Working Day with the HD100: The Good & The Bad

[Steven Thomas]

I bought my camera around three weeks ago and have never seen SSE.
Yes, I have used it in very low light conditions.

I hardly ever use gain and would never go over +6dB.

The SSE appears NO longer and issue. firmware, factory tweak, I don't know?


Have any other recent buyers over the last month or two seen SSE?

Steve

[Ed Hill]

I have viewed the the +3 gain footage on a monitor and I'm happy to say, there is no noise.

Plus on the darkest footage, there is no sign of SSE (split screen effect) at any point.

Maybe JVC has this fixed in later cameras, our camera arrived Feb 21.

Ed

[Stephen L. Noe]

Originally Posted by Ed Hill

I have viewed the the +3 gain footage on a monitor and I'm happy to say, there is no noise.

Plus on the darkest footage, there is no sign of SSE (split screen effect) at any point.

Maybe JVC has this fixed in later cameras, our camera arrived Feb 21.

Ed

Hi Ed,

I've found that +6 db gain still gives solid pictures in very dark scenario. I hope you find the same results. Also. manipulating the camera menu settings you'll find you have tremendous capability to tailor your color gamut. The zebra switch you talked about also acts as the skin area detection as well. It's a three way switch that has zebra/skin area/off functions. Inside the menu's you have control over knee and white clip settings. I've found that the iris control reacts correctly to these settings. When you compose your shot you can use the auto iris or and it will get your levels pretty much spot on the graph to what you have in your settings for white clip. The camera handles the black setup via the menu (0 or 7.5). If you set the Whiteclip to 100% and the setup to 7.5 you should be broadcast safe on you waveform.

[Jim Giberti]

Originally Posted by Steven Thomas

I bought my camera around three weeks ago and have never seen SSE.
Yes, I have used it in very low light conditions.

I hardly ever use gain and would never go over +6dB.

The SSE appears NO longer and issue. firmware, factory tweak, I don't know?


Have any other recent buyers over the last month or two seen SSE?

Steve

Our HD100 is less than a month old.

I don't think there's going to be a time with this particualr camera design to pronounce an end to the possibiltiy of SSE. JVC has clearly stated that the dual processing solution to true 24p has some limitations and needs to be worked with with that in mind. Given the unique quality/price factor I think it's underestandable but...

The other day coming back from a great day we happened on a man in the middle of a frozen pond flying an intensely colored parafoil. We got out and shot this scene with the blue sky and snowy mountains in the background.

Back in the studio on the HD monitor there it was...in every second of every shot, split screen.

Regarding Tim Holtermann's comment about "you shouldn't have been shooting in the first place" this was at 0 gain, perfect (albeit cold) conditions.
Clearly the camera can still have problems in normal, acceptable, situations.

This has caused some concern on this end for an upcoming shoot that will take place with some of the retuning Olympic athletes.

A good deal of it will be shot on mountain under similar circumstnces and some of the scenes won't have the benefit of a video village because of the remote aspect.

So far I love the camera, but 2 days of filming under these conditions is giving me pause.

[Daniel Patton]

Jim

We experienced the same SSE issue with our first camera, even in perfect lighting conditions, and we rarely to never gain up. Worth noting, JVC has worked with us in finding a solution that was acceptable to us, they have been very supportive regarding this issue and stood behind the product. The second JVC camera that we used for our most recent shoot was perfect, in all lighting conditions. In fact it was like shooting with a entirely different camera, the results IMO where stunning. This was no low budget shoot and trusting such a new camera was a large gamble for us. In turn it has paid for itself many times over with great results.

Perhaps you should have the camera better adjusted by JVC service. I heard that they have changed the adjustment specifications since first release.

[Ben Buie]

Originally Posted by Jim Giberti

Back in the studio on the HD monitor there it was...in every second of every shot, split screen.

Regarding Tim Holtermann's comment about "you shouldn't have been shooting in the first place" this was at 0 gain, perfect (albeit cold) conditions.
Clearly the camera can still have problems in normal, acceptable, situations.

If you are getting SSE in situations like this then send the camera back or have JVC adjust it.

Ben

[Jim Giberti]

Originally Posted by Daniel Patton

Jim

We experienced the same SSE issue with our first camera, even in perfect lighting conditions, and we rarely to never gain up. Worth noting, JVC has worked with us in finding a solution that was acceptable to us, they have been very supportive regarding this issue and stood behind the product. The second JVC camera that we used for our most recent shoot was perfect, in all lighting conditions. In fact it was like shooting with a entirely different camera, the results IMO where stunning. This was no low budget shoot and trusting such a new camera was a large gamble for us. In turn it has paid for itself many times over with great results.

Perhaps you should have the camera better adjusted by JVC service. I heard that they have changed the adjustment specifications since first release.

