OK, last week and this weekend I have been doing some shooting with H1 and Mini35. I connected the camera sdi output to my MAC and recorded to DVCPRO HD 50i. The result? Great, I am very happy, it took me two month of experimenting with mini, and finaly I am there. Very nice quality, no visible grain, (a little bit of soft focus) but everyone that saw the footage, thought it was 35mm film. And the best thing now is that, I had total of 5 days of shooting, total of 7 locations, and all of them turned out to be good, so we couldn't blame it on my luck.

Now of course I want to share my footage, and I have IDISK (mac) web space 1GB. But the problem is, that when I copy to the public folder a file that is more than 100MB, it gets stuck, I left it over the night, but it doesn't upload, and the also the bad part is that, for some reason, the space on my idisk gets less by exactly the same size as the file I tried to copy was. The space gets less, but file is not there.

If you tell me what could be the reason, and tell me how to solve it I will upload clips.

Hi Levan, what's the actual size of the file? I might be able to host it for you.

Well, there are several of them. total of 500mb would give me an opportunity to post all the different shots for comparison, but the smallest file is around 150mb, I am not in the office right now, I don't rememeber.

Oh, and thanks. :*)

Even just one or two would be great!

Levan, if you can't get your iDisk to work I'll offer mine for a few days.

email me if you want to do that.

Levan,

Please share your experiences with using the mini35. I'm about to shoot a project in April with the H1 and I'm seriously considering renting the mini35 adapter and some Zeiss primes.

Any notes on setup and things to avoid/do would be great!

Rob

OK, I am working on my IDISK problem, right now it is morning in Georgia, so before it gets evening here (it will be morning US time) I hope I will solve the problem, and I will upload straight away, I might cut some smaller durations.

Now, with experience, this is what I can say (but again, I think you might as well know it yourself). I turned NR2 to high, it helps with grain. and also, I turned set sharpness to +9, because mini35 makes focus really soft and from my point of view sharpness compensates it. Also, I never go higher than 4 on my canon K35 lense aperture, but going just about 5,6 is also ok. Gain definatelly should be -3, so you will need more light in dark situations. the speed of GG on mini35 I put to 6, because when you have shutter speed of 1/50, it might get syncronized with rotation of GG at some point and then you see that something rotates in the picture. Oh, I don't know why, but I noticed that using ND filters is not a good idea, well I understand that there might be some situations when you have to use ND filters, than you need to be more carefull. Also, the most important thing is that you must use HD monitor, and not small and with good resolution. In my case I took my apple cinema HD monitor with me, when I set up the location, I did some recording and then previewed the picture full screen, this is the only way to notice some grain that is not visible in very good Sony SD monitor. Never trust the viewfinder of the camera or any small size monitor, that is 100%.

the aperture of the relay lens don't have effect on the grain at all, so you can close it as much as you want, but the best setup is to have both lens open as much as possible.

Oh, and don't use the clear skin function. I think, camera percieve the GG to be skin or something happens like that, and when this function is on, you get a worse result, but than again I am not sure on this one.

If you have any more questions, I will be more than happy to share.

Hopefully, in several hours I will have some clips up on server.

Oh, and one more question. I captured everything via SDI output to DVCPRO HD 50i. So to which format do you want me to convet it to and how, to give PC users a chance to view it? I remember having this problem the last time, so I am not clear about it? Last time I did H.264 is it good enough?

H264 is de best compression for those things yes, the PC user has to download the latest version of Quicktime to view it. Note: This is ony for viewing purposes, not for editing!

OK. Then I will have h.264, that is easy, but when I convert I see that colors are changed in someway and the overall picture get more bright than it is with DVCPRO HD.

And you know, I was kind of surprised when I found out that DVCPRO HD is not supported by PC. Why? Or am I wrong here?

OK, I am working on my IDISK problem, right now it is morning in Georgia, so before it gets evening here (it will be morning US time) I hope I will solve the problem, and I will upload straight away, I might cut some smaller durations.

