Hi,i've downloaded some of the profiles from this thread but can't open them,what programs are you all using ?
Thanks,Paul.

What is this, the Paul club!

I think the file is an excel spreadsheet.

Paul J. have you adjusted any of the setting to remove some of the red. I agree the A1 setting is a little on the red side but it never was a problem with so much blue in most of my shots. I still have my A1 and only use Vivid when outside. But trying to move to the EX only.

Interesting playing with the Low Key Sat. I still have not tried to adjust that setting due to rain all day yesterday.

Not sure what you mean when you "miss the images looking quite as stunning."? After looking at the examples with detail on and off and trying while hooked up to a monitor I prefer the sharper image. Are you saying you prefer the softer image?

Post some of what you like I am sure it will help. Thanks

Paul K yes it is a excel file.

Here is my question: Can you see the effects of your settings in the LCD to the extent that you can make you gamma settings based on it?

Michael I would not base any of my settings on the LCD. I either make the settings in a test and then look on my NLE or hook up to a corrected monitor and then test the settings.

Michael I would not base any of my settings on the LCD. I either make the settings in a test and then look on my NLE or hook up to a corrected monitor and then test the settings.

Sort of what I suspected Paul. Any recommendations for an ON CAMERA (I shoot nature in the deep desert - no studio) monitor at the cheaper end? I need one for the FX1 anyway.

Michael I do not use a external monitor but if you search there are a few option that are HD but not cheap.

Steve you talked about a PP with -20 level and +20 frequency but you were going to check on your blacks. Have you had a chance to check?

Here's some frames from a quick interview I shot this morning. I shot it with PP off to be able to adjust in post, but am also looking for some minor PP tweaks that will give me the best image to start with. I was particularly interested in using Cine 4, both with and without detail adjustment. Didn't end up liking that. I don't completely understand all these settings, and so would welcome suggestions for the next interview (Thursday).

Spreadsheet attached, but here's what I did:

PP1 Sony: suggested here: http://www.sony.co.uk/biz/view/ShowContent.action?site=biz_en_GB&contentId=1193315622557 (by the way, just noticed some new tips posted there)
PP2 CINE4: Cine 4 Gamma, 0 level
PP3 CINE4-DT: same as 2, with detail -20 and black gamma +25
PP4 HSAT: same HSAT posted earlier in the thread
PP5 WCV: Paul Cronin's PP1
PP6 Film Curve: same Film Curve posted earlier
Off frame included too.

I posted the images here: http://robcollins.net/pp-rc.zip. I kept getting upload failures trying to add the images to this post.

Thanks Rob for posting those. I also have problems at times posting pictures.

I have still been trying and tried more the last three days but still not happy.

Out of your grabs I like PP4 the best. But then again I like saturated look while still sharp.

If I get some better results I will post.

I like that one too. For now I'm happy to shoot with PP off and use Magic Bullet Looks. I will be happy though when someone gets just the right settings for something like my old DVX100 gave me on factory F5!

Here is a post I just up on the Vegas Forum which is more relevant here. I'm just overwhelmed by the vast possible adjustement in the Picture Profiles.

My EX1 comes Monday so I've been studying the manual and what tutorials I can find (which are few) and there seems enough possible adjustment to hang yourself! A 200 point adjustment, from +99 to -99 in each of these categories:

Matrix Level
Matrix Phase
RGB combos
Color5 Correction (specific area)
*Target Width
*Level
*Phase
WB offsets
Detail level
Detail Frequency (I don't even know what this means)
Detail Crisping
H/V Ratio
White Limiter
Black Limiter
Knee APT Level
Skin Tone Level
Skin Tone Saturation
Skin Tone Phase
Knee Point
Knee Slope
Knee SAT Level
Gamma level
Black level
Black Gamma level
Low Key SAT

In my math that's 25 x 200 shriek which is about 5 followed by 28 zeros of combinations!

No wonder my Vortex Media training DVD says forget all this and stick to CINE4 + High SAT and Black -2!.

How are you EX1 owners dealing with experimenting with all these PP combos?

Mike

I'm looking for mostly to get a lot of latitude (or the appearance of it).

I think Cine4 is nice when you have overexposed areas in the image like car head lights, lamps etc. But if you're shooting at grey sky, smoke or subjects that are white to almost white you loose a lot of the latitude. So for these kinda shots I think picture profile off is good.

