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February 2nd, 2009, 10:28 AM | #46 | |
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Which also brings up the question: How good is that HDV timelapse going to look, even assuming it worked like you hoped for? Answer: Not very And the reason is as follows: Even if the recorder did all that you hoped for, as you can see from my prior explanation, your frames will have undergone two levels of HDV compression before making it to the recorder medium, flash or hard drive. The first time was of course in the camera, the second time in the recorder. HDV (MPEG2) compression works as well as it does because of the very basic assumption that the next frame is hugely redundant with this frame, ie. changes from frame to frame are relatively small. In timelapse that assumption takes a big hit. In a timelapse sunrise, for instance, the lighting, which affects everything, is undergoing rapid changes from frame to frame. So you should expect the second level of HDV compression, ie. in the recorder, to take some large hits retaining detail. I think a better way to do timelapse is to: 1. Record it normally with the camcorder. You could go to tape or use an external recorder such as the HVR-MRC1K or even to a laptop. But then you do the timelapse effect in the video editor. This has the beauty of eliminating that second level of HDV compression before the footage has even made it to your video editor. And it is easy, even if you don't like the volume of footage. It's what I would do. 2. Get a still camera shooting multimegapixel frames at the required interval and import that still image sequence into the video editor. The fact that you are now starting with images at a far higher level of detail than 1080 should mean that even with color correction, other effects, etc you should retain a fantastic level of detail. It will have the drawback of having a very different look than footage from your video camera of course. If shot in RAW, I would batch convert the images to DNG and then use Adobe's Photoshop tools to see if I could exposure+color correct it to something that worked well with your video footage. Once you are happy with that, if your video editor doesn't understand DNG, then again use Adobe to batch export the DNG's to JPEG and import the JPEG's. This of course is harder than #1, but the quality level should be very, very high. I am only a hobbyist videographer. I may have missed something. But I have a long career as a Computer Engineer. I know hardware and software, bits and bytes, from low level to high, pretty darn well. |
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February 2nd, 2009, 10:43 AM | #47 |
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Wil the Sony HVR-MRC1 work with JVC HD100 720p
I have yet to hear anyone answer or confirm if the Sony HVR-MRC1 will work with the JVC HD100 shooting 720p. I've called sony, I've called B&H, I've called JVC reps.
Can anyone just test this unit on a JVC HD100/110?!? Please?!!! |
February 2nd, 2009, 11:19 AM | #48 | |
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1. Interval Recording to an HDV File: What would the quality be and what steps could be taken to circumvent loss of overall quality ? Answer: What if Camera and SSDR were fed signal via the HD-SDI output into the hardware recorder instead of clocked from FireWire Stream Input ? HD-SDI is ........ A) Uncompressed. B) 10 Bit color space. So a camera like a Sony HVR Z1U or a Canon XL H1 could bypass the first step of HDV encoding performed by the camera. This solves one problem. 2. HDV Long GOP compression of very different timelapse frames: Some testing would have to be done to see what level of overall image quality degredation occurs from this method of signal acquisition and compression. * I think one essential point to ponder is what hardware encoding engine would one want to use to accomplish the HDV encoding ? There are many hardware encoding chips available for this task. Perhaps a decision would have to be taken to determine if delivery of the final file format should even be HDV per se ? There are a few 'open source' codecs, such as Xvid, amoung others, which could be employed, and the resulting video could be delivered as some form of AVI file. AVI can be imported into any NLE solution with good results. I like HDV as an HD format. I know many do not, and it has received a great deal of malignment over the past couple of years, but the Canon series of pro camcorders, along with those manufactured by SONY, produce HDV video of stunning quality. I know the movie 'The Signal" was shot using much HDV to in camera tape and it looks really quite good ! The ever increasing resolution game being played by those who want to sell HD products have really muddied our understanding of what is good and what is not. I would personally like to see improvements in cameras and hardware in camera encoders which are way more efficient at bringing you true thick raster HD (1440 x 1080) and thin raster HD (1920 x 1080). I would also like to see flat screen TV's which actually give you the *Full* HD raster - But I digress. 3. Recording straight to NLE: Via FireWire or HD-SDI ? If one uses Avid Media Composer installed on a laptop, then one could capture a FW streamed HDV m2t file in native format without any form of re-compression and remove the redundant files in post. This would work well, but one might require a great deal of storage depending on the length of timelapse shot. Avid now has an external box for use with MC that alows direct capture via HD-SDI allowing uncompressed 10 bit video quality. Using a digital still camera would possibly produce the highest obtainable quality. Interesting points to ponder. |
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February 2nd, 2009, 12:03 PM | #49 |
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JVC HD110 Compatibility
Anyone...please, just looking for a short yes or no answer here. I disparately need a HD recorder for my JVCHD110, and want an alternative to the problem plagued Firestore devices.
