Steve Mahrer
Forum Replies Created
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“Lunch”
Drop note with your telphone number and we can chat, e-mail is so slow….
The subject needs explaining in detail (no pun intended)E-mail is mahrers@us.panasonic.com
Steve
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Hi “Lunch”…..
The SDX900 camera shoots at your choice of 24p, 30p or 60i SD. It records DVCPRO 25 or 50 to tape and is very widely used for docos, commercials, indies etc. When we designed the 900, we added the option of Prgressive Vertical detail mode, this is a vertical filter choice designed for those who intend to shoot 24p for a 24p edit and film out. DO NOT use it for 60i SD (Video) work, it will generate lots of nasty vertical interlace alias problems and create a very “busy” video look.
If you intend to edit 24p then upconvert, the Progressive filter mode will significantly increase the vertical resolution of the camera and provide a very nice look once upconverted. As most folks do, don’t use too much H or V enhancement if you intend a film out, HD is subtle and it doesn;t look too good if it’s over enhanced. I’d recommed you do some testing and see how much it helps your project. Expect a 25-30% increase in vertical resoltion over the usual “SD” interlaced filter mode. Test, Test, test…. and use a good lens / monitor!
Hope it makes sense.
Good shooting!
Steve Mahrer (Panasonic Broadcast)
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Hi Roddy;
The SPX800 is similar to most current Panasonic cameras in that it has powerful menus to build you own “looks” for the camera. The cameras have two user-definable master Matrices, A & B. These can be adjusted from an almost monochrome (B&W) look up to KodaChrome on steroids look! I would suggest that you check the matrix vaules and set them to “0” (zero).
There is also a 12 vector colour corrector, this has the useful ablilty to adjust individual clours for both saturation and phase, great for commercial work where you need to tweak a product’s colour to make the client happy. You have a choice of settting all the values of the CC1 and CC2 menus to zero, or just turn it off as a function in the Low /Med/ Hi menu settings.
Another thing that can cause oversaturation is the master gamma setting, if the value if 0.50 or higher it will cause a higher contrast picture with boosted colour levels. Set this to 0.45 (correct but not necessarily the best point artistically).
Hope it helps!
Cheers! Steve Mahrer (Panasonic)
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Jon:
Were the tapes standard def i.e. DV, DVCPRO or even DVCPRO 50? If so, the AJ-HD1200A deck has no means of cropping a “16×9 tape” to a “4×3 OP”…. The 1200 can do that from an HD tape, but not an SD tape. in a nutshell, the deck can’t do that to SD tapes.
Steve Mahrer (Panasonic Broadcast)
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Hi:
The Discovery Channel uses a considerable amount of VariCam footage shot at 720p 59.94 in their programming. The 720p 59.94 (frame) VariCam footage is easily converted to 1080i 59.94 (field) in the various Panasonic VTRs, or by external conversion units e.g the Teranex etc. In this proces one complete frame of the 720p video is converted to one field of 1080i, this 59.94 to 59.94 conversion provides a clean “TV” look with full motion rendition.
If you shoot the VariCam at 29.97 frames it will generate a 30p “film look” and the motion will appear choppy. I believe that Discovery prefer the 59.94 look, I would strongly recommend you speak with their production staff to ensure your shooting will match their requirements.
Hope it helps,
Steve Mahrer (Panasonic)
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Dale:
I have a few version for the 27F, but basically I would suggest you remove any Matrix and Colour Correction you have dialed in. You can do thsi by simply recalling the factory preset. Then either turn off or reduce any detail enhancement. This will permit best seperation of the indivudual RGB channels and permit a cleaner key. Sometimes it helps to turn on Colour Colour correction and boost the saturation of either Blue or Green as appropriate. Use a vectorscope to ensure you match the colour correction vector boost with the light / paint you use.
Good luck!
Steve Mahrer (Panasonic Broadcast)
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Hi Mike:
I’ve been away on vacation for two weeks, thus my apologies for the delay in this resposne.
In the HDX900, the CCDs capture native 720 x 1280, they also have a half pixel horizontal spatial
offset. This full bandwidth “Super 720p” is used as the basis for the record formats on tape.
Thus for 1080p 25, the tape’s CODEC is 1080 x 1440 for Y, amd 1080 x 720 for R-Y/B-Y, the
camera’s front end provides a pretty good signal for conversion and then subsequent compression.Hope it helps,
Steve Mahrer – Panasonic.
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Doka;
It’s in camera switch settings section of the manual, but basically your choices are:
HANDLE ZOOM
P2 TAPE (Camera) Sets the zoom speed assigned to each setting position of the HANDLE ZOOM
switch.L/OFF/H: Sets LOW (low speed)/OFF/HIGH (high speed) to the 1/2/3 position. (Zoom is
disabled when set to OFF).L/OFF/M: Sets LOW (low speed)/OFF/MID (medium speed) to the 1/2/3 position. (Zoom
is disabled when set to OFF).L/M/H: Sets LOW/MID (medium speed)/HIGH to the 1/2/3 position.
Sounds like you may want the latter choice, L/M/H….
Cheers!
Steve Mahrer (Panasonic Broadcast)
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Daryl et al;
The BT-LH2600W ships July 10th….
Cheers!
Steve Mahrer
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Sean;
The 1200a has no provision to alter the Gamma of the tape’s contents. That confusion may have arisen by a recent press release on our new 1400 deck. This VTR does have a Gamma mode, this function is the equivalent of using the Gamma Box to boost the low to mid tone contrast on Film Rec shot material. The 1400 ships soon.
What I suspect may have really happended is that the DP set the camera in FILM REC mode, AND used one of our 9, 17 or 26″ LCD monitors. Those monitors have a FILM REC LUT option that provide a “preview” of the shot with an added Gamma boost. Thus, the on-set monitoring would have had a higher contrast and have appeared “normal”, in FCP however, without this gamma boost, it will look flat.
Hope it helps clear up the confusion.
Cheers!
Steve Mahrer (Panasonic Broadcast)