Kaku, thanks for the excelent report. I have a few questions that I hope you can answer:

How does the image compare to the fx1- specially in color and skin tones? How about the lens?

Have you tried downconverted sd? How does it compare to a trv 900/950/pdx10? (I'm trying to find a replacement to my trusty old 7 year trv900-that still works and was never repaired!)

Thanks again Kaku, and I look forward to your further testing!

Sergio

Michal,

CMOS seems to have more dynamic range, but the dark and bright area is controlled by their new processing scheme called Enhanced Imaging Processor (Gawd I sound like advertising). They separately handle the image and the birghtness, resulting the ability to make only the dark area brighter. So, now you know why that coffe ban scene was possible.

Sergio,

I will do my usual test today (me and my bike in front of my office) to compare the video I previously shot with PDX10 and others. I have footage of FX1 and HC1 with a girl. Please give me few hours.

thanks for your videos
Can you please upload a video with motion, like take video while riding your bike or while walking? We have to see how is the gop level.
thanks again

Oh, that is what I forgot to do (I have some during night, but day), so I'm getting out now with my bike before I jump in the bath. Me and my wife shot my regular bike routine in front of my office so you can compare to my older footage with PDX10, XL2 and so on.

I added few clips including handheld and bike-mounted video footage at my site. These clips are raw m2t clips captured using LumiereHD 1.5b11 with the help of Frederic Haubrick. I had to make them available to registered users only to avoid directly linked download from other sites. You can simply go through the automatic registration procudure. Please also leave some comments and suggestions there.

The rolling shutter artifact mentioned a few posts up is actually referred to in the manual, under "troubleshooting."

"The subjects passing by the frame might appear crooked. This is called the focal plane phenomenon. This is not a malfunction. Because of the way the image device (CMOS sensor) reads out image signals, the subjects passing by the frame rapidly might crooked depending on the recording conditions."

"The subjects passing by the frame might appear crooked. This is called the focal plane phenomenon. This is not a malfunction. Because of the way the image device (CMOS sensor) reads out image signals, the subjects passing by the frame rapidly might crooked depending on the recording conditions."

Being a software developer, that's when we say: "That's not a bug, it's a feature!"

Kaku can you also upload Cinema mode

I was little disappointed when i saw hc1 clip from this site...especially the color of WMV encoding

http://www.oysy.com/citv/

but when i saw Kaku raw footage i'm confident this cam is not so diffrent than fx1. excet the wide angel..

this airplane was shot by hc1
but it looks so diffrent...

http://www.airliners.jp/qtd/KZ74X_JA8192_KIX050706_MP4.mov


Thanks alot

I added few clips including handheld and bike-mounted video footage at my site.

thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Kaku,

I haven't said it before, because I was so wrapped up in my video-playing problems, but thank you so much for your all of your efforts. It's much appreciated.

I've got an off topic question about Japan if you don't mind. Is everything over there an odd mix of 90% Japanese and 10% English? It seems like everything I see with Japanese writing usually has a little bit of English thrown in. For example, the cover of the FunRide magazine shown in the top-left of your website is all in Japanese, except for the subtitle that says "Cyclists' Magazine & DVD". Also, the English URL FunRide.jp. What percentage of people speak English as a second language in Japan?

-Mike

may i ask small question about descending clip
how did you shoot this..did you attach your cam with bike?
it's really nice shot... i want to use same method on my short film..

may i ask small question about descending clip
how did you shoot this..did you attach your cam with bike?
it's really nice shot... i want to use same method on my short film..

Jung,

Did you see my clip that is titled "handheld while riding my bike"?
Part of the clip shows the Manfrotto mount I used on my bike. And importantly, the bike I use is most up-to-date air suspended mountainbike by Iron Horse (many mountainbike makers have this type called "All Mountain" bikes, but mine is actually built from frame last night by myself with all different parts rather than buying a complete bike). These bikes pedals firm although it is suspended, so they pedal firm (without bobbing) but when sharp obsticle comes and it will suck the shock.
I would do helmet mount in the mountain because this mount will get loosen with more vibration, but this is fine on the road. This concept should be widely used for street shooting instead of usind trollys and steadycams especially for chasing shot. So, if people use this method, please call it Kakucam or something (lol).

