fx1 framegrabs

I haven't posted anything in a week because I've been too busy screwing around with my new FX1. I won't be so arrogant to think I can actually offer a review of this thing, but I can safely say I'm extremely happy with it. I've tested out most of the functions and read any and every internet opinion on every single button. There's actually something of a nerd controversy over which consumer high def format will win the public and how many bits are crammed into the datastream and which features are gimmicks and the master pedestal setting in relation to useable gain and yada, yada, yada…

All I can say is this camera makes pretty pictures. It's not nearly as point as shoot as I had expected, and I kind of like that. It almost forces you to question everything manually (though the auto mode isn't bad). The only real difficult thing to do is keep high def focus, so there's a big ass focus ring at the edge of the lenshood to make it precise (along with an expanded focus feature that lets you see just the center of the image in the lcd for focusing). Most of the buttons seem to be in the right places, and the camera is large enough to balance on the shoulder for steady shots while still using the top mounted lcd and focus ring.

The HDV format is super convenient, and editing is fast after rendering the raw footage into an intermediate high def format (Cineform HD 1920 x 1080 codec via Sony Vegas 6). I'm using a P4 2.0 w/512mb ram – not exactly a high def editing powerhouse. The render times into Cineform are slow, but if I set it over night the next day I can edit it as easily as if it were regular DV. I'm still experimenting with different editing formats.

Overall I freakin love this camera. But for anyone who stumbled upon this from a Google search (and considering an FX1 purchase) I'll also post what I don't like about the camera and how I've learned to stop worrying and love the high def.

1. No XLR inputs. Yeah, you can get this on the FX1's big brother – the Z1, but it would have been nice to lose the Beachtek adaptor. My Beachtek is unpowered and one of my mics (Audio Technica 3031) won't run on batteries, meaning I have to bring a small phantom-power-supplying mixer for indoor voice recording. This isn't really related to the camera though. I just need to get a different beachtek.

2. Chromatic aberration at the edge of the lens with high contrast images. I included a picture (leaves) that shows what this is. You can see a little purple fringe on some of the leaves near the edge of the frame. I knew about this before I bought the camera and in the end I reasoned a little C.A. was a fair trade off to shoot high def 1080i at this price. After shooting for a week I still hold this opinion, and I've since noticed it in footage shot with cameras 25 times this price. I'm willing to bet other sub $10k high def cams will exhibit this as well. There is a reason nice lenses cost many thousands of dollars. It's important to note that it's much more noticeable in stills than in actual video. Still, something to be aware of and one of the issues of shooting in high definition – we have to deal with things that we never noticed in standard def and it introduces new challenges to getting a good shot.

3. No 24p framerate. It was a hard choice to decide between the FX1 and the DVX100. The DVX shoots 24 frames per second on progressive CCDs (similar motion to a film camera). The FX1 shoots 60 frames per seconds on interlaced frames (like reality tv or documentaries). As it turns out Vegas 6 does a damn good job turning 60i footage into 24p. In the past this was a cheap way to simulate film motion from video, but with a serious loss in resolution. When the DVX came out 3 years ago it marked a standard for the film on video look with 24p and excellent gamma curves. But now we have high def, with an improved colorspace over DV and 4 times the resolution. This means that even after rendering 24p from 60i, there's plenty of video information to spare. I've rendered out some stuff myself and found the motion very filmlike and clean. Clean here is key. The image from this camera is virtually noise free (to my eyes anyway). A better color corrector than myself could do film-like magic with this stuff. Still, would have been nice to skip this step in post. I should point out that the FX1 does have a feature called Cineframe24 that is mostly useless due to the uneven way it renders motion.

