EX1 Frame Grabs in 1080 and 720 at DVinfo.net

Chris Hurd · September 21st, 2007, 08:06 AM

These are all .TIF format -- the file names should be self-explanatory.

The download directory is www.dvinfo.net/media/xdcamex or get the individual files linked below.

1. Download them to your local hard drive

2. Re-name the file extensions from .tix to .tif

3. Open locally with any image browser that supports the .tif format

Campfire-1 1080i60.tif
Campfire-2 1080i60.tif
Campfire-3 1080i60.tif
Desert 720p25.tif
Drummer 1080i60.tif
Fireworks.tif
Fountian 1080i60.tif
Fountian-colors 1080i60.tif
Japan Street 1080i60.tif
Keyboard 1080i60.tif
Movie Girl 1080p24to720p.tif
Movie Girl Profile 1080p24.tif
Movie Girl Profile 1080p24to720p.tif
Movie Girl-1 1080p24.tif
Movie Girl-2 1080p24.tif
Night Water 1080i60.tif
Orchid w-ant 1080i60.tif
Organist 1080i60.tif
Pink Flowers 1080i60.tif
Rock-n-water 1080p24.tif
Stain Glass 1080i60.tif
Stain Glass CU 1080i60.tif
Sun Girl 720p25.tif
TimeLapse_Chicago 1080i60.tif
Wakeboarding 720p24.tif
Wakeboarding 720p25.tif
Yellow Flowers 1080i60.tif

All of these frames come from the EX1 marketing video and are provided courtesy of Sony.

Piotr Wozniacki · September 22nd, 2007, 09:50 AM

Absolutely beautiful - deep noise-free blacks... However in Campfire 3 I can see some nasty mackroblocking in the bright flames area...

Well, nothing is perfect, I guess!

Edit: after downloading all of them, I've mixed feelings... Yes, there is a lot of stuff with quality unobtainable in my V1E (mostly dark areas almost completely noise-free), but elsewhere lots of artifacts and macroblocking. Well, 1920x1080 grabs cannot come from a regular, 6.5Mbps DVD - so perhaps a 19Mbps Blu-ray?

Carlo Sigismondi · September 22nd, 2007, 11:53 AM

Because they're from official video, they show artifacts of their blueray or dvd encoding (maybe 6.5 Mbit/sec [dvd] or 19 Mbit/sec [blue-ray] anyone could confirm?) I suppose, they're not a sample of 35mb native quality, right? The tiff called "Drummer 1080i60.tif" has the ugliest artifacts I've seen in long gop video....

Jiri Bakala · September 22nd, 2007, 12:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carlo Sigismondi

Because they're from official video, they show artifacts of their blueray or dvd encoding (maybe 6.5 Mbit/sec [dvd] or 19 Mbit/sec [blue-ray] anyone could confirm?) I suppose, they're not a sample of 35mb native quality, right? The tiff called "Drummer 1080i60.tif" has the ugliest artifacts I've seen in long gop video....

Carlo, I sure hope you are right about the encoding. The artifacts are just terrible. And not only in this sample but in many of the night stills too.

Seung Han · September 22nd, 2007, 12:52 PM

I think I've been staring too much at Red stills lately...

Yeah, the campfire and the drummer stills should not be used for promotion, but I guess its good they're being honest..?...

Jiri Bakala · September 22nd, 2007, 12:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seung Han

I think I've been staring too much at Red stills lately...

Same here... I guess it will be a bit hard now to take lesser quality. :-(

Carlo Sigismondi · September 22nd, 2007, 01:21 PM

I believe that a Sony guy has just grabbed those stills from a player with capture capabilities such a bsplayer or videolan player, I'm pretty sure...
I know...I know all of you thinking about some statement declared by Hugo Giaggioni's official video "This system is not as mature as Mpeg2 Long Gop..." when he's referring at other companies' compressions schemes, and watching this stills without know how they are produced can give you a sort of "stoic-feeling" as though you're watchin' the Downfall of a Company and his promises...
I don't believe they could make such mistake with encoding...some macroblocking could happen but this is clearly not native footage... we must wait to download official mp4 wrapped thingy to judge somethin'.
I remember only when I saw the first m2t files from Canon Xlh1, I've just begun to have some ideas how the native footage looks like... just hope soon we can do the same with Ex...

