Dear All,

I work at the University of London and we are going to have a hands on test with a working JVC HD100 this Thursday. What general things should we be looking at ... I'll obviously post a response here ....

Thanks,

Tim Young

I'd love to see where the noise/compression artifact floor is.

How does the camera perform in low light situations?

How does the camera handle extreme highlights and over-exposure?

Please provide full resolution screenshots if you can.

Thank you.

I think what a lot of people are interested in is the "motion smoothing" feature. How much does "motion smoothed" 25p look like regular PAL interlaced television? And if you can get some footage on tape -- I think everyone wants footage on tape.

How 'bout some shots of the city at night? Especially compared to an existing camera.

If you can't provide footage, at least some screenshots would be great.

I'm also interested in low light but indoors.

If you could get us more info on what gamma curves it offers (at least a few if it has too many) I would be very thankful.

I'd like to see what kind of latitude it has, ie., how it handles high contrast situations with strong highlights, etc. And, say you pan with a person running through the park...what do the trees in the background look like?
Also how the lens feels, does the back focus adjustment lock down tightly, does the focus ring feel tight or sloppy, how is the zoom?
How do the wide shots look?
I dont' care all that much about low light--it's a 1/3" chip camera and is going to behave as a 1/3" chip camera.
I'd like to see a comparison between the 24p and 30p modes, as well as how it downconverts (if it does) HDV to DV.

I'd be curious to see the image of two resolution charts; one as we know it, and another one same thing printed on GREY BG (as black on grey) or print the black as grey on a white BG. The major contrast should make a difference about the color shift at the boundary between different brightness surfaces. Most of the time, the lenses take the blame for it (and, IMO is the CCD's inability to accommodate a big contrast ratio) Lights levels should allow for lower and higher reflecting surface.

I'd like the camera put through its paces on the colour control front. What's adjustible, what isn't... etc.

Things to look for:
- gamma curves
- sharpening filters
- saturation controls
- contrast controls
etc.

I'm also interested in how well the JVC 6-frame GOP handles fast pans.

-Steve

I'd like to see some mvoement. You know, as if you were shooting inside quite a fast paced scene, where the camera was shifting from actor to actor as they moved around a room or something.

It's the artifacts I'm scared of.

Aaron

Dear All,

I work at the University of London and we are going to have a hands on test with a working JVC HD100 this Thursday. What general things should we be looking at ... I'll obviously post a response here ....

Thanks,

Tim Young

I think the #1 concern for many is going to be the potential MPEG artifacts in high-motion/high-detail situations. Any image samples from that type of scenario would be super. A resolution chart shot would be great too, since there seems to be quite an interest in the resolving power and quality of the included lens (though considering the resolving power of the little HC1 lens, I'm not sure there's cause for concern).

Hey, we'll take whatever we can get. Looking forward to your results.

Philip Williams
www.philipwilliams.com

Hello Phillips, you mentioned University of London, may I ask which particlular University (I'm a Queen Mary student), I'd love to come down (one day) and have a look!!

Anyway My quetion would be if you could post a short raw .m2t file of various modes , low light and MOST importantly cine gamma/ "cinema" modes


Thanks in advanced

Anhar Hussain Miah

P.S how did you manage to get your hands on one, I thought they are not shipping till August?

I would love to see a small screenshot or footage of a blue screen or green screen. Maybe just bring a small piece of blue or green poster board and shoot your hand or something.

Don't worry about the lighting because I specialize in difficult blue screen shoots. Good lighting would look decent on any camera. Bad lighting is where we see how well the camera holds up.

I would also however like to see some low light footage with and without full gain.

In terms of handling the camera shouldn't really be a mystery to those of us that have shot with a pro camera. Most lenses of this type focus, zoom and adjust iris in the same way.

Can you confirm if the camera will output live from the head uncompressed SD video?

Finally can you check if the edge enhancement can be adjusted or turned off to get rid of any ringing? Besides color space issues this is the 2nd worse thing to have to deal with whening keying blue screens because it can leave a white or black ring around your subject. Using a matte choker doesn't give you a realistic edge but makes the footage more look like it was rotoscoped than keyed.

Since you are in the UK, you'l probably get a PAL machine, right?

Please post your comments on the "motion smoothing" option for 25p. I would like to know if this is enough to simulate 50i for possible event and news coverage.

Hello All,

Thanks for your thoughts so far ....

It seems that there might be some agreement about the things to be looking at. I will take on board as many as I can and post a summary here tomorrow evening if I have time.

Tim

My question is about how good/bad the included shotgun mike is. Also how easy is it to define audio channels on the XLR inputs. Is it intuitve about how to mix the two? Or are you better off with your own shotgun on one of the mic inputs.

