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Yes, it’s the NOISE thing again…
Hi All-
Received the HVX200 earlier this week. All I can say is, WOW. Color is great. Functionality is great. Amazing piece of technology. I am in LOVE with this camera.
Now that I got that out of the way….
I’ve heard a lot about the noise thing, but I wanted to wait until I got my hands on a camera to see for myself what all the hubbub was about. Well, I found it. Like others have mentioned before, you really don’t notice it until you notice it. Then, you see it everywhere. Honestly, I don’t think it’s all that bad, and if the shot is exposed correctly it kinda gives the footage a warm, organic feel. But it’s there. It’s definately there. Looks like grainy film. All my initial test shots were in 720p24, as my first project with the camera will be in that format. Then on my second round, I switched to 1080 just to see. I was very surprised with what I found.
I shot in 720p24Native, and then switched to 1080. Came home and loaded into FCP and to my amazement, there was almost NO NOISE in the 1080 footage, but noise everywhere in the 720 shots. What gives? I thought that the camera up-converted (wink, wink- nudge, nudge) to 1080. How is it possible then, that the 1080 footage actually has LESS noise than 720?
However, to further confuse me, it seems that the actual resolution of the 1080 footage is much LOWER than the 720 footage (on a one-to-one basis). I kinda expected that with the up-convert- but what I really didn’t expect was less noise in the 1080 footage. What kind of VooDoo is at work here? Is this simply a software or firmware fix sometime down the road, or is this a quirk of the camera that I’ll have to live with?
Anyone have any ideas about this?
Todd
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20 Replies
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I don’t have the HVX yet but I’m curious about some of your variables like:
1. What Cine-Gamma are you using?
2. What are you viewing your footage on? LCD or CRT?thanks.
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Shooting with Cine-V and viewing on a Dell 2405 via DecklinkHD and AJA HDP, non-scaled.
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Have you tried hooking direct to the Dell from the camera?
Mule Ferguson -
Have you looked at the footage on other monitors??
Perhaps the 720p footage is getting scaled up
in an unacceptable manner? Can you set the monitor
or the AJA to show 720??
Try making an SD DVD of the footage and looking
at that on a CRT.
You you shooting in Thick, Medium or thin?? -
Yes. straight out of the camera, component into the Dell. Same thing. I’ve also viewed it on my 15″ 1.67Mhz powerbook off the P2 card. Same thing.
Don’t misunderstand me, this camera looks fantastic despite the noise. I’m absolutely sure that no one will notice it outside the people who have it pointed out to them, and a few saavy tech evauationl engineers. It’s not something that would disqualify it for delivery like tape hits or hot video or such- it’s just a characteristic of the video.
I’m just curious as to why the 1080 footage has so much less noise than the 720 footage, even though there’s (to my eyes) less resolution in 1080.
Todd
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Our experience with the Dell 2405 as an HD monitor is not positive. Grainy, ugly contrast and smearing.
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I think htat this is also a CODEC issue. If you read through varicam posts you will also see a similar problem in the blues and blacks. The newest varicam apparently addresses this.
There are probablby already five times more HVX users to Varicam users out there right now, so this is why you see this post more often.
I have seen these noisy blacks problems on varicam footage. I am starting to think it has somethiing to do with codec limitations. It is an 8-bit codec that is being recorded and with all of the compression involved, something has to give.
This is just the first time we are really seeing it en-mass.
This is a mostly a hunch but I think it is a god hunch.
Maybe if you render some dark blue gradients in AE to the DVCPRO HD codecs you can start to challenge the codec instead of the camera because the images coming off teh chip are probably very clean.
David
Peace and Love 🙂
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What David said… It is a codec issue. That noise is present on Varicam footage as well. The blues are where most of the compression occurs.
Shane
Alokut Productions
http://www.lfhd.net -
Have you tried the Cinema D mode instead? I read somewhere and saw some pics comparing the pixilization/blockiness in the blacks b/t cinema v and cinema d shots and d definitely looked better (had less of the problem).
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“Maybe if you render some dark blue gradients in AE to the DVCPRO HD codecs you can start to challenge the codec instead of the camera because the images coming off teh chip are probably very clean.
David”
This is interesting David,
Are you implying that you could alter/change the codec itself?~ jb
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