"Sparks" -- almost like a sample 24F clip...

[Chris Hurd]

Howdy from Texas,

At the Canon Global Expo last week, nobody was allowed to pop in a tape and record on the show floor. However, Canon was showing some sample 24F material they had put together for the product announcement. It was a little vignette about a watchmaker's shop. I had a chance to record a small part of this scene using my PowerShot SD300 digicam in movie mode.

Basically all I did was point my camera at the monitor and record straight off the screen. I've been somewhat reluctant to put this up because it's not really an XL H1 sample clip. It's just my little digicam's recording of the image off the monitor. The clip is only 320 x 240 in size because that's what my movie mode was set to at the time.

I added a title bug, killed the audio track and saved it as a Windows Media file. Remember this thing started life as a Motion-JPEG AVI file, so please don't try to evaluate the quality of the XL H1 image based on this tiny little 20 second clip. Just wanted to give you an idea of the 24F frame rate is all.

Download this file first before playing it by right-clicking on the name and choose "save file as" -- Mac users, sorry I could not do a QuickTime just right now, and I might redo this clip a little bit later anyway. You can view it with the free VLC player from www.videolan.org. Enjoy!

[Chris Hurd]

Okay, I fixed some issues I had with this from yesterday -- it should work now. Sorry I couldn't get this out any sooner but we're in the middle of preparing for a storm over here.

[Brad Herbert]

Thanks for the "video of a video" video.

Yeah it's hard to judge too much, but the footage did look nice - of course the scene was lit very well, and had some really sexy camera moves. Kinda hard to judge the 24F motion on such slow moves, but I must say it looked really promising.


-Brad

[Gary McClurg]

Chris,

When will we see real footage?

Any clues.

Not sure if they're sending DVD's like they did with the XL2 to their retailers.

Thanks again for posting the video of a video of a video.

Gary

[Evan C. King]

even for being taped off a monitor that looks really nice!

[Chris Hurd]

I'm hoping they'll offer a DVD that includes both the "Watchmaker's Shop" stuff shot in 24F on HD as well as the Florence, Italy material shot in 60i on HDV. The two sequences compliment each other nicely.

[James Rhodes]

I aksed our rep about getting a copy of that disk, but alas no such luck, wouldn't matter anyway unless it was an HDCAM tape you couldn't really get an idea of how great it would look from a sampler DVD.


Just my 2
James

[Hayden Rivers]

Cool clip. If I understand correctly, 24f is only available going to HDV tape which I assume is still being written at 25mbps. I wonder if you're better off outputing 1080i 4:2:2 over HD-SDI and converting to 24p using DVFilmmaker or something similar or just to shoot 24f to HDV and call it a day. Especially if you're hoping to get picked up for distribution.

Edit: Okay, just read somewhere that you can output 24f uncompressed through SDI. That's pretty nice if true. Believe Chris Hurd said it was confirmed, so I guess it's true. I was really looking forward to the HVX-200 so it'll be interesting to see how these 2 cameras compete against one another.

[Chris Hurd]

Yes it is important to understand that 24F and 30F can go out through HD-SDI.

[Zack Birlew]

Nice clip, but I've seen the same quality done on an XL2 spot Canon made. Nobody here should judge that clip as something they could do, Canon has tons-o-money and can light and arrange the poop out of their product spots. With these HD cameras we're finally given the tools but it's our part to work on the quality of our works.

[Bill Pryor]

Hmm...most people I know spend huge amounts of time, with loads of lights, and studio rental costs for product shots, regardless of format. All it takes for good product photography is the right kind of lighting and studio space, dolly and jib if needed. People in the business do it every day.

[Chris Hurd]

The XL H1 is directly at aimed the market of potential buyers that Bill indicates above. The level of production work he has just described is exactly what this camera is designed (and accordingly priced) to reach. Nothing will stop you from using it for whatever purpose you wish, but it's specifically targeting that particular group. So of course the demo material is built around the all of the elements you'd expect those customers to be using, including very careful lighting, a crane, a dolly, a deck and most importantly a crew. And a budget. The "Watchmaker's Shop" vignette pulls back to reveal all of those components at work.

[Zack Birlew]

Of course, Bill and Chris, but I'm talking about a good majority of members on this board (small independent filmmakers, students, and hobbyists). I should have edited "nobody" for "most" or more accurately "many" in my last post, my bad =P. I mean, you look around here and hear talk of "Oh, I'm SO gonna buy this when it comes out!" or "Man, this thing is going to be a filmmaker's dream come true." or even "I can't wait to upgrade!" Well, I've yet to see people that've done stuff with their XL2's, but then again a lot of people here are wedding and business video producers and that stuff usually doesn't end up in the public eye for viewing, so maybe my comment was a little narrow but I still haven't seen anything come out of the current HD cameras yet. I remember when there were tons, and still are, of Sony VX2000/2100 and PD150/170 filmmakers when those cameras came out, what happened to the FX1/Z1U group? Where's the great HD digital indie filmmakers movement? All we've got right now is Star Wars 1-3, Spy Kids (?), Sin City, and Once Upon a Time in Mexico. Those were made on HD cameras, not ones a lot of us can afford, but HD nonetheless.

I just hope the XLH1, HVX200, and HD-100U can change all of that and by the looks of things so far from the 100U and this XLH1 clip, oh yeah, things are gonna change alright! =D

[Stephen van Vuuren]

Originally Posted by Jack Felis

Where's the great HD digital indie filmmakers movement?

It's been too expensive until recently - in many cases more expensive than 16mm production or even 35mm unless you project was effects heavy (e.g. Spy Kids etc.).

But with decent HDV cams now out for a year and the HVX coming, it will change...

Assuming filmmakers have some interesting stories to tell

[Dalen Johnson]

Originally Posted by Chris Hurd

Yes it is important to understand that 24F and 30F can go out through HD-SDI.

Can it do uncompressed 1080i 24f, or is it only uncompressed 1080 60i?
(when going out through SDI)