Steven Thomas · September 22nd, 2007, 03:33 PM

I'd like to know more about these frame grabs..
The 1080 24p girl images look good.

As mention I do see mpeg breakup in some of the images.
This is very alarming. I won't take the jump from HDV to another slightly better HDV.

The Wakeboarding 720p25.tif image also appears to have a lot of noise in the sky. This surprised me since it was daylight.

I have two concerns: Noise and possible mpeg codec breaking up under certain conditions.

I'll need to see more before I'm sold.

I realize it's very hard to judge these images without knowing the particulars, but they're here and it's hard not to be critical.
I really would like to see the camera info with each shot.
Not to mention how the grabs came about.

Carlo Sigismondi · September 22nd, 2007, 04:06 PM

Also to be mentioned that macroblocking seems to be more effective in the interlaced stills, all the stills in the 1080i60 range has more artifacts than progressive ones.
Probably this is due the transporter stream of hypothetically blue-ray or dvd encoding as I've supposed they came from. Interlaced stream is a different beast, it's hard to do a clean job with it, so if you re-encode it in a blueray and then take some snapshot with a cheap player, ya know...it's time for the Macroblocking Apocalypse! :-(

Carlo Sigismondi · September 22nd, 2007, 04:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Piotr Wozniacki

Well, 1920x1080 grabs cannot come from a regular, 6.5Mbps DVD - so perhaps a 19Mbps Blu-ray?

It could be also encoded in wmv hd and delivered in dvd format too. Many companies adopted this strategy for the lack of blueray players...it's hard to believe that Sony can't provide a blueray player...as I've understood they came from the official presentation at IBC via 4k projector, right? It's possible that this projector was connected to a pc platform or a mac...
Geez! I can't believe original footage shows so many macroblocking problems...

Michael Mann · September 22nd, 2007, 04:51 PM

Quite disappointing so far (due to artifacts). These can't be native frames.

Matt Davis · September 28th, 2007, 11:24 AM

Looking at Organist and Drummer, it's looking like images that are displayed at double rez. Shrink them to 50%, and THAT's an image I'd 'take home to meet the parents' - or at least promote to clients.

The aggressiveness of the blocking on edges lead me to assume that the 1920x1080 resolution of these images aren't true 1920x1080. I'd wager that the're upscaled from half that.

WOAH! Stop, delete that.

Just opened the images in Photoshop. Different story.

Sony needs to look at their publishing workflow. I'm seeing two different looks: one from the raw downloaded TIFs in simple viewers, and a different one in PhotoShop.

I'm seeing the MPEG2 artifacts in the Drummer, has this been deinterlaced? The drummer's left hand stick is blurred and I don't see interlacing, but there's tell-tale lumpiness in the black taxi's rear window. And now I see Z1-style edge sharpening again.

Organist shows, maybe, the beginning of CR in the watch highlights, but I like this image. Amazed that it looks so different between Preview and Photoshop.

Sun Girl comes into Preview as a 1920x1080, but is labelled 720 - which is why I opened the image in Photoshop - where it really is 1280x720. Okay, so blown highlights on the knees, bit of boil and a heavy yellow cast in the blue sky, less edge sharpening but I'd still want to turn it down (look under her chin).

I'm very glad I tried a bit harder with these images. Just like everyone else who had a problem with the XDCAM EX movie, if Sony are using these files as marketing, they need to test the user experience. If the community are posting these images, we need to know that so if it doesn't work immediately, then perhaps there's something else we need to do as individuals don't have an army of QC engineers and testers to hand.

Seung Han · September 28th, 2007, 12:03 PM

If you want to see something scary take a peek in front of the drummer's forehead...it looks crazy...

Scott Vystrcil · September 28th, 2007, 12:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Piotr Wozniacki

However in Campfire 3 I can see some nasty mackroblocking in the bright flames area...

Coming from a novice (very novice), what does mackroblocking mean?

Ethan Cooper · September 28th, 2007, 01:44 PM

Chris,
How do these look when played back off the disc? I'm assuming you have the disc in your possession right?