Does anyone know if the Sony HVR recorder will work with the JVC HD100 recording 720/24p? |
February 2nd, 2009, 01:27 PM | #50 | |||
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It also eliminates a fair number of pro cameras. Like Canon's own XH-A1. To go this route you would have to go with the XH-G1, which roughly doubles the price of the camcorder. Is that reasonable? I don't know...you tell me. Of course I can hook up the Nanoflash to my little Sony HDR-HC9 consumer camcorder. But that's a $3500 encoder+recorder solution hanging off a $900 camcorder. Something seems a bit off about that...I'd prefer to spend the money on another camera, tripod+head, or laptop. The biggest thing I like about the Nanoflash is that I believe FireWire on camcorders is slowly going away. Great example: AVCHD, hard drive, and flash camcorders overwhelmingly do not have FireWire ports! So if you accept that FireWire is going away, it follows that a recorder hanging off an HDMI port, something which is rapidly becoming standard, will have a far longer useful lifespan. I'm not going to waste my and your time talking about Avid solutions. I'm a hobbyist and have no personal familiarity with Avid except to know budget wise they are way out of my league. What I like about simply recording the video and doing the timelapse effect in the video editor is: Right now, today, I can record up to 7 hours of either DV or HDV video using either Pinnacle Systems Studio 11 or Sony Vegas Movie Studio 9 on my 2004 vintage Pentium 4 3.0 GHz laptop with a 120GB 5400 rpm internal hard drive . And that is going directly to the laptop's hard drive. My point here isn't how low end I am. It is for how low a cost I can get the job done. On top of that, a 500 GB USB hard drive can be purchased for under $100 USD. That represents something like 40 hours of footage. So really long video shoots can be done for very low cost. Quote:
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One theme I think people consistently underestimate when looking at the cost of products like Flash XDR and NanoFlash is what are the expected sales volume? As a common example, if you look at motocycles vs cars, the motorcycles will cost a quarter up to what a mid-range car does. But compared to a car, there is so much less to a bike. What gives? Volume is what gives. Overwhelmingly, if a car manufacturer sells less than 100,000/year of a model, it gets eliminated. If a bike manufacturer sells 10,000/year of a model, they are dancing in the streets. One unspoken theme of this exchange is what you think the cost of the product will be. But your market is a function of: 1. What camera do people have? Will your recorder plug-n-play with my camera? Is it FireWire, HD-SDI, HDMI? proprietary? 2. Once I've done my shoot, will the footage produced plug-n-play smoothly with their editor, whatever it may be? As you grind through that list, I think you will discover why the nanoFlash looks like it does. The development costs are high, the market is small. So it hooks to that HDMI port, which is almost everywhere. And it uses MPEG2 encoding, which nearly everyone understands. And with the bitrate cranked up, your ability to distinguish it from uncompressed disappears. And storage is cheap and getting cheaper, so just do the timelapse in the video editor... And if you do it that way, you can really fine tune the length and amount of speedup in that segment, something you can't so easily do when you've preselected the frame capture interval. Last edited by Bill Koehler; February 2nd, 2009 at 03:30 PM. Reason: Better phrasing |
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February 2nd, 2009, 04:43 PM | #51 | |
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3x-HD1000u - Ikan 8000HD- custom i7 PC - Vegas Pro 13 and 11 64 bit - Premiere Pro CS4 - and a whole mess of other equipment... |
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February 2nd, 2009, 08:26 PM | #52 | ||||||||
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i.e. I have a Canon XL H1 (A $12,000.00 Camera in my market if you go through retail and pay local taxes). If I use this camera to shoot my Web Tv series, then the answer is definitely not economical to purchase an XDR. If I use my XL H1 to shoot a commissioned industrial video or teaching series DVD, or infomercial, then the answer is yes it is certanly justifiable to purchase an XDR. Quote:
