I think it is broken ;-( XM-2 red-problem

Graham Bernard · March 27th, 2003, 10:54 AM

Okay - Now look at other "reds" from other sources on your TV - Adverts, news casts, plays etc etc.

So does that mean you are a bit better about your purchase?

Chris Fangio · March 27th, 2003, 11:13 AM

Hi there.

I own an XM2 and I'm also not satisfied with reproduction of red tones. Took some shots in a low light situation in manual mode yesterday (and many times in normal light situations before). Colours were neutral except red which was bleeding.

Chris

Lars Siden · March 27th, 2003, 12:39 PM

Hi Guys,

Did the TV test tonight. On TV the result is OK - no visible blocking or lines. BUT red colors are still bleeding.

Took a shot of my daughters toy "Mr Ring" ;-) It is a black "doll" with multicoloured rings around the waist and in that shot the bleeding is very clear.

Now I must find out why the transfered video from the camera is messed up on the computer. I have a standard IEEE1394 card, short cable, Windows XP Pro, Premiere 6.5.....

I have another old videocamera here, a Panasonic DS-11, will try to play my XM2 tape in that cam and record to the computer.

Will be back with more info...

// Lazze

Lars Siden · March 27th, 2003, 02:15 PM

Hi,

Tonight I've studied the phenomena of my bleeding and misbehaving red-colour.

The thing that got me convinced of that something is wrong is when I filmed a window-lamp. The lamp is made of red glass...but the camera rendered it yellow or white, independently of the selected white-balance.

I tried manual mode and full auto mode.

I also filmed one of my daughters dolls, it's a black body with several coloured rings around it. The camera can focus and show detail on all rings, except the red one which is fuzzy and "ghosty". The green ring is to light, but okay.

I tried the same tests with my old cheap-o Panasonic DS11, it rendered both the doll and the lamp correctly.

So I think I'll have to use my Canon European warranty - I hope they'll be good and fast!

Sad regards,

Lars Siden

Sweden

Bud Kuenzli · March 27th, 2003, 05:18 PM

first, lars, when I read "I have also tried to de-interlace the AVI for computer playback, no visble change." that tells me you aren't viewing dv footage, you are viewing video compressed into an avi. all bets are off there with regard to compression artifacts you might see. there may be some error or problem with the compression, but again, you can't make any conclusion about the camera based on an compressed avi image. go back to the original dv footage. if you are importing this directly into an avi, compressing it on the fly, that may be the issue right from the get go.

when discuss the window lamp it sounds like you are talking about viewing it in the viewfinder so perhaps there is indeed a problem, but it's still not at all clear....hard to troubleshoot some of these things, eh?

Marc Martin · March 27th, 2003, 11:23 PM

VX2000 can have red bleed too. Look:
http://marcolivier.free.fr/temp1/vx2000.jpg

The original picture is here:
http://www.bealecorner.com/vx2000/xmas00/glade.jpg

There is less bleed than the GL2/XM2 but it is here.

The more I see the clips shooted with the XM2, the more I see some electronic sharpeness (white lines contour). Anyone has noticed that?

Chris Fangio · March 28th, 2003, 12:54 AM

Lars,

if your XM2 is broken, all XM2s sold by CANON are broken because they all show this phenomenom. Red tones are difficult to handle and so my conclusion is that it is by design of this cam. Not very satisfying, I guess.

Chris

Graham Bernard · March 28th, 2003, 01:15 AM

I too get red bleed - I've been living with it XM2 - PAL. I also have an old analogue Panni cammy - not red bleed - PAL.

I'm wondering if this is a PAL-land issue and not an NTSC-land issue. I'd like to hear from NTSC users if they have had this issue - yeah?

Now, if you get any feedback from Canon Europe I'll shall be very, very interested. I got my XM2 in Nov '02 so I could get it checked out too - hmmm....