Can you capture the analog component video output and compare it
to HDV?

How does the footage look projected on the big screen?

Tim,

Thanks for taking the time to help get test info to us! There has already been some excellent suggestions on this thread. If you are set up create an MTF chart for the Fujinon 16x lens and Fujinon 13x lens (if you also have that lens), that would be awesome. A side by side comparison of motion smoothed 30p and non-smoothed 30p would be great. If you have the .8 wide angle for the 16x, your impressions of the performance of that setup would be most appreciated. OpTex is based near you. Perhaps you could get them to bring over their lens conversion attachment and a Nikon 300 to test. Link: http://www.prohd.co.uk/

Could you please test the 1080i output from the camera. Is it output from the analog outputs only, via Firewire, or both?

Thanks!

My concern is that I think some people are going to disapointed in the cam as an ENG cam. Fast pans at 24/25p are going to have similar limitations of any 24p camera (video or film). I have a feeling to get the best picture will require one to treat this like a 150 pound panavision setup. Just based on specs, using the HD100 for outdoor live sports shooting might no be very good, but then again we could all be surprised. That fact that you need to output 720 60p via the component outs is a negative for on site ENG work, too much equipment to haul around. But for shooting a feature and setting up the controversial 'video village' that might not be a problem.

My concern is that I think some people are going to disapointed in the cam as an ENG cam. Fast pans at 24/25p are going to have similar limitations of any 24p camera (video or film). I have a feeling to get the best picture will require one to treat this like a 150 pound panavision setup. Just based on specs, using the HD100 for outdoor live sports shooting might no be very good, but then again we could all be surprised. That fact that you need to output 720 60p via the component outs is a negative for on site ENG work, too much equipment to haul around. But for shooting a feature and setting up the controversial 'video village' that might not be a problem.

JVC claims that their new motion smoothing filter will sample at 60p and then reduce to 30p, 25p, 24p, etc., smoothing out judder. If it works as they claim, the camera could be surprisingly useful for ENG work, especially in 30p, 576p, and 480p, assuming that resolution is not significantly reduced by the motion smoothing filter. The camera should have excellent application for outdoor live action sports, hardlined into a truck or to microwave via analog 720p60 uncompressed output through an analog uncompressed to HD-SDI converter. Will it be long before a 720p60 Firestore-like HDD unit with a small analog uncompressed to HD-SDI to 720p60 converter hits the market to enable mobile ENG 720p60 field work? I think we'll see such setups quickly. There were groups of television network executives, from A&E, ABC, etc., at NAB grilling JVC about the camera. They're not looking for a 150 lb Panavision camera. They're looking at the HD100 as a potential hardlined 720p60 live event and on-the-spot news uplink camera, as a 24p documentary camera (in the case of A&E Networks and others), and, if the 720p30 motion smoothing filter works well, as a mobile ENG-style all-around field camera. Until it's thoroughly tested, I think it's way too early to write the HD100 off as a only a feature camera...

Steve I was refering to a small field unit not hard wired into a truck or other expensive equipment. I was also referring to people who shoot extreme sports events with everything they need carried on their back. The fact that you have to output via the analog components will reduce it's desirability for remote shooting at 60p.

But I agree with you when you have a news team with a nice broadcast truck and all the equipment they need for live on the spot reporting. This could be a great camera for local ABC and FOX affiliates.

If the 100 proves to output great video then the upcoming hdv7000 will be even better and priced similar to the Panas' SDX900.

Joe, I understood what you were saying. The first part of my post was referring to non-hardwired mobile ENG style production. If the motion smoothing filter at 720p30 does a good job with judder, the camera could be quite excellent for mobile, non-hardlined, 720p production. Solid indications, that I posted today on another thread of this board, are that ABC network news and Good Morning America are planning to use the HD100 for exactly that - field acquisition of news and mobile network segments. I don't want to cross-post, so if you go back to the mani menu for the HD100 on this board, you'll find my post on ABC's intentions.

It think you're entirely right in saying that the HDV7000 could be interesting competition for the SDX900, both having 2/3" chips, both able to shoot 24p, the HDV7000 having higher resolution, if the HDV7000 has variable frame rates, 50 mbs, etc. It will be interesting...

It think you're entirely right in saying that the HDV7000 could be interesting competition for the SDX900, both having 2/3" chips, both able to shoot 24p, the HDV7000 having higher resolution, if the HDV7000 has variable frame rates, 50 mbs, etc. It will be interesting...