I'll reserve judgement on this camera till I see some frame grabs that haven't been through some type of re-compression process. A few of these look good, a few not so good, but who knows what was done to them to get em on that DVD.

September 21st, 2007, 08:06 AM	#1
Chris Hurd Obstreperous Rex Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: San Marcos, TX Posts: 27,368 Images: 513	EX1 Frame Grabs in 1080 and 720 These are all .TIF format -- the file names should be self-explanatory. The download directory is www.dvinfo.net/media/xdcamex or get the individual files linked below. 1. Download them to your local hard drive 2. Re-name the file extensions from .tix to .tif 3. Open locally with any image browser that supports the .tif format Campfire-1 1080i60.tif Campfire-2 1080i60.tif Campfire-3 1080i60.tif Desert 720p25.tif Drummer 1080i60.tif Fireworks.tif Fountian 1080i60.tif Fountian-colors 1080i60.tif Japan Street 1080i60.tif Keyboard 1080i60.tif Movie Girl 1080p24to720p.tif Movie Girl Profile 1080p24.tif Movie Girl Profile 1080p24to720p.tif Movie Girl-1 1080p24.tif Movie Girl-2 1080p24.tif Night Water 1080i60.tif Orchid w-ant 1080i60.tif Organist 1080i60.tif Pink Flowers 1080i60.tif Rock-n-water 1080p24.tif Stain Glass 1080i60.tif Stain Glass CU 1080i60.tif Sun Girl 720p25.tif TimeLapse_Chicago 1080i60.tif Wakeboarding 720p24.tif Wakeboarding 720p25.tif Yellow Flowers 1080i60.tif All of these frames come from the EX1 marketing video and are provided courtesy of Sony. __________________ CH Search DV Info Net \| 20 years of DVi \| ...Tuesday is Soylent Green Day!

September 22nd, 2007, 09:50 AM	#2
Piotr Wozniacki Inner Circle Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Poland Posts: 4,086	Absolutely beautiful - deep noise-free blacks... However in Campfire 3 I can see some nasty mackroblocking in the bright flames area... Well, nothing is perfect, I guess! Edit: after downloading all of them, I've mixed feelings... Yes, there is a lot of stuff with quality unobtainable in my V1E (mostly dark areas almost completely noise-free), but elsewhere lots of artifacts and macroblocking. Well, 1920x1080 grabs cannot come from a regular, 6.5Mbps DVD - so perhaps a 19Mbps Blu-ray? __________________ Sony PXW-FS7 \| DaVinci Resolve Studio; Magix Vegas Pro; i7-5960X CPU; 64 GB RAM; 2x GTX 1080 8GB GPU; Decklink 4K Extreme 12G; 4x 3TB WD Black in RAID 0; 1TB M.2 NVMe cache drive Last edited by Piotr Wozniacki; September 22nd, 2007 at 12:44 PM.

September 22nd, 2007, 04:51 PM	#11
Michael Mann Major Player Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Kelkheim, Germany Posts: 375	Quite disappointing so far (due to artifacts). These can't be native frames. __________________ Michael

September 28th, 2007, 11:24 AM	#12
Matt Davis Trustee Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Berkshire, UK Posts: 1,562	Looking at Organist and Drummer, it's looking like images that are displayed at double rez. Shrink them to 50%, and THAT's an image I'd 'take home to meet the parents' - or at least promote to clients. The aggressiveness of the blocking on edges lead me to assume that the 1920x1080 resolution of these images aren't true 1920x1080. I'd wager that the're upscaled from half that. WOAH! Stop, delete that. Just opened the images in Photoshop. Different story. Sony needs to look at their publishing workflow. I'm seeing two different looks: one from the raw downloaded TIFs in simple viewers, and a different one in PhotoShop. I'm seeing the MPEG2 artifacts in the Drummer, has this been deinterlaced? The drummer's left hand stick is blurred and I don't see interlacing, but there's tell-tale lumpiness in the black taxi's rear window. And now I see Z1-style edge sharpening again. Organist shows, maybe, the beginning of CR in the watch highlights, but I like this image. Amazed that it looks so different between Preview and Photoshop. Sun Girl comes into Preview as a 1920x1080, but is labelled 720 - which is why I opened the image in Photoshop - where it really is 1280x720. Okay, so blown highlights on the knees, bit of boil and a heavy yellow cast in the blue sky, less edge sharpening but I'd still want to turn it down (look under her chin). I'm very glad I tried a bit harder with these images. Just like everyone else who had a problem with the XDCAM EX movie, if Sony are using these files as marketing, they need to test the user experience. If the community are posting these images, we need to know that so if it doesn't work immediately, then perhaps there's something else we need to do as individuals don't have an army of QC engineers and testers to hand. Last edited by Matt Davis; September 28th, 2007 at 11:56 AM. Reason: Tried opening the images in Photoshop?