I got the XM2 for many reasons:

1 - Price - Sony VX2000 a bit too much for me

2 - Audio control/s and sound quality

3 - Actual ergonomic "feel" of the camera

4 - MA300 adaptor - yes I do like it!

5 - Wide angle lens option

I will say that in general I'm very happy with the XM2. This one "issue" I could possibly "correct" in post-prod.

Lars . . . I'm keeping an eye out for your responses

Yik Kuen · March 28th, 2003, 01:20 AM

If that's the case, Lars, can you please let us know what's Canon's remedy to this problem.

Can the problem be fixed by upgrading the firmware? Or, is it due to the hardware?

Possible for Canon to change your XM2 to XL1s or money back?

I'm sure that they must do something. Can they provide details for this weird problem?

Any version of XM2/GL2 to avoid?

But, I don't see complains from Japanese and Taiwanese users who are using the XV2.

I did came across some sample stills of XV2 and to my surprise, they are okay. :(

Graham Bernard · March 28th, 2003, 01:30 AM

Yik - Interesting - "I don't see complains from Japanese and Taiwanese users who are using the XV2"

Sooo... what's the difference between the XM2 and the XV2? Why the better quality? - I don't expect you can answer this, but is there a "specifacation" difference

Yik Kuen · March 28th, 2003, 02:14 AM

That seems to bring us closer to the firmware problem rather than the hardware.

If this is the reason, then the GL2/XM2/XV2 have no technical design fault (I hope), only the firmware glitches. This can be fixed by newer firmware update, just like Panny usually does.

The XV2 is Japanese NTSC model, with black body which has more "professional" like.

Follow this link (in Japanese), just look at those sample stills:

http://www.soundweb-asia.com/products_test/canon_xv2/page_1.htm

Hans Henrik Bang · March 28th, 2003, 04:47 AM

I have mostly done "nature" shoots so far with my new XM2, so I haven't really shot any red subjects. I will try to do some tests this weekend though, so we can see whether this problem is a general one, or Lars' camera being broken.

Bud Kuenzli wrote something about .avi files not being uncompressed DV. As far as I know these things are not strictly related. Video is compressed right in the camera in a 5:1 ratio. Ie. what is recorded on tape is already compressed 5 times compared to uncompressed video.

When you import this to a PC, it will be the same DV data as on tape. There is an .avi wrapper around it, but this has nothing to do with compression. Avi files can be all sorts of codecs, so you can easily have radically different compression schemes that are all stored in .avi files.

My point is that this problem should be judged on the basis of newly imported DV footage from the camera stored in an .avi file. These will be compressed 5:1, but this is inherent in the DV format.

Will get back, when I have done some testing myself.

Hans Henrik

Hans Henrik Bang · March 28th, 2003, 10:11 AM

Ok. I have some test material up for you now for comparison.

First a few words about the test method. I shot them with my XM2 in daylight, manually white balanced. I imported the shots to the PC via Scenalyzer and dumped screenshots directly from there via the "export to .bmp" - full resolution option. This should eliminate .jpg compression as a possible culprit.

Here are the shots:

http://home7.inet.tele.dk/hhb/redtest/redtest1.bmp
http://home7.inet.tele.dk/hhb/redtest/redtest2.bmp
http://home7.inet.tele.dk/hhb/redtest/redtest3.bmp
http://home7.inet.tele.dk/hhb/redtest/redtest4.bmp
http://home7.inet.tele.dk/hhb/redtest/redtest5.bmp
http://home7.inet.tele.dk/hhb/redtest/redtest6.bmp

I tried to use some standard objects such as a red coke bottle cap for possible comparison. In the last 2 shots, I put a red and a green candle next to each other for direct comparison of red vs. green reproduction.

I notice some bleeding of red. On the images of the cigarette pack, there is similar bleeding of yellow, but then again red is a component of yellow. There is also edge enhancement very obvious in all the shots, but especially in the candle shots, I don't find any remarkable difference between green and red.