Now, with experience, this is what I can say (but again, I think you might as well know it yourself). I turned NR2 to high, it helps with grain. and also, I turned set sharpness to +9, because mini35 makes focus really soft and from my point of view sharpness compensates it. Also, I never go higher than 4 on my canon K35 lense aperture, but going just about 5,6 is also ok. Gain definatelly should be -3, so you will need more light in dark situations. the speed of GG on mini35 I put to 6, because when you have shutter speed of 1/50, it might get syncronized with rotation of GG at some point and then you see that something rotates in the picture. Oh, I don't know why, but I noticed that using ND filters is not a good idea, well I understand that there might be some situations when you have to use ND filters, than you need to be more carefull. Also, the most important thing is that you must use HD monitor, and not small and with good resolution. In my case I took my apple cinema HD monitor with me, when I set up the location, I did some recording and then previewed the picture full screen, this is the only way to notice some grain that is not visible in very good Sony SD monitor. Never trust the viewfinder of the camera or any small size monitor, that is 100%.

the aperture of the relay lens don't have effect on the grain at all, so you can close it as much as you want, but the best setup is to have both lens open as much as possible.

Oh, and don't use the clear skin function. I think, camera percieve the GG to be skin or something happens like that, and when this function is on, you get a worse result, but than again I am not sure on this one.

If you have any more questions, I will be more than happy to share.

Hopefully, in several hours I will have some clips up on server.

Thank you very much for sharing your insight with us. Much appreciated.

can't wait...not true...I'll wait.

..............

OK, so my IDISK has problems and I can't solve it, so I found the other web page for free sharing of files, and started uploading files there. At this moment, there is only one up and other are in progress.

http://rapidshare.de/files/14333520/1.mov.html

when you enter the adress, you will be asked the option for download service, and you have to choose free or premium. Free works well, but you will be limited per one download at a time.

as soon as other files will be there I will post new links.

Also, please consider that when I converted files to h.264 they became brighter and saturation of colors lowered. In original format they are much better.

Also files where you will see horses are shot with 50i mode no 25F and they are not in DVCPRO HD, they all are recorded on tape, on the other hand all the other materials are shot in DVCPRO HD 50i.

So, I will be waiting for you comments, as I am very interested in you suggestions if there are some improvement I might be able to make in future.

Oh, and scene with horses are overexposed, that is intentional, we wanted to achieve that kind of look there, kind of not realistic.

Ok, the new ones

http://rapidshare.de/files/14336692/2.mov.html
http://rapidshare.de/files/14339581/3.mov.html

2 more are on the way.

the new two dont work for me

the new two dont work for me


my mistake, I edited the post, so try again, it will work now.

ok, and one more

http://rapidshare.de/files/14353098/4.mov.html


there also is one more file on the way, but I will upload it tomorrow

OK. Then I will have h.264, that is easy, but when I convert I see that colors are changed in someway and the overall picture get more bright than it is with DVCPRO HD.

And you know, I was kind of surprised when I found out that DVCPRO HD is not supported by PC. Why? Or am I wrong here?See this about h.264

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showpost.php?p=423529&postcount=38

IMHO m2t is better than any other format. As I posted, see the Nick clips or kaku's. And with the same XL-H1. I didn't see yet your recent footage because I'm out from the office but if you will convert any other clip to PC viewers try first m2t, please. And only if it isn't possible, we will handle with the h.264. Also in the past I noticed the noise problem too. And with m2t the footage seems clean. I don't know why but this one performs it better. If possible test it to prove. I know that our major main is the acquisition but the delivery format is so much important, specially if we want evaluate the acquisition properties. For not to mention when there's a judgement involved.

OK, but how can I convert from DVCPRO HD to m2t? If you tell me this, I will try to convert to m2t and upload one of the clips in m2t too, so that you could compare.

I see that there have been 500 new viewing of this post, for the last two days, but no one has commented. Is there a problem with file server, was anybody yet able to download the clips and view them?

I see that there have been 500 new viewing of this post, for the last two days, but no one has commented. Is there a problem with file server, was anybody yet able to download the clips and view them?

I had the same problem with my Idisk. The problem is how much you allocate to your .mac mail account. It defaults to half of your disk space. It will show you have a lot of free space but you won't be able to upload the file. You need to access your .mac account and change the allocation.

-gb-

Hi Levan

Encoding with h.264 from Quicktime using a PC does change the overall brightness and colour. Apparently its a gamma issue with the way images are displayed on a MAC vs a PC. This happens when I encode any Quicktime on my PC and there appears to be no way to change the default gamma setting within Quicktime.

When encoding h.264 I now use the Main Concept encoder which does not present the problem.

Strangely when I play your Quicktimes on my PC in a window they are all appear washed out but playing in Quicktime full screen mode(on a 1920x1200 LCD) the colours appear fine.

The clips are nice however and there is no problem downloading all of them, fast connection at Rapidshare only took 8 mins for clips 3 & 4 to come down the pipe.

