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HVX200 matched with the RED


Benjamin Smith

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I AM STUNNED!

 

How did you manage to get such horrible footage with the HVX?

 

Do you know how many people think the HVX is a bad camera..just because they see horrid footage like this?

 

I am amazed...did you purposely try and shoot bad footage?

 

Look at all of that noise! Did you leave on the ND filter? Did you shoot through a dirty glass window?

 

Im guessing the following had to occur...

A. You forgot to white balance

B. You forgot to black balance

C. You made the amatuer mistake of leaving Auto Iris on while manually trying to fix it

D. You opened up the shutter to high for that particular environment

E. You left the ND filter ON

F. It was the first time you ever used a video camera

 

Simply put...dont blame the camera...blame yourself. I've seen HVX footage mixed with various types of cameras (Red One/Pannavision Genesis/Sony 900/Sony 23/ D-20) and this thread has to be the worst example of HVX footage I've ever seen.

 

EDIT: The fact that you chose to mix 720p footage with Red's 4k...goes to show.....nevermind. I'm sure you already feel insulted enough.

Edited by Ryan Domis
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I don't think its a big deal to intercut HVX200 with RED in a Doco. Most audiences accept mixed formats in a documentary, as long as your consistant eg all the interviews on HVX and other stuff on RED it would be fine. It would be jaring if you shot interviews on RED and HVX and intercut, eg RED on wides HVX on close up.

 

I worked on the post production of a documentary series that was shot on a mixture of PAL Digi-Beta, HDCAM, HDV (Z1) and 35mm/16mm archive. The show had a very good grade that helped tie the feel together and the footage on each format was well shot, which helps. The final result wasn't particually jaring, even when watching it on high end 24" CRT. Drama productions would be a different story, as different formats draw attention to them selfs and that may not be appropriate. But we are so used to see all kinds of grades of footage mixed up in documentaries _ espcially if archive material is used, you could well end up intercutting RED and VHS

 

Or, you could make a feature of the differences and celibrate the differences of the different formats, I directed a project that intercut Arri D20 footage, super 8 and super 16. Theres a very big difference between super 8 and the D20, but I made a feature of that difference and didn't get any complaints about the changes in texture.

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This is the actual frame size in relation to the woman. This image has been reduced 75% in size and saved as a JPEG file with medium WEB COMPRESSION in PSD. It is not meant to be evaluated for image quality but just as a reference to how zoomed in and cropped the comparison images were. :lol:

post-27488-1190219898_thumb.jpg

Edited by Seung Han
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Yeah, that was the info posted. Red Team brought over protoype 'London' to finish the shoot.

 

Red has a sticky on their forum with bugs and errors with the first cameras on field. The thread explains new issues while keeping Red users up to date on fixes. The whole process is pretty transparent. It seems like most of the new users are quite happy with the camera. You can actually follow a 'diary' of the first two cameras bought by offhollywood in NYC. The links to the 'diary' are on:

 

http://www.hdforindies.com

 

Just wondering... this isn't the shoot where the camera went down and they had to bring over a prototype and the guy had to keep shooting so that is why he shot with the HVX....
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Yeah, that was the info posted. Red Team brought over protoype 'London' to finish the shoot.

 

Red has a sticky on their forum with bugs and errors with the first cameras on field. The thread explains new issues while keeping Red users up to date on fixes. The whole process is pretty transparent. It seems like most of the new users are quite happy with the camera. You can actually follow a 'diary' of the first two cameras bought by offhollywood in NYC. The links to the 'diary' are on:

 

http://www.hdforindies.com

 

Nah two people wanted that thread shut down... but the fans said keep it open we want to know about the troubles...

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Nah two people wanted that thread shut down... but the fans said keep it open we want to know about the troubles...

 

Different thread about a different camera with problems. But yeah, the sticky was created soon after the first bugs started popping up.

 

The way RED is handling development makes alot of sense to me. They're treating the camera more like a piece of software in beta, with regular updates coming every week. It's definitely a break from the way cameras have been built in the past, but breaking tradition seems to be what they're good at.

 

By the way, from what I understand, the early adopters were warned that the camera was still in development and could have serious issues. They all decided to take the cameras anyway, and ride through the bumps and glitches with the team. If anyone had issues with these first 50, it shouldn't have come as a surprise...

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Two things come to mind reading this whole mess:

 

1) What's the mastering/delivery format for the documentary? If it's 1080P, then that's the only resolution reference you need to worry about. As long as both the HVX and RED images look acceptable when mastered in that format, it doesn't matter that one camera is 540 and the other 4K.

 

2) Closeups make the most out of a soft imager. Interview shots with HVX will look decent, but wider shots will reveal more of the resolution difference from the RED.

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1) What's the mastering/delivery format for the documentary? If it's 1080P, then that's the only resolution reference you need to worry about. As long as both the HVX and RED images look acceptable when mastered in that format, it doesn't matter that one camera is 540 and the other 4K.

 

From what I understand, the quality from downconverting 4k to 1080 will yield a much better a image but if you're going for what is acceptable than by all means...

 

I believe the Red is providing a 1080 capture in a future build for ENG users who don't want to downconvert in post.

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What's the mastering/delivery format for the documentary? If it's 1080P, then that's the only resolution reference you need to worry about. As long as both the HVX and RED images look acceptable when mastered in that format, it doesn't matter that one camera is 540 and the other 4K.