I did one shoot yesterday in a snow storm with big white snowflakes falling and a grey sky in the background. I forgot to change the PP from Cine4 to off. It did kinda mess up the shot a bit. Would have been more dramatic with PP off I think. But I have to do more tests to see if this is really the case and in which situations it works and doesn't work.

Sami

First blush inspection of the EX1 color balance showed weak green/cyan and a fairly narrow dynamic range. The histogram filled only about 3/4 of the x axis and tended to be on the underexposure side of things. Granted, I don't have a 3 color histogram, so, this is really an approximation. My goal was to increase the dynamic range, improve the exposure without blowing the hi-lites and muddying the shadows. I, also, wanted to bring up the weak green/cyan.

Anyone familiar with Paolo Ciccone's True Color calibration for the JVC HD100 knows the procedure...
http://www.paolociccone.com/hd100-calibration.html

I repeated his process with the EX1, HDRack, and a DSC Labs Camette chart v8.1. Here's my procedure and results:
1-Light DCS chart with 600w quartz halogen lamp
2-white balance the EX1- result of the WB=2700k
3-zoom EX1 onto 5-step gray chart on camette and look at the WFM.
4-adjust aperture so white step shows 100IRE
5-adjust black and black gamma so black step shows 0IRE.
6-adjust knee and gamma so middle gray sits at 50%IRE and all grey steps are evenly spaced
7-Now the hard part-zoom out to show the color bars on Camette. Turn on Picture profile mode and set MATRIX to ON.
8-adjust global and local phase angles to put all the color bursts within the vectorscope targets

Here's my results:
Matrix---------------------on
Select---------------------hisat
Level...............................0
Phase..............................+6
R-G................................+75
R-B................................0
G-R................................-18
G-B................................-23
B-R................................-33
B-G................................+11

Color Correction..............off
White.............................off
Detail.............................on
Detail Level.....................0
Detail Freq......................0
Skintone.........................off

Knee..............................on
Auto knee......................on
Point.............................90
Slope............................0
Knee SAT level...............50

Gamma Level.................0
Select...........................STD3
Black............................-15
Black gamma.................-9
Low key sat..................0

It would be great to have someone validate my results. I'll redo more fine tuning as I go on. For the time being, my latitude is increased above the factory settings, my saturation is more lifelike. The histogram now displays a range from near 0 to 100%. Peaks are well distributed over the range without favoring lows or hi's.

I'd be glad to post some frame grabs if a server was available.

Time to go test in the real world.
I hope this helps out.

Bill, thanks for performing this DSC calibration for the EX1. I'll give it a shot and report back.

I noticed you used the standard 3 as opposed to the cine curves. Did you give Cine 4 or 3 a try?

Steve...

yeah, I tried all the gamma presets. All the CINE presets really compress the dynamic range about 30-50% of the available range. I suppose you could boost the LEVEL, but, then, I think you're manually putting the gamma back in the STD preset(I think).

Ok thanks Bill. I'm looking forward to checking it out.
How well did the calibration go? Were there any problems?

Thanks for looking at this Bill, I've been waiting for somebody who knows their stuff with charts and monitors to try and get the most latitude from the camera.

I just tried your settings and an initial test indoors produced very saturated and overly red results (compared to PP off). I'll give it a look in the daylight tomorrow.

regards

Paul.

Yes, during the quick indoors test, I did notice there is a lot of saturation.

Thanks Bill I will try tomorrow if there is some sun.

Bill, you can post screen grabs here:

http://www.dvinfo.net/gallery/

- Ray

Your probably going to have to do some testing with different levels of illumination... It would be interesting to see how the RGB curves handle
gain variation...

This could affect the color saturation points a different illuminations...

might need to setup a profile that you like that coveres the histo like you have it set, but with different ND filters in place also......

Bill,

I just plugged your settings in one of my EX1s. Initially it looks great. Amazing difference. It looks alot like the rough preset I made to match my HVX before I sold it, but better. I will test it out n the next few days while I have a project to see how it looks. I even named it the "Bill R" preset in your honor. Look forward to more testing from you.

Thanks,

Adam

Setting up dynamic range is very easy. Setting the colors is much harder. It's pretty much of a trial and error method to get the rotations so everything lines up. Push in on one color and the complement goes out. Needless to say, it's time consumming and tricky to get all 6 color bursts into their target boxes on the vectorscope.This initial matrix I posted was fairly close, but, not perfect. I'll try again when I have more time to experiment.

