Finally got to review it tonight on my father in law's 65 inch HDTV.

I had to change my pants.

It looked amazing. We shot documentary style in a confrence room with just the ceiling lights. I was concerned how the footage would look under these conditions and I was blown away when I saw it.

Such detail, amazing color and just a fantastic shoot.

Just wanted to share about my first 'real' day out with the FX1. I'm very pleased with this machine.

Also, used the DVRig Pro for 1.5 hours straight and it worked like a dream.

Congrats to you! Glad to hear you like it. It's addictive, isn't it? Having a 700, I've always got the quality but it's such a PITA to shoot with. On the other side....These are cheap, light, fast, no sweat, and just plain fun.
And that's why I'm so enthused about the format in the way Sony has presented it.

The real pain comes from knowing that you're going to have to distribute in SD.

Bryan,

Are you using a battery mounted on the DVRigPro? I'm trying to figure out what on-camera light to get, and how I could use whatever battery I get as ballast for the rig. My church is growing pretty fast and, although I disagree, they want to go for this type of man-on-the-street interview approach on a regular basis. Also, you may have answered this in another thread, but have you noticed much MPEG-2 artifacts with moving shots done on the Rig?

Brian did you use a camera light when shooting in the conference room (where there was only ceiling light)???? Please can you post a link where I can see the footage you shot. I am very very interested how it performed under those conditions :-)

No battery on the rig right now, but I just got it so I'm not sure what I'll end up doing to it.

No light either, just the overheads for the shoot.

I'll put some footage up, but it will be Monday before I can get to it.

No artifacts at all that I noticed, but I was not doing much fast moving in this shoot.

That would be nice if you can do make a link to that footage. I am still in doubt wether to buy the Z1 or the PD170. If the low light capability is enough to shoot good footage on a church

, in door (home) surrounding I will go for the z1. Else I have to wait for the update of the z1 probably some where end 2006 and stick to SD footage.

Originally posted by Hans ter Lingen
That would be nice if you can do make a link to that footage. I am still in doubt wether to buy the Z1 or the PD170. If the low light capability is enough to shoot good footage on a church
The stuff I shot wasn't really low light, just not controlled light. There was enough light in the room, it just wasn't ideal.

Just to let you know that what I shot yesterday wouldn't really be a good low light test.

I am not looking for absurd low light tests as shannon rawls performed (which is basically like trying to shoot in a dark room, I am not into pornography LOL :-)) ). I just want a cam which is able to shoot good footage (preferably in HDV format) in ordinary life conditions like living rooms, churches, exposition halls, in door sports events etc. I am still not sure if the z1 can bring this. I haven't seen any footage yet from people who posses a FX1/Z1.

As Bryan saw in my family room with the FX1 connected directly to the HDTV via composite cables as I shot he and his friend, lighting certainly makes a huge difference.

But I think the FX1 does just fine in "normal" lighting.

I've done some more shooting and I tell you, I keep getting butterflies in my stomach when I see the footage.

It's that good.

I can't believe this is coming out of a $3300 camera.

Hurry up HD-DVD!!!

www.lifeproductions.net/HiDef.html has some very interesting, very low light, extreme dynamic range footage.

Our Z1 performs about 90% as well as our PD170's in low light. Very nice camera.

BTW Hi guys - this is my first post here.

Steve Connor
Cardinal HD

Can you post some links withfootage of the z1 in low light conditions together with the same footage of the PD170 as comparison ??

What about the artifacts a lot of people in forums talk about. Is it so bad or just visible for pro's????

<<<-- Originally posted by Bryan McCullough : The real pain comes from knowing that you're going to have to distribute in SD. -->>>

Actually, you can distribute in Windows Media HD at 720p on standard DVDs and that should be playable on most recent computers, plus on the Avel LinkPlayer2. No need to wait for blu-ray players, which probably won't be affordable and widespread for a couple of years yet.

Thanks Kevin, will have to get up to speed on that.

I showed Bryan some stuff I encoded to WM9 that looked to have too much in the way of interlacing problems, and yet the stuff I downloaded from someone else recently had no problems at all at half the data rate. So I need to get better at encoding.
It must have something to do with 720p vs 1080i

Steve: what encoding tool and settings are you using? Have you tried playing the footage back to an interlaced HDTV to see how it looks on there, or are you just playing back on a computer screen?

Steve will give specifics, but we were looking at it on his LCD Sony TV.

The stuff that was encoded and played on the DVD player looked very interlaced.

The footage played back straight from the camera looked great, no interlacing.

Since footage I encoded looked too interlaced, and footage I downloaded from another forum looked fine, I have to assume that I need to work on my encoding methods.

Since the TV is only designed to handle 720p natively, I figure it must be something to do with the encoding from a 1080i project into a 720p output.

I should have time to experiment this week.

Steve: are you encoding directly from the Premiere Pro timeline with Aspect HD, or some other solution? Also, how are you playing back the footage to the HDTV?

I am editing in Premiere Pro with Aspect HD, and using the Adobe Media Encoder. I have also tried encoding directly from the Cineform AVI to WM9 using the standalone Microsoft Windows Media Encoder.

The footage in WM9 format is then played from a DVD+RW (or USB2.0 Mass Storage Device) on the AVel Linkplayer2 set up to use 720p. The Linkplayer2 is connected to the HDTV using Component cables.

Hans, I have had my FX1 since early December and I haven't seen ANY artifacts. Most of my shoots have been on a tripod and as such have not had any fast pans. Hand held at home running after grandchild, in low Christmas lighting still no artifacts that I can see. HOwever you need to view output on a screen that can display 1080i. A 720P display, depending on the display can be acceptable or plain terrible depending on how the conversion is performed. If you want to see true Sony HDV then a 1080i set is a MUST. Right now that means a CRT within a reasonable budget. A lot of the reports you may have read about low light performance reflect comparisons at 0db. The FX1 is still very clean at 12db or even 15db of gain wereas the DVX100 in comparison is totally unacceptable at 6db of gain . Over Christmas, in normal family room lighting of three 100 watt lamps inside lamp shades, I had very clean and sharp HDV video at 18db of gain. I shot all on automatic and viewed data code afterwards. Clearly the low light performance is not as good as the VX2100/PD170 but it is perfectly acceptable and a lot better than my 1CCD TRV50 or PC10 SONY Handycams.

Ron Evans