LCD HDTV (1330x800 res.) and they are AWESOME!!!

The 0db 60i daylight clip is superb across the board - detail is exceedingly good - motion artifacts on the two running kids are non-existent - colour saturation and 'naturalness' is spot-on. Even examination from a few inches from the screen failed to give up any 'nasties', let alone from prime viewing position, where the image appeared as smooth as silk.

I was beginning to think that maybe the image quality of the HD10 wouldn't be exceeded, but comparing clips from both directly on the Aquos, shows the FX1 does yield a superior image right across the board (if only marginally in the detail stakes....).

The quality is possibly even cleaner than some of the broadcast 1080i FTA material. Anyone who's seen CSI on a true HDTV will have some idea of the quality that is the best that FTA HD is offering at the moment.....and from what I've just seen, that's at least what this cam gives!!!

There'll probably be some downsides for early adoptors of the FX1, but video quality sure won't be one of them......

I almost forgot!! Today was my wife Nancy's birthday!!
I was too much into FX1 stuff and realized it at 20:40pm.
I'd better slow down for this process for tonight.

Kaku, thank you VERY much for posting all these clips and also thanks VERY much to Chris Hurd for hosting.

I've had to chance to look at all the clips. My opinion is that it's unbelieveable for a $3700 video camera. However, there is room for improvement...

Why the heck does the night footage look so sexy to me? The daytime footage is....well, a very solid good. It's good. It's definately good. But, the night footage is better than I expected. I'm viewing on a 23" Cinema, G5 system and it looks really great. Even better when I "deinterlace" with VLC player. I'm super-excited to see some footage that's actually lit with a professional lighting designer...and a tripod. This camera could in my opinion shoot an AMAZING drama that has little to no action. That's making my hair stand up straight because that's exactly what I write and shoot.

I don't see the harsh chroma we've been dealing with in HDV, so that's refreshing. It's also got a richer overall tone - I keep coming back to the word "solid" image. It's workable, it's definately something worth the money!

Who's dying to find out about the "Pro" version? I'm buying it sight unseen now that I've checked out the FX1 footage. There improvements in the "Pro" version make it truly a breakthrough camera. (so is the FX1 for that matter)

Murph

Kaku,

Thanks for all the contributions you're making! It's helping us out immensely, all of us!

I, however, will have to wait a week or so before I can check it out. I'm in between DSL providers, and my 56k can't handle much...

heath

Pro Version
 

I wonder if the pro version will have even better noise to signal ratio? There has to be some kind of performance improvements to call it "pro"

I truly hope so, but I'd settle for Apple's support and XLR connectors with adjustable channels. I'm trying to figure out the price difference, and I just can't do it. There must be a feature worth the price increase...and I know we all hope for 24p. (the real deal)

Murph

I'm adding footage in the "Day 0db" folder.
 

This one came out really beautiful.

Finally the sun was out and with the help of my wife and assistant, Chacha who has been making and performing music, went to Yoyogi park and shot the footage.

cocoonspace.m2t is the intro part of a song call "Akaihana" by her group "cocoon". Gash I don't remember I had the ND filter on or not (most likely I had it on ND1), but the iris is F4, no gain added and shutter speed 60. The sun was partially hitting directly on her face and the wood. No reflector or what so ever. We took an iPod and connected by mini stereo cable directly to the mic input of the FX1 and FX1 seems to adjust the line level. The file format is "lossless" on the iPod which is ripped from her CD. The album is recorded and mastered at 24bit/96KHz with MOTU Digital Performer and HD896 then mastered to the CD format. So, you can call it this file is totally inhouse production.

Another note is that I used the "picture profile 5" which is suitable for making Japanese skin preferable. The color parameter is added by "+1", Sharpness "11", skin tone detail "type 3", AGC limit to be "12db" (but the gain was set manually to 0db anyway), and auto iris "F4" (so is iris set to F4 manually).

And NDoffF11.m2t is shot with the picture profile 1 which is recommended for HDV shooting with sharpness set to "11" because it goes to "11" when you need more than "10"....you know it's one louder innit?....sorry, bad joke. But seriously, the sharpness is set to 11 for you to compare the skin tone detail thing.

If you wanna know more about chacha's group cocoon, the web site is www.cocoonspace.com

Chris and I talked about the files and I will probably erase the ones some people said terrible.

<<<-- Originally posted by Heath McKnight : Kaku,

Thanks for all the contributions you're making! It's helping us out immensely, all of us!

