Many thanks to Scott Webster for submitting these. You'll need QuickTime 7 to view the two video clips. Mac users should have no problem, but if you're on a PC then you'll need the QuickTime 7 for Windows Public Preview 2 software which you can download from Apple at:

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/preview/

A note from Marty Hudzik: "Quicktime 7 preview 2 is not recommended on production machines as its integration with many other applications is not final. This is a known issue of the beta. I thought I should forewarn anyone using Premiere Pro and Quicktime that there may be issues."

Download the following clips to your local hard drive and rename them.
Rename the .tifx extensions to .tif and the .movx extensions to .mov

www.hdvinfo.net/media/rocketnz/hd101arttight.tifx
www.hdvinfo.net/media/rocketnz/hd101boatscity.tifx
www.hdvinfo.net/media/rocketnz/hd101citycranenight.tifx
www.hdvinfo.net/media/rocketnz/hd101morecitynight.tifx
www.hdvinfo.net/media/rocketnz/hd101skytower.tifx

and

www.hdvinfo.net/media/rocketnz/hd101aucklandsmall.movx
www.hdvinfo.net/media/rocketnz/hd101nightsmall.movx

Obviously these were shot in and around Auckland, New Zealand with a new a new JVC GY-HD101E. Scott reports that since they are using Final Cut Pro 5, the video clips had to be done in 720p30. No motion smoother applied to video. They were unable to test 24p/25p due to the limitations of FCP5.

What do you think?

Hi Guys

I shot the footage. Please take this into account when viewing them:

1. I'm not a professional cameraman or enthusiastic amatuer
2. All under/over exposed/soft focus footage is my fault
3. I am not getting to grips with the VF very well
4. All 'wobble cam' is my fault
5. Camera is factory set
6. I am not shooting the general public and putting them on the net without their consent, so sorry no skin tones.

The color palette of the JVC seems to be somewhat less rich/saturated than the Z1, somewhat muted. There is noise there too which is not on the Z1 and a sort of matte effect.

The shots of the bridge and boats was taken on dying batteries. This meant I had to quickly find the shot, focus, -camera would die. Power up and hit record before camera dies again.

To make things hard for myself I used a Manfrotto 501 tripod. Never again.

I will try and get to a skate/bmx park to get shots in 30p with 'motion smooth' on

I'm not giving up my day job.

Looks pretty good all in all.

Some comments:

There is some noticable banding in the sky in the marina shots on the auklandsmall clip. During sunset it looks like, with subtle sky colors that just aren't going to come out.

The shots of the graffiti covered overpass are very vibrant, saturated and clear.

Pretty severe banding in the skies in the night footage. Not so great at twighlight and for subtle color differences.

Based on this footage, I probably wouldn't want to use this camera in low/no-light situations. But the jury is still out until I try one myself.

EDIT: AH! just noticed that these clips have been recompressed in Apples H.264 codec. Which might account for the banding. Not really a useful judge of the footage I'm afraid unless we can get a short clip that is still in it's original HDV format. Any chance of that?

EDIT: AH! just noticed that these clips have been recompressed in Apples H.264 codec. Which might account for the banding. Not really a useful judge of the footage I'm afraid unless we can get a short clip that is still in it's original HDV format. Any chance of that?

The problem we had (and I'll confirm with the editor) is we chose the FCP codec '720 p30' (or it could have been a blackmagic choice)

We don't know what it was doing to the footage off the HD101 but we didn't have any problem bringing it in by firewire. Chose the H.264 as we were editing in FCP and it seemed a good choice to allow the most universal ability to playback the files.

If anyone has any other suggestions as what the FCP5 setting should be to bring in the footage, we would love to have them. We had no joy with prohd 720/25p material.

Thanks Scott for sharing this footage and Chris for hosting it.

I agree with John that the graffiti shots looks great.

Looking at the tiffs the sky looks a little noisy in all the other pics (both night and day)... but it's a bit difficult to tell from the H.264 clips if that's gain style noise or fixed pattern noise (mentioned in another thread).

