The NFL "Thank you" Superbowl ad was shot using Inertia Unlimited's X-Mo camera. The system uses a Vision Research v640 camera acquiring images at 960fps 1080p and outputted at psf23.98, recorded to a Convergent Design NanoFlash. The settings in the NanoFlash were QT 100Mbs, Long-GOP.

The lens was a Angenieux Optimo 24-290 set to T4 and no gain was used in the camera. The primary shot is an actual game shot recorded earlier this season under existing stadium lighting by camera operator Brad Smith of NFL Films.

YouTube - NFL - Best Fans on the Planet (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUV4YKbiVxQ)

Jeff

Disclaimer: I own Inertia Unlimited and sell XDR's and Nanoflashes but I think the result speaks for itself.

so cool!

Thanks for posting.

I watched the spot on YouTube @ the 1080 resolution, but I wasn't crazy about the look of it. The slow mo shot itself was indeed the most dramatic and dynamic, but I can clearly see pulsating grain all the way through the crowd shots, and frankly, that's not very impressive at all. You don't want see grain like that on a network national spot. At least i don't. Perhaps there were some encoding issues with the YouTube Flash Video ? The producer may have deliberately added some grain to the shots to give the spot a more gritty look ? Nice slow m.o..

I like it. I don't see any grit that shouldn't be there, it's football no? sweaty guys running around on grass tossing around a sewn together piece of animal skin.

I remember the days when shooting slomo meant hiring a guy from far away, who would come with a camera and special magazines. you could do one burst of about 20 seconds or so and then he had to change mags. then reload...
spending tons of money on special 16mm filmstock with (I think) a polyester base? because the normal filmstock would get shredded at these speeds. Then miles of processing and rushes. And yes 16mm high speed stock was grainy. lower speeds required lighting with the intensity of a small star.

I don't see any inacceptable grain here. almost too clean for old people like me... you shure it is not all done in CG??? :-)

Mark,

You are right there are several flaws in the acquisition of the footage. The camera at the time was a hand-built prototype and the firmware of the camera introduced several flaws into the footage (certain users here are familiar with the troubles with early versions of firmware). There are a few black sparkles mainly in the whites and noise in the lower gamma areas (but interestingly when looking at the original footage not in the true blacks). That may not be what you see in this posted clip, I am only referring to the footage off of the Nano.

There has been limited digital alteration in post applied to the spot, most notably to take care of the LED ribbon board's strobing (in the background). I am not sure if they added "grain" but I would doubt it.

Some of the fan shots do show quite a bit of noise, in many of those stadiums the light drops off dramatically at the sideline. The directive was to capture the footage at 960fps.

Incidentally the 6 "Supervision" cameras used during the game are also v640's we also supplied to CBS. We saw minor problems with them as well but that seemed to be due with the interaction of EVS's compression and the footage. The video looked very good going into EVS and a but less so coming out.

Jeff

I like it. I don't see any grit that shouldn't be there, it's football no? sweaty guys running around on grass tossing around a sewn together piece of animal skin.....I do see much pulsating grain and it detracts from he subject matter. BTW, CD's Long GOP 100 Mbps codec is *Not* grainy in any way.

remember the days when shooting slomo meant hiring a guy from far away, who would come with a camera and special magazines. you could do one burst of about 20 seconds or so and then he had to change mags. then reload...
spending tons of money on special 16mm filmstock with (I think) a polyester base? because the normal filmstock would get shredded at these speeds. Then miles of processing and rushes. And yes 16mm high speed stock was grainy. lower speeds required lighting with the intensity of a small star....Yeah, I remember the Ultra High Quality which film always brang to the table. We can say allot of wonderful things about the new digital clip based media, but film still is better looking to my eye.

NFL Films usually shot in 35 MM, not 16 MMM, and for the Super Bowl one year they shot in Super Panavision 70 MM !!! (5 per 65 mm in the camera) Boy did that look fantastic !

don't see any inacceptable grain here. ....I do.

