Am I good, or am I good????

Get ready to poop your pants girls and boys. Here is what looks like actual FX1 footage, and I must say it looks COOOOOL to me!

http://chiu.dvworld.com.tw/movie/hdv_test_video.zip

50 megs or so, downcoverted obviously....you need a good player too. Try VLC player if you can't get it to work.

Murph

Thanks for posting Murph.

Your welcome! :)

Murph

Can anyone download this book?

http://www.sony.jp/products/Consumer/handycam/INFO/CAMPAIGN/fx1-book.html

Murph

Hey all, I translated this stuff:

Kousei small hi-vision photographing (number of scanning lines 1,080 effective, interlace) with actualizing high picture quality DV photographing
- HDV -> DV down converting functional loading
- Cirque ??????? of filter diameter 72mm
- The 3CCD camera system by aspect ratio 16:9, 1/3 type entire pixel 112 ten thousand "1080i correspondences HD CCD"
- Image is recorded to high quality & high efficiency with MPEG2 the "HD codec engine"
- 3.5 type wide hybrid liquid crystal monitors
- Smooth scene movement being automatic, it is possible, "shot transition (TM)"
- The register and customization of picture quality setting are possible, "picture profile (TM)"
- It can photograph with image touch of the film movie "cinema tone gamma (TM)" "the cinema frame (TM)"
* At the time of 2004 September public information announcement, (SONY you inspect as a digital video camera for national welfare)
Size: Width 151× height 181× depth 365mm (the largest spine it is not included)
Mass: Approximately 2.0kg
Electric power consumption: 7.4W (liquid crystal monitor OFF, view finder ON)

Hey, the FX1 is the "digital video camera for national welfare". It will even right terror in the darkest corners of the world - in low light!

Murph

Folks, I used Dvd-lab to burn this clip to DVD and played on my SD t.v. - it looks incredible - obviously mpeg was probably encoded with only 1 pass at variable/low bitrate (avg. = 6618kps) but still it's great - wow - it definitely beats XL2...

I created a looping DVD and just watched it 10 times - observations:

*wide shots look great - rich in detail - no worries compared to "wide" shots losing detail in mini-dv

*incredible colours - still appearing "video-like" in colour space but richer, more saturated palette - more Panasonic than Canon like.

*flower footage again proves great capability for narrow d.o.f.

*incredible night-shots - low light capability is incredible.

*one quick pan on bridge looking up - camera whips around. no distortion, blurring, whatever - looks very natural.

I can't wait to get this cam in my hands.

I can immediately see this cam being used for field news reports - it's incredible color and detail... wow

Documentary filmmakers/videographers are gonna eat this cam up for sure.

Incredible pictures!
I've always been a Canon user and intended getting the XL2, but after seeing that download, I think I might need to re-assess my decisions...

Robin

My shot analysis:

Opening shots are without tripod, and I've frame by framed looked at the shots. It looks good, but similar to the HD10u in my opinion. (the only time this camera seems to look like the HD10u to me is when it's in daytime light....the other lighting conditions seem to be way better than the HD10u.) It must be the time of day, or the fact that having that amount of light is when the HD10u shines. So, it has the overall look of the HD10u because of the sunlight...that's a good thing.

The 2nd shot is tilting down from the building, and it looks like the iris changed when it reached the street. Anyone else notice that? It seems like it changed, but not nothing dramatic. The cars in the far right are smudging a bit, but that's normal.

The yellow flowers look nice, again a HD10u type look in my opinion. That's ok though because the HD10u looks great in outdoor lighting. It's a little more clearer than the HD10 also...just a bit more sharp from what I can tell with less noise.

The ground shot of the leaves kinda doesn't do anything. It's minimal lighting, so it's hard to say. The shadows and light peeking through the trees are displayed nicely with no grain that I can see. It kind of looks like the person who shot this was looking to show the shadow/light. It's nice.

The next two flowers look very nice, but the second shot has some DOF happening that I really dig. If it wasn't a trick with distance it has some nice DOF to look forward to.

The following shots have actually to much color for me to comment. It's great to see all that color! But, I seem to think the footage is noisey from trying to encode all that color? What does you think?!

The outside shot with the guy and smoke looks great to me. It's a balence of light, dark and the smoke looks great. I like that shot, and I'd shoot something similar with this camera.

The tilt down from the building looks like it's noisey, but again it is probably the encoding. I can't be sure though.

The two boat shots look nice in lower light...was it camera driven or was it truly dusk/early morning? I'm thinking that it was actually the time, and not the camera. It has a pinkish glow, so that's my guess.