Judging by the tiffs there looks like a tiny bit of banding in the night shots, but it's hard to tell.

Not quite the 70mm film-a-like I was hoping for, but then I have very high standards and a very small wallet. :D

Hi Scott,

If I didn't say it before, thanks very much for sharing these clips with us. No need for the disclaimer at the front, I happen to think the shots are very nicely composed.

Well, I also have FCP5 and could view the clips as the direct .mov files you captured, (but that doesn't help anyone that doesn't have fcp5). As FCP won't capture a .m2t file, but puts it's own quicktime wrapper on things.

The files you have now are instructive in a way. Seeing as how the upcoming Blue-Ray DVD's will be using h.264 as the format for compressing HD signals. It gives us a look at what the results might be if we delivered on the new HD capable DVDs.

But judging the footage like that is kind of like trying to judge the quality of a DigiBeta master by looking at a mpeg2 DVD. Still the vibrancy and saturation of the colors seem to hold up very well, but honestly it needs some work I think, with the banding.

Since you've actually used it, what's your gut reaction? How did it feel, was battery life an issue (I believe you alluded to that). What was annoying with it? Inquiring minds want to know!

Thanks very much for posting the clips.

On my XP laptop (I have a 16x9 screen) just now I personally thought the clips looked like the HD10U. It's a step up, but it's not that much better in my opinion. I'll have to look on my G5 later on...hopefully, it'll look tons better.

Anyone else notice the street lights? Also, the chroma still looks weird like a HD10U. The daylight shots look very good, but so did the HD10U.

Thanks for the clips Scott! I messed about with the MOV with the boats in shake, and was able to pull a decent key on the sky. I'm impressed.

Thank you for the images and video. It is great to finally get a chance to see what this camera can do.

The camera isn't perfect from what I can tell so far but it also looks very good. I wouldn't say it looks any better or worse than any other current 1/3" HDV camera out there. It just looks different. Different doesn't make it good or bad however. For months now we kind of have it burned into our minds that the Z1 is how HDV should look.

The banding issue is very interesting. I see it in the Tifs as well so it isn't an extra compression thing. If this banding is from the camera JVC really needs to look into this.

The clear blue sky shots were very helpfull for us to check how well keying would work. There is some edge enhancement going on but there should be enough contorls on the camera to reduce that.

It sure is nice to have clean progressive footage at this resolution.

I didn't notice the noise as much as other people. I have always thought JVC had a certain level of grain to their video. Again I think this is just a different look and not really all that bad.

I can't wait to see footage from a Z1 and HD100 side by side. That will be very interesting.

Hopefully Somebody will address the lack of 24p and 25p capture soon.

Anyone else notice the street lights? Also, the chroma still looks weird like a HD10U. The daylight shots look very good, but so did the HD10U.

I noticed the street lights as well - it could be an exposure/gamma curve thing due to clipping (hopefully). The chroma still looks off to me as well, but you would need some carefully white balanced and correctly exposed shots to verify.

Ok, I've now looked at the footage on both an XP and Mac G5 machine with Cinema Display.

I hate to say this, but the image looks like an improved HD10U. Unfortunately, it doesn't look greatly improved either. It looks less compressed (grainy), but I still see chroma issues. It's definately cleaner, but it looks like a cleaner HD10U to me.

If anyone sees the same thing please let me know. I wouldn't say it's a bad image or a great image...it's a nice HDV image.

Maybe my excitement level isn't what it used to be? If this camera were the one put out instead of the HD10U...back then I would have flipped out.

First, thanks to Chris and Scott for posting this files.

I must say I'm quite disappointed with the footage, hopefully this is just how it looks with default settings and you'll be able to do much better.

I thought the footage looked a lot like stuff I've seen from the FX1/Z1 pair.

