Just curious why there has been such little discussion on the shootout in regards to the HD100. The six frame "freeze" issue! Why hasn't this been refuted? I have never heard of it befor, yet the DV report now leaves it as gospel fact. Whats up? Also the low scores for motion compression. I'm shocked that a 6GOP structure would be so outperformed by a 15GOP system. I am a long time HD10 user and have never encountered these issues, so I figured the HD100 would only be a step up in perfection. Did they have a gimped cam? Why isn't the JVC community disclaiming these points? Maybe after fighting off SS for so long everyone is tired of defending technical problems.
So bottom line. Good review or bad?

There was a dvinfo.net thread going on the subject. I asked that they put up their m2t files for us all to take a look at. I'm hoping the thread comes back to the surface with the m2t's that show the issues.

We'll host a few choice .m2t files from our media server, but the bulk of the video will eventually be made available in the form of a DVD set from Mike Curtis of HD For Indies. This will probably happen around the time that the participants get back together for a screening party in either Austin, Houston or Dallas in the very near future.

However, I can't help but feel bothered by the confrontational posturing of the terms "refute, gospel, defend and disclaim." There's nothing that needs to be refuted or disclaimed, nor does this community need to band together for any purpose other than the one it's already engaged in, which is discussing the camera's technical operation and its creative applications.

What our shootout proved was something I had suspected all along, which is that there is no clear "winner camera" or "loser camera" in this price range. Each one has its own particular strengths and weaknesses, and anyone who fixates on some negative aspect of what they read has sadly missed the bigger picture of the overall test results.

We did not have a gimped cam. We had two perfectly functioning HD100's. The correct assesment of this situation is that this particular HD100 community is too busy happily shooting and creating with their cameras to bother caring very much about it. And that's a good way to be. Forget about numbers and ratings and results and try to focus instead on getting the most out of what you've got. It's much more productive to share, create and explore. That's what this community is for... so please take the battles elsewhere. Thanks in advance,

One thing I noticed that was weak in the shootout was the comparison of the two JVC lenses, the standard and wide. They casually brushed off the resolution results with a somewhat flippant comment like maybe the resolution chart was askew... or whatever. Also what about resolution at less than ideal apertures? Edge to edge and corner to corner?

In an earlier test report, as I recall by the same team, the wide lens brought the cameras resolution up -- as I recall they said the picture looked more like the Varicam's, which is of course is a step down in CCD resolution, but the intent was a positive comment.

But resolution issues aside, the real problem was the seeming lack of attention to some crucial elements of real world lens performance. Two in which the lenses seem to me to exhibit large differences are:

1) The amount of barrelling at the short end of the lens. The wide lens has much less per my own informal comparisons, even at it's much shorter focal lengths. This really matters in certain compositions where you have vertical or horizontal elements such as buildings in a skyline, etc., even corners in a room. And of course with the 16:9 frame the horizontal lines are affected in an even more obvious way. There is some visible in horizontal elements in the optional lens at full wide, but not too bad

2) Breathing (the image zooming in or out when changing only focus). The stock lens breathes too much to allow a rack focus that isn't also a zoom shot. The wide lens breathes almost imperceptibly.

This post is intended only as a constructive comment to round out the test results. I tremendously respect the testers and know that they didn't ignore these lens issues from lack of knowledge, but probably just from lack of time.

Tip

It's funny but the think that struck me about it was how much better the JVC's stills looked as compared to the hvx. In my book that was a pretty resounding endorsement. And let me tell you, some of the fanboys weren't too thrilled about it.

One thing I noticed that was weak in the shootout was the comparison of the two JVC lenses, the standard and wide. They casually brushed off the resolution results with a somewhat flippant comment like maybe the resolution chart was askew... or whatever.


I agree! I'm hoping for an in depth comparison of the different lenses. It should really be a separate review for the simple reason that the optional lenses are so phenomally expensive. $13,000? You can buy a lot beer with that much dosh.

Good point Chris!

