Paolo Ciccone

Sorry for the blackout, a switch at the datacenter failed and caused a general network shortage for the whole block. The site is up now. Thank you for the interest in TrueColor.

Hold on, I'm working on it...

Mike, there are two modes in the hd100 that you can use for undercranking: HD-SD60 and HD-SD50. The first one will give you 60fps which will be great for slow-mo. If you add a bit of AfterEffects's TimeWarp to it it's going to look great. The downside of both modes is that they have a vertical resolution equal to SD, although they hare in 16:9 ratio. So HD-SD60 is 480 lines at 60fps progressive scan. It will uprez to 720p acceptably. HD-SD50 gives you 50fps, which basically translates to 50% speed slow-mo, but it has the vertical resolution of SD PAL, which is 576 lines. This is a 20% more resolution than HD-SD60 and it will uprez better. The downside is the slower speed and the fact that it might pick up flickering from fluorescent and tungsten lights which are fed by 60Hz current. If you're shooting outdoor then it doesn't matter and I would go for HD-SD50 since that will give me sharper footage. Also, adjust the shutter speed if you want to capture high detail, like dust or water droplets. Be aware that this will change your exposure. Hope this helps. -- Paolo http://www.paolociccone.com http://www.cruisercast.com

It does in the sense that you can use selective focus in a way that is not available with the 1/3" lenses and sensor.

Expensive unit but defintely well built, it adds a lot of flexibility to the JVC ProHD 1/3" cameras. I used it with the HD100. Phil has given already very good advice, I would add to keep an eye on the battery that supplies the Mini35 and be prepared to keep spare batteries handy. The model that we used had no warning about the battery life and stopped spinning the ground glass a couple of time in mid-shot. That makes the "grain" very visible. Here is a phot of the whole setup with a Cooke zoom: http://www.paolociccone.com/images/imageline-06.jpg

Hi all. TrueColor for the HD200/250 is finally available. This configuration took a considerable amount of time and effort. I wanted to be absolutely sure that this was the most accurate reproduction of colors that I could obtain with the HD250. It took several different approaches but it's finally available. I wrote, like I did for the HD100, a complete walkthough of the process and there are images that can be downloaded and examined independently to verify the results presented. All the material is available at my site: http://www.paolociccone.com Enjoy!

It can be but it's easily removed, without tools, so it's not a big deal. Take care. -- Paolo

Hi Tim. I guess the mention of the Optura made me assume that you were not familiar with higher-end cameras, sorry for that. I did. I bought one in 2005, jut when it came out and did a lot of work with it. I still think that today it's an excellent camera for the price. It's also the only camera in its category, for what I know, that is truly progressive. In other words, the sensor works in progressive scan. I think it's a great deal. The slo-mo can be done by switching to 60fps in HD-SD50 mode. Basically it's a 50fps progressive at the sam evertical resolution of PAL which is 20% more lines that you would get with HD-SD60. When you upscale it to 720p it holds definition and you can enhance via After Effect's TimeWarp. It can lead to really nice effects. Also, if you use component out you can capture at 60fps full resolution. So, all in ll the camera has great features for the price. Well, those are SD cameras so it's really an unfair comparison. The HD100 leads to better images but it's a different technology. BTW, I edited tons of HD100 footage on a 1.67gH PowerBook pro. It's not fast but it can be done.

Sub $6000 cameras like the HD100 make it feasible to own your own camera but you have to ask yourself what kind of use you are planning to have. The advantage of having the camera with you all the time is the amount of experience that you can gain by shooting HD every time you feel the need. You can dig into the technical parts of the camera at the pace you want and get familiar with the whole workflow. Comparing the HD100 with RED is really apples and oranges, the specs of the two cameras are widely different. At current time I don't think there are any RED cameras in the hands of rental house yet. Before you move from the Optura to a very expensive professional camera be sure that you are familiar with the practise of shooting with a pro-level camera. A lot of people find the transition challenging since there is no auto-focus and so run-and-gun can might not be the best situation for the HD100. As you probably know, the HD100 has a fully manual lens. Auto-iris is available but the iris ring is mechanical and has f-stop markings instead of being the electronic control of consumer cameras. Because the lens is removable you have to pay special attention to check back focus every time you transport the camera or when you have temperature changes. So, if you plan of keeping the camera for some time and shoot several videos then owning it will definitely help you. The knowledge that you gain by becoming familiar with a professional camera will apply easily to higher-end cameras like the XDCAM, F900 or RED when you'll have the opportunity to work with them and will make the money invested in the rental more effective. One word of advice, don't rent the camera the day before the shoot. You will not have enough time to be familiar with it and that can ruin your shot. If you have the opportunity get to a rental house where they have the camera available all the time and where the people there are availble to show you how the camera works. If you end up using the HD100 I suggest to install the TrueColor configuration that I designed. The stock configuration of the HD100 gives colors that are less vivid and not as close to reality ad they should be. Fortunately the camera allows for a lot od adjustability for the color matrix. TrueColor is the closest 1:1 configuration that I could figure out for this camera. See http://www.paolociccone.com Good luck.