My next dream is to do this with HVX200 at 60 frame prgressive.

this airplane was shot by hc1
but it looks so diffrent...

http://www.airliners.jp/qtd/KZ74X_JA8192_KIX050706_MP4.mov


I love this shot. Is that really the HC1??? The more shots I see with this camera the more I wanna buy it. It can't be a bad buy, can it?

this is really nice invention kaku
you should register this invention in japan as kaku steadycam

but question still remains...even you used with Manfrotto..how did attach with your bike..i don't think u used scotch tape to wrap around...

this is really nice invention kaku
you should register this invention in japan as kaku steadycam

but question still remains...even you used with Manfrotto..how did attach with your bike..i don't think u used scotch tape to wrap around...

Did you see the clip? you can clearly see the Manfrotto clamp mount on my bike frame. It's the black clamp and arm attached to my blueish bike frame. It is made to clamp to something, and arm has the mount for cameras.

Kaku,

I haven't said it before, because I was so wrapped up in my video-playing problems, but thank you so much for your all of your efforts. It's much appreciated.

I've got an off topic question about Japan if you don't mind. Is everything over there an odd mix of 90% Japanese and 10% English? It seems like everything I see with Japanese writing usually has a little bit of English thrown in. For example, the cover of the FunRide magazine shown in the top-left of your website is all in Japanese, except for the subtitle that says "Cyclists' Magazine & DVD". Also, the English URL FunRide.jp. What percentage of people speak English as a second language in Japan?

-Mike

You're welcome Mike,

I love to get feedback from people that what I do is valuable to them. That goes to you, too Mark Kubat (he is working behind this forum to get me, or bug me to provide my service, hahaha).

Since I speak little English, I try to provide informations that I can provide to the world, so I have English section in my site. More and more people speak English, but say, not as many as countries like Singapore. We do study English from junior-high and highschool (maybe in elemetary school by now), but people hardly learn anything. We are heavily once race country (although we do have a lot of Korean and chineese people in our society). But Japanese people love superficial styling, say, even companies like Sony even use English words in the advertisements with wrong English and if you point it out, they would say "it is okay as long as Japanese people understand and it looks slick to use English". I use English to communicate to the whole world, but most of Japanese use it for meaningless styling. I'm saying this from close to 20 year of handling business on my own in Japan. By the way, I deal with company called Mark of the Unicorn from Cambridge. Do you know them?

I made the renoun (at least at HDVinfo) bike routine clips that are shot with various setting with HC1.

I probably have to look for my similar footage shot with other cams previously? Oh boy.

I'm jealous. I've always wanted to learn a second langugage. Unlike Europeans, most anglo-Americans never learn a second language. I've tried, but I just don't have the knack for it.

By the way, I deal with company called Mark of the Unicorn from Cambridge. Do you know them?No. I don't work in the A/V industry, I just happened upon these forums while researching the HC1 as a "DaddyCam" for my twin daughters who are due to arrive any day now.

-Mike

I'm jealous. I've always wanted to learn a second langugage. Unlike Europeans, most anglo-Americans never learn a second language. I've tried, but I just don't have the knack for it.

No. I don't work in the A/V industry, I just happened upon these forums while researching the HC1 as a "DaddyCam" for my twin daughters who are due to arrive any day now.

-Mike

I spent six years in Hawaii learning the language. Sorry, it was hard but acutally all of other things are so much fun!!

Consider http://www.motu.com when your twin daughters want to make music in the future (lol).

CMOS seems to have more dynamic range, but the dark and bright area is controlled by their new processing scheme called Enhanced Imaging Processor .. So, now you know why that coffe ban scene was possible.
Does it mean HDR-FX1 is also able to handle this scene (it has EIP) or HDR-HC1 is a bit better ? I'm just courious. ;)

Thank you

Does it mean HDR-FX1 is also able to handle this scene (it has EIP) or HDR-HC1 is a bit better ? I'm just courious. ;)

Thank you

I shot some footage of bamboo trees by making the cams facing up to the sky. Maybe this comparison can describe the difference. I will post these later.

any cinema mode 24p... clip

I saw short footage of cineframe but clip was too short to determine the motion.

I quickly shot at in front of my computer by panning the cam side ways and vertical ways. The clip is already uploaded.

