JVC's Blacks are stellar

[Stephen L. Noe]

I've been working with the HD-100's night shots out to monitor compaired to the XL-H1's shots provided on this forum. JVC's blacks are superior to the H1's by a long way. They survive all kinds of manipulation (black level, gamma, gain, brightness (L,M,H), soft clipping chroma, luma, color etc..) and still hold evenly.

The H1's blacks can not stand to be pulled down without some artifacts jumping out. This is across the board. Test for yourself. Take the supplied H1 night shots and pull the blacks down to 0 IRE. You'll get checkerboards galore. Do the same thing with the JVC clips and you just get more black. It may be the settings in Kaku Ito's test camera? I don't think so.

I do know that the HD-100's clips uprez magnificently to 1080p and the clips can stand quite a bit of manipulation color wise and chroma wise. The H1's clips have tremendous rez but from my test with the supplied low light clips, between the two the JVC wins across the board.

If JVC can fix the split screen, it is a formidable camera (IMO) because you can really manipulate the images in post to your hearts content and they uprez magnificently.
@JVC, You've almost got a winner here. Your engineers have made a moviemakers camera.

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

You can't fairly make comparisons of two images that are not similar and how they might fade to black, raise the black, whatever. I'm not commenting one way or the other about what the JVC is or isn't, or what the Sony or Canon is or isn't.

It seems you're making blanket statements about the H1 that don't make sense. Charles Papert, Nate Weaver, and Barry Green got wonderful images from the HD100. Does that mean that everyone will get this quality out of the cam? No. By the same token, Kaku Ito's footage didn't hold up well for you when you squeezed the blacks. Does that mean everyone will have this issue? Not at all.

If you really want to make a comparison, mount both cams side by side, center their focal point, put them both on the same or approximate settings, and shoot. That's the only way to test objectively, identical footage with identical settings from the same camera operator.

How do you know the HD100 uprezzes well to 1080 compared to...? Have you done this and projected it? While I've not compared the HC1 to the HD100, I have upscaled the JVC 720 image to 1080, and it doesn't upscale "magnificently" any more than 1080 60i scales "magnificently" to 1080 30p. Projected, it's easy to pick out anomolies in both. Whether it's the JVC or the Z1, going in either direction. Additionally, you're scaling square to non-square, changing the vertical and horizontal properties of the frame, and this takes its toll. Looks great on a plasma or LCD monitor, but then again so does DV. Project it, you'll see problems with virtually anything that isn't native. I recently saw a Z1 project that was shot by an excellent DP, color graded and posted by an excellent editor, transferred to film by one of the best houses in Canada. It looked awesome in a fairly dark theatre. In a totally dark theatre where you couldn't see your hand in front of your face, a number of issues popped up, some due to MPEG, some due to colorization, and some due to the film itself. Same image on a 50" SXRD panel was stunning, like looking through a window.

Saw a film not shot nearly as well, converted to 4:2:2 YUV at the start, edited, and delivered on HDCAM that was snarly good when transferred to film. Partly because of the content, partly because of the editor, partly because of the transfer process, but due in great part to the fact that the DP knew the limits of the format and stayed well within them.

As good as the cameras are, there are imposed limits due to compression, regardless of whether it's 19Mbps or 25Mbps, not to mention the size of the chips, glass, and more over, the operator.

JVC may well indeed have a winner, more power to them and the format, but being a winner can hardly be predicated on how it compares to a demo camera.
At least not from my perspective.

[Gary McClurg]

Okay maybe I'm lost here.

I was under the impression he was talking about the new Canon vs. the JVC.

I'm I wrong here.

Been painting all day so maybe I've breathed to many paint fumes.

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

The Sony is the HC1
The JVC is the HD100
The Canon is the XL-H1

I wish they'd all just get the "H" out of their names. :-)

I'm the one breathing paint fumes, but it's still the same discussion. You can't compare images from the Canon, Sony, or JVC without them being from the same DP, same focal point, and identical, or as close to identical as possible in aperture and shutter speed.

[Steve Mullen]

I also assumed the H1 -- although I don't know how anyone can have images from it.

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

there are dozens of clips from the XLH1 on the web, most of them here on DVInfo.net.

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=52110

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=52060

[Stephen L. Noe]

Douglas,

Sorry, I was referring to the XL-H1 clips, not the camera you're initially referring to. These observations are from the clips provided by the good people on the web and output via Liquid 6.1 timeline via X600 DVI to a Sony SDM HS94P monitor set to 1920 x 1440. Liquid's creators in their infinite wisdom put the HD monitoring right in the timeline via a full screen button which allows the timeline to be blown up to real resolution through DVI. I have to scroll the screen but I have the whole enchilada to look at. Unbelievable forthought in an editing app.

The JVC stuff is worthy at 1080p for sure and as you say, knowing the limit's of the cam helps a great deal. As an editor, I'm impressed with the clips (minus the splitscreen of course).

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

Originally Posted by Stephen L. Noe

Douglas,

Sorry, I was referring to the XL-H1 clips, not the camera you're initially referring to. These observations are from the clips provided by the good people on the web and output via Liquid 6.1 timeline via X600 DVI to a Sony SDM HS94P monitor set to 1920 x 1440. Liquid's creators in their infinite wisdom put the HD monitoring right in the timeline via a full screen button which allows the timeline to be blown up to real resolution through DVI.

Yes, as soon as I saw Gary's post, I realized I'd misread, and therefore edited those two sentences. Apologies for mistaking your comparison models. I had forgotten that Kaku had shot the footage. Lucky guy gets everything early.

As far as full screen, Vegas 6 has the same...full screen output via DVI or BlackMagic. I have a borrowed Sony Luma system, and a 234 of my own that I'm looking at them all on. They all look great on the XBrite, don't they?
keep in mind, the XBrites have their own issues with black, so be looking at a histogram while examining this aspect of the image. Probably a good idea to try to set a baseline via scope for images when/if we can get some side by side images.

[Stephen L. Noe]

I send the clips out to SD monitor as well to check the color and black level via CRT. Douglas, you probably know this but the HS94P monitor gives complete control over setup and the monitor is blue balanced. I know what you mean about the blacks on Xbrite but the monitor can be set to Gamma 1 setting which brings the black up close to where it should be (I still use the good old CRT though).

The waveform for the XL-H1 shows the highlights blown out to 100 IRE no matter what, even in very low light situations displayed on the night clips. Check it out if you get a minute. Try to pull the blacks down and then watch the artifacts pop out. JVC's definatly got a leg up in this department.

what are your thoughts?

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

I'm seeing the highlights blown out too, which alone suggests to me that Kaku didn't have it set up, but since I've not laid finger nor eye on the cam...it's a crap shoot as to why.
I see the blacks fall apart too, but again...I don't believe the cam was at all set up.

I only have limited time on the XBrite, just tradeshow hours, so you likely know it much better than I. I just know the engineers grumble about getting the bottom perfectly seated like they do with the BVMs.