V1U grabs

[Tony Tremble]

Using Shake to deinterlace, apply a gaussian blur (2px) and then applying a median filter to the interlaced image I can get a reasonably close approximation to the progressive frame.

I'm finding it difficult to see any benefit in the 25p mode over a high quality deinterlacer and 50i footage.

I'm interested to know what Sony have to say.

TT

[Simon Wyndham]

Of course the native images from the m2t stream are 1440, these are upsampled to 1920

Just as they will be when displayed on a 1920x1080 screen anyway.

The scaling is only horizontal and doesn't change the effect that I have illustrated.

[Thomas Smet]

The same upscaling can be said for the interlaced video as well since it also uses 1440x1080 pixels. Both progressive and interlaced would be recorded on tape as 1440x1080 so using the argument that the images were upscaled is not a valid point at all since they were both uprezzed from 1440 to 1920.

I cannot for the life of me figure out why a camera that is supposed to run at a native 1920x1080x60p has a progressive frame with a softer image. The only thing I can think of is a low pass filter that they figured was needed because extra high detail could cause some flickering due to recording progressive video in a interlaced stream. Since most of the time the video would be played back as interlaced they wanted to avoid any flickering issues that may have come up with really high detail. I would have thought the same level of filter would have been used on interlaced as well since the progressive source in the DSP is still the same. With interlaced the I guess the low pass filter could be lower since you may not get the same level of flickering with interlaced video since it is meant to be shown one field at a time anyways.

I would really like to see more samples of the same exact locked down shot recorded as interlaced and progressive. Perhaps a landscape shot with lots of small details in the distance. This will really show us how much softer the progressive really is.

[Simon Wyndham]

I did see a 'flicker reduction' option in one of the menus, but I had it switched off (I couldn't see any discernable effect when I tried it)

The thing is that people are commenting that the progressive image is slightly softer than the interlaced one, but seem to be missing the point that there is that weird 'paint effect' thing going on. That bugs me much more than any softness.

[Steve Mullen]

I do see the softness in Simon's P grabs.

These are from one sample of the V1E.

We will not get production models until December. So you've got to ask -- given there will be no more than a dozen or two V1's in the USA for over a month -- how can anyone in the UK have a "production" model now.

My guess this is a communication error by Sony UK and this is one of the IBC test models that may not have the lastest firmware. There was a firmware update after IBC.

Remember the SSE in the HD100 that was released in Europe before the USA. Clearly, JVC Europe was selling camcorders that were not as fully "finished" as the ones we got 45-days later in the USA.

I measured no difference nor could I see ANY difference between I and P directly feeding a monitor via HDMI. Nor, could I see any difference in recorded test shots I made after reading about the difference. And, I can't think of any process reason for any difference.

DSE -- do you have I and P shots and rez tests. It would be nice if HDV buyers didn't have to go through an SSE type scare again.

[Tim Le]

Like Steve suggests, maybe there is something wrong with Simon's particular camera. Ironically, Mikko's V1E footage from IBC doesn't seem to show any paint type effects on 25p. I also don't really see any resolution drop in Mikko's footage between 50i and 25p.

[Simon Wyndham]

The thought that it might be something to do with firmware etc occurred to me. I hope you are right!

[Mikko Lopponen]

Simon's footage looks like there's some kindof noise reduction going on in the progressive frame. That's why it looks kinda like a painting (smoothing algorithms tend to do that) and has less detail.

The progressive pic has more details in certain places (tire rims but not much) but less on smoother surfaces which seem to indicate some sort of noise reduction going on. Why?

[Carlo Sigismondi]

I've did some CC to have some idea of latitude, it's also deinterlacced:
http://xs107.xs.to/xs107/06412/Person.jpg

[Simon Wyndham]

The progressive pic has more details in certain places (tire rims but not much)

I can't see this. Take a look at the car tire in the foreground. You will see on the interlaced version that the tire has a wafer of rubber sticking out of the tread. In the progressive scan image this is completely gone.

I agree that this does look like extremely harsh noise reduction.

[Tom Roper]

Originally Posted by Steve Mullen

We will not get production models until December. So you've got to ask -- given there will be no more than a dozen or two V1's in the USA for over a month -- how can anyone in the UK have a "production" model now.

My recollection was that the article clearly stated the V1E was a pre-production model.

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

Originally Posted by Steve Mullen

DSE -- do you have I and P shots and rez tests. It would be nice if HDV buyers didn't have to go through an SSE type scare again.

I do, but they're for a magazine article due out next month, so it's not appropriate for me to post them publically.
What Simon is showing isn't quite my experience, and apparently not yours, either. I dunno what the state of Preproduction V1E vs V1U is, but...when I received the prepro V1 that I had, I also saw 3 others in various states of development, all significantly older. So...it could be that Europe has the same thing.
for me, I shot cascades on a canopy in both P and I, and there is no discernible difference on a 1920 x 1080 monitor, both at 12' and 20" displays.

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by Douglas Spotted Eagle

What Simon is showing isn't quite my experience, and apparently not yours, either.

Progressive video is often filtered (DVX100: Thin & Thick modes) and it's possible the wrong parameter value was set for the V1E.

[Vincent Burnett]

He said that he got the image captures out of Vegas. Could Vegas be treating the progressive stuff as interlaced and doubling fields, since its encoded in interlaced stream? It would be nice to know the actual vertical and horizontal resol of what he gots. I also noticed that the images are not 1920 by 1080 so maybe the down cropping filter was lossy.

Vincenzo

[Stu Holmes]

Originally Posted by Steve Mullen

We will not get production models until December. So you've got to ask -- given there will be no more than a dozen or two V1's in the USA for over a month -- how can anyone in the UK have a "production" model now.

Off-topic but useful Shipping info : Production V1E's are due to be in 1st customer's hands in UK during 1st week of November. So 4 weeks time, more or less.

By the way, the FX7 is delayed (for sure in Europe and i'd imagine USA too)and is currently running about 3 to 4 weeks behind the V1, so i hear.

Draw your own conclusions why Sony appear to have 'reversed' their normal release of a new cam, with the 'pro' model coming out *before* the 'consumer' model..