Viewing an FX1 on a EDTV..
 

I recently purchased an FX1 and been playing around and getting familiar with the controls. I decide to hook it up on my 42" EDTV Plasma TV, I think it's 720p, and using the interior of my living room to see if it will look like some of the HD channels I watch. Well, as I figured it didn't look like the HD channels I watch which is sharp an clear. Could this be that my TV is only a EDTV? But then why are my HD channels so sharp and clear? I have not done any recording yet on my FX1 maybe this Saturday for my cousin son Christening. Would it make a big difference if I played an HD tape I recorded through my EDTV?

HD expert please enlighten me. Inquiring minds wants to know. I'm here to learn.


Ray

How did you connect it? You should use the component cables. You should also check the output settings to make sure your sending 1080i. Also make sure your TV can accept 1080i.

I also have an ED plasma screen but haven't tried yet with my Z1. It did look nice connected to a 17" widescreen LCD (1280x768). However I discovered that setting the camera to output 480p via component looked nearly as good as 1080i. That might also look best on your plasma screen since it would match the native resolution.

Not sure of this, but I don't think EDTV's are 720p or they'd be considered HD, correct?

Kevin

Kevin, you might be right. Maybe I'm mistaken and remembering the menu on my Comcast DVR as 720p. Anyway, here's what I got from Zenith web site, 852 x 480p Resolution, http://zenith.com/sub_prod/product_D...cat=10&id=1019 .


Boyd, I used the RCA input on the side of the TV. I will try to use the component tonight when I get home. I don't know if my TV accept 1080i but when I was purchasing my TV and was comparing it to other that are HDTV at the showroom. I couldn't tell the difference. In fact, my EDTV looked better than some of the HDTV that was going for an extra $1,500. It was one of the reason I bought it. By the way. I have the FX1 so I think it doesn't have the 480 output.

Ray

The screen resolution is not the same as the video formats which the TV can process. Almost any modern set will accept 480i, 480p, 720p and 1080i. The internal scaler does the work of fitting the image to your 854x480 plasma panel.

But the FX1 and Z1 don't output 720p, so I don't think that was what you were looking at. The options (via component) are 480i, 480p and 1080i (the Z1 adds 576i and 576p to these when used in 50i mode). You will find these options in VCR mode on the IN/OUT REC menu under the COMPONENT heading.

I'll try plugging my Z1 into my 37" Panasonic ED plasma and see how it looks.

I would guess the component connectors will make a huge difference, if you were only using composite.

Now, I wish you guys hadn't spent money on the EDTV's...

Kevin

Unfortunately this is the lowest quality connection you can make and really should only be used for low res devices like VCR's. You certainly won't see what the FX1 is capable of that way I'm afraid.

I agree with you about ED screens however, which is why I got one myself.

OK, just tried the Z1 connected to the EDTV via component video. Wow. It looked great at 1080i. I tried A/B'ing between DV and HDV mode and the difference was like night and day - much more detail was visible at 1080i than 480i. Now setting the camera for 1080i HDV and setting component to downconvert to 480p certainly gave a nicer picture than regular DV mode at 480i. However it still didn't look as sharp or show the fine details I could see in 1080i.

Hook your camera up with the component cables and be sure it's set for HDV and 1080i component. I think you'll be happy with both your FX1 and your plasma screen :-)

Boyd, I just hooked my FX1 via component and let me say that the pictures are awesome in true widescreen. Thanks for you guys help. I had a feeling that it has something to do with my connections. The components connections are all in the back of my TV and didn't have any way of getting back there unless I pull the whole TV and furniture forward. I'm going to have to get me a longer cable or an adaptor cause the one that came with it is only probably 3ft long.


Ray

Most everything you see on the HD channels is shot with either 35mm film or with high end HD cameras. No 1/3" chip HDV camera or even 1/3" chip HD camera is going to look as sharp as the 2/3" chip ones.

*most* is of course, accurate. That said, a LOT of HDV is making it's way to HD television already. I've just spent 2 weeks in Asia training broadcasters on this very subject....some shooting, but mostly editing HDV for HD broadcast.
MTV, ABC, CBS...Discovery, National Geo, and more are all using HDV at various levels right now. I suspect that we'll see more of the low-cost HD options making its way to the small screen as the months roll by.

First of all when you buy an HDTV never judge the picture quality by what you see in the showroom because for all you know it could be fed with a crummy analog signal that looks terrible. A lot of times this is done on purpose to sabatoge the picture of the affordable high definition televisions to make you think that you have to spend 3000 dollars to get a good picture. Every HDTV that I have ever bought looked horrible in the showroom and it was only when I took it home and hooked it up to an HDTV reciever that I got a good picture.

The biggest ripoff in television history was the selling of these so called HD ready televisions. The consumer because he spent thousands of dollars on these televisions refused to purchase an HDTV receiver and ended up using the television to watch crummy analog programming. Thanks to these unscrupolous tv manufacturers only 3 percent of households in the US can receive an HDTV signal although 10 percent of households own an HD ready television. HD built in is the only way to go and by 2007 all televisions will have built in digital tuners.

Tommy, I think you're overlooking the fact that most people use cable or satellite to receive their HD signal. I could care less if I have a built in tuner. I don't want to defend those companies too much, but I wouldn't call that "unscrupolous" (unscrupulous), but rather them trying to keep the price down as much as possible and not putting in unnecessary items.