Ok, I am WAY impressed with the night shots. I LOVE the shot with the boat...it's focused on the dock, but we see everything. It looks like film to me...anyone else think so?

Before that shot of the boat is the building with the ticker running, and it's not smearing or smudging in low light...no grain and the yellow is bright.

The bridge shot (static) looks great to me...the contrast is even and there seems to be no noise. The bridge and the close two lights are color balenced nicely...the HD10u would look like crap in this shot. You wouldn't be able to get those close lights and the bridge colors to look right.

The quick movement at night with this camera at the bridge proves something to us...it can do it! I don't see any crazy behaviour in the footage...seemed to work without problems. I personally don't plan to shoot fast pans and zooms, so that amount of movement is pleny for me. Anyone else care to comment??

The final timelapse thing is cool...I like the effects, and I'd love to know how they got it. it's obviously shutter etc. But, the actually settings would be nice...what did they have to adjust!

Murph

Anyone else notice that?

I did after you pointed it out.

I too thought that a lot of the footage looked like the HD1/10. Especially the 2nd and 3rd flower shots. The first yellow flower with the sun hitting it from the east looked great.

The only thing we may attribute the color loss to is the conversion to SD MPEG2 for DVD. Just taking a stab here.

But, I seem to think the footage is noisey from trying to encode all that color? What does you think?!

I think the colors are very saturated as opposed to the JVC but they still have that slightly muted, less-punch feel (compared to say a VariCam). I like the colors not having any noticeable chroma noise that I've been able to detect. Nice. AND NO NOTICEABLE EDGE ENHANCEMENT! YES!

I like the shots of the buildings looking up towards the nicely exposed blue cloudy sky. The JVC would probably have changed iris size and would have underexposed the buildings in that shot (given my methodolgy of shooting, unplanned).

There's definitely some interlace artifacts going on through out the whole clip. I'm not sure if it's in the source or the downconversion or both. It would have been excellent if they could have given the output in either WMVHD or m2t (TS) so we can see it all in it's HD glory.

Looks like a nice step forward in comparison to the HD1/10. I'm waiting with baited breath for the first indepth full review and HD footage.

Thanks for the clip Murph. You Da Monster!

Troy
Are we sure this was shot with the FX1?

I echo the sentiments - on first viewing, this was the shot that really made me sit up and take notice...

Final night shots with glass building/traffic also shows something else - no vertical smearing! This is great news for us night owls who want to shoot oncoming headlights. No noise at all... wow

Night boat shot coming into dock - look at the cadence of the dripping water on the dock - looks very filmic - is this because 25 PAL or maybe this was shot in new cineframe mode?

I agree - the early shots don't wow as much - like those leaves... but it gets better. It's almost like this cam excels in low light!

My DVD lab de-mux confirmed that the original mpeg was encoded at around 6618 kps average bitrate, so definitely the encode could have been done better (at around say 8K) - nevertheless, it's hard to believe this stuff - it's great...

Don't forget this file is washed down version of the original. At best it can be called a colored zerox copy of an original. The original material should pop of your screen with detail and quality I would suspect after seeing what this down covert looks like.

Ok, I'm totally loving the footage from the middle to end. I've watched this video 10 times now with little breaks in-between to give myself time to watch it fresh. I'm trying to be objective. The opening shots almost seem like the person shooting didn't know how to set the camera settings. It's just my thoughts because how can the night shots look better?! The person must have played with the settings all day, and then at night had it down enough to adjust correctly. It's just an opinion, but seriously....how can the low light night shots stand out so much! I'm not complaining...no way. I'd take better low light at night shots than daylight anyday...the daylight is totally adjustable, but the night stuff is soooo hard to get right without the camera being able to DO it!

Those night shots are so damn nice...that boat shot gives me goose bumps. (I don't know why, but I'm reminded of the "Usual Suspects" for some reason! Maybe I'm dreaming?!) I want to shoot night stuff more than anything else. This is so awesome...I can't wait to see the Pro version. If this is the consumer - what about the Pro?!! Come on, this is some seriously cool footage for $3000! Am I dreaming here? It's widescreen, clear, works good in low(er) light conditions, full manual control. If anything this camera will replace standard DV cameras. It's got clarity that no other DV camera has...that I can see. I'd like to download some XL2 footage and compare these right now. Anyone know where I can get some XL2 footage that's comparable size wise and bit rate wise?

After this thing comes out and we all get our hands on it, I'm going to evaluate and let Sony know what I think. If they've stepped up to the plate with the next PD150 (the next generation!) - and kept that robust feel in the HDV world....they deserve some positive customer feedback. I just have a really good feeling about this camera...consumer and pro version. It's great to see some footage that is at least useable in deciding if it's worthy of all this discussion.

