Simon Wyndham

The Matrix is everywhere. But seriously this is the way you can get more saturation. You can do a few things. One is to increase the Step Gamma to, say, 0.50 instead of 0.45 as it is as standard. This reduces the dynamic range though slightly. Changing to Gamma table STD 1 as well as this will give a more saturated look. Turning on the User Matrix and increasing ONLY the R-G and B-G settings from between 0 and +20 will give you some colour boost too.

Well, the XDCAM workflow I bought more to save my own sanity than anything else. I absolutely hate the ingest process from tape with every fibre of my being. At the time I wanted to upgrade to a 2/3" camera, so XDCAM was in the right place at the right time. The camera is paying for itself. I never had any worries about cameras being upgraded etc. Whenever you buy new electronics equipment it will always be superceded by something better. But usually it is a microscopic improvement rather than a huge one. I stuck by my guns when everyone was telling me to get an HDV camera and I do not regret the descision for one moment. My advice is to buy what you need now (or rent if work is sporadic), and to consider what you will be doing in a year or twos time. I knew I'd be in SD land for a while because other than one or two indie projects most of my work is for third parties who won't need the footage again down the line. Plus it will be a while before any HD distribution takes off. At present I only have one project in mind that will involve recording some very rare footage and so will need HD to be of use in the future. I am considering an XDCAM HD for the future, but will see how things pan out. I will probably wait for the 2/3" version as I will want to replace the 510 with a true equivilent upgrade. I am in no hurry.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/pubs/whp/whp034.shtml The addendums are tests of various cameras plus their settings for 'film look' and 'video look' Included in these is a break down of how many stops they can capture after the settings have been modified.

Expensive method: Use Algolith to do a double framerate deinterlace. Cheaper method: Use your NLE in progressive scan mode and slow down your interlace footage by 50%. It should then make a frame out of each field pass. Or use Phils method. Really cool slow motion: Use Algolith for a double framerate deinterlace of 50i footage, then use something like Twixtor to slow it down even more. Depending on your footage and how much swearing at Twixtor for distorting the picture you can take, you can often achieve very convincing 100fps style slow motion.

Hi Dave. Sorry, I posted in another forum and forgot to mention it here. Yes, I did test the Bonsai. I found it to be a very well made device, but with some usability problems that need to be rectified before it can rival something like Firestore. The menu system is rather unweildy for one thing. The other thing is that although it records to its own Huffy compression, when you want to transfer the footage to your NLE you still have to play back from the Bonsai device via SDI into the computer (ie there is no way to connect it or the hard drive so that you can just drag and drop the files). On the plus side it can record up to eight channels of audio. It will also take composite and S-video inputs as well as being to output them at the same time as SDI. It is fairly portable (although bigger than I was expecting it to be), and it can take a 12v DC input. It isn't the golden egg I thought it might be. But with a bit of perseverance it could be used quite effectively if you can put up with its foibles.

Well, it's not quite as simpleas that. I can't remember the reasons, but despite a 1mp CCD it still only equates to 720x576 (PAL) usable resolution.

All I can find is that the HVX is rated at 3 lux. Strange for Panasonic as they usually don't go in for those sorts of meaningless specs. But I would assume it is quite a bit slower. Most reports so far have said that the gain button should also be left well and truly alone on the HVX due to the amount of noise it produces. Can't find any general s/n specs for the HVX. In fact Panny are being incredibly tight lipped about the specs of the camera. Can't even download a user manual off the Panny website.

Interesting. So now there is a flipside to discuss. What we are gaining from 1mp CCD's compared to 0.5mp ones when recording to SD resolution. Hehe, Walter would have a fit if he was reading this thread now ;) But the numbers beg the question. After all the Sony cameras are sacrificing a lot of low light performance, so it would be interesting to know what is being gained.

Just to thrown another cat amongst the pigeons interestingly the SDX900 and SPX800 are rated at f13 at 2000 lux.

Only thing is, I'd like to know the technical reasons why! :)

I'll let you all know how my test of the Bonsai drive goes. I will be testing one out over the weekend with a colleague who is about to shoot a feature using the SDI out on his PDW-510.

NBC, are you STILL making up your mind?! ;) :) The HVX200 does appear to give a very good image. But everything is relative. I think if you were to compare an HVX200 to the HDX400 you would find huge differences under scrutiny. Once people get over the wow factor of HD the differences will start to reveal themselves. The main question you need to be asking yourself is whether there is a need for your footage to be in HD. HD XDCAM won't be out until the third quarter of 2006 at least, although it will be demoed extensively at NAB2006 I gather. The Bonsai drive solution Peter mentioned is a good one. It won't be tethered in the way you would think as the drive is not much bigger than the average camera battery. So it could quite happily be velcroed onto the back of the camera I would imagine, or into a simply belt pack. I'm looking into using this drive myself for the same purpose. At the same time I am also looking at HD solutions. But as far as I can see there isn't one that meets my spec. I would like an HD XDCAM, but if I did do this I would wait until a 2/3" version. One broadcast retailer in the US has stated that a 2/3" HD XDCAM will be released in 2007 and are offering special trade in offers on SD XDCAM equipment bought now. No official word from Sony as yet however. One thing is for certain. I wouldn't buy an HVX200 for anything other than a 2nd or 3rd camera.

