HD100U Split Screen Will Not Be Fixed?

[Huiy Tang]

The North American HD100's can only have the SS issue reduced, but not completely eliminated. JVC says they won't fix it in it's first line. However, if there are enough consumers willing to wait and not purchase a camera from the defective line, they will have to upgrade the chips, and modulator. Please do not purchase a camera that will require ongoing software updates to work out the kinks. This will only encourage companies to put profit before the consumer.

[Tim Dashwood]

Originally Posted by Huiy Tang

The North American HD100's can only have the SS issue reduced, but not completely eliminated. JVC says they won't fix it in it's first line. However, if there are enough consumers willing to wait and not purchase a camera from the defective line, they will have to upgrade the chips, and modulator. Please do not purchase a camera that will require ongoing software updates to work out the kinks. This will only encourage companies to put profit before the consumer.

JVC says??? Where did you hear that? Please quote your source's name and/or position in the company before posting "breaking news" like this.

You don't work for Sony by any chance do you?

[Stephen L. Noe]

Originally Posted by Tim Dashwood

JVC says??? Where did you hear that? Please quote your source's name and/or position in the company before posting "breaking news" like this.

You don't work for Sony by any chance do you?

Tim, Huiy has been posting over on dvxuser.com.

Huiy-I think you said you got 4 replacements. Now that a few weeks have gone by, have you tried to get another one?

[Tim Dashwood]

Originally Posted by Stephen L. Noe

Tim, Huiy has been posting over on dvxuser.com.

Huiy-I think you said you got 4 replacements. Now that a few weeks have gone by, have you tried to get another one?

Thanks Stephen.

I thought your name was familiar Huiy. I didn't realize when I saw a new user's first post declaring some definitive information from "JVC." Sorry about the Sony comment, but this is the type of thing that got this thread on a roll in the first place. I was almost going to make a Karl Rove joke, but held back.

sorry Huiy.

Tim

[Tim Dashwood]

I feel inclined to defend my earlier post and the responses it has received.

Originally Posted by Steve Mullen

Actually, I later raised this to F4 to compensate for the possibility that you might have a statistically "non-normal (non bell shaped curve) where a few bright lights caused you to set the exposure higher than it should be for the larger dark areas. This was also a simply way to keep the F-stop at the setting where the lens offers the most rez as measured by you and/or Berry. (There's nothing wrong with F2 or F2.8 in "normal" situations, but you are scarificing resolution.)

Now my logic may be wrong, but the results I get speak for themselves. No SSE and max rez.

I'll admit I did not think about those who are not into reality shooting. And, at that time most of the discussions were about shooting reality -- weddings and docs.

You feel my "rule" would prevent creative -- dark mood -- shots. I don't think is true.

Steve. I was directly responding to your post in another thread that has propogated itself as a "rule-of-thumb" since then:

Originally Posted by Steve Mullen (on 09-29-2005 from another thread)

"As I've already said, there must be enough light to get at least an F2 reading. But, that reading is an AVERAGE reading from the camera system.

Imagine a white product that fills about half the frame. Behind it, a deep purple cloth. The reading is F2.8. All is fine -- right?

Maybe not. If the white reading is F4 -- the purple must have a reading of F1.4. Which means it doesn't have enough light on it.

Which leads to the obvious solution. Simply zoom into dark areas (not the full black areas) and check the F-stop. If it is F2 -- or better -- then there should be enough light to avoid any split-screen effect.
"

I was trying to make the point that the SSE in my FW1.14 camera doesn't just have a max threshold where it goes away. It has a minimum and a maximum response threshold based on IRE. IRE is the only repeatable measurement that can be used objectively when measuring the SSE. The relative exposure you used will differ depending on what custom gamma curve, gain level, shutter speed and how each operator chooses to rate the camera/curve's ASA - auto exposure included.

Originally Posted by Steve Mullen

What they want is to CREATE the LOOK of dark. Which brings up the old confusion of film students -- sometimes they hear someone use "F-stop" to mean an amount of light (as used by a director), other times "F-stop" means a setting on a camera. I think you have confused the two meanings. I can dig out a quote from one of my Cinematography books that explains this much more clearly than I can.

I don't want this to become a battle of the brains because I think that the work both of us have done can help the community, but I don't think I confused anything. Your "purple cloth" analogy seemed pretty clear.
In my defense, I was trained by "old school" DPs, I generally shoot using a "base stop" based on how I rate a particular film stock based on push/pull/ENR/BB processing, grain and the response curve (Vision stocks pick up more detail in shadows, etc.) The same applies for video - and I have been giving different exposure ratings to my different curves. BTW, I also know the difference between an ƒ stop and a T stop.

Originally Posted by Steve Mullen

What I "sense" you are doing by dropping MB is forcing the darker areas to become fully black. Since at first, it seemed it was the dark, but NOT black, areas that got SSE this idea works. Until you realize that you can get SSE on a white wall if the lens reads OPEN. Clearly, lowering MB by a 3, will not bring that white wall into black.

