[Johnny Clark]

Gary,
This sounds like a back focus problem. Specially if the image looks good zoomed in and focused, that’s the dead ringer. Are you familiar with back focusing techniques? If you have the fujinon manual then use the Star at the end and adjust your back focus. This will make a night and day difference for you. You should adjust the back focus regularly. Let me know if you need assistance with this adjustment.

Johnny C

[Johnny Clark]

Aiden,
Welcome to the CCow. JVC ProHD Cams are the best!
Differences in a nutshell:
HD110 – 12 bit processing / 24 & 30fps
HD200 – 14 bit processing / 24, 30, 60fps / pro battery option included
HD250 – everything the HD200 has plus HDSDI output and genlock
(Lens controls and rec formats are the same)

I would say the HD200 with a firestore would be an excellent investment.
The file sizes are smaller than DV! Yes, smaller, and they look fantastic.
Good luck on your camera search.

Johnny C

[Johnny Clark]

Hey Gary,
A quick idea wold be to plug the cam into an HD monitor via the component terminal. Play the video through the camera and watch to see if the monitor looks good. At least this will let you know if the footage on the tape is good or not.
Hopefully you will get to the bottom of this quickly. The HD110 is a great cam, but im sure at this point you’d ready to pull out some hair. Are you absolutely sure that you didn’t record in DV or capture in DV? When I have done this things look pretty terrible for me also.

Johnny C

[Johnny Clark]

Gary,
Sorry to hear that you’re having troubles. The picture should not look bad. Maybe you’ve done all of this but just to be sure:
1. Make sure the little switch on the back of the camera is set to HDV and not DV.
2. Make sure that you have the correct capture settings in your NLE.
3. Make sure that your capture quality is set to high.

Does it look good when you have a still frame?
If it does your computer system is downgrading the quality in order to play the video in real time. The actual footage is fine, just when played it looks terrible. There are settings to change this and it’s a user preference.

Let us know what your findings are and keep asking questions if you get stuck.

Johnny C

[Johnny Clark]

Hey Jonathan,
Whew that’s a load of great questions for sure. OK lets get started.

1) What you say is correct in that it records HDV (4:2:0 MPEG-2) to tape and through firewire.
2) The image is VERY good with the JVC codec (19Mb/s)
3) Keying is similar to any of the cams in this price range (sub $10k)
4) You will overall yield similar results with all the cams you listed (EX, HVX).

Since you have the kona you can capture from the uncompressed HD-SDI out of the JVC HD250 to what ever codec you like in the kona (via live feed).

In my experience the JVC codec is an adequate acquisition format, not a great post format. I usually convert to ProRes422 and go from there. If it’s just a simple color correction and down-convert then it depends. The paper says one thing the image says everything.

The file size is smaller than a DVCPRO file of the same length. I don’t how they did it but it rocks the house. My advice would be go into your ‘try-out’ with an open mind and run the hd250 through it’s paces and see if it’s a fit for you and the company.

Make sure you load up the DSC CDM28 and SUPERWIDE settings from Tim Dashwood:
https://dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=93052 (link in blue at the top of the page)

Johnny C

[Johnny Clark]

Sorry Chirs. Try this one, specifically the 13th post in the forum.

https://dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=93052

Johnny C

[Johnny Clark]

If you already have FCP and AP then why bother.
If you didn’t have anything then it would be great, since you have the big boy software, don’t waste time.
Just my opinion.

Johnny C

[Johnny Clark]

Here is a wealth of knowledge as well as some clips of 720p material.
Enjoy.

https://dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=62835

Johnny

[Johnny Clark]

That sounds interesting. Are you sure that the HD7 doesn’t record progressive frames? You would loose resolution going from progressive to interlaced but you shouldn’t loose tons. Try exporting a progressive file and see if it helps. Try just a short segment first.
If you are sure that it is 60i then try playing the original file through QT to see if it looks the same as what you’re getting through FCP and Compressor. Make sense? Hope so, this should let you know if something is set wrong in your sequence or export. With everything set correctly you should not be experiencing huge quality losses with your export. Please let us know what you come with so others can benefit from your findings.

Johnny C

[Johnny Clark]

Hi Robert,
With so many people using NLE’s today, EDIT BAY’s what are those??? I would venture to say that many people shooting MiniDV these days have never used an ‘analog style’ bay. Sounds like a neat studio you have at the University there. How often is it used? I assume since you’re a University that there is at least one NLE available… Let me do some digging and see what might float your fancy. Have you considered using Firestore’s to capture the cams feed instead of a deck???…
Talk to you soon.

Johnny C