I'm giving my opinion as yes, it is!

Murph

Get ready to poop your pants girls and boys.

I do everyday! Yeah, ok, not really.

It just seemed appropriate at the time. I guess that I should have thought the opposite. Oh well...grab your diapers and party!

Humm, on the one shot of the camera spinning on it's axis, pointing up at the bridge, there are some HEAVY compression artifacts. But I assume that's from the recompression of the web video. I hope so.

Interesting footage. I agree the night footage is the most impressive. The rest is hard to tell because of the compression.

Looks like it is compressed at roughly 6.5 Mbps (6.8 Mbps total, a portion of which is audio).

The quality of the compression is surprisingly low considering the relatively high bit-rate, I hope that is a factor of the MPEG2 encoder that was used. We've gotten much better results with HD10 footage output to MPEG2 for DVD (basically the same bitrate).

There seem to be a lot of interlacing artifacts; I guess I am spoiled by the 30p of the HD10.

I tell you, the lack of a true progressive scan on this new Sony is the only thing that bothers me. Working in 30p through the entire edit chain (and outputting to progressive MPEG2 for DVD) with the HD10 is really a joy.

I wish they just would have stuck with 720/30p instead of going with 1080/60i; I would bet that the marketing department had a big hand in that unfortunately -- 1080 is a bigger number than 720, afterall :)

I guess we can't have everything. Still, I look forward to actually using the Sony, maybe when combined with a good de-interlacer and MPEG2 encoder we can get good results.

Oh yeah, having said all that, that actual quality of the video from a color / latitude standpoint looks pretty impressive. It is obviously superior to the HD10 in that regard.

Ben

Dan, re: bridge rotation - I don't see any artifacting on the DVD I burned. Actually, I'm impressed how well this "quick-pan" in light of all the speculating about the quality of quick-panning with this cam...

try burning to DVD if you haven't already - it's worth it.

Could anyone tell me if 50i to 25p via de-interlacing would produce good results? I am looking very hard at the pal hdr-fx1.

Even though you are deinterlacing, you don't loose as much picture sharpness as you would with SD. It will still look mighty good. I deinterlaced an HD frame in Adobe After Effects. The difference was almost unprecievable.

My plan is to always shoot with 1080i, then to use After Effects to make a 30fps/720p frame out of it. So bascially, I will master at 720p. After Effects built in deinterlacer is very good. However, I am looking at Magic Bullet.

So let me get this clear (in my non-technical mind), if I de-interlace from 1080 50i with fx1 will I still have 1080 at 25p?

If this is true this IS an exciting camera.

I'm based in the UK. Pal fx1 50i/25p coming in November.

By the way do you know if Twixtor is any good for de-interlacing?

Well, you won't have the same image as if you shot at true 1080p. TECHNICALLY, you will loose 50% resolution. However, if you use a good deinterlacer that is based on interpolation, and not line doubling, it will reconstruct the frame to look ALMOST identical to a full progressive frame.

For example if you use the new After Effects de-interlacer, or something like Fields Kit or Magic Bullet, the noticeable loss of picture quality will be very minimial. Most people wouldn't know the difference.

My bet is that it will look at least as good as XL2 footage, and probably even a lot better. My plan is to shoot at 1080i and deinterlace to 720p.

Yeah, if you deinterlace 1080/50i, you'd technically have the resolution of 540/25p.

540's still about as high-res as a PAL camera, and you'd have 1440 pixels horizontally as compared to 720 on the PAL camera, so resolution-wise you'll be ahead of the game no matter what... but that's all theory until we try it.

Also, the color sampling could possibly be 4:2:2, since the 4:2:0 sampling system has two color samples every other line, and if you throw one of those lines away, you'd then have two color samples every line...

... sounds promising... hope the reality holds up to the speculation!

"The next two flowers look very nice, but the second shot has some DOF happening that I really dig. If it wasn't a trick with distance it has some nice DOF to look forward to."

More likely the footage was shot at a high shutter speed, such as 500 or faster to create the narrow depth of field. As long as the camera uses small size chips, you will have similar DOF as other small chip cameras. Unless you increase the shutter speed, which will be perfectly acceptable for MOS shooting, but won't work with dialogue.