If you are referring to the linear matrix, I would leave it well alone unless you know what you are doing. The various settings are inter-related and it is easy to end up with very weird colours!

Well I found I was wrong about the crispening. Oops! I'm going to have to quiz said engineer on the settings as the -60 crispening will make the coarseness of any noise worse. Hmmmm. Its helping me get closer to a setup I can use for general use though. I'll probably update my article again in the next few days.

Digibeta is still very much alive and kicking in Europe. The reason they have released a new camera is simply because there is still a demand for it. Not everything is going to be high def, even with the analogue switch offs.

No, I had to contact Swiss Effects to ask for their recommendations for the camera for filmout. It just so happened that the settings also worked very nicely in general. Try this one out. Just messing around with the test SAW gamma signal and the waveform monitor, as well as saturation. Clean Saving Private Ryan; Detail OFF Apeture ON Apeture level +42 (enhancement on high frequency edges) Crispening -60 Detail Frequency +99 (raising this to the maximum makes detail enhancement very fine and subtle). Gamma Step Gamma 0.35 Master Gamma +62 Gamma Sel (STD) 6 Knee; Knee Point 85.0 Knee Slope +62 (plus figures on these models lower the slope) Linear Matrix; Matrix ON Matrix (user) ON Matrix (preset) ON Matrix R-G -99 Matrix B-G -99 Also for a saturated look change those matrix settings to +20 (about the maximum sensible figure) Try this for a general use look; Detail ON Apeture ON Detail -20 to -40 (depending on preference) Apeture 0 Crispening 0 Detail Frequency +99 Step Gamma 0.45 Master Gamma 0 Gamma table STD 4 Knee point 85.0 Knee slope +62 Now something interesting here is that the BBC devised settings recommend switching the knee circuits off which is in line with what I suggested in my original article to try out. Although the BBC settings also place the White Clip ON and set to 100.0 ire. In this case I am not so sure that it is a good idea because that will give a very hard clip with no highlight roll off at all (the FLM gamma tables are safer with the knee off because they roll off more prematurely as part of their design). Although even then these days I am more inclined to have the knee on. In fact I am tending to use the STD gamma table 4 with the knee point and slope set as suggested above because this does in fact replicate the the FLM gamma tables smooth roll off but at the same time giving even more contrast latitude. For the filmlook use the knee point and slope as above (85.0 and +62) plus the following. This will give you a measured 11.5 stops of contrast range. Yes, the black stretch increases the noise a bit. But these cameras are so quiet it isn't really much of an issue, plus the crispening setting should sort some of that out if I'm understanding this right (which maybe I'm not). But then who am I to argue with the BBC's most experienced setup engineer? :) Detail OFF Apeture ON Apeture Level +42 Crispening -60 Detail Frequency +99 White Clip OFF Black Gamma; Black Gamma ON Black Gam Range H.MID Master Blk Gamma +62 Now go outside in some really harsh contrasty sunshine! This setting is designed purely with post production adjustment in mind, and gives a similar look to this when you put the mouse pointer over the picture.

"The extra latitude in color correction is great, also I have noticed that the camera overshoots NTSC standard. Images that look well leveled in the computer seem to blow out a little bit on NTSC. This means that if you take the level of the video down just a tad to put it into spec, you have opened up new headroom for color correction."

Hi Peter, Regarding my latest settings that were detailed by the BBC I have found the 'video' versions of those settings to be a bit too overcooked on the sharpness side of things. I would recommend using the detail settings from my previous setup (the ones you used for this recent interview), but to try out the knee and gamma settings I have listed for the latest settings on my site. Thus far I think the Swiss Effects detail settings seem to give the most pleasing overall look. However I am going to be doing some extensive tests for detail and colour setup along with a colleague soon to see if we can come up with a similar range of scene files as the ones available for download from the Panasonic site for the SDX900.

Hold on just a cotton pickin' moment. 4:4:4 will give you a higher chroma RESOLUTION etc, and is better for keying, but I cannot see how it gives that much more latitude. Ie you are still working with 8-bit colour. Certainly things might be smoothed out as a result of the downconversion, but if you took a grey graduation for example there are still only 235 shades available for legal video. You should still only be able to push it the same distance before you start to get banding. Anyone wish to put up some extreme colour corrections to actually illustrate the limits between the two? Now if the colour was sampled and recorded at source in 10-bits then I'd be impressed.

A piece of information that has come my way is that the BBC have not stopped accepting DB. What they have done however is to lift the restriction on demanding DB as a master format, thereby allowing others such as IMX50 to be submitted.

MIke, could you link to a press release or other documentation that states this directly from the BBC?

Does anyone here have a preference of filter manufacturer? Can anyone comment on the effectiveness of the Shneider polarisers compared in quality and result with the Tiffen ones?

Absolutely. Aside from filters, you'd be amazed just how much glare is there without the mattebox flags. The anti-glare coating on the lens can only do so much. Keep the lens in the shade, get more saturated colours. Although again, this isn't just a case of placing the flags in one position and then leaving them there. They should be adjusted according to each shot, focal length etc. Then you have the ability to stack filters with zero vignetting. Certainly a mattebox does make the camera look cool. But a person who doesn't know how to use one to the best effect wont look cool themselves.

Also pretty good for keeping rain off the lens!

That's videoing welding struck off my list of subjects to make programmes about then...