The depth of field really shows up in the clip looking through the horses legs, nice!


OK. Then I will have h.264, that is easy, but when I convert I see that colors are changed in someway and the overall picture get more bright than it is with DVCPRO HD.

And you know, I was kind of surprised when I found out that DVCPRO HD is not supported by PC. Why? Or am I wrong here?

Hi Levan. I just checked out the clips. Any chance we could get a snippet of raw .m2t file, or whatever format you originally captured to? This combo (h1 and mini35) is something I'm quite interested in.

For the most part, I feel like focus either drifts or is soft on the main subject in much of this footage. Perhaps the conversion to h.264 created some of this? An exception was the push into the man by the car in 4.mov. That looks fantastic. Across all of the clips I found color, composition, and camera work to be really well done it looks very filmic.

But a great deal of the footage seems to have either soft focus or focus drift problems. What are your thoughts on that given that you're looking at the original footage?

Thanks so much for putting the clips up.

Sorry, but I would appreciate if you explain what does DRIFT FOCUS mean. (english is not my native language). Well, focus is softer with mini35, there are several reasons for that, main thing is that we do not have HD video assitant monitor, which makes it harder to focus with just SD monitor or the thru camera viewfinder, but again that is only to some point, because mini35 itself introduces some softness with focus, but in general, for filmic look, softness is something that I don't mind at all, but to a certain point of course.

also, the biggest problem with mini35 was the visible ground glass grain, because of high resolution of the H1, but this footage is clean of any hard grain issues, I think. What do you think?

No problem: by "focus drift" I meant that it seems like objects move slightly into and out of focus from one moment to the next. Almost as if someone were very slightly moving the focus ring back and forth.

Having looked through everything a second and third time, maybe all I'm seeing is a little wobble on some of the focus racks. For example, in 4.mov, the tracking shot with a rack from a near car to a far car -- the far car comes into sharp focus and then gets a bit softer again. Another thing that might have really caused my comment was the shot in 2.mov looking from the front of the moving car. Upon review it's pretty clear that the small focus changes are likely due to road vibration.

So, I understand now. Well, for example in the situation with focus pull from near car to far car, I suspect what could be the problem there. Since the far car is far enough to set the lens focus to infinity, then I couldn't say that it is we couldn't detect the right focus on SD monitor, basicly the only thing we had to do is to rotate the focus all the way to infinity, and as you can see we do that, and at some moment it gets sharp and gets a bit unsharp again. could that be cause by follow focus system? I mean, the focus assitant pull the focus with his hand all the way to infinity and when he let go the hand to follow focus, it turned the focus back a bit. Maybe I am wrong but I can't find any other explanaition, but it could be totally stupid suggestion.

Same story with the car.

Also, you have to remember that with mini35, you can not close the lens to more than 4, because if you do then you start to see grain, so you have realy limited DOF, even when you don't need it.

Today, I will finish the job, and upload the finished commercial, with mini35, within the next week I am going to blowout to 35mm film, since this commercial is going to be shown in cinemas. The biggest screen here is 35 meters in diagonal, and it is pretty big to see if there are any problems with footage. I will let you know.

And back to the focus thing, if anybody has suggestions with what could be causing the "focus drift", please let me know.

That site only lets me download 1 a day, so I've down loaded 1 and 4. Footage looks really good. Excellent color and contrast! I'll see 2 and 3 in the next couple of days.

<edit> Seems to want you to wait an hour between, I'll have the rest today :) It's like eating and swimming, you need time to digest :) </edit>

As I know it doesn't need an hour between download, it is just that you can not download several at the same time, only one by one.

the clip "2.mov" crashes my quicktime player, VLC and iMovie. The rest work just fine and look phenomenal!

As I know it doesn't need an hour between download, it is just that you can not download several at the same time, only one by one.

Levan! How do I download? I get to the RAPID share site and I can't SEE your file to download? . .What do I do???

Grazie

Once you click on any of the links, you will see a page and you need to scroll down just a little and you will be offered to choose between PREMIUM and FREE downloads. You after you click FREE button, you will be redirected to a page where you can see that there is a countdown of seconds (usually you have to wait 60 seconds). After the countdown reaches the 0, page will refresh, and there will be a button saying DOWNLOAD FROM NET MIRROR "xxxx", right before that button there is a space you have to enter the random code which is shown there as a picture.

I understand that this is not the easiest way to do the downloads, but, I didn't have any free space, and this server is also very fast, you get really high download rate.

I hope this helped.

