I want one… So my HV20 footage looks like this, instead of like this. But getting a good one costs $700+lenses (sample footage). Building one from scratch is not easy, and it costs almost as much anyway. Ah… I hope Canon comes up with something like this soon.

Weeeeeeeee…….

Not very smooth I am afraid. Nothing beats a steadycam. But under certain conditions, this is an acceptable product. My review is here.

This is for Mike, who requested a lightsaber video so he can make fun of me. Here you are. I can tell you right now, it’s hard work going frame by frame, so I didn’t do a great job. Special effects will be one reason why movies will never move to 60fps.

I just hate it how the same video file looks so different on TV and on a computer screen. After lots of trial and error, I was able to get with Vegas a picture that looks good on my TV (playing h.264 via the Sony PS3), even if it looks weird on the PC screen. Vegas already has a “Computer RGB to Studio RGB” template under its “Color Corrector” plugin, but this was not enough to make my footage look good on our Sharp rear projection CRT TV.

So, you bring up the “Color Corrector” plugin, and you change the following:
Saturation: 1200 to 1250 depending on the scene.
Gain: 0.750
Gamma: 0.950
Offset: 16.0

Basically, you just need to f*ck up the RGB histogram by narrowing it down, and making it look completely unnatural and warm on the PC screen in order to look normal on (my) TV. Your mileage may vary, so you will have to do your own tests.

I wish more people were color grading their digital pictures.

Picture by schizoform, released under the CC-BY license:

Picture by foxypar4, released under the CC-BY license:

Graded under Sony Vegas:
Contrast: 0.05
Saturation: 1500
Gamma: 0.800

The most popular HV20 sample video is Solomon Chase’s “Rainy Day“, which I have blogged about before (720p version here). He never revealed exactly how he color graded his footage, so tonight I got to work and tried to reproduce it. Here’s my result:

And here’s how I graded it.

I tested the Kodak Z1275 digicam tonight, which has the unique ability to record 720/30p video. Video comes out ok, although there is no image stabilization, autofocus when zooming in/out is problematic, and the on board microphone is not good. But as long as you use a tripod, you are interested in sceneries with background music and no voice, and you don’t zoom too much, it can substitute for a camcorder (it records 15 mins of HD video on a 1 GB SD card — that bitrate could have been better too).

I also posted a review of Cineform’s NeoHD over at FreshDV.

I mentioned last week that it would be nice to have a consumer camcorder geared towards the amateur filmmaker/artist. Here are some specs of the envisioned product:

* A body like the JVC Everio HD7. A hybrid between a consumer camcorder and the Canon GL-2. Painted dark red, mmm…
* 2/3s CMOS chip which enables a good amount of background blur and adjustable DOF. CMOS is preferable over 3CCD because in order to get the same amount of background blur with 3CCD, the chips will have to be 3x the size, and that would make the camera and lens way too big for the kind of product I am talking about. CMOS quality is good too.
* Enough dynamic range.
* Wide-angle built-in good all-around lens, that allows for 52mm filters.
* No more than 5x optical zoom is required for this kind of targeted product (especially because with the 2/3s CMOS it would be difficult to offer anything more than 5x, or the lens would be huge).
* Optical image stabilization.
* A focus ring. This is a must have. Preferably controllable by the remote control too.
* A removable lens hood.
* 80 GB non-removable iPod-sized hard drive (good for 7-8 hours of 1080p AVCHD). An additional SD slot just in case you run out of space.
* Two rocker-style dials for controlling aperture and exposure (they don’t have to be rings on the lens but they have to be easily controllable without the need of software menus).
* A focus assist and turn on/off manual focus button.
* An HDMI, USB 2.0, headphones jack, and component-out.
* An on-board stereo mic with included wind muff (I don’t care if it would look like a hairy vagina).
* A 3.5mm microphone jack (no reason for XLRs).
* An easy to reach button that immediately brings a special screen where you can quickly adjust: aperture, exposure, shutter speed, gain, white balance and audio levels — independently.
* An easy to reach button that immediately brings a special screen where you can quickly adjust: contrast, brightness, sharpness, saturation, ND filters etc.
* Shutter speed up to 1/4000th (HV20 only goes up to 1/2000th, and that’s not enough for some scenes of rock music video clip look).
* A basic flash light. It’s not a very useful tool for filmmaking-purposes anyway.
* A big enough, comfortable viewfinder.
* A battery that lasts 120 mins.
* A 3″ widescreen LCD with some controls on it, and the ability to FLIP the picture (so we can use 35mm adapters).
* A kind of zoom control button as found on the Canon semi-pro cameras.
* Ability to record progressive full HD 1920×1080 at 30p and 24p, at 24 mbps (AVCHD’s maximum quality). 30p/24p must be TRUE 30p/24p, without wrappers to 60i or needed [inverse] telecine. We had enough trouble with that pullup/down shit already all these years and especially with the HV20.
* Ability to also record anamorphic 1440×1080/60i at around 18-20 mbps. It would also be nice to not have different camera models for PAL and NTSC, but let the user decide the frame rate he/she wants to use.
* A CINEMODE preset, as found on the Canon HV20 (which has a better dynamic range and film look).
* A tripod locking pin in addition to a tripod hole.
* ND filter control (if the lens has any).
* A hot shoe.