Even with Shapness turned off, it still seems to me the camera will have a 'fuzzy' image, too smooth for sharp HD. The shots with the tower and harbour in the distance show the limits of a 1/3" lens.

In the graffiti medium shot all looked very FX1 like, maybe slightly better. Very sharp and clean, very nice rich colors.

It's good, but not great. Hopefully results with a 1/2" will improve significantly.

Hmm. My first thought is...

...it's about the same as the Sony. I'd like to see some human faces if possible.

Thanks for posting the clips!

Thanks for all the images Scott. I was hoping that the first clips from this camera would have been more impressive.

Seams to be somthing wrong whith the sky, there are some blocks there. And also, the contrast looks bad on all the pictures.

The pictures looks plain dead and not good at all.


If it depends on the shooter or the camera itself, I dont now, but I get the feeling my Canon XM1 (GL1 NTSC), on full auto settings, would perform better, exept for the resolution.

Maybe you need to have wery controled lightning for this camera to perform well?


Excuse my spelling.
Mikael from Sweden

I think that the camera can do a lot better. Have you ever seen what a 1/2 DV does on full auto?
No difference here, the test has to be done under full control of the camera. This camera is sure not made for an amateurs. I think that potential is there, with HD you need a monitor just to focus the thing and control peeking.
The shot of the marina looks like it was done with a different camera.

Big dissapointment. Im waiting for mine to be shipped, but those footage looks like blown up SD of some kind...even worse!

I really hope the disappointment is due to the recompression in Apples H.264 codec. I am also waiting for mine to arrive soon! If this is its best "behavior", I'd better stick to my HD10. I have way better things comming out of the HD10 than from this samples! Again, I REALLY hope is the H.264 thing. And even with blamming on it, what is the Blue-Ray future? Is this it?

Since you've actually used it, what's your gut reaction? How did it feel, was battery life an issue (I believe you alluded to that). What was annoying with it? Inquiring minds want to know!

The camera is battery hungry. We bought 3 of the larger JVC batteries to go with the camera and I'm pretty sure 40 minutes is about the most you'll get out of one.

An Anton Bauer or V-lock adapter is going to be essential with the camera.

The camera is extremely well built with only the VF, battery surround, and lens bayonet mount being pastic.

The menu control is the best I've used for access and display in this type of camera.

I think both the VF and LCD on the JVC to be poor. I asked one of our cameramen for his opinion and his answer was it what he would expect from a camera at this price point. I think that was his diplomatic way of saying you get what you pay for.

I would say the LCD is below that of a PD170 and DVX100.

Personally I struggle with the VF, but then I don't spend 10hr days looking down the spout as a job.

Our Z1 came through between shoots and I checked the VF and LCD for a comparison and find it a large improvement on the JVC. I'll be interested in others opinion on this. There is also mirrored ghosting in the VF of some of the VF displays.

Maybe someone will introduce an aftermarket VF like what was available for the Canon XL's.

Focus assist works well. All controls are easily accessable, although the VF peaking and brightness dials would of been better on the front of the VF.

A zoom rocker incorporated into the handle would of been a nice touch too.

On other still shots we have grabbed there is chromatic aberration happening with the lens.

The 16x on it also has 85mm diameter which means a Chroszial Sunshade goes on the front no problem. Annoyingly the Fujinon Wide Angle Lens Adapter is slightly less in diameter so you will need a separate adapter ring for that.

Haven't done much testing with the Fujinon W.A Adapter, but we have dubbed it the 'Slightly Wider Angle Adapter'

I can't touch the Century Optics HD Adapter for the Z1 which is a stunning bit of glass. I would imagine Century will have something out for the JVC.

There is noise in the picture, its not ditracting from it but it is there. one of our cameraman joked it was nice of them to include 500ASA grain to the picture.Oh how we laughed.

The camera RRP NZ$9995 with the W.A adapter included. I believe if the camera only did 16:9/4:3 SD dv/dv 25p it is still a great camera at a great price. And at this point it's pretty much all we can market it as, as there is no edit support for Prohd 24/25p

The cameras form factor is excellent and even balances well on the shoulder with the standard JVC batteries.