You'd be completely right - if they both looked acceptable in 1080... :-)

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Two things come to mind reading this whole mess:

 

1) What's the mastering/delivery format for the documentary? If it's 1080P, then that's the only resolution reference you need to worry about. As long as both the HVX and RED images look acceptable when mastered in that format, it doesn't matter that one camera is 540 and the other 4K.

 

2) Closeups make the most out of a soft imager. Interview shots with HVX will look decent, but wider shots will reveal more of the resolution difference from the RED.

 

Wow didn't figure this would be so heated. I have worked with the HVX before and am very pleased with it. The reason we are shooting with 7 cams is a style issue. We could do fewer cams but more expensive but the infamous "talking heads" of a documentary are over done and boring. We are using more cams and experamenting.

 

The final res will most likely be 1080p so we can either shoot the red in 1080 or go with a good 2k there ofcourse will be a difference but an acceptable one. Especially when you take into account there will be stock footage of all types mixed in. I believe the audience will give a little leway. Don't you think. As long as you keep the HVX good and tight nothing wide and have good lighting i think we could pull it off.

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Haha Whoa Whoa Whoa don't go blaiming me for the footage. I'm just re-posting don't kill the messenger. ;)

 

My guess is the reason the HVX footage looks pretty bad is that it's been scaled to match. It also appears to have been underexposed by a full stop.

 

That being said I've had HVX footage looking that bad cross my desk all the time.

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Wow didn't figure this would be so heated. I have worked with the HVX before and am very pleased with it. The reason we are shooting with 7 cams is a style issue. We could do fewer cams but more expensive but the infamous "talking heads" of a documentary are over done and boring. We are using more cams and experamenting.

 

The final res will most likely be 1080p so we can either shoot the red in 1080 or go with a good 2k there ofcourse will be a difference but an acceptable one. Especially when you take into account there will be stock footage of all types mixed in. I believe the audience will give a little leway. Don't you think. As long as you keep the HVX good and tight nothing wide and have good lighting i think we could pull it off.

 

That was my whole point -- in closer shots the resolution difference will be minimized; in wider shots you'll start to notice it. I've seen HVX's used the way you describe intercut with Varicam footage (720P), and even there you can see the difference when you start to go wider with the HVX. In tight they can actually blend pretty well.

 

Now expand that concept out to using the RED with the HVX in 1080P. Sure, the RED oversamples and will make the most out of 1080P, and the HVX has to uprez to even get there. But look at it this way: the RED isn't going to look any better than well-shot 35mm film transferred to 1080P -- would you intercut HVX footage with that? Well, it's already being done, and when used with discretion it doesn't seem to bother audiences. You just have to be aware of the limits of the HVX and make a judgement call as to what's acceptable, which it sounds like you're doing.

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The HVX does not uprez to get 1080. It records everything at 1080 and actually downrezzes to get 720. I can't believe the misinformation out there on a camera whose specs are widely available.

 

As a matter of fact, Juan Perretier has been able to squeeze 2K out of the imagers of the HVX with his Hydra modification.

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The HVX does not uprez to get 1080. It records everything at 1080 and actually downrezzes to get 720. I can't believe the misinformation out there on a camera whose specs are widely available.

 

I think they mean "uprez" by the fact that it does not have 1920 x 1080 pixel CCD's. The sensors are not even 1280 x 720.

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I think they mean "uprez" by the fact that it does not have 1920 x 1080 pixel CCD's. The sensors are not even 1280 x 720.

 

That's right. Panasonic has been able to get a pretty good 1280 x 720 image by pixel shifting the HVX200's 960 x 540 sensor, but I have trouble calling it a 1080p camera.

Edited by Evan Owen
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But it is nevertheless a 1080p camera.

It's a 540p camera with built-in upconversion to 1080p. There's no way around that 540 Nyquist limit. A/B its 1080p with the 1080p from an F-900/950 on a DLP projector, mapping the data pixels 1-1 to the mirrors. Anything less, and you'd just be looking at the limitations of the viewing system.

 

 

 

-- J.S.

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I think they mean "uprez" by the fact that it does not have 1920 x 1080 pixel CCD's. The sensors are not even 1280 x 720.

 

 

I love Panasonic. The HVX 200 is an amazing camera and it has 1080p option, variable film speed, and a superb solid state recording that Sony is only now trying to catch up with with their XDCAM EX, which actually has problem with vignetting. Panasonic would never come out with a lemon camera - no vignetting on Panasonic ever - only an amazing Leica lens. Panasonic had 1080p on a prosumer camera years ahead of Sony!

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I love Panasonic. The HVX 200 is an amazing camera and it has 1080p option, variable film speed, and a superb solid state recording that Sony is only now trying to catch up with with their XDCAM EX, which actually has problem with vignetting. Panasonic would never come out with a lemon camera - no vignetting on Panasonic ever - only an amazing Leica lens. Panasonic had 1080p on a prosumer camera years ahead of Sony!

 

With more or less SD sized sensors.... interesting how marketing can talk things up.

 

My understanding on the vignetting is that it seems to happening on some cameras and Sony are aware of the issue. That's a long way from the camera being a lemon, unless all early production run cameras never have problems. I can think of other current cameras that have/had early camera issues.

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