There has been limited digital alteration in post applied to the spot, most notably to take care of the LED ribbon board's strobing (in the background). I am not sure if they added "grain" but I would doubt it.....I think the the alterations in post were to get rid of some of the noise, which clearly looks like a camera issue, since the CD Long GOP 100 is not grainy. The problem with web formats is they're crippled video formats, and they can *reveal* whatever originating imperfections are present.

Dear Jeff,

Thank you very much!

Personally, I feel that these are some of the greatest commercials ever.

They really show the intensity, skill, and effort put in by the NFL players.

These are commercials that I am happy to see over and over again.

Mark,

I don't think that the noise is overwhelming. I would bet if you asked 100 viewers what they saw in the ad, none would mention that the noise. The point of the post is that a shot was accomplished at an actual game in marginal existing lighting, using recording equipment (the NanoFlash) which we discuss in this forum. Using more traditional methods, it probably would not have been able to be captured. Incidentally, unlike 3 years ago when we shot the Superbowl, no temporary supplemental lighting was brought in this year and it certainly wasn't there months ago when we shot the commercial.

Although it is true that NFL Films has shot limited prior Superbowls with 35mm film, this year they used 16mm film for the entire season, post season and Superbowl. They shot no 35mm film at this year's Superbowl. NFL Films is among the top 3 users of 16mm film in the world and has been for many years. The vast majority of their equipment comprises of SRII's, III's and Aatons.

We feel that compression can have some undesirable effects with noise, and saw that using the compression that EVS uses. It was very similar to what you see in the commercial. Sorry if I am wrong, I am only reporting on what I and the V1 were seeing Sunday night.

I am also not sure of the source of the Youtube footage but know it was not distributed to anyone in 1080p.

Dan, I am glad you got the point of what these commercials are all about.

Jeff

Hi Jeff:
I got the point of the commercial too. I also appreciate the dynamic slow mo shot in the beginning. However what I saw on YouTube was very grainy, and I don't like the visual artifact of video noise in the signal, and how that noise impacts the overall quality of the presentation. If I understood you well, your are claiming the "noise" is not so visible in the original footage. The thing is, this commercial will be viewed on millions of large screen TV's world wide, and many of those will be 1080p capable, so if I see big grain on my 24 inch iMAC screen, then this noise will look like a snow storm on a 52 inch HD flat screen.

I suspect the image on YouTube is fooling me, and the actual spot is much less grainy than what I'm seeing there, but based on the example provided, it just doesn't make it for me.

Hi Jeff-
That's a fantastic commerical. Just look at the ratings - 4.5 stars from 494 reviewers. The minor issues with grains and other imperfections are unimportant, IMO. The commerical communicates a great message using some incredible footage.

Excellent Work-

Great job Jeff,

First class work as always.

It looked stunning. Congrats.

Here is a frame grab from a game a couple weeks ago in Indianapolis. I found a frame where the background LED ribbon was "illuminated", hit pause on a Nano, captured the frame as a BMP on a Leader 5330 waveform/vectorscope, saved it to a thumb drive, and cropped the picture in Windows Paint.

Yes there is noise here too and it is a little soft (shot with a 22x Fujinon) , but it's cool.

Jeff

I watched the commercial before reading this thread, and couldn't remember being distracted by noise. Just to be sure, I watched it again, and I didn't notice any. I'm not saying there isn't any, but I didn't notice it.

Jeff:
The noise jumped up at me the first time I watched it *After* the slow mo fade to black and the fade up of the crowd. There's a few second shot of a boy which is *really* video granular. The man holding up the Saints flag looks plain horrible ! You wanna call that good video ? It must be the web encode Jeff, because you can't tell me the Network HDCAM SR master looks like that ! I don't care how much light was in that stadium. I think I've also seen dusk shots of charging cheetahs in slow m.o. from that kind of camera, and it didn't look that bad at all. If you say yes, then I won't believe you, because there's no way you could deliver this commercial as seen on YouTube and expect future employment from NBC ! - Unless the producer was going for the gritty sports look thingy, which would also make sense. Come on guys ! -Anything after the dynamic slow m.o. shot doesn't look good ! It just doesn't !
Jeff, is there anyway to see a dub off of the master ? Can you take an I-frame 280 Mbps Nano or XDR dub off an NBC HDCAM SR deck and FTP me a few seconds of the boy in slow m.o. or the man holding the golden Saints flag. The *content* is absolutely brilliant, but the look *as seen on YouTube* is yuk.