Postscript: DVCPro50, which the SDX900 shoots, is a great format. I recently produced and directed nationally-airing, 10-camera coverage of a sports event, using DVCPro50. The footage looked amazing! In retrospect, all the DVCPro formats (25, 50, HD) are variants of the original DV codec - in essence, DV on steroids. When DV was first introduced, nobody thought the codec could grow into the diverse array of related codecs it is now and have such broad professional application. I view HDV the same now. It will evolve like DV did, and HDV50 in the HDV7000 will be a step farther into the professional use arena for HDV. HDV50, and future HDV100, will have to overcome some of the obvious drawbacks of long GOP MPEG2 encoding, but HDV should be around for a while as a professional, prosumer, and consumer format - the same path DV took.

Sorry for getting off-thread everyone...

Hello All,

Just a quick note to let you know that I have just discovered that we are only going to have the camera for a relatively short amount of time today so I probably won't have time to answer all the questions which you have posted. However I hope to cover the major issues which several people want answered (MPEG Artifacts, Low Light, Live Output, Handling Issues). I will also try to get some shots up ... however considering that we don't have any post production equipment that can handle HDV yet .. they might only be SD!

Tim

JVC hve just contacted us to say that the camera is stuck in customs ... and I am going away for the next week! However I've asked my colleagues to post here if they get the chance to reschedule the viewing for while I am away!

Tim

it's always something.

The camera might be here for us to try tomorrow .. so watch this space.

Tim

got one here, now whaddaya all wanna know?
seams to do everything i expected and want it to do and then some.
will go shoot some stuff soon. whats the best way to about posting it?
quicktime h.264?

Craig, assuming you have a job and are busy, I would most like to see four types of shot:


a close up of a face, to see how skin tones look.
a static wide scenic shot, cityscape of rural doesn't matter, but as long as there's lots of detail.
some sort of fast moving action shot. Kaku Ito, shot some mountain bikers, which seemed to be perfect for really punishing the MPEG2 codec.
The other thing a lot of people here are interested in is the motion smoothing filter, so maybe a fourth shot would be a similar moving shot, this time with the

As for the format, I think many on this forum would prefer the pure HDV transport streams (.m2t files) so we can judge the footage direct from the cam.

(I have to say Kaku Ito's FX1 footage was great. I'm still using it for tests today, months later!)

I would also be happy with some uncompressed PNG still shots from the camera. It doesn't show motion but it would be a nice way to see what the image quality looks liike while not taking up huge amounts of space and bandwidth on the internet. Of course I would also love to see small M2t files maybe no longer than 10 seconds each.

Finally it would be nice to see some type of subject in front of a solid color. It can be any color. We all know what HDV chroma is like but every camera handles the way it captures high contrast color scenes in a different way and I would love to se what the camera is doing with the chroma and edge enhancement. It would be really great if you could shoot this scene with different levels of edge enhancement.

Thanks.

OK. So we finally got to see the working camera yesterday. Unfortunately we don't have the facilities to provide the footage for you to look at, but I can give you our general thoughts.

Firstly the issue of MPEG2 recording. We recorded some fast moving / highly detailed subjects and it appeared to cope very well. However, when looking at a fast pan across a patch of grass there appeared to be a very slight softening. This could be a result of the progressive scan not being happy with the pan however (I have to say that I'm not particularly familiar with looking at progressive material). We were told by the JVC rep. that the MPG bitrate is very high and as such should retain quality. I would be particularly keen to see this through into a post production system and then onto output.

The general feel and handling of the camera was very good. Obviously it would feel even better with proper batteries on the back which actually had a bit of weight to balance out the lens. The JVC batteries which we used were not quite up to the job, and despite apparently being charged, ran out quite quickly.

The camera had good output options as far as I could see including a composite standard resolution picture whilst shooting HDV ... obviously very useful if you want to preview and don't have a HD monitor handy! We were told that the component HD output was actually superior to the recorded material. In other words 50 frames could be taken from the output when only 25 frames were recorded to the tape. The only problem we could find was when we put the camera up to 18db of gain one side of the screen was darker than the other and slightly discoloured ... maybe just a problem with this particular camera but might be worth watching out for??

Again I'm sorry that I can't provide screen shots but it seems that the cameras are arriving now so someone else should be able to do this soon I'm sure ...

Thanks,

Tim

The only problem we could find was when we put the camera up to 18db of gain one side of the screen was darker than the other and slightly discoloured ... maybe just a problem with this particular camera but might be worth watching out for??

Thanks,

Tim

Have a look at my post http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=48851&page=2. I'm beginning to think this is not a coincidence. Was one side of the screen showing red noise?
Was there any dead pixels after putting in gain?