That camera is within the reach of Canon for $2000. I would call it the “Mini” and it would be geared towards hobbyist artists (which are one step below true indie filmmakers). Kinda like how the D200 and 40D DSLRs are, geared towards hobbyists who know a thing or two more than the mass market and their point-and-shoot no-background-blur digicams, but yet, they are not true professionals. Know what I mean?

Then, throw some XLRs, 120 GB laptop drive which is removable, ability to also record in the Lagarith or Cineform lossless formats (an 120GB drive will fit 60+ mins of lossless HD in the YUY2 colorspace), removable EOS lenses, a bigger body, better built-in mic, more buttons and custom presets, and sell that “pro” version for $4000 and go against the RED camera by wooing the real indie filmmakers in.

Currently, neither Panasonic, Canon or Sony have anything comparable to RED regarding the film-look. Their semi-pro cameras don’t have big-enough sensors for the film-look purpose. Only Panasonic comes close with its DVX/HVX series, but these cameras are still far from ideal. I hope Canon listens, because there is such an unsatisfiable market right now. Check for video samples from that underground scene here and here.

Color grading test using Magic Bullet Movie Looks HD, under Sony Vegas. Pictures shot with a Canon A700 and a Panasonic LX2. Original VGA video here (2.6 MB).

There is no doubt in my mind that AVCHD is a much more convenient format over HDV because of the main medium used is hard drives instead of tapes (I won’t go into DVD vs Blu-Ray burning here). Here’s why hard drives (and solid state flash drives in the future) have better usability than tapes:

* You can find faster a particular scene.
* You can seek faster and more precisely within that particular scene.
* You can delete that scene and free up space immediately.
* You can transfer video files to your PC much faster than when capturing from tapes.
* iPod-sized hard drives these days go up to 160 GBs which is enough for 14 hours of AVCHD.
* The AVCHD standard does not have the HDV tape-speed limitation and so it can extend its standard to true 1080p recording and true 24p — without using hacks. And even 2k resolutions when the time comes.
* iPod-sized drives take less space than the tape-reading mechanism so camcorders can become smaller (same thing for the flash-based AVCHD cameras).
* Snapshot JPEG photos won’t have to be stored to a separate flash card, but on the hard drive as well (making the camera even smaller).
* AVCHD supports Dolby 5.1 surround sound.

HDV still has a few cards to play:

* HDV has better picture quality than most AVCHD cameras to date. This is something that AVCHD will overcome in the future, after they perfect and optimize their h.264 encoders in-camera and they go for higher bitrate than 15 mbps.
* HDV is more compatible, and faster to playback & edit than AVCHD’s h.264 format with current NLEs. This will eventually change too as PCs become faster.
* If the tape is full, you just get another one. If the HDD is full, you need a laptop with you to offload some of your footage.
* If the AVCHD camera’s hard drive dies and you are out of your warranty, you are screwed. Unless you are willing to fix it yourself, or buy a future semi-pro AVCHD camera which will feature inter-changeable drives that is. With HDV, if a tape dies, well, you buy a new one for $5. Although the tape drive can die too, of course.

So eventually, the “war” between the two formats will be reduced to just “reliability vs convenience”. As a consumer/prosumer, I prefer convenience. Pros will prefer reliability, although this won’t be an issue if their AVCHD semi-pro camera supports interchangeable drives. All in all, the future looks bleak for HDV.