Now the very bad news. Our camera is going back to JVC. Through our extensive testing we have discovered two pixels gone on the CCD.

One black and one white. If you cap the lens and introduce gain the CCD looks like the milky way. We even nick named one group of pixels 'Orions Belt'

Also through hooking the camera up component out into a HP L2335 LCD display there is some sort of red noise evident on the CCD. Even stranger is this effect is more pronounced on one side of the CCD than the other, almost split screen.

We are of course hoping we just got a bad camera but when I saw the post below I was a little more concerned:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=48808

Our supplier is getting another shipment on Monday so they can compare our camera with those to see what the deal is.

Anyone wanting to test there camera, you need to run it off the AC supply for at least 3hrs, cap the lens, close the iris and introduce gain.

We are a rental house in New Zealand and do not sell cameras so I have no prejudice against JVC, Panasonic or Sony, we buy what people want to rent.

I put the clips and tif's up as we were in the unique postion of actually having a camera before the USA or UK! We rely on the net for feedback on gear from markets that have access before us. I saw it as a way of repaying those that have done it in the past.

It also has been an excellent learning exercise on getting to know the gear we rent.

I look forward to other opinions and thoughts on the camera, I hope you gain something from our experience so far.

Edit:Originally Posted by Tim R Young http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?p=342495#post342495
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??

Captured some bmx riders pulling tricks in a skate park. Also got some rugby league footage.

Did these 720/30p with 'motion smooth' on. If Chris is interested and if I managed to catch something worth editing together, we'll offer it up for posting.

Should be good to go by Wednesday.

The week of the 15th our Z1 should be back in and we'll line up both cameras on a dsc chart, pull tif's and post them.

If the opportunity arises I'll try and get one of our crew to take the camera and see what he can do with it.

I hope we see more feedback from Europe and Australia.

It interesting that these problems exist considering they are shooting a motion picture which 2 of them at the moment.

http://www.jvcpro-australia.com/JVCPRO/jsp/c_press-release-item.jsp?category=Latest&elementID=90

I guess they must have something going for them.

Thanks for posting notice of this press release, Sean -- I wasn't aware of that before.

First of all it is generally recognized that in order to rival 1080i you need 720p shot at 60 frames per secound. 720p60 is the highest of the HDV formats and it gives you the greatest pixel count. 1080i comes in secound place and 720p30 comes in last. However the higher pixel count of 1080i does you no good if the compression engine cannot handle it. Sony HDV users may be satisfied with the 26 megabit per secound bandwidth for handling fast motion but broadcasters do not have this bandwidth available. Broadcasters are limited to 19.7 megabits per secound and if there is a subchannel in the background they may have only 15 megabits of bandwidth available. This limited bandwidth was not satisfactory for the diving shots at last years Olympics and caused horrible artifacting. Had the JVC HD100 been available it would have blown any 100,000 dollar 1080i camera out of the water and would have provided good artifact free high definition footage for the diving shots at last years Olympics but of course the footage would have been softer. I much rather prefer a softer high definition than a high definition full of artifacts.

I really hope the disappointment is due to the recompression in Apples H.264 codec. I am also waiting for mine to arrive soon! If this is its best "behavior", I'd better stick to my HD10. I have way better things comming out of the HD10 than from this samples! Again, I REALLY hope is the H.264 thing. And even with blamming on it, what is the Blue-Ray future? Is this it?

I'm from the same company as Scott Webster - There is quite a bit of a difference between these "small" video clips and the native HDV files. I'll see what I can do about posting something in HDV 720p30.

The general idea was to use the stills to give a rough idea as to what the picture quality was like, and the mov's to give you an idea as to what the movement was like. The movie clip was never intended to be viewed as "this is what you get exactly."