Funny, Mark, but I've never looked to Youtube to provide network content. Needless to say, a film based producer, Grey Advertising, has seen fit to embrace a non-film solution to a game coverage which ended up as a superbowl commercial, which ended up as one of the top 20 best liked commercials of the Superbowl.

The thought that a 1000fps 1080i/p commercial shot under existing stadium lighting to a Nanoflash a few years ago would have been unthinkable.

Jeff

Hi Jeff:
Then the Non-Film based solution which Grey delivered to network MUST have looked better than what you posted as an example on YouTube. (??) There MUST be something wrong with the YouTube encode. You're talking about content, and I'm pointing out what my eyes are seeing. I don't have the benefit of comparison to the original footage.

EDIT: P.S. The Eagle still looked less grainy.

Mark,

There is no doubt that some of the crowd shots were VERY noisy. The light drop off at some of those stadiums in the crowd is dramatic. They made the decision to ask for those shots, and they made the decision to use them. And with all due respect Mark, they are the ones who decided spend roughly $5-6 million to buy the 60 seconds of air time and use the footage.

And yes, the NFL paid for the time on CBS. I am sure the Nielsen estimated 110,391,120 people who saw the ad in the US aren't losing any sleep over it... and the over 400,000 who watched it on Youtube so far.

Also, interestingly, a quick search of the internet found something like this:

10 Best Super Bowl Commercials 2010 (with... | Gather (http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474978037368&grpId=3659174697259616)

And even someone in Canadia didn't mind, Mark, lol.

Best of the Super Bowl commercials: the runners-up (http://www.vancouversun.com/sports/Best+Super+Bowl+commercials+runners/2537092/story.html)

Jeff

Hi Jeff:
With all due respect Jeff, and I certainly mean no disrespect to you or to the producers, but you are making a non-argument. I'm most definitely in agreement about the obvious quality content and most powerful impact of the **content** and ***Editing*** of this TV spot for the super bowl. I do not dispute it's success, nor have I ever attempted to make any contradictory point about its creative essence as an expression of communication, but for 5 - 6 Million US I expect (((PERFECT))) digital HD picture quality. I don't give a rat's wahoo about the lighting conditions on location. These conditions could have been met for this kind of budget.

I was talking with a fellow editor here in the city the other day about this, and we were agreeing how this NFL spot represents a new trend in our industry. Allow me to explain a little. There has been a slow, but detectable decline in the quality of what producers who hire us to shoot and edit now want or are willing to accept as a final product. It first began with these guys asking us to swoosh pan and shake the camera, while combining that with jump cut editing to jar the viewer. After that, it was poorly lit stuff, or video which major broadcasters like CTV and CBC in Canada used to reject. Not anymore !

Today, I have to conclude that *quality* as a general concept is being redefined as *expediency !* As long as you can produce content quick and easy, then this is actually more valuable than high quality. In other words, HQ is not the top priority. Now introduce the new media into this equation ! i.e. YouTube & Web Video in general. I always considered web video formats like .flv (Flash Video), Windows Media Video being the most common examples, as crippled video formats. Yet the new generation of producers and viewers are *all on the Internet and *not in front of any television set !* The new standard in video *IS* Youtube and Windows Media Video. The populace is not viewing programs with proper corrected Gamma, Density, Color, Audio (Do you think audio on a laptop is good ?), and after a few years it becomes the new *Quality Video Standard !*

So along comes this spot on YouTube and everyone's raving about it, and how good it looks, then I look at it, and can't really get that excited about it. Sorry, it just doesn't really look that good to me.

EDIT: Now there was a guy on here a few weeks back, who was showing examples of video he was shooting on a Canon DSLR 5D & 7D, who was posting links here to Vimeo and that stuff looked Great ! Great ! Great ! This guy was shooting stuff at George Lucas's Skywalker Ranch.