September 28th, 2007, 01:44 PM	#15
Ethan Cooper Trustee Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: Houma, La. Posts: 1,400 Images: 5	Chris, How do these look when played back off the disc? I'm assuming you have the disc in your possession right? I'll reserve judgement on this camera till I see some frame grabs that haven't been through some type of re-compression process. A few of these look good, a few not so good, but who knows what was done to them to get em on that DVD. __________________ ∅ -Ethan Cooper

September 22nd, 2007, 11:53 AM	#3
Carlo Sigismondi Regular Crew Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Italy Posts: 26	Because they're from official video, they show artifacts of their blueray or dvd encoding (maybe 6.5 Mbit/sec [dvd] or 19 Mbit/sec [blue-ray] anyone could confirm?) I suppose, they're not a sample of 35mb native quality, right? The tiff called "Drummer 1080i60.tif" has the ugliest artifacts I've seen in long gop video....

September 22nd, 2007, 12:52 PM	#5
Seung Han Regular Crew Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Seoul, Korea Posts: 33	I think I've been staring too much at Red stills lately... Yeah, the campfire and the drummer stills should not be used for promotion, but I guess its good they're being honest..?...

September 22nd, 2007, 01:21 PM	#7
Carlo Sigismondi Regular Crew Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Italy Posts: 26	I believe that a Sony guy has just grabbed those stills from a player with capture capabilities such a bsplayer or videolan player, I'm pretty sure... I know...I know all of you thinking about some statement declared by Hugo Giaggioni's official video "This system is not as mature as Mpeg2 Long Gop..." when he's referring at other companies' compressions schemes, and watching this stills without know how they are produced can give you a sort of "stoic-feeling" as though you're watchin' the Downfall of a Company and his promises... I don't believe they could make such mistake with encoding...some macroblocking could happen but this is clearly not native footage... we must wait to download official mp4 wrapped thingy to judge somethin'. I remember only when I saw the first m2t files from Canon Xlh1, I've just begun to have some ideas how the native footage looks like... just hope soon we can do the same with Ex...

September 22nd, 2007, 03:33 PM	#8
Steven Thomas Trustee Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Gilbert, AZ Posts: 1,896	I'd like to know more about these frame grabs.. The 1080 24p girl images look good. As mention I do see mpeg breakup in some of the images. This is very alarming. I won't take the jump from HDV to another slightly better HDV. The Wakeboarding 720p25.tif image also appears to have a lot of noise in the sky. This surprised me since it was daylight. I have two concerns: Noise and possible mpeg codec breaking up under certain conditions. I'll need to see more before I'm sold. I realize it's very hard to judge these images without knowing the particulars, but they're here and it's hard not to be critical. I really would like to see the camera info with each shot. Not to mention how the grabs came about.

September 22nd, 2007, 04:06 PM	#9
Carlo Sigismondi Regular Crew Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Italy Posts: 26	Also to be mentioned that macroblocking seems to be more effective in the interlaced stills, all the stills in the 1080i60 range has more artifacts than progressive ones. Probably this is due the transporter stream of hypothetically blue-ray or dvd encoding as I've supposed they came from. Interlaced stream is a different beast, it's hard to do a clean job with it, so if you re-encode it in a blueray and then take some snapshot with a cheap player, ya know...it's time for the Macroblocking Apocalypse! :-(

September 28th, 2007, 12:03 PM	#13
Seung Han Regular Crew Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Seoul, Korea Posts: 33	If you want to see something scary take a peek in front of the drummer's forehead...it looks crazy...