I, however, will have to wait a week or so before I can check it out. I'm in between DSL providers, and my 56k can't handle much...

heath -->>>

Heath,
Thank YOU for all of your effort to put this forum together. I'm getting used to the cam so, by the time you get your DSL, we will have good selection by then.

Kaku,

Thank you for all your efforts.

Is all of the daytime footage still available? It seems like some of the clips have 'disappeared'.

Troy

<<<-- Originally posted by Troy Lamont : Kaku,

Thank you for all your efforts.

Is all of the daytime footage still available? It seems like some of the clips have 'disappeared'.

Troy -->>>

As I mentioned in second to the last post, some files that were shot with gain boosted incorrectly, I erased them and posted a couple of good ones tonight. I will do lots of car shooting as soon as I get chance to.

Thank you very much sir! You're a true hero.

Troy

As we all have said before Kaku, thank you for everything your doing. The clips are looking great. Kaku is there a chance you can get to the country side and do some fancy shots of the beauty of japans greener areas. I would love to see closeup shots of kids and people talking and interacting with one another. This makes for good material to study. Thanks Kaku


michael pappas

direct sun?
 

Most of the FX1 day shots I've seen are in a sort of overcast light, which is nice light! But wondering what it does in a more harsh direct sunlight. Maybe we need to wait for a weather change in Japan? Anyone know of any footage in bright sun?

I will go to places like Fujimi Panorama mountainbike resort in Nagano and shoot what I usually shoot. Here are some of my clips at Fujimi http://homepage.mac.com/kakuito/FujimiPanorama.htm. I put these footage together with totally amature people with various cams since no TV stations nor magazines provide what is happenning in the downhill racing. The quality of the shots are so so, but I think it is so valuable that we are providing longer and more clips of the sport.

And interaction between people, I will try to find opportunity somewhere and sometime, but just picking on anything wouldn't seems to be anything worth because my time is limited (I run Japanese MOTU distributor, Apple VAR, write articles for magazines, provide moutainbike clips to magazines, heavily into constructing a new concept of education on making music, ride mountainbikes and provide information to this forum<grin>. I gave up on updating my Japanese blog for providing information about media production because Japanese people don't respond, they just hate someone sticking out. I really dig here because people talk about all of the worthy stuff, so I want to contribute the stuff I come across for expressing my appreciation to this forum. And it is kind of like descipline to me writing opinions and getting some feedback from real serious people here in English.

Anyway, I will think about a good occasion to fill your request about conversation. I don't think I can just go out and shoot people I don't know and I look wiered <lol>.

Jeff,

The new clips shows direct sun on chacha's face. I manage to control the direct sun hitting her face an the wood in the back partially don't you think?
I could upload some bad examples while I was adjusting the iris but I don't wanna look like I provide poorly production footage neither <lol>.

I will try to choose some parts from yesterday's footage tomorrow.

Yeah, that's a nice shot but the sunlight is somewhat diffused, looks like some trees or something to break it up. I'm talking about seeing some footage where there's basically harsh direct sunlight, the kind of thing video usually hates. The mountain bike stuff you have which I looked at was shot on a very sunny day. Wondering what the performance looks like in that environment, if the weather's right and you get a chance.

Thanks for your time in putting these clips up. You've got some really remarkable stuff up there.

My computer won't play the file after downloading it. Anyone know what program do I have to attach it to to play the footage?

Try the VLC editor. I got one to work on my computer and the footage is amazing.

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

WOW, i just feed the video from my laptop to TV, ok its PAL not exactly HD BUT the colour, imgage sharpness was excellent!, it is only when you play these clips on CRT that the colours look really good, and you can forget about the interlace let the TV deal with that, oh man i need to get HD (thats gonna be hard in the UK)...

Anyway this cams got potential.

How view clips in Premiere, or Storm?
 

How can I convert these to go into Premiere or DV Storm? Any suggestions? Don't have any fancy converting software here, but would be nice to somehow get them in and view on a monitor. Thanks for any suggestions.

I've taken jpg screencaps from two of Kaku's daytime shots for anyone who is interested. I've uploaded them in both 1080 and 720 resolutions:

http://www.flicker-free.com/A_1080.jpg
http://www.flicker-free.com/A_720.jpg

http://www.flicker-free.com/B_1080.jpg
http://www.flicker-free.com/B_720.jpg