Will be very interested in the feedback you get from Canon. Also feedback regarding my testshots are very welcome.

Hans Henrik

Bud Kuenzli · March 28th, 2003, 12:26 PM

I took a shot of a red screwdriver on white paper. After dumping a pict file from iMovie I could also see some red bleed, but it was limited to a single pixel in width, here and there along the length of the object. It's not something I would have noticed in any moving video and wasn't as pronounced as your example of the coke bottle lid. Luckily I'm not a pro with a need for better resolution and perfect color fidelity. I don't know the exact trade-offs of other cameras on the market, but I do know that they all have some trade-off, whether that be resolution, zoom, color aberation, barrel distortion, whatever. My GL2 is new to me and I've only put about 5 tapes through it, but those 5 tapes are the best video I've ever shot so in spite of this (minor from my perspective) issue, I'm a happy camper. Hope this is resolved to your satisfaction...

Hans Henrik Bang · March 28th, 2003, 12:33 PM

Like you Bud, I am generally very happy with my XM2. A vast improvement over my previous suckycam. I also noticed that the bleed is most noticable in still really. As soon as you get to moving video, the bleed seems very slight.

When I get daylight again I will try some more testshots, this time with sharpness dialed down, so we can see how much edge enhancement has to do with this.

Hans Henrik

March 27th, 2003, 12:39 PM	#18
Lars Siden Major Player Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Sweden, Stockholm Posts: 469	Hi Guys, Did the TV test tonight. On TV the result is OK - no visible blocking or lines. BUT red colors are still bleeding. Took a shot of my daughters toy "Mr Ring" ;-) It is a black "doll" with multicoloured rings around the waist and in that shot the bleeding is very clear. Now I must find out why the transfered video from the camera is messed up on the computer. I have a standard IEEE1394 card, short cable, Windows XP Pro, Premiere 6.5..... I have another old videocamera here, a Panasonic DS-11, will try to play my XM2 tape in that cam and record to the computer. Will be back with more info... // Lazze __________________ Sony HDR-CX130,Canon 5DMKII,i7 930@4.0, 12gb memory, 3x SSD + 2x1Tb(stripe), Geforce 480, Dual 24", Win 7 x64

March 27th, 2003, 02:15 PM	#19
Lars Siden Major Player Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Sweden, Stockholm Posts: 469	I think it is broken ;-( XM-2 red-problem Hi, Tonight I've studied the phenomena of my bleeding and misbehaving red-colour. The thing that got me convinced of that something is wrong is when I filmed a window-lamp. The lamp is made of red glass...but the camera rendered it yellow or white, independently of the selected white-balance. I tried manual mode and full auto mode. I also filmed one of my daughters dolls, it's a black body with several coloured rings around it. The camera can focus and show detail on all rings, except the red one which is fuzzy and "ghosty". The green ring is to light, but okay. I tried the same tests with my old cheap-o Panasonic DS11, it rendered both the doll and the lamp correctly. So I think I'll have to use my Canon European warranty - I hope they'll be good and fast! Sad regards, Lars Siden Sweden __________________ Sony HDR-CX130,Canon 5DMKII,i7 930@4.0, 12gb memory, 3x SSD + 2x1Tb(stripe), Geforce 480, Dual 24", Win 7 x64

March 27th, 2003, 05:18 PM	#20
Bud Kuenzli Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: North Pole, Alaska Posts: 197	two comments first, lars, when I read "I have also tried to de-interlace the AVI for computer playback, no visble change." that tells me you aren't viewing dv footage, you are viewing video compressed into an avi. all bets are off there with regard to compression artifacts you might see. there may be some error or problem with the compression, but again, you can't make any conclusion about the camera based on an compressed avi image. go back to the original dv footage. if you are importing this directly into an avi, compressing it on the fly, that may be the issue right from the get go. when discuss the window lamp it sounds like you are talking about viewing it in the viewfinder so perhaps there is indeed a problem, but it's still not at all clear....hard to troubleshoot some of these things, eh? __________________ on the Internet, when you get where you're going you still don't know where you are