Wayne Orr, SOC

Guys,somebody please tell me how this new sony camera will be better in resolution compared to the jvc hd10u ??? As I am seeing here that when you deinterlace 1080i you will get 540p?? Isnt 720p is better ??? We are comparing this camera here to the XL2 and Daniel said it will look as good as the xl2 footage but isnt it supposed to be so much better than that ??
I am kind of getting confused here...
I own the jvc hd10u but wouldnt mind to get the sony as well but I though we will be going forward regarding the resolution not backwards..I know it will be a 3chip vs 1chip and this cam will be much better in low light but that is it...??
Thanks
Gabor

You shouldn't be trying to compare this camera AS A PROGRESSIVE CAMERA against the JVC, because the Sony isn't a progressive camera.

In its native mode, it shoots 1920 x 1080 at 60 fields per second. That's 62 million pixels per second. The JVC shoots 1280 x 720 at 30 frames per second, for about 28 million pixels per second.

The Sony is interlaced. The JVC is progressive. They're entirely different. The Sony is much higher resolution, the JVC has more of a filmlike feel.

If you want to get a filmlike feel from the Sony, you can use their CineFrame 30 or CineFrame 24 mode, but we don't know how good that looks yet, or how it affects resolution.

Keep in mind that the Sony is also a 3-CCD camera vs. the 1 CCD for the JVC, and that the Sony has lots of manual control and features that the JVC just doesn't have.

So they're not really comparable to each other. The Sony, as a camera, is in an entirely different league from the JVC. But it's interlace-only, not progressive.

(even if it was de-interlaced to simulate progressive scan, you'd still be talking about 1920 x 540 at 30fps (or 1,036,800 pixels per frame), vs. 1280 x 720 (or 921,600 pixels per frame) so they'd be roughly comparable, based on the math. However, that doesn't mean anything -- you can't decide anything about it yet based on numbers! You'd have to take into account that the Sony's using a 960-pixel-wide sensor to scan a 1440-pixel-wide image that gets up-rezzed to 1920 on display, vs. the JVC using a 960-pixel-wide sensor that scans a 1280-pixel image...

Best to just wait for the footage when the camera's on the market.

I've run the HD sample via my Roku HD1000 to a Sharp 32" HD LCD TV, and in direct comparison to 720p HD10u footage I've shot shown on the same setup; the FX1 footage in this clip, holds up damn well - even given the compression (and who knows whether the edit was done uncompressed?), which is actually more obvious than on the HD10 native .ts.

I have to say that the low light capability displayed in the clip is what has grabbed my attention the most. Some of the colouring in the Temple scenes is overly intense in chroma compared to the JVC's colour (with similar crushed whites - maybe the camera man didn't adjust WB or ND), but this could again be the author's preference rather than the nature of the FX1.

This clip also displays much more chroma noise than the earlier Sony released promo clip, which was relatively chroma noise free. I suspect that the differences are due to the skill/knowledge and experience of the author with producing 'down-rezzed' material.

Unlike some other people, I believe it will be relatively painless to integrate material from the HD10 at 720p with the 1080i signal from the FX1.

I'm trying to play this mpeg clip in both winmedia and quicktime, but keep getting an error? Is there a better program to view this clip?

<<<-- Originally posted by Basem Elsokary : I'm trying to play this mpeg clip in both winmedia and quicktime, but keep getting an error? Is there a better program to view this clip? -->>>

videolan.org


As for this clip, I don,t see what the fuss is about. First, it's a 720X404 clip. It doesn't show us what the camera can do in HD. Even the godawful JVC HDV looks ok if you downsize it.

Second, both XL2 clips (the beach one and the San Diego one) look MUCH sharper than this one:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?threadid=31660

I'm hoping that the FX1 will kick butt, but this clip is not very convincing.

Someone said above that 1080i deinterlaces into 540p. I thought 1080i deinterlaces into 1080p. I mean, aren't you taking two half frames with 540 lines and putting them together to make a full frame with 1080 lines? Or am I missing something?

I ask this because don't progressive scan dvd players deinterlace 480i DVDs making them 480p, not 240p? So why would it be different than 1080i?

i believe you may be correct Corey...the whole reason 1080 looks better (at least in my opinion) is that at 60 frames a second, our eyes cannot detect the alternating frames of 540 lines per frame...but yes, deinterlacing should in theory take your first frame (field) and next frame and combine 540 lines from each to create the whole 1080 line picture....thus getting your 1080p at 30fps...at least thats what makes sense to me as well, I could be wrong...

Deinterlacing takes half the image and "estimates" the other half. What you guys are talking about is frame blending. Pretty much the same thing -- if there is no decernable difference between the two frames given that they are 1/60 of a second apart in time.

<<<-- Originally posted by Barry Green : Also, the color sampling could possibly be 4:2:2, since the 4:2:0 sampling system has two color samples every other line, and if you throw one of those lines away, you'd then have two color samples every line... -->>>

That is one killer plug-in app if somebody wants to write it.