EDIT: Perhaps what I need to make first is a device which creates an image sequence from am HDV stream ! Forget a video file ! How about a JEPEG, or TIFF, or TARGA sequence ??? Last edited by Mark Job; February 2nd, 2009 at 08:59 PM. |
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February 2nd, 2009, 09:49 PM | #53 | |||
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As for the recording to the laptop hard drive, ideally what you say is true. As a practical matter, it isn't. In fact DV and HDV data rates, at ~3.25 MBytes/second are very, very slow for a modern hard drive. Even my old tank can manage 15 - 25 MBytes/second throughput. For a properly written video app the OS is in a position to buffer up the video data and write it to disk at a time convenient to it. My laptop does have 2 GB of memory. I'm sure that helps. So does the fact that I have separate partitions for the OS+apps, swap space, and the video data. In practice I regularly record 45 minute - 90 minute programs. Assuming my video apps are telling me the truth, I haven't had a dropped frame yet. I certainly haven't seen it in any of my DVD's. So something is working for me. I will say I have everything that doesn't need to be running (Antivirus, Firewalls, Network ports) on the laptop turned off, the video capture app minimized, and the laptop lid/screen closed while recording. Quote:
Do elapsed time recording In this option a recording can be set up to capture one of six time lapse settings. They are 1 frame per second, per 2 seconds, per 5 seconds, every 4th frame, every other frame or 1 frame per trigger. The trigger connection is found in the breakout cable. Note: This mode is not saved when power is interrupted. Note: A new clip is created only at the beginning of a time lapse recording. Note: This option is not currently valid with HDV. Later firmware upgrades may turn this function on. Last edited by Bill Koehler; February 2nd, 2009 at 10:28 PM. Reason: typo |
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February 2nd, 2009, 11:09 PM | #54 | ||
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I would sure like to know the name of the device which did interval recording via the LANC control bus ? There's a full LANC control on my Canon XL H1 camera. |
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February 3rd, 2009, 12:22 AM | #55 | |
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Indeed, I feel compelled to ask why on earth you would think this would speed up the rate at which the disk heads have to move around? |
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February 3rd, 2009, 01:19 AM | #56 |
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LANC Controller for Time Laps
Mark,
I found the link to the LANC Controller I read about. The original thread is here: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/canon-xh-...-via-lanc.html and the link to the web page for the controller is here: Specifications for The Time Machine As long as the thing will actually communicate with the XL H1 it should theoretically work to give you some sort of time laps. Let me know if you decide to try one out. Garrett |
February 3rd, 2009, 09:33 AM | #57 | |
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February 3rd, 2009, 11:12 AM | #58 | |
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I set the 1394 trigger in the camera menu to series and hit the record buttons and away I went. Now, the trigger function with the JVC did not work but that's ok, it wasn't designed to anyway. DV works but of course HDV from the JVC did NOT! I'm definitely thinking of buying one for myself! |
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February 3rd, 2009, 11:15 AM | #59 |
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I tried it and it did not work. does great with standard DV streams though.
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February 3rd, 2009, 11:19 AM | #60 | |
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