March 28th, 2003, 01:15 AM	#23
Graham Bernard Old Boot Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: London UK Posts: 3,633	Lars - You have my full attention! I too get red bleed - I've been living with it XM2 - PAL. I also have an old analogue Panni cammy - not red bleed - PAL. I'm wondering if this is a PAL-land issue and not an NTSC-land issue. I'd like to hear from NTSC users if they have had this issue - yeah? Now, if you get any feedback from Canon Europe I'll shall be very, very interested. I got my XM2 in Nov '02 so I could get it checked out too - hmmm.... I got the XM2 for many reasons: 1 - Price - Sony VX2000 a bit too much for me 2 - Audio control/s and sound quality 3 - Actual ergonomic "feel" of the camera 4 - MA300 adaptor - yes I do like it! 5 - Wide angle lens option I will say that in general I'm very happy with the XM2. This one "issue" I could possibly "correct" in post-prod. Lars . . . I'm keeping an eye out for your responses

March 28th, 2003, 12:26 PM	#29
Bud Kuenzli Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: North Pole, Alaska Posts: 197	confirmed I took a shot of a red screwdriver on white paper. After dumping a pict file from iMovie I could also see some red bleed, but it was limited to a single pixel in width, here and there along the length of the object. It's not something I would have noticed in any moving video and wasn't as pronounced as your example of the coke bottle lid. Luckily I'm not a pro with a need for better resolution and perfect color fidelity. I don't know the exact trade-offs of other cameras on the market, but I do know that they all have some trade-off, whether that be resolution, zoom, color aberation, barrel distortion, whatever. My GL2 is new to me and I've only put about 5 tapes through it, but those 5 tapes are the best video I've ever shot so in spite of this (minor from my perspective) issue, I'm a happy camper. Hope this is resolved to your satisfaction... __________________ on the Internet, when you get where you're going you still don't know where you are

March 27th, 2003, 10:54 AM	#16
Graham Bernard Old Boot Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: London UK Posts: 3,633	Okay - Now look at other "reds" from other sources on your TV - Adverts, news casts, plays etc etc. So does that mean you are a bit better about your purchase?

March 27th, 2003, 11:13 AM	#17
Chris Fangio Regular Crew Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Koblenz, Germany Posts: 70	Hi there. I own an XM2 and I'm also not satisfied with reproduction of red tones. Took some shots in a low light situation in manual mode yesterday (and many times in normal light situations before). Colours were neutral except red which was bleeding. Chris

March 27th, 2003, 11:23 PM	#21
Marc Martin Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Paris, France Posts: 80	VX2000 can have red bleed too. Look: http://marcolivier.free.fr/temp1/vx2000.jpg The original picture is here: http://www.bealecorner.com/vx2000/xmas00/glade.jpg There is less bleed than the GL2/XM2 but it is here. The more I see the clips shooted with the XM2, the more I see some electronic sharpeness (white lines contour). Anyone has noticed that?

March 28th, 2003, 12:54 AM	#22
Chris Fangio Regular Crew Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Koblenz, Germany Posts: 70	Lars, if your XM2 is broken, all XM2s sold by CANON are broken because they all show this phenomenom. Red tones are difficult to handle and so my conclusion is that it is by design of this cam. Not very satisfying, I guess. Chris

March 28th, 2003, 01:20 AM	#24
Yik Kuen Regular Crew Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Johor Bahru, Malaysia Posts: 135	If that's the case, Lars, can you please let us know what's Canon's remedy to this problem. Can the problem be fixed by upgrading the firmware? Or, is it due to the hardware? Possible for Canon to change your XM2 to XL1s or money back? I'm sure that they must do something. Can they provide details for this weird problem? Any version of XM2/GL2 to avoid? But, I don't see complains from Japanese and Taiwanese users who are using the XV2. I did came across some sample stills of XV2 and to my surprise, they are okay. :(