The correct assesment of this situation is that this particular HD100 community is too busy happily shooting and creating with their cameras to bother caring very much about it. And that's a good way to be. Forget about numbers and ratings and results and try to focus instead on getting the most out of what you've got. It's much more productive to share, create and explore.

However, I can't help but feel bothered by the confrontational posturing of the terms "refute, gospel, defend and disclaim." There's nothing that needs to be refuted or disclaimed, nor does this community need to band together for any purpose other than the one it's already engaged in, which is discussing the camera's technical operation and its creative applications.

Don't feel bothered. These are straight-up questions. The fact that no one has refuted the points or have even brought up the points I made, speaks volumes. A six frame freeze is nothing trivial. In fact in my book it is down right broken. And I am shocked it is so. The fact it hasn't been thouroughly discussed here already, is unbelievable.

"The correct assesment of this situation is that this particular HD100 community is too busy happily shooting and creating with their cameras to bother caring very much about it."

A smart lot your making them out to be. No one ever noticed it befor, ever? And if they did, they don't care? I just find this hard to imagine.

You stated that they used two perfectly functioning cams. Neither experienced and dreaded "split-screen effect" as reported in the article. Is it possible that two cams that exibit "slit-screen" may not show the "six-frame freeze" and vice versa? Or is this determined to be a fixed fault of the 6GOP compression with no fix possible? Could this not be another example of a miscalibration? The cams have had various technical issues since release. What makes anyone so sure this isn't another one?

The six frame "freeze" issue! Why hasn't this been refuted? I have never heard of it befor, yet the DV report now leaves it as gospel fact.

Actually Adam Wilt mentioned this same issue when he reviewed the HD-100 for DV Magazine; you can probably find it in the archives on their site.

Re: "freeze" thing, I personally have never observed it and am unable to duplicate it. Seems it's pretty subtle, if it exists at all. According to JVC guys I speak with, this was the first time for them to hear of it. Until they duplicate it, it seems there's not much to say either way.
As for the article's conclusions regarding compression, the images didn't seem to match the written descriptions. The HD100's stills looked absolutely perfect to me. The other cameras' stills seemed to have gross compression errors, so it was hard to understand the article's written conclusions. I figured there might have been something wrong with how I was viewing them or maybe there was a mistake in the article? What did everyone else see?

I tremendously respect the testers and know that they didn't ignore these lens issues from lack of knowledge, but probably just from lack of time.

That is a very correct assessment, Tip. We were very much pushed for time to get everything accomplished that we wanted to.

That means we didn't have time to do in depth analysis of each lens. As was mentioned, this is probably a separate review in itself. To me that means taking a single camera and throwing every available lens on it and seeing what happens to the image.

-gb-

The HD100's stills looked absolutely perfect to me. The other cameras' stills seemed to have gross compression errors, so it was hard to understand the article's written conclusions. I figured there might have been something wrong with how I was viewing them or maybe there was a mistake in the article? What did everyone else see?


I saw the same exact thing.

And every single time I look real close at HD100 footage on my dell lcd I'm surprised at how clean the picture is. We did some fast action (soccer) shooting a few weeks ago. Pausing the playback in between REALLY FAST pans holds up completely! I've never seen any kind of "bad compression" coming out of my HD100, though I have seen it from a 15gop HDV camera. (lets leave it at that heh)

Ken can you describe the "6-GOP freeze?" This is the first I'm hearing of that phenomenon.

My old JVC KY-D29/BR-D40 D-9 camera would show picture lag if the DNR was turned on. It was a strange effect, like part of the picture would stay the same a few frames in zooms and pans, then catch back up. It was like the picture was "swimming."

This DNR was "3-D" which meant that it was identifying certain differences in the frames as noise, and using the pixels that it "decided" were not noise from one frame or the other, that is using pixels from frame #1 to replace "noise" in frame #2 or vice versa. It seemed that the DSP wasn't quite strong enough to do this in real time like it was supposed to do as I had the camera set up, and I always used the color matrix. The camera's manual in fact claimed that it could do DNR with "no picture lag." Yeah, maybe if the color matrix or other processes were turned off.