I have a tuner in mine...haven't used it yet.

Kevin

Guys: I edited a couple posts out of this thread because they had nothing to do with the topic or this forum. Discussing the merits of HD cable service is fine, but please start a new thread in the TOTEM pole forum for that.

"Well, as I figured it didn't look like the HD channels I watch which is sharp an clear. Could this be that my TV is only a EDTV? But then why are my HD channels so sharp and clear?"

"Most everything you see on the HD channels is shot with either 35mm film or with high end HD cameras. No 1/3" chip HDV camera or even 1/3" chip HD camera is going to look as sharp as the 2/3" chip ones."

But there's also the issue of broadcast compression, which could make the FX1/Z1 look better than an HD broadcast (a shorter signal between the source and destination). I don't know this for sure, just an idea.

I work in a store that sells HDTVs. Our main focus is on the audio systems, but we do stock several HD plasmas and LCDs as well. I'll be getting the FX1 very soon and the first thing I want to do is shoot outdoor stuff and A/B between the FX1 and Discovery HD on a 50" plasma.

Until then I'm just making things up :)

Yea - you're right in that it won't look as good as an expensive film-to-hd movie, or the $100,000 cameras they use for sports games and Star Wars movies. But, you know. It's damned good! In fact, my FX1 can give video that's better then some HDTV programs I've seen, and on par with quite a bit of it.

Then again, neither will DV look as good as the expensive broadcast SD cameras or film-to-SD conversions.

Channels like Discovery and PBS use the FX1/Z1 quite a bit for areas where they need to put a camera in small spots. I've seen them a bunch of times. I've even seen the HDR-HC1 in use on Monster Garage. You can usually tell if the video is being sourced from the FX1 versus their expensive JVC broadcast cameras but you do have to look for it.

I think HDV falls neatly within the "Damned good enough" category for most small shops or hobbyists.

You've absolutely right here. It's not true for every broadcast but many broadcasts are using quite a bit of compression. In fact, before the olympics (when NBC was using a more ruthless compression ratio) it was so bad you would see compression artifacts on Jay Leno and Conan's mouths when they talked! HBO on the other hand does an excellent job with their 30MBit stream.

Satellite HDTV is even more compressed then OTA or cable TV HD, too - they have a lot less bandwidth and they end up not only increasing compression but reducing resolution.

As for HDTV's, I chose a Sharp 45" LCD. In my opinion, they are of the best HDTV's you can get. They will resolve 100% of a 1920x1080i signal. Good colors, good contrast. Not as good on the black levels as a CRT but it's damned good. In fact, if you get the (now discontinued I think, but still very available) LC-45GX6U, the one I ended up getting, you can pump full 1920x1080@60hz progressive by use of a DVI switchbox. I'm actually using it as my computer monitor right now...

If you can't go for a full HDTV, you have options to monitor HD. I have an HP L2335 - it's a 1920x1200 monitor that can input DVI, VGA, Component, S-Video and Composite. It looks great for 1080i video, and you can get one for something like $700 on ebay now.

The last point about which camera to get, if you are happy with the low light performance of the FX1 but aren't ready for HD, you can use it as a fully functional DV camcorder and when you're ready for HDV you can just hit the switch!

EDTV is not HD, it's SD (480p):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EDTV

heath

I would like to know what it is that makes it sharper?

I thought about this and my conclusion is that the 2/3" chip cams just has more resolution beyond what the FX1/Z1 has and what we consider to look "HD" is far beyond just 1280x720p or even a 1920x1080p source. The masters are created with even higher resolutions.

Just as you all say, the Z1 downconverts HD to SD and the SD result is better than SD original.

So this seems to prove that having 1:1 pixel ratio isn't the best.

Spot taped some video of a duck in the water in HDV, then captured and cut it in HDV, then did a digital zoom in on the duck. He then down-converted it to DV (480p, I believe) and put it on tape. The digital zoom in was VERY clean.

He then down-converted the same footage to DV (480p, I believe) from the camera to the NLE and did the same thing and output to DV tape. The digital zoom was pixelated and blocky.

heath

a large chip has nothing todo with your lines of resoluion, vertical or horizontal. The face is HDV compresses the video down to the file size of DV so you loose some quality when its converted to MPEG2, Yes other cameras compress it to like DVCPRO HD, but its not as dramatic as HDV, the MPEG2 compresson isnt that bad though it was good enough for Sony's XDCAM series, which the E! channel bought a ton of to make the switch to HD.

[The face is HDV compresses the video down to the file size of DV so you loose some quality when its converted to MPEG2]

I think, unless I'm confused by your post, that you're saying that HDV is compressed down to DV in mpeg2-ts, which is not accurate. It's compressed to fit on a DV tape, but it is still 1440x1080 or 1280x720.

Unless you mean compressing for an SD DVD.

heath

HDV is an HD compressed down to the file size of DV via MPEG2.

I missed the file size part, sorry. But yes, around 3.5 to 3.6 mbps is what both HDV and DV compress to. Fortunately, HDV looks darn good with mpeg2-ts compression!

heath

I will say that I have been in many situations showcasing my 1080i footage and not once has it been questioned of its HD-ness

Mack,

Ditto here. I throw some HDV footage up (in both native HDV and on an SD DVD) and people are BLOWN away by what they see. And these are your average, non-industry folk who just love a top-quality image.

heath