Since the entire matrix was balanced under incandescent(2700K), I then went outside and re-white balanced for 5800k, but, kept the matrix unchanged. Be sure to white balance before you test this out. By the way, the entire test was run with ND2. I wanted to keep the aperture f4<x<f2.8

Yes, saturation is up. That was part of the goal. The factory colors, IMHO are too unsaturated for my taste. I may still need to dial the red down. It was the predominant color before I started out.

Ray...
Thanx. I'll post some frame grabs tomorrow.

So far I like your profile, Bill. The standard Sony setting is completely "bland". That's why I started the "HISAT" profile in this thread. I need to do more shooting with your current profile but it seems very clean.

Carroll Lam

What do you guys think of Doug jensesns settings as recommened in his training video. They are:

Matrix ON -High Sat, Level 3, Phase and r-g=0
Gamma CINE4
Black -3
Black Gamma -2
Low Key SAT = 0
Detail OFF

Michael, You only mentioned the first three matrix settings (Level 3, Phase and r-g=0). What were the rest of them?

1960x1080x30p -3db gain. Other items not mentioned were off or default

OK...

Here's a comparison of the EX1 factory settings and my DSC derived Profile, henceforth called TrueColor1.

TrueColor1 profile:
http://www.dvinfo.net/gallery/showimage.php?i=802&c=2

Factory Settings(PP off)
http://www.dvinfo.net/gallery/showimage.php?i=801&c=2

I've saved the PP recipe to my SxS card and copied it to my hard drive. The file format is ASCII, so, it's easy to copy onto your own profile file and loaded into your camera.
Here's the recipe:
TC1
0000001
0000001
0000000
00007b8
000607b
0000000
000e8d8
000e26a
000d58c
0000e27
0000000
0000000
000337f
0001c72
0007fff
000c0f7
0000000
0000000
0000000
0000000
00015e0
0000001
0000000
0000000
0000000
0000000
0000000
0000000
0000003
0000000
0000000
0000000
0000000
0000000
000a38e
0001c72
0000001
0000001
000d111
0000000
0004052
0000000
0000002
000ecb4
000f46c
0000000

Would it not be easier for us to just post the actual picture profile "file" itself and execute it as a file instead of individual adjustments? Then we could have a useful list with the actual PP files like on the XH A1 profile thread?

Mike

Mike...

I tried to post the .suf file, but, the DVINFO server wouldn't accept a non-image format. If there was a place on DVINFO.net to post it, I most certainly would have. Perhaps Chris can set something up.

Bill I shot with your setting and it looked very nice. Yes a little too much red but hard to tell until I get some full sun. Amazing how well peaking works with this setting.

Attached are 6 PP's I have been testing now with Bill’s added. I have been used Steve Thomas setting with great results on two jobs.

Thank you to every one with the technical skills to properly help set up PP settings.

Attached is a excel file with the 6 settings.

Hi Bill, what if you changed the file extension (.jpg, jpeg etc.)and then we could just rename the extension to .suf? Or will it zip maybe?

Thanks
Mike

Do the blacks seem overly crushed with Bill's settings. I would think you'd want to record a little more latitude and adjust contrast in post. But that's just me. It definitely fixes some of the green cast issues that I was seeing.

B

Michael it would be nice to just up load off the S&S card the profile but it does not work like the A1. When you upload on the EX1 it changes all camera setting to that saved profile not just Picture Profile. Be careful if you do this and have set up a clip naming sequence since this will change and you could have duplicate clips with the same name. I find it better to just enter the setting one at a time it goes fast with the joy stick.

If someone finds a quicker way I am all ears.

Ben...
I don't think you mean latitude. You really mean "headroom"? This setup is designed to maximize latitude, minimize headroom. Proper exposure becomes critical. Use zebra to set exposure, not auto.
I agree with you. Blacks may appear slightly crushed. Be sure you're viewing the images with a calibrated monitor, since I've pushed the blacks all the way to 0 IRE. If this bothers you, you can back off of the BLACK setting 1-3 steps, or to your taste. OTOH, if you edit in Vegas, you can recover about 5% on either end, clipped or crushed, with the Levels FX and 32-bit processing. Keep in mind that I set things up for 0 RGB-255 RGB(computer RGB) with no pedestal. If this is headed for NTSC broadcast, at a minimum, one would need to convert to studio RGB (RGB16-RGB235)

Bill I shot with your setting and it looked very nice. Yes a little too much red but hard to tell until I get some full sun. Amazing how well peaking works with this setting.

