Matching Z1 and Fw-900 cinealta.

[Wesley Wong]

anybody has a good idea what's the best way to get Z1 footage to match ?

Run the firewire in the Sony Z1 HDV out from the firewire to a Miranda HD DEC bridge converter to HD SDI and then to a HDcam SRW-1/SRPC-1 VTR ?

Or how about insteand of the Miranda HD DEC, an AJA HD10A to convert the component output from the Z1 (can anyone confirm if this is uncompressed?) to a HD-sdi signal and to a HDcam SRW-1 ?

trying to run the z1 as a b-camera to a cinealta.


Hate to spend on a HDV deck to do this later back at post if I can figure the best way on site.

[Wesley Wong]

No one tried any of this yet ?

[Michael Maier]

Well, I might be wrong, but IMO, there's more than just the recording format to match here. The Z1 is way inferior to a Cinealta. It will look worse no matter what. Also, the Z1 is interlaced only, so you would have to shoot interlaced with the Cinealta (if it even shoot 1080i. I'm not sure it does). If you shoot 24fps with the Cinealta and try to deinterlace the 1080i from the Z1, the Z1 will look much softer and won't match. What I heard is that deinterlaced 1080i looks softer than 720p. If you don't deinterlace, the 1080i won't match the 24fps.
All that not considering the diferences in latitude, lens quality, camera head quality and DSP.
So, I don't think matching a Z1 to a F900 is as simple as recording on the same format. But I might be wrong.

[Tony Rogers]

"The Z1 is way inferior to a Cinealta. It will look worse no matter what"

It's hard to conceive anything looking worse than Attack of the Clones:P

[Michael Maier]

Well, I see your point. But maybe, it would make it easier to concieve it, if you try to imagine AOTC being shot on a Z1?

[Wesley Wong]

Seeing is that you haven't shot on the cinealta, how would you know that a Z1 can't hold its own (to a certain extent) against one ?

I'm merely trying to start a discussion on how best to approach this and maybe learn from others, who've tried it dude.


I'm pretty sure after all this mix and matching, noone can tell too much of a diff if the finaly outpu is actually to SD, which is still the norm in most parts of the world.

So wouldn't you want to shoot on a Z1 too ?

[Miguel Lopez]

Ok.
If you are going to film you can only pray. THe loss quality will be seen for sure, and lets not talk about image latitude.

But if you are going to DVD you can have a chance and have good results.

My question is where are you going to edit the footage.

If it is a standard PC i would record on the HDV tape. If you do not have a lot of money i would stay on the HDV as long as you are going to DVD. It is sufficiently good.
If you have the money, the use an external deck to record the Z1 images so they get less compressed. However i dont think this is the case, because almost for that price you can rent a f750 as a second camera.

To get the same lattitud with the Z1 I might try to underexpose around half or 1 stop and later play with the gamma curves on post.

Also i would use CF25 although there is people that say it is better to deinterlace in post. I found the compression is lower therefore better images at CF25.

Good luck!

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

Originally Posted by Miguel Lopez

Ok.
If you are going to film you can only pray. THe loss quality will be seen for sure, and lets not talk about image latitude.

Granted, you've got good points. However, I've now seen 3 films from Mexico that used the Z1, and one of them intercut FW900 footage in the project. They matched just fine. Took a push of color saturation and a little correction on the part of the Z1, but the two were very, very close. The Z1 footage was captured via Xpri as 4:2:2 HD, so it was treated as HDCAM immediately. I don't know what device was used to convert it from cam out to HD/SDI. I only saw it after it had been captured and printed to HDCAM, then saw it again after it had been transferred to 35 and projected.

So, while I wasn't present for much of the post process, when I saw the closeness of the footage, I did ask the editor how he'd matched them. He explained that it was very easy to do, and showed me the essentials of what he'd done. The FW900 and Z1's were set up by the same person, so that made a huge difference, I'm sure. I would have liked to have been present to see how everything was set up.

[Miguel Lopez]

Interesting.
But it seems as i read from you that they treated the colors of the image from the F900 so it looked as the Z1.

If you do not touch anything, the Z1 will have more contrast. How did the fix that? Adding contrast to the Fw900 footage? ;D

"The FW900 and Z1's were set up by the same person, so that made a huge difference."


I see. I prefer to leave the Z1 settings almost as they come and spend time in post. In the case of cinealta even more. Since color is not too compressed i prefer not to touch the gamma curves on the set. That can be easily done later. At least that is what i think, but unfortunately i havent worked too much with HDcam.

What do you think?

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

From what I saw, they pushed the Z1 to match the CineAlta. We did this at Sundance Film Fest this past January, and while it was only on a 60" plasma, it looked great. Bear in mind, the m2t never sees another compressed format, so it pushes fairly well.

I know that the Z1 was extensively set up for the shoot I saw in post.
I also know exactly how Jodi Eldred's media was managed in post for JAG matching to his CineAlta, but in that case, it was broadcast, so I don't know how it would have looked on film.

I don't have much experience with the 900, but do have a fair amount with the 700. I prefer to set that up in the cam, just because it saves time in post, but if you want the most flexibility, you'd probably want to shoot straight out of the box. However, I'm much more pleased with my Z1 the way I've got it set up as opposed to straight out of the box. It needs a slight sharpness boost and slight color boost, plus a few more little tweaks, and I'm quite happy with it. Dang, but I wish we could save those Z1 profiles to disk though. Not enough memory in it. :-) I want more buttons or more profile storage options.

[Michael Maier]

Isn't the Z1 only 1080i and the Cinealta only 1080p? And that matched?

[Charlie McCarrick]

Originally Posted by Tony Rogers

It's hard to conceive anything looking worse than Attack of the Clones:P

You must be from a different universe in which AOTC didn't unquestionably have objectively superior picture quality than virtually anything Hollywood produces. Either that, or you just didn't get to see it on a digital projection. :)

But seriously, the big screen is the best IQ reference, since it unveils all the picture's flaws After seeing many movies shot both on film and digital, shown through the same digital projector, I can easily conclude that the digitally shot films (high end like AOTC, Sin City -- not 28 Days Later of course) look significantly objectively better.

Also, DVD isn't a good media on which to compare absolute IQ due to its limited res. Watch AOTC once it's available on Bluray (or whatever the next standard turns out to be). It'll look amazing since they'll retransfer it directly from the higher quality digital source. Film movies will also look great, but I doubt they'll match top of the line video. Once again, I'm referring only to objective quality.

[Michael Maier]

Originally Posted by Charlie McCarrick

You must be from a different universe in which AOTC didn't unquestionably have objectively superior picture quality than virtually anything Hollywood produces. Either that, or you just didn't get to see it on a digital projection. :)

Problem is, 98% of the world watch movies on normal film projectors, and will still do for a long time to come.

[Ken Hodson]

AOTC is already available in HD-DVD and looks quite good. Revenge of the sith looks even better (not available in HD yet) do to the better cams used, and will be the benchmark to which all HD films image quality will be compared. I still find 24fps far too low for these high action types of movies. Everything becomes a blur. It is definately time for 60p digital projection for this genre of feature.

[Dominic Jones]

Originally Posted by Michael Maier

Isn't the Z1 only 1080i and the Cinealta only 1080p? And that matched?

No, the CineAlta will shoot 1080 at 24, 25, 30(p) and 50, 60(i) frame rates...