Okay Mark,

Let me run with your argument.

I would argue that the Sony EX3 has no business being used for broadcast. The lenses are junk, and used without the Nano, the recording format is pure amateur. That does not stop many people from successfully using it.

Let's examine the insane compression of delivery formats on HD broadcast TV especially when the local stations are using sub channels and there is overwhelming macroblocking as a result.

Let's examine the DVR's people are using to record that compressed feed.

How about their improperly adjusted TV sets.

And Youtube??? Whatever.

You end up with digital mush. And now people are suggesting we will watch this in 3D.

The commercial has a couple shots which have clearly visible noise. One of those shots lasts less than 1 second. The matrix, individual gammas, peds, white clips, and such were carefully controlled. Supplemental lighting of actual games would not be permissible. The one staged commercial released months ago in this series looks obviously fake. Sure it was lit properly. Maybe you could consider that to capture the raw emotion that is expressed in the commercial certain trade offs needed to be made. And also that the rawness of the footage sells the reality of it. And none of it was staged.

I am not sure given your standards what shows are left on TV which you can watch. I for one think that the Simpsons is still quite watchable.

Jeff

Okay Mark,

Let me run with your argument.

I would argue that the Sony EX3 has no business being used for broadcast. The lenses are junk, and used without the Nano, the recording format is pure amateur....Absolutely Right ! I agree with you !
does not stop many people from successfully using it....Exactly ! And it should, but because it doesn't stop them, this proves that at least, *some* who are making the decisions have lowered their quality standards, and we editors and shooters who are getting handed these jobs must deal with substandard video *quality* being shot by some folks who frankly don't really know what they're doing and then expect us to turn out what was considered to be utter garbage 10 years ago, but fast and shlock is the new chic ! I'm talking compromise here. For some of us who are committed to quality, an important line has been crossed.

examine the insane compression of delivery formats on HD broadcast TV especially when the local stations are using sub channels and there is overwhelming macroblocking as a result....Yes indeed. Let's do that. I think it looks like crap !
examine the DVR's people are using to record that compressed feed....No. Let's not. What they want to use as a private home recorder is their business. Many still use their VHS VCR's to record shows. I know several folks who do just that.

about their improperly adjusted TV sets....As long as they're not the one's adjusting the HD studio monitors on the Super Bowl, then I'm fine with that. :-)

Youtube??? Whatever....Whatever what ? This is the new SMPTE Phosphorus "C" Jeff ! - YouTube ! Friggin YouTube !

end up with digital mush. And now people are suggesting we will watch this in 3D.... Yup ! I'm waiting for the local stations to get the calibrations of 3D wrong, then watch the headaches, Vertigo, and epileptic seizures which will ensue from watching American Idol ! (Although watching it in 2D will produce the same effect)

commercial has a couple shots which have clearly visible noise. One of those shots lasts less than 1 second. The matrix, individual gammas, peds, white clips, and such were carefully controlled. Supplemental lighting of actual games would not be permissible. The one staged commercial released months ago in this series looks obviously fake. Sure it was lit properly. Maybe you could consider that to capture the raw emotion that is expressed in the commercial certain trade offs needed to be made. And also that the rawness of the footage sells the reality of it. And none of it was staged....I believe you, and you could be right on this point. I suppose if only from a possible Internet Viral point of view it is effective to have the gritty vid noise in there. I guess to 5-6 Million US $$$$ was for the *Air Time* and not the production values ;-)

am not sure given your standards what shows are left on TV which you can watch. I for one think that the Simpsons is still quite watchable.

Jeff...Well there you see how you have arrived at my central point. You have successfully redefined quality as expediency. - Thus expediency is good and quality is unrealistic. It becomes foolish to argue for quality as the standard. This was what I was talking to my colleague about the other day. This is the real seed change we're seeing in our industry Jeff :-)

-------And the YouTube NFL spot still looks like it looks to me

Respectfully

Had a room full of 11 people including 3 small wacky kids in my home theater watching the Super Bowl. As you can imagine it was quite noisey.