Since it prohibits to set the shutter speed manually, I don't see much use of this function on this cam. They crippled the feature on purpose.

thanks for uploading cinema mode...
auto shutter speed..isn't so bad...
I heard there is historam function....do u mostly use it? before you shoot it..

thanks for uploading cinema mode...
auto shutter speed..isn't so bad...
I heard there is historam function....do u mostly use it? before you shoot it..

I'm keeping the histogram on at all time so far. It is useful and not really in the way or anything.

Kaku, thanks for your great work.


CMOS seems to have more dynamic range, but the dark and bright area is controlled by their new processing scheme called Enhanced Imaging Processor (Gawd I sound like advertising). They separately handle the image and the birghtness, resulting the ability to make only the dark area brighter. So, now you know why that coffe ban scene was possible.
I read the English translation of the brochures, from what I can tell, it exposes pixels individually, depending on exposure, is this what the brochure is actually saying? This is something I have been raving about in the Digital Cinema camera projects for a while, because of the great dynamic range it gives. There are two schemes I know of, one that adjusts the gain per pixel (I think this is the scheme behind the "Autobrite" technology by smalcamera) and one where the pixel/field is reset when it overexposes and re-sampled (the dual slope scheme used in the fill factory Ibis5a). It seems like the scheme, and definitely a desirable feature.

Even if was rolling shutter and breathing existed in production model, would it effect anybody's purchase decision? Extremely unlikey. Camera's superior overall performance is what natters. No camera is perfect.
..
Still is nice to know. Radek
For most it shouldn't matter too much, but sometimes it does matter. In movies you don't want bad rolling shutter. Unlike a 1 foot slanting truck on a TV screen, it can become 20 foot slanting truck on a big screen (much more noticeable because of size and distance) and potentially all action shots will be effected. If you look at the digital cinema camera project threads you will see tests of cheap industrial camera with rolling shutter. Nice colour images (like HC1) but even gentle pan will make sides of buildings lean over. To reduce the slant they ran at double speed and moved the readout into frame blanking as much as possible. The smaller the slant is (the faster the readout) the less relevant it is. There is probably a metric for how small the slant has to be at speed before it becomes unnoticeable enough.

Unfortunately the rolling shutter on the HC1 does not look like the best. You can see that the first field slants inwards, and the next field slants even more. This is unlike the even slant you would get from 60i interlaced from a 60p rolling shutter image.

hehe :) @ Mike Farrington, I speak two lanuages fluently and am able to read another whilst understand a futher two. so what does that make me; quint-lingural?

Anyway @ Wayne, what infomation do you have about Sony's EIP, I read somewhere that the HC1 does not have a ND filter because "it doens't need one"

Thanks


Anhar Hussain Miah

Excellent preview reporting from "our-man-in-Japan" Kaku Ito!

Hooray - thanks so much for shedding so much light on this new cam for us - certainly very impressive for the money...

Kaku, seems like such a small, portable cam is going to be a popular choice for you on the bike, no?

Definitely replacing your GS400?

Mark,

I never tried DV mode with HC1, yet, so I will determine to replace GS400 or not(I have tree GS400s, but these are good to hand them over to athletes when they go to race events).

HC1's zoom ring works better than GS400's, but DVC30's zoom ring was better. I won't expect that Sony will make the zoom ring better than HC1, but I will probably buy the prosumer version, HVR-A1 as second unit.

My plan now is to combine HDR-FX1 (for wide angle shots for whole views), HVR-A1 (for getting into woods) and AG-HVX200 (for 60p to use with slow motion).

My concern is how Wayne described the problem with rolling shutte effects for larger screen. I show my movies to people with my company's HD projector and 120 inch screen. Although HC1 is great for money and everything, I do not agree to Sony about skipping of this kind of issue because everythingelse is tempting.

Kaku

It is only an 120inch screen, do tests to see if it looks good. It might be so small as to be virtually unnoticeable at high movement rate (for instance, how fast was that bus moving, it might have flashed by too quickly) and most people won't be making block buster action movies with this. I imagine it is not much a problem for Sony, as if they fixed every little thing there would be no need to buy really expensive cameras.