But this is hardly a first release model...it should be from the newest stock as it was just pruchased in the past month. I made a similar point when making the decision on the JVC regarding the scope of the projects it would be immediately used for (not that everyone's projets aren't important regardless of budget).

I just wanted to answer the specific question as to whether anyone with a recent model HD100 had experienced SSE. We have one and we got it.

Now we did some beautiful nightime, snow falling, shots in the Olympic village for an upcoming film, where we actually bumped the gain up to +3...even +6 to compare.
There was no SSE in any of several full night, natural light setups.

[Jim Giberti]

Originally Posted by Ben Buie

If you are getting SSE in situations like this then send the camera back or have JVC adjust it.

Ben

Well that's a simple and obvious statement. But first, we know that you can't send the HD100 back because of SSE because it is not considered a technical fault by JVC.

That leaves only the second option. In my experience returns for repairs don't happen as quickly as our schedule demands right now. As a producer about to get a second HD100 for our company, this was disappointing. Fortunately what happened was with an interesting shot we grabbed on the fly simply because it was visually wonderful.
Had it occured in the shoot we were just returning from it would have cost me a lot more than the cost of the camera.

As I mentioned, we had tested this camera under studio and challenging real life...even very low light conditions and it was fine. But to keep things accurate for people interested in these issues from a decision making standpoint, I answered the question factually. This is a recently purchased HD100 and in fact it can display SSE. More importantly it did so in full daylight and at 0 gain.
It seems to me that this camera may have the "potential" for problems in similar situations to the Mini 35 system with rotating glass. Even with the fastest cine primes, (Zeiss Super Speeds) when shooting against solid translucent and opaque backgrounds like subjects against skies or open fields, you could see the spinning center. We all knew we had to work around this potential issue.

I have read, can't recall which thread, that at least someone else experienced a similar issue and made the same point as I am...that this is not just a low light/high gain issue. It isn't and it would be best for users and potential users to be aware of this before experiencing it in a critical situation.

[Stephen L. Noe]

Originally Posted by Jim Giberti

This is a recently purchased HD100 and in fact it can display SSE. More importantly it did so in full daylight and at 0 gain.

Even though it is recently purchased it still may have been from older stock. Michael Pappas reported his (which was purchased last week from B and H) was from older stock. These older cams may not be fully up to spec. It definately would be worth your while to get it checked and at least give the serial number to JVC. Michael reported he contacted JVC and Ken Freed was helping him out in getting his camera to spec and adjusted. It may put a small kink in your operation to get it adjusted but it would be well worth it and getting to know JVC on a service level would be nothing but a plus.

good luck...

[Robert M Wright]

I was under the impression that JVC had pretty much resolved the SSE issue, but apparently it's still causing a few serious problems on occasion.

Is there a significant need for a methodology to clean up SSE effects in post?

[Jim Giberti]

Originally Posted by Stephen L. Noe

Even though it is recently purchased it still may have been from older stock. Michael Pappas reported his (which was purchased last week from B and H) was from older stock. These older cams may not be fully up to spec. It definately would be worth your while to get it checked and at least give the serial number to JVC. Michael reported he contacted JVC and Ken Freed was helping him out in getting his camera to spec and adjusted. It may put a small kink in your operation to get it adjusted but it would be well worth it and getting to know JVC on a service level would be nothing but a plus.

good luck...

Thanks for the info Stephen. I'll try see if I can contact Ken Freed then. It will still make this week a bit hairy I'm afraid.

[Stephen L. Noe]

Originally Posted by Jim Giberti

Thanks for the info Stephen. I'll try see if I can contact Ken Freed then. It will still make this week a bit hairy I'm afraid.

Ken Freed is in LA so you would not contact him. In your area you'd contact the man at the top of this list:Click here for guidance.

good luck Jim.

[Steven Thomas]

Jim,

Not that a newer firmware version has anything to do with SSE, but it might give an idea on the age of the camera.
Do you know your firmware version?

I'm not sure the details on how JVC is tackling the past SSE issue.
All I know is I bought a new camera about three weeks ago and have yet to ever see SSE ('knock on wood").

Steve

[Jim Giberti]

Originally Posted by Steven Thomas

Jim,

Not that a newer firmware version has anything to do with SSE, but it might give an idea on the age of the camera.
Do you know your firmware version?

I'm not sure the details on how JVC is tackling the past SSE issue.
All I know is I bought a new camera about three weeks ago and have yet to ever see SSE ('knock on wood").

Steve

Well after a good deal of testing and shooting neither had we and I was pretty vocal about that around here, which is why I felt it important to be frank in response to the original question.

[Jiri Bakala]

Out of curiousity...what's you S/N? At least the first few digits. I just want to gage the age of my camera and the other cameras in general. Especially the ones that don't have any signs of SSE and have been purchased more recently. Mine was delivered around Christmas but might have been sitting in the dealer's storage for a while.

The S/N of my camera is: 15031654