But when this commercial came on, everyone in the room stopped and went totally silent as they watched in awe. I still remember the moment. And from Jeff's previous generous postings here of similar work, I was certain that it was his team's beautiful production and a Nano was the recording device.

Wonderful work Jeff!

Agree John a story with out narrative all filmed in seconds.

I would argue that the Sony EX3 has no business being used for broadcast. The lenses are junk, and used without the Nano, the recording format is pure amateur.

That's interesting because the F350 that I own and many others like it have been used and approved by HDNET and Discovery HD with its 'amateur' format on a number of television shows and documentaries.

As for lenses... the EX3 can mount any 1/2 broadcast lens you care to use, including my 'junk' Fujinon 18x5.5 which goes for around 12K purchased new.

Let's keep the comments 'professional'.

Thanks and regards,

-gb-

Greg,

Obviously the comment about the EX3 was to make a point. There used to be something called "broadcast quality'. That no longer applies. I own both the 2 of the 18x5.5mm and 10 of the 13x3.3mm lenses for my Sony XDCAM chip block based HDC-X310 robo type cameras. They are very nice for what they are, my $35k Fujinon 22x is a lot nicer. My 17-80mm PL mount Angenieux Optimo is vastly nicer, so is the PL converted Nikkor 50-300mm lens we use. The difference in sharpness alone is stunning.

Paul,

An interesting fact of the commercial is that the total amount of reality in the commercial is 1.55 seconds stretched to 50 seconds of video. The remaining 10 seconds are graphics.

Jeff

Hi Greg:
If you move the target, then it's easier to hit the mark ;-)

Mark, I would kindly ask for you to take this conversation to private messages with Jeff, as it clearly has nothing to do with the Nano Flash.

Jeff is kind enough to post about his private use of the Nano flash in his working environment to us mortals (who do not care that there is some noise in a underlit crowd shot at a live stadium).

To be honest, I think attacking him this way is quite rude as he did not have any control over the lighting nor the shooting situation for that matter.

The only way to uphold the high standard you are speaking of is to set the example yourself. Through your own work.

I am not a moderator, but this thread has made me clinch my teeth a bit.

Regards

Hi Tim:
I meant no disrespect toward Jeff. I am not attacking him. I just don't like the quality of what he offered up as an example on YouTube. If you take my dissent as an attack, then I'm sorry about that. Sorry, I'm not a cheer leader. I won't follow the crowd and say something is good when I think it's not. I didn't build a successful editing business by ignoring quality. I consider the manner closed and I apologize to Jeff if I offended him. This was not my intention.

Two important things to point out here.

1.) Choose your words carefully. The issue I have with some people who post here is not what they say, but how they say it. We don't do "snark" on DV Info Net. There's nothing wrong with expressing an opinion, but do so respectfully and politely. That's one of our top rules. I kick people out of here -- gleefully -- who refuse to play nice. This is *not* a typical internet message board, and I will remove anyone who tries to turn it into the type of forum experience that can be found everywhere else on the Web.

2.) Use the Report Post function. It's the little "!" icon to the left of any post. Please don't make a post addressing a civility issue, it just creates more meta that we'll have to clean up later. The Report function discretely alerts the forum moderators, who will clean up or close the thread as needed.

Finally -- we offer direct embedding of Vimeo clips here, but some commercial material falls outside of Vimeo's hosting policy so perhaps we need to provide a solution for that after all... it's being discussed. Thread stays open. Thanks Jeff for your patience.

I didn't read anything here as a personal attack guys...

I think the defensiveness branched out beyond the Nano a bit. Generally, if there is noise in video, codecs will try to maintain it. Noise is a shiny object for limited attention span compression that you want to look at image content. The codec looks at luma info as detail and solemnly swears to try to keep it.

Unfortunately, even when you've got 100 Mbit long GOP, you don't want to be dedicating bits to preserving noise. That's still pretty aggressive image compression, as good as the picture looks...