Tim posted: "We were told that the component HD output was actually superior to the recorded material. In other words 50 frames could be taken from the output when only 25 frames were recorded to the tape".

Is there some way we can capture these 50 frames to a hard drive or ?
I am sorry if this is answered somewhere else, I vaguely remember some posts awhile back but ...
Thanks,
Stephen

There has been talk about the firestore being able to record the 50 frames but havn't seen anything in writing yet.

The FireStore will not be able to record anything that the tape can't record. It won't be possible for the FireStore to record the 720/50p or 720/60p modes.

oh ok so what would you need then?

You cannot record the 50p mode unless you have some sort of analog uncompressed HD capture station. That's going to mean something that can write and store at least 167 megabytes per second(!), and that's just for 8-bit quality. If you want it quantized at 10 bit, you'll need more like 200 megabytes per second.

That's going to mean a RAID of hard disks, probably at least six. And a fast enough computer to handle the throughput. And an HD capture card. And that's all going to be expensive -- a wild guess says maybe $15,000. And it's not going to be portable at all -- this is going to be a desktop station.

And, on top of that, you'll need enough storage, because a gigabyte will only get you about 5 seconds of footage.

In other words, trying to record the uncompressed analog 50p output is pretty much fantasy. It ain't gonna happen, for the vast, vast, vast majority of circumstances.

Barry, you pretty much described what is often called 'The Video Village' when directors are using HD to make a movie. They mount them on something with wheels (usually a dark tent on a platform).

Seems like an powerful inverter (at least 3K) and a good sized deep cycle battery(at least 100 amp hrs) to keep it mobile.

Not something you can mount on your camera then. ;-)

That's certainly true of capturing it uncompressed. However, is there a codec you could capture in that would allow you to use say a laptop with some type of converter and a couple external drives? Could you capture it as DVCPRO HD?

I suppose in that case you could just run it to a deck, huh? So if you've already got a deck, or if you need it on an occasional basis, you could rent and still not feel like you're over doing it for a 1/3" HDV cam, huh?

All you need to capture the 50 or 60 frames per secound is an HD-SDI converter that runs around 3000 dollars. Also JVC sells an MPEG-2 encoder for 30,000 dollars that can handle 720p60 so you don't have to record it to the hard drive in an uncompressed format.

All you need to capture the 50 or 60 frames per secound is an HD-SDI converter that runs around 3000 dollars.
No, all that will do is convert the analog signal to HD-SDI. You still need a RAID of hard disks to be able to capture that.

To add to Barry's comment, that's where the real bucks come in, because you'll need a RAID of at least 8 drives, 10 is better. Plus the controller. On another forum, there is a guy with a 6 drive, 15k spin drive speed RAID, who says it's working great, but I'm personally a little frightened of the faster speed drive systems.

You can capture to other codecs that take up less space but you still need a desktop computer and currently it only works with Apple. With a Decklink card you can take a converted SDI output and capture to DVCPro HD which would work on normal harddrives. This would at least get rid of the need for a massive amount of expensive hard drives. You will still need a component to SDI converter.

No laptop out there has any type of SDI inputs so this will never work. Firewire is out of the question because of the encoder inside of the HD100. In order for a HDV signal to be sent via firewire it has to be encoded and the problem with the HD100 is that the encoder just cannot encode 50 or 60 frames per second. The best you will ever get from firewire and the HD100 is 24,25 or 30 fps.

On the PC side you could go with Prospect HD from Cineform. This again would still need a desktop but would allow you to capture almost uncompressed using the high quality Cineform codec and only taking up around as much as 20 MB/s which might still work on a fast normal hard drive.

The problem with the JVC encoder is that it costs 30,000 dollars. So with an HD-SDI converter and a wireless router you can import uncompressed video into a desktop have it encoded using the DVC Pro HD codec and store it on a regular harddrive ?

This might seem very green, but all I would need to capture/Edit 60p is a HD-SDI convertor and computer system that could say run Cinform ProspectHD?

Tommy I don't know about wireless, but there are component to cat 5 baluns (both ways) that let you extend your signal over 150 feet. Maybe Spot can expand on that. Wireless has some way to go to get enough bandwidth as far as I know. (I'm referring to uncompressed HD, not SD).

Hi Barry,

I jump in lately here:

You cannot record the 50p mode unless you have some sort of analog uncompressed HD capture station. [..] That's going to mean a RAID of hard disks, probably at least six. And a fast enough computer to handle the throughput. And an HD capture card. And that's all going to be expensive -- a wild guess says maybe $15,000. And it's not going to be portable at all -- this is going to be a desktop station.

And, on top of that, you'll need enough storage, because a gigabyte will only get you about 5 seconds of footage.