I think picture lag can happen to a camera when the DSP is asked to do more than it can do, so the question would be, "What DSP challenging functions were active during the times when this effect was evident in the Texas test?"

Was the DNR on? Were a LOT of other processes such as color matrix calculations taking place? How many pixels did the pixel masking routine have to recalculate? How calculation intensive are the sharpening functions and were they on? And so on.

At what point in the accumulation of the dozens of processes the camera can do simultaneously is the DSP challenged beyond it's ability to calculate the entire resultant picture in real time? If this only happens when an unlikely "perfect storm" of numerous DSP processes are active, and only then when generating very complex images, then it may not be much of a problem.

This is likely the case and would explain why none of the many video savvy HD100 owners here have not seen it over months of real world usage.

Tip

Hey maybe this 6 frame freeze is fixed in the hd110! Cool

I have actually noticed this with my new hd100 units, it is rare but there have been instances where the picture seemed laggy. I thought it had something to do with the tape but after some tests I realized it was something else.

These are straight-up questions. The fact that no one has refuted the points or have even brought up the points I made, speaks volumes. A six frame freeze is nothing trivial. In fact in my book it is down right broken. And I am shocked it is so. The fact it hasn't been thouroughly discussed here already, is unbelievable.

"The correct assesment of this situation is that this particular HD100 community is too busy happily shooting and creating with their cameras to bother caring very much about it."

A smart lot your making them out to be. No one ever noticed it befor, ever? And if they did, they don't care? I just find this hard to imagine.

I am one of those people too busy having fun and being paid to shoot films instead of obsessing over something I have never witnessed with my own eyes.
It seems no one else around here has ever seen it either, so what is the point in refuting it?
It isn't that we don't care, but as a community of HD100 USERS it isn't our job to "defend" the camera and claim the "6 frame freeze" doesn't exist if we haven't viewed the offending m2t for ourselves.
Maybe it does exist and Adam's assessment is correct, maybe there was a glitch in the hard drive recording methods, maybe it is a playback issue, maybe it was a tape dropout, maybe it is an isolated incident. Who knows? What is the point in having this discussion now if when the camera has been on the market for a full 12 months and this is the first time we've ever heard of this "phenomenon?"
I've shot some very fast moving action material, watched it frame by frame, on LCD monitors and on the big screen and nothing abnormal has ever jumped out at me.
I'll wait to view the results for myself before I will comment further.


e real problem was the seeming lack of attention to some crucial elements of real world lens performance.

Yes the Th13x3.5 lens is much sharper than the stock 16x5.5, especially edge to edge. It hardly breathes and doesn't seem to vignette at longer focal lengths. The CA is lessened considerably but still exists. I posted TIFF frame grabs from both lenses a few months ago that clearly demonstrate the differences. I also posted a real-world "rack focus" breathing comparison. I'll try to track them down.

Yes the Th13x3.5 lens is much sharper than the stock 16x5.5, especially edge to edge. It hardly breathes and doesn't seem to vignette at longer focal lengths. The CA is lessened considerably but still exists. I posted TIFF frame grabs from both lenses a few months ago that clearly demonstrate the differences. I also posted a real-world "rack focus" breathing comparison. I'll try to track them down.
What is the approximate "wideness" of the 13x3.5 lens as compared to the 16x5.5 lens.

If I were to put an adapter on the stock 16x5.5 lens, what would I need to get the same "wideness" as the 13x3.5 lens? Would it be .8? .7? .65? or what?
Thanks!

What is the approximate "wideness" of the 13x3.5 lens as compared to the 16x5.5 lens.

If I were to put an adapter on the stock 16x5.5 lens, what would I need to get the same "wideness" as the 13x3.5 lens? Would it be .8? .7? .65? or what?
Thanks!

3.5/5.5 = .63

Attached is a measured comparison of Field of View.

It's funny but the think that struck me about it was how much better the JVC's stills looked as compared to the hvx. In my book that was a pretty resounding endorsement. And let me tell you, some of the fanboys weren't too thrilled about it.