You have to remember that not everyone on the net has super fast internet connections, so a format and size was chosen which was easy to gain access to (and add to that, our connection to the net isn't super fast either).

The problem we had (and I'll confirm with the editor) is we chose the FCP codec '720 p30' (or it could have been a blackmagic choice)

We don't know what it was doing to the footage off the HD101 but we didn't have any problem bringing it in by firewire. Chose the H.264 as we were editing in FCP and it seemed a good choice to allow the most universal ability to playback the files.

If anyone has any other suggestions as what the FCP5 setting should be to bring in the footage, we would love to have them. We had no joy with prohd 720/25p material.

Scott,

Thanks for the footage. since it was shot in 720p30, the proper setup for FCP 5 would the same. There is an Easy Setup selection for that format. I would like to see some clips in the native format as others have mentioned. In FCP if you export using "QuickTime Movie" as opposed to "Using QuickTime Conversion", choose "Make Movie Self Contained" and your file will be the same format as the timeline in which you edited, in this case 720P30. You may have already know that but I just wanted to mention it.

We are considering this camera as our entry into the HD world and my boss has shot Beta SP all his life si he is quite picky about the quality and artifacts.

These particular clips have now been withdrawn, but we'll have others available soon. Many thanks to Scott Webster and Matthew Redmond for sharing this video.

To make things hard for myself I used a Manfrotto 501 tripod. Never again.


Are 501's really that bad, In every shop I ask which tripod is best for a JVC HD100 and they suggest the 501?

Which Tripod would you suggest?



Cheers!

501 has been great for all my projects with the HD100 and other cameras. Maybe that is a defective one... If you ask me for a recommendation, that would be mine: Manfrotto 501 with a good Manfrotto tripod.

Luis

501 has been great for all my projects with the HD100 and other cameras. Maybe that is a defective one... If you ask me for a recommendation, that would be mine: Manfrotto 501 with a good Manfrotto tripod.

Luis

It depends where you're coming from in the business, Luis. If you're a video hobbyist and the only tripod heads you've used are the ones you've bought for yourself, then a 501 is probably going to be one of the nicer ones you've seen in a store and had the opportunity to check out or purchase.

If you're coming from a professional background and ever used something like a Sachtler 7+7, or O'Connor Ultimate (heads that cost $3-7K), then a 501 is going to leave a lot to be desired.

If it works for you, that's all the matters.

To add to what Nate Weaver said (in a parallel). If you can master a cheaper head that 'sticks' occasionally and get great results then you've mastered your tool. 501 and 503 are decent heads, but just like anything else, they are tools that you have to master. If later on down the road you get a Sachtler, the skill you learned on a 501 will make your skill with a Sachtler even better.

If you can work it and get satisfactory results then NOBODY knows or cares what tripod your camera is sitting on.

best,

It depends where you're coming from in the business, Luis. If you're a video hobbyist and the only tripod heads you've used are the ones you've bought for yourself, then a 501 is probably going to be one of the nicer ones you've seen in a store and had the opportunity to check out or purchase.

If you're coming from a professional background and ever used something like a Sachtler 7+7, or O'Connor Ultimate (heads that cost $3-7K), then a 501 is going to leave a lot to be desired.

If it works for you, that's all the matters.

Nate,

I underderstand your point, but the 501 is widey use not just for hobbyists (by the way, I am not one and have successfully used it in short, feature, spots and documentaries). If someone is not willing or just cannot afford to pay $3-7K for a head, the 501 is more than enought for basically any type of filming application.

Just because in the "professional" world (meaning the big companies) are in the position of spending that type of money, it doen not preculde for a more conciencious cinematographer to use the 501 with excellent results. Is just a matter of skills and the ability of the opertor to utilize them with the resources at hand.

Just my 2 cents.

Respectfully,

Luis

Thanks guys,

For short films etc, I think I might go for the 501 - I'd rather pay £350 than £3000 anyday.

At least until I am higher up on the ladder of success.

Thanks again :)