Cole, I don't know why 2.mov doesn't work, does anybody else have this problem?

2.mov worked for me on my Mac.

weird, ok...Ido have the rest and they not only allowed me to see your work , but to try editing and playing HD content on the new iMovie HD. Impressive stuff. Thank you.

Levan, at my PC and at my partner's (two laptops with 1Gb RAM), it doesn't run smoothly like the other examples as I posted before:
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showpost.php?p=417040&postcount=100

OK if the question is the m2t files, isn't there another possibility in order to have them smoothly? I've seen all the Barlow Elton stuff without hassles. I'm thinking that he posted from the same workflow as you. Why not with the same results?

Thank you for the interest.

Levan, at my PC and at my partner's (two laptops with 1Gb RAM), it doesn't run smoothly like the other examples as I posted before:
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showpost.php?p=417040&postcount=100

OK if the question is the m2t files, isn't there another possibility in order to have them smoothly? I've seen all the Barlow Elton stuff without hassles. I'm thinking that he posted from the same workflow as you. Why not with the same results?

Thank you for the interest.


Well, not exactly the same workflow. Barlow recorded to tape, and then captured the m2t file with HDVxDV. Although I could theoretically do the same, I don't like HDVxDV at all, it degrades quality from what I notice , but the fact that I don't like it is not the only reason of course, the other reason is that I captured the clips directly from SDI OUT of the camera to DVCPRO HD. In pal world DVCPRO HD is 1440X1080, so I don't loose any resolution in this case. So, from the beggining I don't have m2t file. I converted the DVCPRO HD file to h.264. So, now if you can tell me what type of codec settings do you want me to convert it to I will post a finished work in that codec, and some new shots also. So let me know, I will try my best.

I see Levan. Well, I can't answer you because my field (producing) is not this one. But I've seen others though now I don't know which were the formats, if mp4? Also quicktime for sure! If not next to the native rez, at least, as we need link it at any website as a trailer, for instance.

It's better watch smoothly than see the content as true stills besides the unpleasant compression artifacts, as well. That I can imagine there are out from the native footage. Well, I hope so. If it isn't other way, at least, I'd like to see it as it's possible any user to watch a trailer at web. Or as this example and it's h264 as you can see: http://cinemekserve.temp.powweb.com/demos/demos/Macgregor/similo.h264.mov

By the way, it's another 35mm adapter and if I'm not wrong you asked for it.

I see Levan. Well, I can't answer you because my field (producing) is not this one. But I've seen others though now I don't know which were the formats, if mp4? Also quicktime for sure! If not next to the native rez, at least, as we need link it at any website as a trailer, for instance.

It's better watch smoothly than see the content as true stills besides the unpleasant compression artifacts, as well. That I can imagine there are out from the native footage. Well, I hope so. If it isn't other way, at least, I'd like to see it as it's possible any user to watch a trailer at web. Or as this example and it's h264 as you can see: http://cinemekserve.temp.powweb.com/demos/demos/Macgregor/similo.h264.mov

By the way, it's another 35mm adapter and if I'm not wrong you ask for it.

OK, you know what, tommorrow, I will upload MPEG4 file, I think it should work fine, also I might resize it to lower resolution. Also, I will try some other codecs as well, it is just that when I convert it to different codec from original, it introduces some compression artifacts as you mentioned as well.

Anyone else have suggestions which compression to use for PC users to be able to view the clips?

Thank you Levan. I like your eye-work and I'd like see it these as movie clips.

[edit] By the way:

By the way, it's another 35mm adapter and if I'm not wrong you asked for it.Now after edited, that's correct as past form its meaning it's completely different than in the present form... LOL

Well, did you alread see it? Good loook, hein? And at 13% of the Mini35 price, what do you think?

Here is other one:
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showpost.php?p=460954&postcount=54
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=47623&page=3

Thank you Levan. I like your eye-work and I'd like see it these as movie clips.

[edit] By the way:

Now after edited, that's correct as past form its meaning it's completely different than in the present form... LOL

Well, did you alread see it? Good loook, hein? And at 13% of the Mini35 price, what do you think?

Here is other one:
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showpost.php?p=460954&postcount=54
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=47623&page=3

:*) yep, the meaning is different. Now I am downloading the files from the link. I also visited the thread on dvuser.com, but to read it from the middle, made no sense at all. Is it a new adapter? with something improved (technological) over mini35? Is it ready and selling or is it just a concept yet?

well, it will take 1 hour to download the file, and I will see the quality and let you know what I think. :*)