Barry, Bad News... at DVinfo.net

Bill Hardy · October 18th, 2002, 09:31 AM

I see color bleeding that smears from left to right and suspect that it is typical of the GL2.
I first saw it trying to tape colored neon lights at night and it was quite evident, however white neon lights look OK. I also taped people in red football uniforms at a parade and the effect was hardly noticed at first, but a close inspection of Quicktime movies at full screen size revealed it was there. I don't recall this problem with the GL1. I have not made any VHS copies as of yet, but believe the anomaly will only become more obvious if I do. Vibrant blue gives the same smearing. I am wondering if lowering color saturation might help, but why compromise picture quality on a brand new camcorder? This could be a notable anomaly created by Canon's Pixel Shift Technology and it is worth checking out by other GL2 owners. If this is true then it is regretable Pixel Shift cannot be disabled in certain situations.
Like I say, with me it is happening with Quicktime exported movies. I have not scrutinized the results of exporting to DV tape and then to VHS, which should be done to confirm this is a camcorder, not a software glitch.
I can post a movie if anyone is interested.

Peter Moore · October 18th, 2002, 01:06 PM

What about if you hook the camera up directly to the TV? You shouldn't see any color bleeding then. I have never observed this. If it is still a problem maybe you should have it serviced if it's still under warranty? It definitely shouldn't be doing that.

Bill Hardy · October 18th, 2002, 01:15 PM

Please note that if you have never shot colored neon lights or lighted colored department store signs at night naturally you will never have observed this. Normal daylight shooting you will see no bleeding at all. Only when you shoot vibrant red and blue edges in daylight you may not notice it on your DV tape if you look closely. This anomaly was actually bought to my attention from someone on another forum, so it is not just me. He seems disappointed with his VHS copy. I will try to recheck my settings in any case, I may have sett the CP color saturation to high when I shot last night.

Bill Hardy · October 18th, 2002, 10:09 PM

I went back to the same building tonite. This bldg has vertical colored neon lights running from bottom to top. By adjusting custom preset color saturation I was able to eliminate some of the bleeding. I admire the cam for eliminating it till it was barely noticible on the TV monitor, but Quicktime still shows it. When I drove closer to the building and found I could not even focus on these lights well with the naked eye. I should have been able to but couldn't, even though I was wearing my glasses. What's going on, I asked. Then I realized these lights were so similar to black light, purplish blue in color. I could drive right up to the bldg and still had a very hard time trying to focus my eyes on them. They seemed to GLOW with some sort of plasma all around them. If any of you have ever looked directly at an ultraviolet light you might know what I mean. So the GL2 is still a great cam in my book.

Peter Moore · October 18th, 2002, 10:19 PM

Is this indicative of the problem you're talking about? I do see a little bit of a lack of sharpness between the colors in this picture of a bitmap displayed on my computer screen (best I could reproduce neon lights). But to me it looks more like compression artifacts that wouldn't be present on a TV set than an actual problem with the camera. And this was taken with maximum color gain, neutral color balance, and neutral sharpness.

http://peter.moore.home.mindspring.com/colors.jpg

Ken Tanaka · October 18th, 2002, 10:45 PM

Hi Peter,
Actually the muddiness of your .jpg is indeed the result of using JPEG compression on an image composed mainly of flat color fields. Save the same frame as a .gif (which handles flat color fields much better) and you'll see what I mean.

But I believe that this color smearing that buddy is reporting is also the result of a similar compression selection problem. It's important to note that "QuickTime" is merely a wrapper for the codecs used to create the enclosed content. Knowing what codec was used to compress the video, in this case, is key. Also not noted so far, above, is whether or not the color smearing is appearing on direct playback of the miniDV tape to a monitor (NTSC or PAL, whichever is applicable).

I've not seen any such bleeding with my GL2.

Peter Moore · October 18th, 2002, 11:02 PM

Actually the JPEG I posted is as far as I can tell identical to the uncompressed bitmap I generated from the still frame.

Bill Hardy · October 19th, 2002, 05:31 AM

I went back to the same building tonite. This bldg has vertical colored neon lights running from bottom to top. By adjusting custom preset color saturation I was able to eliminate some of the bleeding. I admire the cam for eliminating it till it was barely noticible on the TV monitor, but Quicktime still shows it. When I drove closer to the building and found I could not even focus on these lights well with the naked eye. I should have been able to but couldn't, even though I was wearing my glasses. What's going on, I asked. Then I realized these lights were so similar to black light, purplish blue in color. I could drive right up to the bldg and still had a very hard time trying to focus my eyes on them. They seemed to GLOW with some sort of plasma all around them. If any of you have ever looked directly at an ultraviolet light you might know what I mean. So the GL2 is still a great cam in my book. You might want to get into Custom Preset and turn down the color saturation if this anomaly ever happens. I will try to post a pic of the building.

Bill Hardy · October 19th, 2002, 05:57 AM

I have posted two shots of the GL2 shooting at night.

http://homepage.mac.com/bhardy3/PhotoAlbum8.html

Also check out the "GL2 church lady" short 5 MB movie. Set your player to "Loop back and forth" and play full screen after right clicking and saving movie to hard drive. Don't forget to set the Quicktime player to High Quality, for those with the upgraded player. It is the best looking movie yet with my GL2, quality wise. This cam can really show out with the proper lighting and settings. There was no additional cam lighting in this movie however.