If a digital camera is utilizing gain to make exposure (and in the world of high speed cameras, this is more likely than in everyday shooting for obvious reasons), then the camera is amplifying the noise with the image.

So...other than stating the obvious, I guess what I'm saying is that the noise in the image is likely camera-borne, but it's possible the MPEG compression in the nano might have been challenged with it...it's hard to say. Watching a video on YouTube or Vimeo several transcodes down-line and then judging its image quality just isn't very meaningful.



As far as so many arbitrary attempts at defining the line between professionals and amateurs...unfortunately what usually starts out as nothing more than an attempt at an illustration, ends up feeling like an insult (however unintentional) to somebody by extension.

For every one of these examples, the exceptions to the rule usually end up distorting the original idea because there is such a wide variety of equipment in use for a wide variety of end products, by people with skillsets that are always in question. An EX1 was used on 'Public Enemy' for some specific shots...does that make it a digital cinema camera? If your answer is 'yes'...have you SEEN 'Public Enemy? I question whether you could even give that designation to an F23 (the principle camera on that feature) as I interpret the aesthetic anyway...

However, the director said when he started the project that he was looking for a feeling of 'immediacy' instead of a nostalgic history film. Traditional video tends to feel pretty immediate...and a three chip camera like the F23 gets you closer to that look than an F35, or a Genesis...or a RED...or, obviously, film. Is his intention illegitimate if the look doesn't resonate with me? Who the hell am I? On the other hand, if I don't care for the look, I'm within my rights to express my opinion...


So...I think that you can like the spot in question or not, and say so without being mean spirited toward anyone in the thread, and that's how I saw the original remark.

I think the original point was that the nano is obviously gaining some credibility out there in the world of big, important production in order to be chosen for this use. I think many of us who have used a variety of Convergent Design products and have seen the effort they put into developing their products would have to say...'it's definitely time.'

2.) Use the Report Post function. It's the little "!" icon to the left of any post.

I will use this in the future.

I just thought it was a nice gesture for Jeff to post here and feel that the tone had become less than welcoming.

Just to clarify, this was for the benefit of Nano users who like to hear about these boxes being used in very high level situations, not to "clean up" the board so to speak :)

I have received several emails from members on this forum who have complained to me time and again about the cheer leader mentality extent here and how dissent is being portrayed as rudeness and incivility. Some of the complaints I have received have come from Jeff himself among others who are getting pretty fed up of the rah, rah, rah everything's great and don't be too negative in your posts culture here. The impression I am receiving is you are not allowed to not like something here no matter how you express it ! If you disagree then you get folks who gang up on you to discourage others from posting dissenting opinions. I've been accused of attacking Jeff Silverman because I didn't like his YouTube video and it's as plain as that. I've *never* attacked Jeff, furthermore I have no ill feelings whatsoever toward him or his work. I have the uttermost respect for him and his work if the truth be told !


Some of you folks are so thin skinned, and you can't take *any* negative criticism whatsoever. If you get any you're very quick to shut down the person making the criticism - This is the culture several folks are experiencing here to me in private emails because they are too afraid to express it here ! I place the responsibility for that at your door Chris ! I don't get the impression you are as open to opinions as you claim.

Furthermore, I paid $6,000.00 CAN for my Flash XDR. This may not be a large amount in the eyes of some, but it's a respectable chunk of change to our small boutique video operation. If there's something wrong, I want to feel I have the freedom to post a problem *or express an opinion about it without being hung under the tyranny of political correctness, or attacked by fan boys !*

Respectfully,

Mark Andrew Job

Looks as if I started typing before Chris's message went up...

Though my post was not meant as any sort of direct complaint (or scolding for that matter.)

...just an observation.

I have received several emails from members on this forum who have complained to me time and again about the cheer leader mentality extent here and how dissent is being portrayed as rudeness and incivility. Once again -- it's not what you say, it's how you say it. When dissent is expressed rudely, then yes it is rude and therefore it has no business here. However, dissent can also be expressed in a civil tone and with professionalism, and that's when it works best (in fact, on DV Info Net that is the only way it will work). There are numerous examples of dissent presented on this site that have resulted in proactive involvement from manufacturers and changes and corrections to product lines -- this is one of the most important strengths of the forum, in fact.

