How good looks 35 Mbps codec when shooting leaves in wind?
 

Leaves in wind is one of the motives where the HDV-codec looks very disappointing to me (reduced overall sharpness, significant blocking). How does the 35 Mbps codec of the EX1 handle such a motive? A short demo clip would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

I'm so eager to know as well, from my first shot with the HDV i was really
disappointed looking at those beautiful leaves on the distance to look mushy!
it's more so as you get wider.

This should be the sort of situation which the Flash XDR box will help, giving 100m/bs and 4:2:2
Steve

Yes, I guess so. Any demo clips so far in 35 Mbps?

I don't have any footage online. But I have shot flying dust, waves, trickling water streams, fields of grass and trees blowing in the wind without any visible artifacts. I haven't seen any compression errors caused by motion, of any kind. That may change down the road, but I believe it is very solid.

XDCAM HD is not HDV and it doesn't share any of its flaws.

Take a look through the sample clips section. I've lost track of it but someone posted a clip of the fountains at the Bellagio. That should answer your questions.

-Sean

Here is an example extra for you (ok, it's not windy here :)).
Do you see any artifacts? I don't

Picture quality is just incredible.
Take a look by yourself. (plays fine with VLC):
http://rapidshare.com/files/11458468...45_01.MP4.html

I've used:
Cine1 Gamma (looks flat but works great for grading)
Color Matrix: OFF (much less CAs)
Detail: OFF (more film-like)


Dennis

Dennis, thanks for the clip.
It is pretty close to a motive I shot with HDV and, yes, the definition of the leaves is much better and I hardly see artifacts, only around edges (leaves vs. sky) when magnified.
Quite convincing considering it is "only" 10 Mbps more than HDV.

leaves in the wind...
 

Hi Micheal,
it took me very long to find out, how to encode en upload my file I made for you..:-)
Unfortunately I found out, even in H264 you need really high bitrates (up to 10Mbit) to get a real clean image. I shot some really difficult scenery with lots of detail and movement... it was sunny whether with a constant breeze today in Belgium...
I try to upload it to Vimeo - at least at half HD resolution you can watch it... (arround 3 min)

Do you know, where to post a file in real 1080p25 resolution ?
could send it to you for reference...

At least the conclusion is: The EX1 is the best you get for this money
I used to shoot with a FX1 - forget HDV... these shots with leaves in the wind are impossible with HDV...

Ulli

P.S.: Will come back with the link to the video, ASAP

leaves in the wind...
 

Just uploading the file to vimeo.com it will take some time...
search for : Leaves in the wind - you should find it...
Unfortunately only 720x405 at the moment (half HD) with 3Mbit H264...

Micheal, as you have seen from the previous file from Dennis, there ARE NO VISIBLE ARTIFACTS...

It may be interesting to you, what it looks like after encoding for the web in H264/3Mbit CBR...

Will try higher resolution later..

regards,

Ulli,

Ulli, many thanks in advance, I look forward to watching your clip ...

Dennis, I downloaded the file and I am impressed with the image quality.
Is this file straight out of the camera or is this a lower bit-rate render? Thanks for posting the clip.

Both HDV and XDCAM are "brand" names for MPEG-2. The idea that these are two different things is not correct.

Equally incorrect is the idea there is an HDV codec and an XDCAM codec. There are many HDV codecs and many XDCAM codecs. Esch generation of firmware running on more powerful hardware implements a "better" ENCODER. So making a claim about HDV is useless. Which camcorder is the correct way of looking at encoding issues.

It's possible the XDCAM EX encoder does "better" encoding than the HDV encoder in the Z7 so it's much more than 10Mbps higher data rate. But it's just as likely they use the same chip with the same firmware. In this case, the comments about problems with HDV really are comments about camcorders that don't use the lastest chips.

