Z7U Test 24p Footage

[Aaron Burns]

People have been complaining about the lack of Z7U footage.

http://www.hopedeferred.com/z7u/Z7U_Test1a_web.mov

Shot at:
HDV 1080/24p
1/48
0db gain
CF card

Captured in FCP
Color Corrector 3-way only used for setting the black levels. Did some tweaking on one shot.

Compressed in Compressor.

Let me know what you think.

[Gabriel Chiefetz]

Yes, I was one of the complainers. The footage looks fantastic, thanks for posting. This is the best I've seen from the Z7 online.

I played with one at the dealer today, and I came away very impressed by the picture quality. I use a Z1, and the Z7 really does generate a far superior picture. It was tack-sharp, the colors were more accurate than what I'm used to with the Z1, and the cine gamma put it into (almost) Panasonic territory.

We took it into a dark conference room, definitely an environment that would have set off alarm bells with the Z1. With 9db gain, it looked clean. It does seem to live up to the hype when it comes to low light, and reminded me of the pd170, which I've shot with extensively. So the Z7 looks very promising.

One question for you: How did you downrez to SD? Did you drop your footage into an SD timeline in FCP, or did you downrez in Compressor? I've been running into nasty stairstepping when I downrez HDV material in FCP.

Thanks again for the great post!

[Aaron Burns]

Thanks for watching.

Edited HDV108024p in FCP from the point of ingestion to export.

Took the full res Standalone HDV108024p clip into Compressor and exported a 854x480 H.264 2500kbps Quicktime. (You could use any format ProRes 422 or Photo JPEG if you wanted to convert it to a DVD in DSP.)

Resized in Compressor using frame controls set to best (for the resize option).

Aaron

[Gabriel Chiefetz]

Ok, this is rather odd. If I simply click on your link to play your clip in my browser, there are some weird artifacts. But if I download the clip and then watch it in QuickTime Player, it looks fine.

For instance, if you look at the first frame of the guy with the Adidas shirt, his red stripes fall apart. Not so if you download and then watch in QT Player.

I've attached two example images. This seems... quite wrong. In reality your footage looks better than what the QT browser plugin is displaying.

[Zack Birlew]

It's okay, Gabriel, I think that's just an example of the difference between streaming and downloading.

[Darko Debelic]

Thanks a lot for making this clip! Please do some more!

Anyway, one question: the first scene with the guy walking down the stairs seems to have some kind of slight glow effect applied. Is that deliberate?

D.

[Gabriel Chiefetz]

Another reason this is a very useful clip is that it's an example of HD>SD downscaling that actually looks good. It's good to know that you can achieve this with the "best" setting. However... how long did it take this clip to render?

Maybe Z7 24p material would render more quickly because you wouldn't need to deinterlace as well (as compared to originating in 1080i from the Z1)...

[Gabriel Chiefetz]

Jack,

Really? This isn't streaming, though... it's progressive download (I assume?), which should be identical to... well, download. But I could be missing something...

[Aaron Burns]

Originally Posted by Darko Debelic

Thanks a lot for making this clip! Please do some more!

Anyway, one question: the first scene with the guy walking down the stairs seems to have some kind of slight glow effect applied. Is that deliberate?

D.

You're welcome

I think that was one of our first shots and we had the iris open just a touch too much. The only effect applied to that clip is black level correction.

Originally Posted by Gabriel Chiefetz

Another reason this is a very useful clip is that it's an example of HD>SD downscaling that actually looks good. It's good to know that you can achieve this with the "best" setting. However... how long did it take this clip to render?

Maybe Z7 24p material would render more quickly because you wouldn't need to deinterlace as well (as compared to originating in 1080i from the Z1)...

It didn't take too long to render although I don't remember an exact time. The best thing about this camera is the HDV108024p native format. I'm coming from a FX1 which only had 60i. Doing those frame control conversions (from 60i to 24p) on my old G5 would take about 4 hours per minute of footage.

Anyway, I'm working in Malibu, CA and plan to make some more tests.

Does anyone have any requests for what this camera can do in the world of Cinema? Most of the test footage I've seen is wedding stuff or a 2 second M2T file of a German guy checking some setting that nobody will ever use.

Aaron

[Jason Aumont]

Aaron,
Thank for the footage, it looks sweet! Nice work.

Since you are taking requests, I would love to see some exterior hand-held footage with a quick pan or tilt.

Also, an interior shot of a person lit with daylight fill from a window.

Cheers,
JA

[Steve Elgar]

G'day Aaron. The footage looks great. I shoot a lot of stuff from helicopters and if you (or anyone) could post some footage that has lots of movement with pans, tilts and shake. I remember seeing some footage someone posted that was shot from a chopper and it had some really bad flagging or skewing of the image. The footage looked unusable.

Thanks
Steve.

[John Markert]

Originally Posted by Darko Debelic

Thanks a lot for making this clip! Please do some more!

Anyway, one question: the first scene with the guy walking down the stairs seems to have some kind of slight glow effect applied. Is that deliberate?

D.

Yeah, that's call blowout! When the brightness of the scene exceeds the camera's ability to replicate it. 1/3" chips do not have good dynamic range, the ability to hold detail in extreme lighting conditions. 1/2" chiops are better, and 2/3" chips are better still, alone with improved circuitry. The more you pay, the less you see!