I have no idea why you are receiving those emails; you are in no position whatsoever to affect policy here. I am, however, because I own this site. Nobody is sending me any such messages -- if they were, I would act on it. I can't think of anything more counterproductive to the operation of this forum than for someone to complain about the way I run it to somebody else other than me. I can't do anything about complaints that I'm not aware of. Also, I take a very dim view of the mentality that's "too afraid" to complain to me directly. Fear is our worst enemy. Show some backbone, send an email and confront me with it. Many people here know me personally through face-to-face meetings at NAB and other events. I'm a fairly nice guy, or so I'm told. I'm the one who runs this place, so if you have a problem, then whatever it is, it's not legitimate unless you put it before me -- not Mark Job or anyone else. Put it before me. Send me the email.

Some of the complaints I have received have come from Jeff himself among others who are getting pretty fed up of the rah, rah, rah everything's great and don't be too negative in your posts culture here. You certainly are allowed to be negative, but you must get it through your head that this site is NOT YOUR TYPICAL INTERNET FORUM EXPERIENCE. If all you want to do is bitch, then go start a blog. I have booted two people from this particular board not because they complained, but because complaining was all they did, over and over again like a broken record. They were not receptive to solutions, support, fixes, remedies or resolving problems. I have a serious issue with that. This site is based on SOLUTIONS. It is not a place for pissing and moaning. If there is a technical or creative problem, present it clearly and then follow through with the feedback. Help us to help you FIX THE PROBLEM. If you're not interested in solutions then you have no business here.

The impression I am receiving is you are not allowed to not like something here no matter how you express it ! Not true. You are indeed allowed to express it. What you are not allowed to do here is to camp out about it, ruining the experience for everybody else. If you don't like something, say so and explain why and act like a professional when you do. Then move on. Camping out with your negativity is called thread-crapping. We don't allow that. Not everyone feels as badly as you and it's not your responsibility to make sure that they do. If you have an issue, let us help you solve it. If there is no acceptable solution then get it out of your life and let us help you find something that works.

If you disagree then you get folks who gang up on you to discourage others from posting dissenting opinions. I've been accused of attacking Jeff Silverman because I didn't like his YouTube video and it's as plain as that. I've *never* attacked Jeff, furthermore I have no ill feelings whatsoever toward him or his work. I have the uttermost respect for him and his work if the truth be told !If you think folks here are ganging up on you, then use the provided mechanism and REPORT THE POST!

Some of you folks are so thin skinned, and you can't take *any* negative criticism whatsoever. If you get any you're very quick to shut down the person making the criticism The purpose of the site -- I get to decide what it is since I own it -- is to exchange information and ideas relating to digital media content creation. We focus on technical issues and creative techniques. Negative criticism doesn't play much of a role here. Constructive criticism on the other hand is most helpful when it's called for. There are some "artiste" sensibilities on this site that are a bit too delicate for my taste, but we all accept criticism best when it's given courteously and politely. If you can't do that, then you're not an effective communicator.

This is the culture several folks are experiencing here to me in private emails because they are too afraid to express it here ! I place the responsibility for that at your door Chris ! I don't get the impression you are as open to opinions as you claim.Obviously I am open or I wouldn't have published this post, although we have now officially violated forum policy by hijacking Jeff's thread.

Complaints about this site's policies or culture need to be addressed by email to *me* otherwise they don't accomplish anything. We don't do meta-discussions on the forum itself (well we are right now, but normally we don't), because that's not what the forum is for. But yes of course I am open to opinions, how else do you think I've kept it growing for ten years and how else do you think I make a living at this.

Furthermore, I paid $6,000.00 CAN for my Flash XDR. This may not be a large amount in the eyes of some, but it's a respectable chunk of change to our small boutique video operation. If there's something wrong, I want to feel I have the freedom to post a problem *or express an opinion about it...

