HFS10 Sample clips

[Larry Horwitz]

Has anyone seen / posted any sample clips from the new HFS10 in the original .mts format?

I am anxious to see how well this camcorder does, particularly in low light. I would especially prefer to see clips directly from the camera rather than those which have been passed through Pixella, QuickTime, or any other processing.

Thanks for any links.

Larry

[Luis A. Diaz]

Well Larry, when I loaded my SD card thru the card reader and it mounted I went inside I opened to see what kind of folders and file structure it had, since I'm new to this ACHVD format, in one of the folders I saw, a lot of mts files with numbers 00001, 00002 etc. I tried to open one of them with MPEG Streamclip app., but it did not open, I'm working on a Mac but don't have Final Cut Pro. If you can walk me to a workflow to extract these files in some workable formula I be happy to help. Can you upload these raw files thru Vimeo without alteration

Thanks
Luis

[Larry Horwitz]

Thanks Luis for your prompt reply.

I am indeed looking for one or two short sample files in the very place you have been looking, the files numbered 0001.mts, 0002.mts, etc. These are placed in the STREAM folder during capture by the HFS10.

Rapidshare.com allows a 200 MB maximum file size and seems to work ok for the few times I have used it. (Vimeo does not accept raw .mts files for download / input, and therefore would only be useful if I wanted to see files after they had been transcoded by Quicktip or other encoders.)

I believe roughly 1 minute long clips should be around 200 megabytes (for the highest 24 Mbit/sec camcorder quality). I would greatly appreciate any clip or clips which would be 1 minute or less showing how the camcorder looks in low light and in good light, and preferably with some horizontal and vertical motion / panning to give the camcorder a bit of a stress test.

Thanks very much again Luis,

Larry

[Buba Kastorski]

Will post link tonight,

here http://www.megaupload.com/?d=E3PCHMKC

[Larry Horwitz]

Buba,

Your clips are really impressive, and show some clear advantages over the HF100 I have been using. The extra bit rate, better sensor, better lens, and better encoder are really beautifully combined to make visible improvements in sharpness, motion artifacts, low light noise, and overall clarity. No doubt it is time to eBay / craigslist my HF100.............

This is a really nice collection of small samples.

The last ones look like they may have been shot in Niagara Falls, Ontario? I have alot of AVCHD, HDV, and DSLR photography in Canada since I live just a few miles from the border.

Thanks very much for putting these samples together. Yours are literally the first and only samples I have seen of the new HFS10 despite a lot of searching.

Larry

[Aaron Burns]

Here are 2 clips that I shot.

HFS100 Test 1a on Vimeo

HFS100 Test 2 on Vimeo

[Buba Kastorski]

Originally Posted by Larry Horwitz

Thanks very much for putting these samples together. Yours are literally the first and only samples I have seen of the new HFS10 despite a lot of searching.

Larry

I'm glad it helped
:)

[Larry Horwitz]

Originally Posted by Aaron Burns

Here are 2 clips that I shot.

HFS100 Test 1a on Vimeo

HFS100 Test 2 on Vimeo

Thanks Aaron. Unfortunately your Quicktime .mov files at 1280 by 720 low bitrate transcodings sent to Vimeo have a small fraction of the oiginal video, way lower in bitrate and with over 50% of the detail discarded as well. The original .mts captured files are the real original content.

As I mentioned above in this thread, Vimeo cannot be used for showing or transferring true HD data.

Nice movie clips but not for critical comparisons.

Larry

[Olivier Jezequel]

Thanks Buba for the files that helped me a lot.

But my conclusions are less enthusiast than the others.
I have converted the avchd files with VoltaicHD to be able to read them in uncompressed tiff sequences and quicktime.
When i use an histogram in shake to look at the colors, there is not a lot of things left.
that worry me a lot. And try to decrease the contrast you will quickly see some artifacts.
People are talking of sharpness, i say really pixellated lines.
It is sad you have shoot the footages in interlacing, it is hard to judge the picture even if i de-interlace the pictures, all the motions are very interlaced.

But my other concern is the Cmos rolling shutter artefacts, every motion have heavy skew, really heavy. and i see a lot of hardcore wobble very often.

I am seriously worry about all of that
Your files are using the new 24 mb/s recording ? do you have some files in 24p or 25p ?

i must admit that the vimo video i have seen looks fine except the wobble, but it is internet...

to put me in the context, i am a vfx professional compositor, more used to 35mm high resolution for film so i have surely too much expectations. I want to buy a camcorder to start doing my own tests.