October 18th, 2002, 09:31 AM	#1
Bill Hardy Major Player Join Date: Sep 2002 Posts: 205	Barry, Bad News... I see color bleeding that smears from left to right and suspect that it is typical of the GL2. I first saw it trying to tape colored neon lights at night and it was quite evident, however white neon lights look OK. I also taped people in red football uniforms at a parade and the effect was hardly noticed at first, but a close inspection of Quicktime movies at full screen size revealed it was there. I don't recall this problem with the GL1. I have not made any VHS copies as of yet, but believe the anomaly will only become more obvious if I do. Vibrant blue gives the same smearing. I am wondering if lowering color saturation might help, but why compromise picture quality on a brand new camcorder? This could be a notable anomaly created by Canon's Pixel Shift Technology and it is worth checking out by other GL2 owners. If this is true then it is regretable Pixel Shift cannot be disabled in certain situations. Like I say, with me it is happening with Quicktime exported movies. I have not scrutinized the results of exporting to DV tape and then to VHS, which should be done to confirm this is a camcorder, not a software glitch. I can post a movie if anyone is interested.

October 18th, 2002, 10:45 PM	#6
Ken Tanaka Retired DV Info Net Almunus Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Chicago, IL Posts: 6,943	Hi Peter, Actually the muddiness of your .jpg is indeed the result of using JPEG compression on an image composed mainly of flat color fields. Save the same frame as a .gif (which handles flat color fields much better) and you'll see what I mean. But I believe that this color smearing that buddy is reporting is also the result of a similar compression selection problem. It's important to note that "QuickTime" is merely a wrapper for the codecs used to create the enclosed content. Knowing what codec was used to compress the video, in this case, is key. Also not noted so far, above, is whether or not the color smearing is appearing on direct playback of the miniDV tape to a monitor (NTSC or PAL, whichever is applicable). I've not seen any such bleeding with my GL2. __________________ Lady X Films: A lady with a boring wardrobe...and a global mission. Hey, you don't have enough stuff! Buy with confidence from our sponsors. Hand-picked as the best in the business...Really! See some of my work one frame at a time: www.KenTanaka.com

October 18th, 2002, 01:06 PM	#2
Peter Moore Trustee Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Arlington VA Posts: 1,034	What about if you hook the camera up directly to the TV? You shouldn't see any color bleeding then. I have never observed this. If it is still a problem maybe you should have it serviced if it's still under warranty? It definitely shouldn't be doing that.

October 18th, 2002, 01:15 PM	#3
Bill Hardy Major Player Join Date: Sep 2002 Posts: 205	Please note that if you have never shot colored neon lights or lighted colored department store signs at night naturally you will never have observed this. Normal daylight shooting you will see no bleeding at all. Only when you shoot vibrant red and blue edges in daylight you may not notice it on your DV tape if you look closely. This anomaly was actually bought to my attention from someone on another forum, so it is not just me. He seems disappointed with his VHS copy. I will try to recheck my settings in any case, I may have sett the CP color saturation to high when I shot last night.

October 18th, 2002, 10:09 PM	#4
Bill Hardy Major Player Join Date: Sep 2002 Posts: 205	I went back to the same building tonite. This bldg has vertical colored neon lights running from bottom to top. By adjusting custom preset color saturation I was able to eliminate some of the bleeding. I admire the cam for eliminating it till it was barely noticible on the TV monitor, but Quicktime still shows it. When I drove closer to the building and found I could not even focus on these lights well with the naked eye. I should have been able to but couldn't, even though I was wearing my glasses. What's going on, I asked. Then I realized these lights were so similar to black light, purplish blue in color. I could drive right up to the bldg and still had a very hard time trying to focus my eyes on them. They seemed to GLOW with some sort of plasma all around them. If any of you have ever looked directly at an ultraviolet light you might know what I mean. So the GL2 is still a great cam in my book.

October 18th, 2002, 10:19 PM	#5
Peter Moore Trustee Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Arlington VA Posts: 1,034	Is this indicative of the problem you're talking about? I do see a little bit of a lack of sharpness between the colors in this picture of a bitmap displayed on my computer screen (best I could reproduce neon lights). But to me it looks more like compression artifacts that wouldn't be present on a TV set than an actual problem with the camera. And this was taken with maximum color gain, neutral color balance, and neutral sharpness. http://peter.moore.home.mindspring.com/colors.jpg

October 18th, 2002, 11:02 PM	#7
Peter Moore Trustee Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Arlington VA Posts: 1,034	Actually the JPEG I posted is as far as I can tell identical to the uncompressed bitmap I generated from the still frame.

October 19th, 2002, 05:31 AM	#8
Bill Hardy Major Player Join Date: Sep 2002 Posts: 205	I went back to the same building tonite. This bldg has vertical colored neon lights running from bottom to top. By adjusting custom preset color saturation I was able to eliminate some of the bleeding. I admire the cam for eliminating it till it was barely noticible on the TV monitor, but Quicktime still shows it. When I drove closer to the building and found I could not even focus on these lights well with the naked eye. I should have been able to but couldn't, even though I was wearing my glasses. What's going on, I asked. Then I realized these lights were so similar to black light, purplish blue in color. I could drive right up to the bldg and still had a very hard time trying to focus my eyes on them. They seemed to GLOW with some sort of plasma all around them. If any of you have ever looked directly at an ultraviolet light you might know what I mean. So the GL2 is still a great cam in my book. You might want to get into Custom Preset and turn down the color saturation if this anomaly ever happens. I will try to post a pic of the building.

October 19th, 2002, 05:57 AM	#9
Bill Hardy Major Player Join Date: Sep 2002 Posts: 205	I have posted two shots of the GL2 shooting at night. http://homepage.mac.com/bhardy3/PhotoAlbum8.html Also check out the "GL2 church lady" short 5 MB movie. Set your player to "Loop back and forth" and play full screen after right clicking and saving movie to hard drive. Don't forget to set the Quicktime player to High Quality, for those with the upgraded player. It is the best looking movie yet with my GL2, quality wise. This cam can really show out with the proper lighting and settings. There was no additional cam lighting in this movie however.