The HVX pictures seemed to have a much softer focus. In the models by the lake shots, the HD100 has the bush behind next to the models in sharp focus, the HVX out of focus. Throwing a couple of shots into Photoshop, the same points have a B 10-20 points lower in HSB on the HVX than the HD100, as if either one was overexposed or the other was underexposed. IMHO.

Just curious why there has been such little discussion on the shootout in regards to the HD100. The six frame "freeze" issue! Why hasn't this been refuted? I have never heard of it befor, yet the DV report now leaves it as gospel fact. Whats up? Also the low scores for motion compression. I'm shocked that a 6GOP structure would be so outperformed by a 15GOP system. I am a long time HD10 user and have never encountered these issues, so I figured the HD100 would only be a step up in perfection. Did they have a gimped cam? Why isn't the JVC community disclaiming these points? Maybe after fighting off SS for so long everyone is tired of defending technical problems.
So bottom line. Good review or bad?

I'm curious. Has non-movement of small artifacts been reported in other places? How would the algorithm decide not to move a leaf, but to move a larger object?

My own questions: was audio recording tested? I thought that was one of the bigger issues with the HD100 vs the HVX200.

In the stills, the HVX200 images frequently had rough edges where the HD100 had sharp edges. The motion shot is a good example. In Jan's presentations, it seems to be just the opposite, with the 4:2:2 recording playing a role. Am I misunderstanding something here?

Thanks,

David

was audio recording tested?During the planning stages of the Texas HD Shootout, everyone involved agreed that there was no practical way to do any serious audio testing given the severe time constraints under which we operated. Our four days were packed to the gills already, and in fact there were a number of video tests that had to be taken out due to the limits of the schedule. Sorry about that,

So I just went back and re-read Adam's article (http://dv.com/features/features_item.jhtml?category=Archive&articleId=189500064). It seems to me that this "6-frame sticky" has been blown out of proportion by some who have obviously read between the lines. (The paragraph in question appears under the photo for "Scenes #60-#67 - Location Work.") It might be easiest to search the article for the word "sticky."

The impression I got from the way everyone was talking about this on dvinfo over the past 24 hours was that the "6-frame stick" was a 6 frame "freeze frame," similar to a Sony 15-GOP dropout, which would be very noticable and obviously a problem if it ever happened.

Upon re-reading I now realize that the specific test the Texas shootout guys conducted for this was to shoot gently moving foilage to push the HDV codec to the extreme. Adam talks about how "some elements" of the image would freeze slightly, then jump slightly instead of moving continuously. This isn't new news for anyone familiar with MPEG compression and I think that in the future we should all re-read the article before jumping to conclusions (myself included.)

I have not seen the results of the Texas Shootout tests with my own eyes but I have done my own similar tests over the past year.
Specifically, when I tested the effects of the motion smooth filter last August I also photographed gently moving foliage.

Here's a sample m2t (http://homepage.mac.com/timdashwood/.Movies/motion_smooth_off.m2t) that has been accessable on my server for almost a year. This was shot with the original HD100 with v1.12 firmware back in August 2005.

In my opinion this is a very complicated scene for any Mpeg encoder and I think it handled it well.

What is the approximate "wideness" of the 13x3.5 lens as compared to the 16x5.5 lens.

If I were to put an adapter on the stock 16x5.5 lens, what would I need to get the same "wideness" as the 13x3.5 lens? Would it be .8? .7? .65? or what?
Thanks!

16x = 48 degrees
16x & WAA = 58 degrees
13x = 70 degrees

The 13x is definately the eng style lens to have. The question came up about adding the WAA to the 13x lens. What would happen? 80 degrees?

16x = 48 degrees
16x & WAA = 58 degrees
13x = 70 degrees

The 13x is definately the eng style lens to have. The question came up about adding the WAA to the 13x lens. What would happen? 80 degrees?

The WAA for the 16x5.5 won't fit on the 13x3.5 lens.

