Someone asked me to shoot in Cinema Effect mode to compare to normal HDV 1080i clips that are deinterlaced. I posted raw Cinema Effect clips and raw HDV 1080i clips, so you can play around to compare.

I also have similar clips with steadyshot on and off, so you can use those for comparing the quality in steadyshot feature.

Xtream.ne.jp Kakugyo Media Study blog (http://www.xtream.ne.jp/content/category/6/48/62/)

Much appreciated as always, Kaku! Thanks a lot,

My pleasure, Chris.

Kaku, I'd love to view your examples, but when I try to create a new user login, I get a message box with some japaneese writing and an OK button. AAny ideas what I'm doing wrong? Thanks

Kaku, I'd love to view your examples, but when I try to create a new user login, I get a message box with some japaneese writing and an OK button. AAny ideas what I'm doing wrong? Thanks

Paul,

The regsitration page has Japanes and English text and you just have to correctly type in your name, desired id(hopefully your real name), your valid email address for confirmation, desired password and lastely, type in the same passward onece more for the verification.

You will receive an email to activate the acount, if you type in invalid email address then you can't go further.

Hope this works out.

Thank you very much for your interest.

Kaku

I got stuck at first too, but I finally got it to work. You just have to wait for your password to get emailed to you.

Thanks so much for all that footage, Kaku. I've downloaded most of it. The quality is really good! Much better than I was expecting after the camera was trounced in so many forums before it even came out.

I walked into Best Buy the other day, and there was the HC-1 just sitting with all the other consumer junk! I almost tripped over myself before I got to it.

The store guy just disapeared when I asked if I could plug it into one of the plasma TV's that were near it. I actually got to hold it in my hands though....

Very slick little black beauty of camera. It looks and feels a lot more pro than I was expecting. It's kind of small, but feels solid in your hand. I actually didn't mind the onscreen controls. They weren't as combersome as I thought. I never shoot while I'm adjusting things anyway. The viewfinder and the screen were very sharp. Colors looked great. It's got that Sony color...

The steady shot was doing very well. The auto focus was much faster than my Optura Xi (AF is it's weak spot).

I did notice some grain creeping in pretty easy when I zoomed in on some dark areas of a lit store sign. It seemed a little too prone to that.

Kaku, I found one thing in the menu's that really surprised me : my treasured Soft Portrait mode from my old Sony D8! Yes! I love the film-like look of that one. I think it removes all the edge enhancement.

Have you tried shooting with that on at all? I wonder what Soft Portrait would look like with the Cinema effect?

Kevin

Kevin,

Thank you for all of your input, too. I never tried the portrait thing much, to I will see how well it works.

Cool that you got it at great deal. I think I got it at one of the best price, too since Provideo Station Shinjuku really values my efforts and they are nice to me.

The size really matters to me. I would end up shooting more interesting things by having two of these than having one FX1. So, I'm debating what to do. Maybe I should sell the FX1 and buy two A1s, so I would have three very similar cams (it was very effective when I had three PDX10s). The flavor of FX1 is different from HC1/A1 for sure. But FX1's wide angle is really nice.

I'm doing some onboard night shooting with a girl mountainbiker tonight (in the city), so it should be interesting.

Cool that you got it at great deal. I think I got it at one of the best price, too since Provideo Station Shinjuku really values my efforts and they are nice to me.What Kevin is talking about when he says "Best Buy" is a store name. So he has not actually bought the camera yet! Similar name to that chain in Japan called "Best". And they sell the same sorts of things, appliances and home electronics.

-Lorin

Kaku,

I've read that progressive compresses much better than interlace, so maybe there will be a lot of compression improvement if it is de-interlaced before record than afterwards. Any chance of testing this out with high movement shots and pans?

Thanks

What Kevin is talking about when he says "Best Buy" is a store name. So he has not actually bought the camera yet! Similar name to that chain in Japan called "Best". And they sell the same sorts of things, appliances and home electronics.

-Lorin

Ah, I miss-read it then. Yes, there is Best Denki which is originated in Kyushu area but not slowly invading Kanto area, too.

Thanks Lorin.