Agreed. I really like the look of this setting. But from what I shot inside my house tonight, it's a little to red. I'd be nice to get that tweaked a little.

Thanks for your work on that Bill.

I tried to post the .suf file, but, the DVINFO server wouldn't accept a non-image format. Try it now -- I've added the .suf extension as a valid file format for uploading to the forum.

Just for comparison sake I took a little video of my family room with Bill's settings.
The 1st picture is just the stock settings while the 2nd picture is Bill's.
This is at night and I had the cameras gain set to 9db.

1 - http://homepage.mac.com/justin.carlson/~~temp/xdcam-sample-1.jpg

2 - http://homepage.mac.com/justin.carlson/~~temp/xdcam-sample-2.jpg


In the stock settings it looks like it blows out the highlights a little more and exposes more of the blacks.
While in Bills settings it's reversed. Other than having the reds a 'little' too red for my taste, I'm very happy with the overall richness of the colors!

thanx, Chris.

This is at night and I had the cameras gain set to 9db.

With a still shot like this use slow shutter and leave gain at -3db you will get much better image.
Also WB does not look right for a good comparison.

I've reworked my original profile based on some feedback and observations I received. It was suggested I use a CINE profile for gamma, reds have been dialed down, black level was raised, slightly. Overall, this is an improvement, I really like this profile, altho' my test was quick. I've posted a framegrab, so the comparisons are here:

factory setting(PP Off):
http://www.dvinfo.net/gallery/showimage.php?i=801&c=2

My TC1 profile:
http://www.dvinfo.net/gallery/showimage.php?i=802&c=2

My TC2 profile:
http://www.dvinfo.net/gallery/showimage.php?i=826&c=2

And the recipe is:
Matrix ...............on
Select................hisat
Level..................0
Phase.................-5
R-G...................75
R-B...................0
G-R...................-18
G-B...................-32
B-R...................-27
B-G...................13

Gamma Level..............-40
Gamma Select.............CINE1
Black..........................-12
Black Gamma..............0

Once again, please set your white balance before using. Let me have feedback on your use of the profile.

By the way, Chris, I tried to upload the .suf file and the server still won't let me.

What's the size of a typical .suf file in kilobytes?

Please send one to me via email so I can experiment with the uploader...

chris at dvinfo dot net

edit: rec'd -- thanks bill!

Test: .suf file upload...

Looks like it was successful, so this issue is now fixed.

Bill, thanks so much for the profile, it looks pretty good. Especially outside since I had a nice sunny day (finally!) Anyways keep em coming if you guys have time! You've helped me out so much!

Glad you like it, Jeremiah.

Can someone suggest a PP for shooting still life under halogen floods

Bill your second settings seem to give the best image I have seen so far!

After shooting yesterday with some full sun I agree Bill this is the best Picture Profile so far. Thank you for your time and sharing.

Sorry - this must have been discussed here before, but I only have my EX1 since yesterday so couldn't check at that time. So far we're having two ways of PPs delivery - settings filled up in the Excel spreadsheet, or the .suf file. While the first meethod is obvious to recreate, where in the directory structure does a .suf file go so that it can be loaded by the camera when the BPAV structure is deleted? Should I copy it to the root od my SxS card (i.e. above any existing BPAV directory)?

Just to make sure.

Piotr...

Page 106 of the US user's manual describes the location needed to store a PP file. Basically, go to MENU/OTHERS/CAMERA DATA, then select either STORE or RECALL. There will be no PP files written to your SxS card until the first time you execute a STORE command. After that is done the first time, you can view the file structure by inserting the SxS card in your laptop or Express34 card reader.

Note that the .suf file records every user command available for the camera, including things not in the PP files. So, when you use the file Chris posted, you'll get all my camera settings. The .suf file Chris posted for me has most of the other profiles posted by Paul Cronin on it, as well.

I should note, also, that if you're plugged into a firewire connector, the CAMERA DATA menu is greyed out and you can't access it. Simply unplug the firewire cable.
(By the way, never plug/unplug a firewire cable with the camera turned on)

If you only want to insert a single profile, study the .suf file in a text editor. It's in ASCII format, so, you can see where each PP starts and ends.

Best of luck.