Hi Mary. I't probably a dead pixel, you are not doing anything wrong but your camera needs to be serviced. I would contact JVC and see what they can do to fix it. In many cameras there is a procedure that can be accessed via a service menu, which is accessible only by technical support people, that fixes this kind of issues. I'm not sure if this is something that the HD100 can do. For your current footage you can use AfterEffects's clone tool to cover the dead pixel with a copy of a nearby pixel.

Michael, I don't want to get into what it seems a pre-existing issue but it's never a waste of time to produce precise information. Lots of people watch this forum without ever writing a note and while you might not convince the recipient of your reply, you provide information for everybody who is reading. Just today I got an email from a newcomer in the field who is having trouble with "judder" in his footage and he thought that it was an issue with the HD100. It turns out that this is the first time that he's trying 24fps progressive. When I pointed out that the issue with 24fps has been around for a loooong time and that there are actual tables in the ACM that precisely describe the panning speed for frame rate, shutter angle and focal length, he was taken by surprise. He thought it was some settings in the camera. Good information is always valuable, you never know who's gonna be affected by it :)

Hey Melissa. I have a tentaive configuration please take a look at http://digitalcinemaexchange.com/forums/vi...pic.php?p=46#46 Hope this helps.

Hey Melissa. I would give you the preliminary settings but I'm still running some tests. The first draft of TrueColor was defintely good, very rich and with excellent skin colors but then I found that the red tones were way off. I shot new testes today using a different configuration and I should have the result tomorrow, Wednesday. I'll let you know.

The besgt approach, IMHO, is to keep the camera as neutral as possible and add some filtration if appropriate or necessary. I'm almost done testing my TrueColor settings for the HD250 which is the translation of the same configuration previously designed for the HD100. The config gives you more natural and saturated colors and wider latitude, 1 stop, than the stock settings. When di you start shooting?

Yes, I know, that's pretty obvious. What I'm referring to is the very visible starstepping revelealed when you pull a key. Curved lines, like the shoulders of the subject, display coarse steps that are clearly visible even at 100% magnification on a small monitor (17"). This is likely caused by the 2x2 pixel sampling of 4:2:0 and it's usually minimized when using 4:2:2. This was in response to one of the posters who was asking why not buy the HD250. I have a 250 with me and it exposes the same "grain" and stepping when recording to tape.

Hi Walter. I take the occasion for thanking you on the great description for the portable lighting kit, I have a Kata "coffin" now and the kit served me well in several occasions. I mostly agree with you when talking about HDV and 4:2:0, I have an HD100 and use the XDCAM regularly and I noticed a couple of situations were th 4:2:0 encoding seems to create the same problem with both cameras. Stairstepping in chromakeying is one, digital noise in dark semi-uniform backgrounds is the another. While I agree with you that most people would not notice the difference between material acquired in 4:2:0 or 4:2:2, the two above situations can create artifacts that are easily visible with a HD TV or 2K projector. While the dark background situation can be fixed with creative lighting, a large, good monitor and maybe a gobo pattern to break the BG up, the chromakey issue is probably the one situation where you'd like to use the component out of the HD100/HD200. Interestingly enough, I noticed some image improvement when converting the HDV footage to a better codec like Sheer video. The highly-saturated reds were rendered much better. I think this has more to do with the implementation of the HDV codec in programs like FCP or AfterEffects than with real quality of the original image. Did you notice anything like this with your footage? TIA

Hi. About a year ago I calibrated the HD100 to be as close to 1:1 capture as I could manage. Somebody dubbed the configuration "TrueColor" and the nickname stuck :) Anyway, the configuration has been created by using a DSC chart an hours and hours of testing and has been used by many HD100 users who reported a marked improvement of colors compared to the stock settings. I wrote a detailed description of the process, for the benefit of peer-review and to provide objective documentation about the results. You can find the config file at my website: http://www.paolociccone.com I'm currently working on a TrueColor version for the HD200/HD2500, it should be out next week. -- Paolo http://www.paolociccone.com