However, there are two wide adapters from Fuji designed for it.
The WCV-85C will give you 0.8X for effective 2.8mm.
The WAT-85C will give you 0.7X for effective 2.45mm.

All the accessories are on page 16 of the lens manual.

We did discuss this "sticky" last year but few took notice.

If you want an example of "sticky" then take a look at this previous thread. (http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=70020) You'll find an m2t I shot last year that displays the effect. It's not a big deal because when the raw m2t is re-encoded or uncompressed (whichever the case may be) the floating dissappears. This floating only exist in the transport stream in my experience.

any other comments are welcome.

It's not a big deal because when the raw m2t is re-encoded or uncompressed (whichever the case may be) the floating dissappears. This floating only exist in the transport stream in my experience.

Very interesting. But how can this be? When the data is encoded to HDV all artifacts should be permanent, and therefor transfer over to what ever codec and should not show a reversal. In my opinion the only way the problem can disapear is if it really isn't hard-coded into the HDV stream, but is a problem with the decoding of the stream, not the actual data in the stream.

Maybe it's the downrez of putting it on BetaSP or DVD but it's not apparent. What can trigger it is an extremely slight wobble of the camera. Normal to Massive movements of the camera would never show this effect. It's the slightest camera bump that could possibly make the effect reveal itself and even then you'd have to look pretty hard and know what you're looking for.

Most people would never see this and the fact that they mention it in the article makes me wonder why? I want to see the m2t's they captured. The article makes it seem like the effect is blatantly obvious when in fact nobody mentions it. Now, what was blatantly obvious was SSE. Thank God almighty that fire's been put out.

Adam Wilt can see things that most of us can't. A comment he made while we were watching the playback was, "you never want to go to see a movie with me, I'll ruin it for you"

He has an extremely critical eye just as some folks can hear stuff in audio that the average person would never notice.

-gb-

If anyone has some "sticky" footage, simply converting it to Cineform codec (AspectHD, ConnectHD or PPro 1.5 with 1.51 update) and let us know if the effect is still there. If it is then we will know it is hard coded and not just a decoder problem.
In the same line of thinking, is there anyone who can provide any example of "sticky" video for us to observe? Anything?

Cropped 640x480 and slowed down (http://www.pixelharvest.com/hd/shake.m2t) to show the effect of motion estimation error.

Les Dit (http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/member.php?u=6375) discovered it in my footage last year and commented on it in this thread (click) (http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=57835).

Thanks Stephen. Subtle, but very obvious. Have you been able to get the "sticky" effect when you didn't use the motion smoothing function? I noticed that Steve Mullen guessed the problem right off the bat. "sicky" must be a well known side effect of using motion smoothing.

Upon re-reading I now realize that the specific test the Texas shootout guys conducted for this was to shoot gently moving foilage to push the HDV codec to the extreme. Adam talks about how "some elements" of the image would freeze slightly, then jump slightly instead of moving continuously. This isn't new news for anyone familiar with MPEG compression and I think that in the future we should all re-read the article before jumping to conclusions (myself included.)

Tim's 100% correct. With MPEG-2 math is used that breaks a picture into "objects." The the motion of the objects -- hundreds if not thousands of them -- are computed. The tracking information is compressed and recorded. It really is like a Transporter. The actual image vanishes into numbers. The the objects are recreated. Many, many assumptions must be made by the math and many, many measures are taken.

With MPEG-2 there are NO rules that must be followed during the encode. Every codec is designed to meet the esthetic judgements of it's designers. And, every decision involves tradeoffs.

The only rule is the the encoded result must be able to be decoded.

So when we say Sony's codec doesn't handle motion well because it's GOP is 15-frames long -- we are assuming this. That may be the reason, but it's equally possible Sony R&D decided other image aspects were more important.

IF there is such a thing as the so-called 6 frame freeze, it is possible this is not an error, but a side-effect of a decision that JVC made to optimize something else.

Sort of like a drug that cures cancer, but kills 1 out of every million people.

There can be no perfect compression system. Or, to put it another way, every system can be broken. (Already folks have found out how to make perfect pixel copies of HD DVDs!)