Anyway @ Wayne, what infomation do you have about Sony's EIP, I read somewhere that the HC1 does not have a ND filter because "it doens't need one"

Just those brochure links posted before by Radek (English translation is really odd, and hard to understand) that seems similar to what I know about other sensors from:

www.fillfactory.com
www.smalsensor.com

And examining frames in previous posts. I am still waiting to read confirmation of this, but it looks similar.

So far I am having a hard time telling the difference between the FX1 and the HC1. I think this is amazing considering how different each camera works.

My only concern is that outdoors in sunlight always looks pretty good even for a single chip camera.

Any chance of us getting a comparison between the two cameras indoors in a poorly lit environment? This is where I think the FX1 would start to look better but I could be wrong.

If the HC1 looks just as good there then this camera might not be so bad for productions. I know it isn't a pro camera with a pro feel but since the other new consumer HDV camera uses the same chip but has more pro features that camera might work very well.

At first I thought the color was a little flat but then when I looked at FX1 footage I noticed that was a little flat as well so it wasn't a big deal.

Thomas,

I posted the night descending clip of HC1 to see how well the cam would shoot at night on the street. Hope this help a bit. I will look for the similar footage that I shot last year with FX1.

Thomas,

They perform about the same in automatic mode, but the differences are the controls. Zoom ring function of HC1 is okay, but FX1 has far better dedicated zoom ring (I'm probably not really telling YOU this but to other novice people to know the differences in price). But HC1 is so light and since some people have problem holding FX1 for long time, HC1 can be used by wider range of users for wider range of application. For what I do, buying three of HC1s instead of one FX, then get a couple of friends to help me shoot, say, mountainbike 4X race (slope style cross race using mountainbikes) would result in making more interesting video than shooting with one FX1.

I have to go to the downhill mountainbike course and shoot the similar footage with HC1 to see how will it will do (FX1 was not satisfactory for a lot of situations especially fast panning on downhiller passing by fast in front of trees (gradated leaves with different colors). But HC1 is going to save me a lot because of the size, that I would be able to fit HC1 in a waistbag but FX1 has to be in a large backpack like Kata Teddy. I will do this maybe next week.

I added the bike routine clip shot with HDR-FX1 to compare the one by HDR-HC1. My bike is different now since it is stolen.

I know the controls are not the best on the HC1 but what I was thinking was the A1U. I know the controls still are not the best on that camera but they should be better than they are on the HC1. As far as I know the image block is the same on both cameras but the lens may be a little bit better on the A1U.

Thomas,

I just wanted to clear it to the novice people reading these posts.

Do you think Sony would improve anything on A1 for the price difference? Besides the audio connections, the chassis will be different material (magnesium?), more manual controls on gain, iris settings. But I would guess the lense would be the same. I'm hoping that Sony will make the zoom ring feel better (probably not) like AG-DVC30.

Does anybody know when the A1U is coming out or more information on the camera?

I'm not sure if the lens will be better or not. It was more of a hope than anything. Looking at your great samples you posted I really am having a hard time to tell the difference between the two when it comes to detail. Clearly the CMOS chip has more detail than the FX1/Z1 chips but a much lower quality lens so it seems to come out the same in the end. Which in a way I guess is nice because with decent lighting conditions you really could use the new AC1 and A1U as a second camera to edit with FX1/Z1 footage.

According to Mr. Masuda from Provideo Station Shinjuku, it will be available a couple of months later, which should be sometime in September.

Thanks for all of this good info.
I'm curious to know if anyone sees a good reason NOT to use HC1's for filming weddings. I may get an FX1 and an HC1 for this, and I'm still reading these posts comparing footage, especially indoors. I wonder if the 2 cameras mix well, but my main question is whether I could use 2 HC1's and save a little.
(BTW, I can't afford 2 FX1's. :) )
Thanks,
- John

In good lighting so far both cameras look pretty close to each other. I can see a little bit of a difference but then again I am a image quality freak and can notice dumb stuff like that. Wedding clients would never be able to tell the difference between the two.

Remember however that the controls on the HC1 are very much consumer which means you will kind of be restricted to auto mode and point and shoot. I'm sure you will have some level of control but not nearly as much as with the FX1.