Are all my worries usual for that range of camcorders ? tape and avchd ?
thanks
Olivier

[Buba Kastorski]

hey Olivier, glad it helped:)
hf s10 is a great consumer camcorder with a very nice set of manual controls,
and with the proper lighting equipment and post I think it can produce commercial quality footage,
but it's still a consumer camcorder so don't expect too much, although day light picture from hf s10 is better than from FX1 (i used to own one)
all samples were shot @ 24mb/s and I believe 30p, sure I'll post 24p footage, and if you have some settings in mind let me know,

[Olivier Jezequel]

Are you sure you was in progressive mode recording ? some of the footages have an heavy interlacing for me.
I am still thinking to buy one, i will just wait a bit to see if sony will have something for this summer.
I quiet like there little option to have a slow recording option, but... we can't have everything, and i know i have very high expectations because of my work :)

thanks again

[Xavier Plagaro]

I can't properly play the .mts files in my new white MacBook... Do I need a Mac Pro to play them?? MPEG Streamclip doesn't open them either... :-((

[Bruce Foreman]

Originally Posted by Olivier Jezequel

I have converted the avchd files with VoltaicHD to be able to read them in uncompressed tiff sequences and quicktime.
When i use an histogram in shake to look at the colors, there is not a lot of things left.
that worry me a lot. And try to decrease the contrast you will quickly see some artifacts.
People are talking of sharpness, i say really pixellated lines.
It is sad you have shoot the footages in interlacing, it is hard to judge the picture even if i de-interlace the pictures, all the motions are very interlaced.

Converting or transcoding the AVCHD to "read" them may not be giving you much in the way of "true" quality. There are two ways to evaluate the AVCHD .MTS files. One is with the Pixela player that comes with the camera, which on a computer that can handle AVCHD gives a very good indication of quality.

And the other would be to edit a short sequence in your NLE and render it to a high definition file format (HD 1920x1080 WMV or HD MP4) and play that in something like Windows Media Player to see what it looks like. VLC does a pretty good job of playing the .MTS files if the computer can keep up with it.

Originally Posted by Olivier Jezequel

But my other concern is the Cmos rolling shutter artefacts, every motion have heavy skew, really heavy. and i see a lot of hardcore wobble very often.

Again, I think the transcoding and viewing software may be the culprit here. I have HF100's with CMOS rolling shutter and have seen no skew yet in any motion in my work. I've recorded cavalry charges, running deer, done sequences through the windshield while driving, pans to follow action and movement and I just don't have the rolling shutter problem.

Worst cases of wobble and skew I have seen in others footage is where they have not isolated the cam from vibration.

Originally Posted by Olivier Jezequel

i must admit that the vimo video i have seen looks fine except the wobble, but it is internet...

to put me in the context, i am a vfx professional compositor, more used to 35mm high resolution for film so i have surely too much expectations. I want to buy a camcorder to start doing my own tests.

That is what I would suggest. Footage I've seen from the HF S10 and HF S100 looks stunning, even on vimeo. So either cam should work well for you. Just remember everything has limitations. So once you see a limitation occur in your own trials, simply try to work within those limitations. Once you know where you "cannot go", just "don't go there".

Get one and start having fun with it.

Originally Posted by Olivier Jezequel

Are all my worries usual for that range of camcorders ? tape and avchd ?

Probably.

Good Luck

[D.R. Gates]

Low light looks good, except for the smearing.

[Kenneth Medin]

Originally Posted by Bruce Foreman

Again, I think the transcoding and viewing software may be the culprit here. I have HF100's with CMOS rolling shutter and have seen no skew yet in any motion in my work. I've recorded cavalry charges, running deer, done sequences through the windshield while driving, pans to follow action and movement and I just don't have the rolling shutter problem.

Worst cases of wobble and skew I have seen in others footage is where they have not isolated the cam from vibration.

Handheld photage will produce CMOS wobble, particulary if zoomed in. If you try to stabilize in post it looks terrible. But there is a cure. Deshaker for Virtualdub (all free) has a working wobble compensate function that really works if properly calibrated. At 5:35 in Eriksberg-Vasastan 090412 on Vimeo a 12x zoom scen is repeated with compensating turned off to show the difference. Vimeo transcoding failed on the hd version but sd and downloadable original file are OK.