Kaku,

I've read that progressive compresses much better than interlace, so maybe there will be a lot of compression improvement if it is de-interlaced before record than afterwards. Any chance of testing this out with high movement shots and pans?

Thanks

Hello Wayne,

Yeah, I think so, too. There's not much setting you can choose with HC1 to shoot in progressive (frame) mode, so I'm looking forward to test more with HVR-A1 (most likely I'm replacing GS400s to one that).
Meanwhile, I will do something with HC1 and the Cinema effect.

AND,

I bought the video/IR light for HC1 yesterday. I will do some night shooting with this and post some clips. Also purchased the surround microphone. I would do serious multi-channel recording with MOTU Digital Performer with Traveler audio interface and microphones, but I want to see how handy system like this can aid the visuals with surround sound track. I'm equipped with PMC IB1s, TB2s in the surround setup with Bryston amps to do very strict evaluation. So, I will let you know how well HC1 and the surround mic do 4 channel recording (and apply the 4 channel recording into the space of 5.1).

Thanks Kaku, I finnaly got it to work. Download went well, but I've been too busy to study them yet, hopefully this weekend. I Sure appreciate all your work and that you've shared it with us. Take Care.

Kaku

I finally got around to downloading those shoots a few days back (after about an hour of trying to get registered, in English mode the site still gives pop up instructions in Japanese). Unfortunately the VLC Video Lan player will not play them properly on my machine. So I was going to ask your impressions on where ever cinema effect de-interlaces and gets rid of compression motion artifacts.

I however, have been looking up information about cineframe, and unable to find an accurate description of cinema effect (except assertions that it is the same as cineframe). Maybe you or somebody else with access to the information can help me here? Is it true that cinema effect only tries to do cineframe 24 type effect not 30fps? Is it true that in no mode (cinema effect or cine-frame) does the HC1 or A1 cameras do true de-interlacing to 1080 true lines instead of line doubling? Obviously if such a mode is not available then it is unsuitable for any sort of quality 30/25/24fps camera work, don't matter how much it helps compression.

Thanks

Wayne.

Hello Wayne,

Yeah, I think so, too. There's not much setting you can choose with HC1 to shoot in progressive (frame) mode, so I'm looking forward to test more with HVR-A1 (most likely I'm replacing GS400s to one that).
Meanwhile, I will do something with HC1 and the Cinema effect.

Wayne,

I'm sorry to hear that the clips did not play wiht your VLC. Wonder what the problem is but you are the first one that mention this.


As far as progressive goes, we should be able to compare by making a still frame capture, so I will do that for you. HC1's cinemaeffect only has 24frame, no 30. However, A1 is equipped with 24 and 30. And I haven't looked up for the way they deinterlace since I wasn't interested in 24 frame cinemaeffect, but I will try to look it up. I shot some jumping video in front of still camera at both modes/shutter speed 1000 yesterday, so we can look at the still frame to evaluate on it.

Here are my other thoughts at this point.

1. Shooting at 1080i, I got really bad HDV compression for panning the fast moving cast in front of complicated background (such as trail in the mountain). For this problem, I wonder shooting at 30p aviod the compression. I will do this test getting my wife's help as usual.

2. I wish Sony HDV cams had modes like 720i and 720p.

3. The zooming with the ring on HC1 sucks. It can be used for very limited way. I prefer the zoom ring on Panasonic AG-DVC30, it was so much better.

Thanks Kaku

Sorry, the problem is bad machine that need 20 hour reinstall and maybe new motherboard/processor. The VLC just gums everything and makes it jump around a lot (after optimising it) so hard to judge.

I've already located high shutter speed de-interlace frames through still frame capture at hdvinfo using the capture, good for compression and de-interlacing. But the problem is that the cineframe modes only record one field and plays it back with double hight pixels (half the resolution) and Cineframe 24 is weird (I'm in Pal market, no need for that pull down) but I wonder if it offers any advantage in repeating fields not requiring additional compression). But, again, cineframe 24 likely is to offer me little advantage over using 1080-50i mode.

"2. I wish Sony HDV cams had modes like 720i and 720p."

Me too, would have solved many problems, click to which ever one the TV network prefers.