In other words, trying to record the uncompressed analog 50p output is pretty much fantasy. It ain't gonna happen, for the vast, vast, vast majority of circumstances.

You are pretty right in most points. But I would deny on saing its aint gonna happen. It simply depend on what type of shooting you are doing.

For ENG type work, ie. camera guys hunting for latest news stuff, the cable bound camera is definetly a problem.

For guys shooting feature films, commercials, documentaries I see nearly no problems with on-set harddisk recording. In fact, guys who used a 35mm camera so far and had the video preview option running are simply used to a cable bound camera system.

If you have power lines to feed some lamps on-set you have more than enough power to feed an on-set recording system too.

It all will not be a complex thing to handle, its taking place often when large feature HD shootings run. Looking at Viper, Origin, Arri D20 you will always live with the cable. No one is angry about it.

Obviously a 6,000 US$ HDV gear won't match a 100,000 US$ Varicam in results. But the cost saving involved here allows those who need the best possible output (low compression or uncompressed HD720p) to utilize on-set recording systems when applicable. If one needs green screen or blue screen I'd even recommend uncompressed recording when using a Varicam (we do so). The compression of Varicam and HD CAM is basically not better than keying DV25 signals, just larger images.

I believe that on-set recording systems with HDV gears will shake the market of indy movie making with some unexpected results.

The idea of using a deck is also very valid to me (we will check with JVC GY-HD100 and Panasonic AJ-HD1200ae in a few days).

I know so many poeple who shot commercials originally on 35mm and now don't hesitate to use a Canon XL1s with Mini35 for the same kind of projects. The budgets forced them to do this, and it keeps their profit in acceptable ranges. After all: Why not. If one want the ultimost quality - go on and do IMAX recordings. For all others HDV & on-set recording (btw. its also on-set editing then...) is a neat option.

Regards,
Axel

Hi Axel,

Hey, I have no problem whatsoever with being cabled to a computer -- that's the way I shoot nearly everything nowadays, running a firewire cable to DV Rack (or HDV Rack, as the case may be).

What I'm talking about is the computing hardware necessary to handle uncompressed output. I figure it's on the order of $20,000 of hardware to get a desktop computer that can handle it. Then you'll have to have some sort of cart to haul it around in, etc. In other words, like I said -- it isn't gonna happen, for the vast, vast majority of people.

A $1000 laptop running a $495 product like HDV Rack -- yes, that's within people's reach. But a $20,000 desktop with a RAID of hard disks -- not practical. Yes it can be done, but it's just not practical.

Hi Barry,

you are right for most of the intended customers on HDV camera systems, thats quite sure.

Obviously companies like Sony don't like the idea to use an HDV camera as uncompressed quality camera head, surpassing recording quality of high end gears.

But on the other hand exactly this will happen for serious low budget projects where quality of recording is an issue (like bluebox/greenbox keying etc.) and where even high end gears start to get problems.

Look at the Mini35 from P+S. How many poeple use them? How many of them own it? That vast majority here rents the device on demand. I believe the same will happen with adequately equipped recording systems.

Your estimate on 20,000 for the system is comfortable. I know it can be done cheaper (we work on that) and you will end up with something that is totally helpful on-set, because with it you have:

- uncompressed recording
- compressed recording with various codecs
- native HD monitoring
- editing
- keying
- compositing
- immediate backup
- optional RAID 3/5/6/50/60 security features
- no extra ingest sessions
- immediate best takes review and selection
- dailies reviewing "anywhere"
- delivery in various preview codecs and formats from WWW to DVD to HD
- all the other neat stuff a computer brings on-set

All this for 20,000? All this for 20,000!

Given a serious larger project, say a documentary of feature, you can save the complete amount during post production alone, which you will have to pay for the whole hardware.

More and more often I run into projects where the "G5 with Final Cut Pro HD" is part of the project budget and will be simply bought for on-set ingest/edit/review of DVC PRO HD or HDV material. Thats simply a fact. When they leave the set, the rough cut is online on their disks. In final image quality. That is the future of production and not just on low budget projects.

What would one pay per day for such a system? Something like 150 to 300 bucks? Like one rents the HDV for 100 and the P+S for another 100? How many days in post will be saved, time (and money) for ingest of material, selection of takes, matching CGI/VR elements with life shots, recapturing from EDL's etc. etc. etc.

It always depends on the projects. I have spoken to many film production houses recently, and not a single one was not interested in using this.

Clearly, it would be even better if it was cheap and small and still does uncompressed. Wait some time. There are thing to come that fit even the cable free workflow, higher quality expectations and potentially even the budgets.

Regards,
Axel