Of course it's a respectable chunk of change and of course you have the freedom to post a problem *as long as you're receptive to feedback and solutions.* Once again, the purpose of this site is to provide usable information that you can carry into your day and apply to your business. It is not a bitch session. It is an answers-based technical resource.

... without being hung under the tyranny of political correctness, or attacked by fan boys !*If you think that is happening to you in one of our discussion threads, then I must insist that you respond to it in a very specific way:

USE THE REPORT POST FUNCTION

Hope this helps,

Hi Jeff:
but for 5 - 6 Million US I expect (((PERFECT))) digital HD picture quality.


EDIT: Now there was a guy on here a few weeks back, who was showing examples of video he was shooting on a Canon DSLR 5D & 7D, who was posting links here to Vimeo and that stuff looked Great ! Great ! Great ! This guy was shooting stuff at George Lucas's Skywalker Ranch.

It's a little bizarre to talk about perfect (in 3 pairs of parentheses, no less) picture quality and the Canon DSLR's in the same argument. Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of the DSLR's and have been working with them extensively of late, but it's well documented that they have many compromises in picture quality, and the codec in use is dubious at best (even compared to the EX series). Bloom's footage at Skywalker ranch was pretty; I've shot stuff with those cameras that I think looks great also, but I wouldn't hold them as the yardstick of what great (particularly Great! Great! Great!) footage is all about.

And for the record, I thought Jeff's spot looked pretty damn cool, and I LOVE that it was captured on a $3K recording device. The nanoFlash is rapidly becoming the "little engine that could"...

Hi Charles:

(Respectfully) For the record, I've never made any claim with either the Flash XDR or the Nano Flash as being noisy, grainy, or contributing in any manner to the noise in the NFL spot. In fact, I think the XDR & Nano produce grainless images even @ Long GOP 50 Mbps. I am glad to know the Nano worked for Jeff on the spot.

MJ

Hi Mark. I saw the clip and I watched it like I watch most things,... to enjoy the content. After enjoying the content of the clip, I went back and watched it from the beginning and I scrutinized it, which watching in real time (no pauses or studying of frames allowed).

Honestly, I didn't see anything that would make me scream "NOISY". Maybe it was my subconscious telling me to remember this thing was shot at an incredibly high frame rate. Maybe it was me wishing my camera could get images that look like that? I dunno. Either way, I thought the clip was cool.

Maybe I wouldn't think the same if I scooted in from viewing distance and put the pause on.

Hi Aaron:
Perhaps the only way to qualify this is to have seen what the actual spot looked like on TV during the Super Bowl broadcast. Maybe what's broadcast didn't look like the YouTube version at all ? Maybe what we're looking at is an unsweetened version of the spot, or the YouTube encode *colored* the clip ? I have had so many WMV and Flash encodes change out the color correction and density settings. In digital video, it has been my experience that when the gamma setting has been blown by a bad encode, then you see a sudden graininess appear. I can confirm most web video encodes will crush color, gamma, and chop the blacks. Perhaps this is what I'm seeing ?

I for one appreciate the discussion on this board and the people on it including Mark. The XDR and Nano had a painful launch (imho), but they have become valued parts of what I can offer my clients. Convergent Design has always been available when things went wrong to try to figure it out and correct the problem. I do hope they work on informing all of us of known issues before we find out about them ourselves.

For the NFL spots the big debate was between whether we would record the raw files off the camera using cinemags and ridiculously large file sizes and then transfer and convert for editing. That approach was used at a number of games and some weeks involved as many as 17 cases of gear to accomplish. It also added a day to the workflow.

At the same time, we started with the XDR, because the Nano was not available, and captured the HD-SDI coming off of the camera. When the Nano was available we switched to that. For the most part the Nano accomplished what we needed and the problems we had were solved by the hard work and new firmware releases from CD. We traveled with as few as 2 cases of gear with this approach.

When we got to the later parts of the season, the Nano based solution was chosen as the most practical solution and was used through the Super Bowl.

Incidentally as far as content is concerned, last night I finally watched Avatar in 3D. Not a sign of grain was to be seen, the visuals were stunning, but boy did that movie suck.

Jeff