You also need to factor in VBR verses CBR. HDV is CBR. XDCAM is VBR. This may be the difference and not the 10Mbps. Or, more likely these two features work together. But, these advantages are not unique to XDCAM EX. My JVC camcorder shoots VBR at 30Mbps.

And, let's not forget that artifacting was, for very good reasons, never an issue with JVC 720p30.

Bottom-line the vast majority of claims about HDV are out of date. Asking if the EX1 artifacts like HDV is the wrong question.

Steve,
Why is the mp4 wrapper on EX1 files not recognizable as mpeg2? I have various mpeg2 editors (other than the Sony Clip Browser) that work with almost every flavor of mpeg2 including broadcast streams, transport streams, m2t, m2ts and yet mp4 is like a foreign language to them.

I have long wondered why Sony decided to put an MPEG-2 Elementary Stream along with PCM streams and wrap them in an MPEG-4 wrapper.

Not only does it make no sense it -- as you have found -- doesn't work with MPEG-2 utilities.

Could it be that Sony plans to switch to AVC in a few years and so they are getting ready for this? Or, since Premiere reads mp4 containing MPEG-2, is it that our utilities are simply not universal enough?

As a side -- JVC continues to use .m2t because it is "ready for broadcast" 20mbps ATSC.

I see. I was referring to the Canon HV30.

But I don't see the influence of VBR. On detailed motives the EX1' VBR should be always on maximum. That means it acts like maybe CBR 38 Mbps. So it is 25 vs. 38 Mbps in terms of data rate, right?

35mbps?
 

Hi. I'm new to HD and we have just bought 2 JVC HM700s. I am wondering why what is the main difference in shooting in SP(which I think is 19mbps) or HQ(which I think is 35mbps). Is the difference really noticible. Is the picture sharper or just better for fast moving objects? Is there any point in shooting a wedding in 1080p rather than 720p. There are so many formats available on the JVC and I am a bit confused as to which I should be using. Using SP gives me more memory space on the SDHC cards which suits weddings. Can anybody help me?

Here are two more samples from leaves in the wind, directly from the EX1, no post or reencoding. Will run fine in VLC.

This footage is around one month old and was shot just for some interlacing and downscaling tests. Now thoughts were spend on good picture quality. I think I used STD3 in a picture profile without detail settings with ND-filter on. There was much light that day and everything looks rather pale. Its 1080/50i HQ.

Enjoy the CA in first test. Both scenes were totally zoomed in, first is around 100m away, second maybe 20m:

http://78.46.70.4/tmp/test_01.mp4
http://78.46.70.4/tmp/test_02.mp4

(both are ~100MB in size)

One of the main reasons I shoot 720P is because 720P downrezzes to SD much more cleanly than 1080. If your final distribution media is DVD, I'd seriously consider 720P.

Many thanks for the hint! But probably this is very OT in this thread. I shoot for Blu-ray AND for DVD (same footage). I shoot 1080 because on large screens one can see fundamental differences to 720, in my opinion. And I need 50 frames because of fast moving objects in my footage. So, there seems to be no alternative to 1080/50i. But there are some (complex) workflows mentioned here in forums which produce very good results, for my taste.

If you do a little research, I think you'll find 720P is probably a little better, resolution-wise, than 1080i, given the same data rate. Vertical resolution with 1080i is more like 540, although horiz. resolution is better than 720. At 35mbps, and long form GOP encoding, horizontal resolution in high motion scenes is limited by compression artifacts. In my own tests, I've found 50mbps is the minimum encoding bitrate mitigating horizontal compression artifacts in long form GOP mpeg2.

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Thanks again, really! I've read that before, yes, and there are some tests, where people could not decide what was sharper, 720p or 1080i. Maybe this is due to the simple component cable or some settings in my TV, but when I connect the EX1 to my 50'' Pioneer Kuro one immediatly can see that 1080i looks sharper than 720p. I will check this further, I am just at the beginning of EX-HD filming after several years of SD.
[/OT]