Who's shooting 1280 x 720/25p on the EX1

[Simon Denny]

Just curious who is shooting in 1280 x 720/25p and what shutter setting you are using.

Also what's your work flow to DVD

Simon

[Steve Phillipps]

General rule for progressive is 180 degree shutter, so half the frame rate, so at 25P use 1/50 sec.
720 is not big in the UK.
Steve

[Magnus Eklof]

Hi!
I´ve shot a lot of 1280x720/25P, mostly because i´ve needed to overcrank, but also to intercut with footage shot with JVC´s HD-110, this have worked well.

Magnus

Sorry, I forgot, I´ve been using a 180 degree shutter, 1/50s

[Alister Chapman]

I've used it for overcrank and for a couple of jobs where I knew it would only ever be seen in SD. The renders from 720 to SD are faster and less problematic than from 1080

[Matt Davis]

Originally Posted by Simon Ash

Just curious who is shooting in 1280 x 720/25p and what shutter setting you are using.

Erm, 'me too' - 1/50th unless I switch to 'No Shutter' to get an extra stop in low light, or faster shutter speeds for the Top Gear effect or I've run out of ND.

Being Mac based, most of my 720p survives being squished into SD by using a standard Compressor setting, but now and again I'll treat myself by switching on Frame Controls to medium (or thereabouts). I've twice had to do a more in-depth down convert, but it really wasn't much of an issue compared to some people's experience. Just shoot, edit and output in the native format, then downconvert from that using one of the many recipies available.

Downconverts are like spectacles - very individual, what works for me may give you a headache and vice versa. Some people complain of blurriness which could be a field issue, my problem is with diagonals getting artifacts due to scaling to non-square pixels (hence need to switch to better scaling algorythm). Some people are hung up about pans. Go figure.

Lots of talk about what's the positively best format to shoot in, and frankly, the spectacle analogy still applies. I really like the 720p25 format because it gives me the look I want with speed close to DV and easy publishing to 'Corporate HD' - i.e. WMV at 1280x720 at 3 mbps for use in PowerPoint. It also squishes down to 640x360 for Web use. 1280x720 scales nicely to 1080, and 1080i becomes the resolutional equivalent of 720p if you de-interlace correctly (or less than SD if you don't).

Most importantly, I cannot see a functional difference in quality between 720p25 downconverted to SD and 1080p downconverted to SD, and no client of mine can currently handle 1080p properly and nor does it develop situations that demands 1080p where 720p would happily suffice. All my clients see the difference between Z1 and EX1 footage (hooray! I raised my prices and they pay the difference!).

So that's why I am shooting 720p25 for the forseeable future.

Should anyone fling mud at me for contemplating the nasty half-breed that is 720p25, I simply require them to walk a mile in my shoes.

[Matt Davis]

Originally Posted by Alister Chapman

IThe renders from 720 to SD are faster and less problematic than from 1080

And then some.

I've had a couple of 1080 projects this year, one was 100% chromakey. From now on, 1080 will carry a surcharge. And/or a rider.

A colleague is shooting 1080i exclusively so he can multicam a variety of cameras, but the quality isn't quite 720p because of the deinterlacing.

Another colleague shoots 1080i to have the option of slomo. Quite frankly, he could shoot 720p50 and get better quality.

[Steve Shovlar]

I shoot all my weddings in 720P50 and the results IMO are better than 1080i. Much smoother slo mo.

[Simon Denny]

Thanks people,
Love this camera and now shooting in progressive is great for me. One last question about detail, on or off? or detail down?

Simon

[Steve Phillipps]

Depends on what look you're after. Most cams tend to be oversharpened by default, and even detail "off" is often sometimes still too sharp. On the Sony 750 for example the BBC settings give detail "on" but set to -70!
Steve

[Simon Denny]

I was reading a Sony page on getting a look with the camera and they had detail on but wound down to -99

Edit:
Steve Phillipps, what setting are you shooting in?

[Joe Lawry]

Im using detail on but everything set to 0.. Just cutting some footage i shot at 72025p and it looks great.. blacks are slightly crushed though.. time to try -3. -8 was way to much.

[Steve Phillipps]

Hi Simon,
I'm not using the EX cameras, but on the HDW750, PDW700 and Varicam I use the BBC settings. On the 750 it's detail on at -99 for emulating 16mm film stocks, and -70 for 35mm film. I did demo an EX1 and think I had detail on and at about -30, but can't remember now. Search the archives here as there are plenty of posts on Picture Profiles for the EX cameras.
Steve

[Simon Wyndham]

Alan Roberts should have his settings up soon on the BBC R&D website.

It'll be interesting to see exactly what the EX is capable of because some cameras are capable of going into negative detail (softening). Not sure if the EX is capable of this.

Though reducing the detail is one part of it, I do not think I would go with the detail off. After all, look at any Hollywood film, such as The Dark Knight on Blu-Ray. It looks pin sharp. A lot of the film look is how the different detail frequencies are handled. Alan Roberts settings usually attempt to reduce, or turn off the detail in the low to mid frequencies, but give a slight boost to the upper edge frequencies (hair detail, building edges etc).

The way that most cameras apply detail enhancement is that they apply is across the board. This doesn't help matters in progressive scan modes such as 24 and 25p. The sharper the edges, the more they appear to judder. And you can imagine that if the picture contains a lot of edge enhancement all over it will appear to judder more than it should. This is why Alan's settings reduce detail in some areas while boosting them in others, because of his analysis of how film really does look, and the reasons that progressive video always seems to judder more than film.

Not all cameras have the settings available however. The PDW-510, 530, 700, and most of the HDCAM cameras can turn off the main detail circuit while still leaving the high frequency Aperture circuit running.

This is what Alan has done with the settings for the 750. For 35mm emulation for example he has suggested a -70 overall detail setting (which actually goes into real negative detail) but with a boost of +5 for the Aperture level (high frequency edges) and the detail frequency (fineness of the digital enhancement) of +99.

If you reduce the main detail on the EX but at the same time raise the Frequency setting (this makes the detail enhancement much finer) you can, if you know what you are doing, take the electronic edge off the picture while still keeping some high def 'zing'. I'd imagine any other settings would be in the service menus.

[Dennis Schmitz]

Originally Posted by Simon Wyndham

...

This is what Alan has done with the settings for the 750. For 35mm emulation for example he has suggested a -70 overall detail setting (which actually goes into real negative detail) but with a boost of +5 for the Aperture level (high frequency edges) and the detail frequency (fineness of the digital enhancement) of +99.

If you reduce the main detail on the EX but at the same time raise the Frequency setting (this makes the detail enhancement much finer) you can, if you know what you are doing, take the electronic edge off the picture while still keeping some high def 'zing'. I'd imagine any other settings would be in the service menus.

That sounds interesting!
Thanks


Dennis