Like I said in my post, my v.1.14 camera doesn't show SSE on white walls. My tests were based on one camera only. The Master Black solution only applies to my camera (and possibly other v1.14 cameras.) I'm waiting for others to report back if it helps their situation. I have also found that the MB NORMAL wasn't anywhere near 0 black anyway, so crushing them slightly doesn't actually have any adverse effects, especially when using a wide dynamic range curve.

Originally Posted by Steve Mullen

2) We both have stumbled upon "solutions" but they are not universal. In which case, we have tried but failed.

agreed.

Originally Posted by Steve Mullen

3) Ideally, JVC will allow their engineers to publish a White Paper on SSE and HOW TO MINIMIZE IT. As long as the internet is buzzing with folks like us trying to solve THEIR problem without a deep understanding of the nature of the problem -- SSE will stay a thorn in their side!

I hope it doesn't come to that. Ideally this problem will be gone by the end of the month, and then it won't be a thorn in anyone's side.

Tim

[Chris Hurd]

Originally Posted by Huiy Tang

Please do not purchase a camera that will require ongoing software updates to work out the kinks. This will only encourage companies to put profit before the consumer.

The fact that they provide those updates proves that the companies *are* putting the customer first. In the still photo world, firmware updates for everything from digicams to digital SLR's have been a regular part of the process for several years now. It is not a bad thing. It is very much a good thing.

[Huiy Tang]

My dealer has done no advocation. I nagged for a reply from JVC, it sounds like they simply do not want to deal with the issue. JVC has had so many cameras returned that they are exchanging defective units with other ones. They are however updating the firmware. Just cause you get a replacement unit does not mean it isn't used. Check the drum hours and fan hours on your replaced units if you don't believe me. Is this the kind of company you want to support. No I am not a sony rep, as the JVC rep who I spoke to claims that the forums are full of. I am in the process of having to cancel a bulk order for an educational institution and I don't want to burn my bridges too soon. Once I receive our deposit back on the 7 units I will share every detail that I have received.

[Barry Green]

My "brand-new" unit, which bore a "opened for QC by JVC" sticker, had 39 fan hours on it. No drum hours but 39 fan hours. I figured that might be due to them leaving it on for a couple of days to let the CCDs "burn in", but I guess it's possible that it was a return from someone else as well.

[Robert Castiglione]

jeez Barry, 39 hours sounds like a lot for quality control testing. Are you going to query it?

Rob

[Michael Maier]

That was one of the first things I checked on mine. It had zero drum and zero fan hours. It did have 2 dead pixels though.

[Guy Barwood]

Is there any reason to believe these figures can't be reset by JVC service if they wanted to?

[Michael Maier]

Well, I guess it could.

[Steve Mullen]

[QUOTE=Tim DashwoodSteve. I was directly responding to your post in another thread that has propogated itself as a "rule-of-thumb" since then.[/QUOTE]

Because of your post -- thank you -- I have revised that now VERY old Sept. "Rule of Thimb". I did this in another post following yours. Hopefully, you have now found that one.

"BTW, I also know the difference between an ƒ stop and a T stop."

I never mentioned T-stop!

But, this is a good time to comment that Berry's finding the ISO drops from 250 @ F4 as the iris opens fully is a result of the T-stop not changing proportionally with the F-stop. I think the estimate of an ISO of 250 is likely a good one to use. But, it looks like he used the American 50IRE measurement rather than the EIA (Japanese) measurement of getting 100IRE. Right? The latter drops the ISO by 50%. And, I believe it is the one used when pro gear is speced as F8@2000lux. Correct?

Tim, there's no battle -- but there are two ways to use term F-stop. Your 7 director was using one way -- I'm using the other way. This is not the point to dig out the textbook and provide the quote.

You and I are in agreement about IRE being the only way to really understand this. Unfortunately, for most folks in the field, that's not a practical concept tp work with! By getting the iris to close to about F4, I was estimating that under a wide range of situations, IRE would extend from 0 to 100. (BECAUSE I BELIEVE THAT THE HD100 MUST HAVE A FULL IRE RANGE TO AVOID SSE.) I chose F4, because that was where the lens seems to have max. rez. It is slightly softer at F2.8 and F2.

I chose F8 as the upper limit because the lens gets soft above that. So my Rule of Thumb remains shoot from F4 to F8.

By the way -- where is the firmware number to be found? I suspect I may not have 1.17. And, is 1.17 the latest for NTSC units?

[Barry Green]

Originally Posted by Robert Castiglione

jeez Barry, 39 hours sounds like a lot for quality control testing. Are you going to query it?

I'm going to try to return it, actually. Besides the other well-documented issues, it appears mine adds a new QC question mark to the mix -- the lens is in no way delivering a high-def image. It's nowhere near as sharp, nor resolving nearly the level of detail, as other HD100's. So it must have a misaligned element or something in it.

It's delivering a final image that's barely any different than standard-def, when in high-def mode.

So, I'm going to have to try "The Perfect Experience" and see if they'll actually take it back...

[Werner Wesp]

They took every other camera back without question Barry, that's well documentend also... what gives you the impression they'll even ask questions - or give you a hard time about it?