In bad lighting I'm not sure right now. Kaku posted one nighttime clip and to me it didn't look very good. The color was dead and flat. Then again I haven't seen any dark FX1 footage to compare to. If you use a light during dark receptions you might be ok. Maybe Kaku can post some clips comparing both the FX1 and the HC1 in a dark environment with and without a camera light.

John,

If you are not in hurry, I will do a shooting with an acoustic band in a restaurant (probably not much lighting) with FX1 and HC1, so you can see how well they merge.

Thank you for the responses. I am not in a hurry, and I appreciate your posts on this. You're going above and beyond and everyone here appreciates it.
I am curious about just going with 2 HC1's, though. I am kind of a perfectionist, but I think I need to relax a little because I point out issues I see in footage I shot that other people don't seem to notice. I have been shooting with a Canon GL2 in the front of the church and a Sony Digital 8 camera in the back. You and I and eveyone on the forums can easily spot the difference when the angles are switched, but the people I show my weddings to don't notice until I point it out. And, even then, they say it looks fine. I need to get into the realm of making money and I only will feel confident enough to start charging very much if I have 2 good cameras. I want to go high def only, rather than just using the GL2 and FX1 or HC1. I may keep the GL2 as a 3rd camera for groom shots as a "just in case" angle.
Thanks.
- John

For the use of Just in case angle, I use NV-GS400 in frame mode with the filmish curve, that so when I use the angle, it gives outside of the party feel. The frame mode remains bearable even with projecting it at 120inch screen.
Ofcourse I can't quite match the color well, but I use the difference as the effect.

But, I totally can see where you are coming from. If you can give up on controlling the cam with focus ring AND zoom ring, also some other controls like individual gain and f-stop, then HC might be just fine (in your case, you might wanna get one A1 and combine with HC1 for the subs).

John, what I can provide and the feedback I get here to learn more is so tremendous, this kind of highly meaningful community is not possible in Japanese internet community. I really appreciate Chris and other people run this site, first of all.

...I only will feel confident enough to start charging very much if I have 2 good cameras...Note that the HC1 is a really, REALLY small camera. So the percieved value of the customer may be much greater with the FX1, even if the resulting image is very similar between the two cameras. Although having two HC1s on-hand does mean two different angles. More shaky angles since it's tougher to hold it steady, and there's that slight "breathing" effect when you go hand-held. Still very usable. And attach lots of fancy crap to it (steadicam, lens hood, microphone, etc) and it will serve two purposes -- first to make folks say, "This guy really knows what he's doing", and also as more mass to keep the rig stable and the footage smoother.

Just my 2c.

-Lorin

this is f900 clip

http://demod.dvico.com/hdtv/Australia_2.tp

http://demod.dvico.com/hdtv/Australia_1.tp

You would not believe it, I was walking up the city, Cairns, today in a hurry, and I passed by an Asian (Japanese I think) tourist carrying an HC1 on a tripod to do portable shoots (we don't have the cameras here yet) and he looked like one of the guys on one of the HC1 related pages. Unfortunately he couldn't speak very much english so I couldn't ask him about it.

Upon inspection, I found the styling of the lens shade and HC1 (especially black lens shade on silver body) looks less than desirable than in pictures. It looks a lot larger than pictures and comments would suggest, and looks big enough not to be awkward for slightly largish hands like mine.

Actually it is not the first time I have seen Japanese tourists carrying new models here before local release, so for anybody around tourist areas here it pays to keep an eye out for them.

And VERY-VERY handy. Specialy , given its VERY light weight, it can be used with a lightweight tripod that would collapse under heavier cams.
The perfect combination might be to have one FX1/ZX1 AND one HC1...to keep your customers impressed and be ready for all situations :Outdoors+action with HC1, LowLight with FX1, and dual angles with both...

Does anybody know how the footage would mix with a GL2...as I limp into HDV one camera at a time? :)
Thanks,
- John

Does anybody know how the footage would mix with a GL2...as I limp into HDV one camera at a time? :)
Thanks,
- John
You can always download the raw movies that is available on the web and play with them. If you need something specific I can probably go out and shoot it or see if I got it in stock already. As I mentioned in some other thread I intend to test my HC1 and a XL-2 to see how they mix together. Unfortunately my friend with the XL-2 is away for another four weeks so it's gonna take a while. :(