March 28th, 2003, 01:30 AM	#25
Graham Bernard Old Boot Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: London UK Posts: 3,633	Yik - Interesting - "I don't see complains from Japanese and Taiwanese users who are using the XV2" Sooo... what's the difference between the XM2 and the XV2? Why the better quality? - I don't expect you can answer this, but is there a "specifacation" difference

March 28th, 2003, 02:14 AM	#26
Yik Kuen Regular Crew Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Johor Bahru, Malaysia Posts: 135	That seems to bring us closer to the firmware problem rather than the hardware. If this is the reason, then the GL2/XM2/XV2 have no technical design fault (I hope), only the firmware glitches. This can be fixed by newer firmware update, just like Panny usually does. The XV2 is Japanese NTSC model, with black body which has more "professional" like. Follow this link (in Japanese), just look at those sample stills: http://www.soundweb-asia.com/products_test/canon_xv2/page_1.htm

March 28th, 2003, 04:47 AM	#27
Hans Henrik Bang Regular Crew Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Frederiksberg, Denmark Posts: 133	I have mostly done "nature" shoots so far with my new XM2, so I haven't really shot any red subjects. I will try to do some tests this weekend though, so we can see whether this problem is a general one, or Lars' camera being broken. Bud Kuenzli wrote something about .avi files not being uncompressed DV. As far as I know these things are not strictly related. Video is compressed right in the camera in a 5:1 ratio. Ie. what is recorded on tape is already compressed 5 times compared to uncompressed video. When you import this to a PC, it will be the same DV data as on tape. There is an .avi wrapper around it, but this has nothing to do with compression. Avi files can be all sorts of codecs, so you can easily have radically different compression schemes that are all stored in .avi files. My point is that this problem should be judged on the basis of newly imported DV footage from the camera stored in an .avi file. These will be compressed 5:1, but this is inherent in the DV format. Will get back, when I have done some testing myself. Hans Henrik

March 28th, 2003, 10:11 AM	#28
Hans Henrik Bang Regular Crew Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Frederiksberg, Denmark Posts: 133	Ok. I have some test material up for you now for comparison. First a few words about the test method. I shot them with my XM2 in daylight, manually white balanced. I imported the shots to the PC via Scenalyzer and dumped screenshots directly from there via the "export to .bmp" - full resolution option. This should eliminate .jpg compression as a possible culprit. Here are the shots: http://home7.inet.tele.dk/hhb/redtest/redtest1.bmp http://home7.inet.tele.dk/hhb/redtest/redtest2.bmp http://home7.inet.tele.dk/hhb/redtest/redtest3.bmp http://home7.inet.tele.dk/hhb/redtest/redtest4.bmp http://home7.inet.tele.dk/hhb/redtest/redtest5.bmp http://home7.inet.tele.dk/hhb/redtest/redtest6.bmp I tried to use some standard objects such as a red coke bottle cap for possible comparison. In the last 2 shots, I put a red and a green candle next to each other for direct comparison of red vs. green reproduction. I notice some bleeding of red. On the images of the cigarette pack, there is similar bleeding of yellow, but then again red is a component of yellow. There is also edge enhancement very obvious in all the shots, but especially in the candle shots, I don't find any remarkable difference between green and red. Will be very interested in the feedback you get from Canon. Also feedback regarding my testshots are very welcome. Hans Henrik

March 28th, 2003, 12:33 PM	#30
Hans Henrik Bang Regular Crew Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Frederiksberg, Denmark Posts: 133	Like you Bud, I am generally very happy with my XM2. A vast improvement over my previous suckycam. I also noticed that the bleed is most noticable in still really. As soon as you get to moving video, the bleed seems very slight. When I get daylight again I will try some more testshots, this time with sharpness dialed down, so we can see how much edge enhancement has to do with this. Hans Henrik