Conclusion: For corporate videos, the standard DV option provides a nice 1/3" 3CCD 480i60 reliable image (until they want to upgrade to HD!). For film type stuff, 1080i60 downconverts well to 720p24. For taking pictures of my dog, high def is ridiculously lifelike. In the last week I've viewed FX1 footage on an SVGA 600p projector (mine), a high def 768p projector (not mine), 42" and 50" HD plasmas and various size HD LCD TVs. Flipping back and forth between Discovery Channel HD and my back yard footage – my backyard looked better. Yes, I realize that the Discovery Channel is going through satellite transmission compression, but it doesn't matter. I've never looked at Discovery HD and thought it looked bad until I compared it to footage I shot in my own backyard. Oh yeah, and 16:9 native CCDs are fucking sweet.

The obligatory nature stills and dog shots – all were captured from the Cineform HD codec in Vegas at 1920 x 1080i, pulled into Photoshop and compressed at jpeg quality 10. The "Lexie" shots were adjusted in Photoshop to bring out some of the details. The fence, street and leaves shots were downconverted to 1280 x 720 for bandwidth.

european gadget: citroen Dsuper5

I don't know a whole lot of about these cars, but Citroen is all over Europe. This one is old. I remember my dad telling me about these cars when I was a kid. If I remember right there is a hydraulic system that lowers to let you out when you stop.

Seen in: Some town between Peebles and Edinburgh, Scotland.

goonies at red rocks

Last night we went to see Goonies at Red Rocks. It was truly a stunning event. First of all, it sold out, and Red Rocks seats around 9000 people. So the Goonies fans were out in mass. Secondly, every time an new character showed up for the first time, the crowd went nuts. Data, the truffle shuffle, Sloth love Chuck, Goonies never say die, Chester Copperpot. The list goes on. Pretty much if you can remember it from Goonies there was crowd cheer to follow.

I was also impressed that they actually used a 35mm film print to show it. Yeah, it was a little dark and the audio track was a little wavery at times, but it was great to see an outdoor screening using something other than a home projector and a DVD. We had seats fairly close to the middle (the above photo was pulled from the Red Rocks website) so I imagine for the people at the top it was like watching a 13" tv with 9000 people. We paid $11/each to get in. That included a hot dog, popcorn and Pespi branded beverage. Tickets by themselves were $8, so that means, before paying out rental fees etc, they raked in between $72,000 and $99,000 for a one night screening. Not too shabby…

Hmm… maybe I should get some investors and start my own screenings. Here's my list of screenings for next year (funds permitting).

1. Office Space

2. Napoleon Dynamite

3. Bottle Rocket (or Rushmore, not decided yet)

4. Fight Club

5. Dazed and Confused

6. The Big Lebowski

7. Back to the Future

8. Pulp Fiction

I think with that list I could rake in some serious cash. Come on everybody. Let's get rich!

hdv reconsidered

So a while back I posted about the new Panasonic HVX200 and all the high-def magic it contains. In the same post I shat upon the HDV format (used by the Sony FX1 pictured above) due to "crappy MPEG compression." As it turns out, tonight I hit the B & H checkout button and purchased the FX1, including its "crappy MPEG compression." I would like to now clarify my previous post, as I'm sure so many of you could really care. I'm going into dork mode now. So you've been warned.

The Panasonic looks to be an amazing piece of technology. The problem with this is the cost. The camera itself is 6 grand, plus another 3 1/2 grand just to record a few minutes of footage onto p2 media cards. This is a totally acceptable workflow for anyone used to shooting film (I'm not). Plus, the Panasonic will shoot 24p, like film, plus just about any other framerate you can think of. It's a very appealing product and I hope to one day use one.

So once you have the camera and storage cards you need a laptop on location to dump that footage into every few minutes. And that HD footage needs a lot of space! Then when you get home you have to figure out how the hell to edit this stuff! In the end, it's a little more cash than I'll be able to part with for another few years (by then, the space, cost and editing situation will be quite a bit better).

So back to the HDV format. Using MPEG compression, the HDV format uses standard MiniDV tapes to record the footage. This means that instead of the $3,500 it costs to record 8 minutes of HD on the new Panasonic, you get an hour from a $5 tape. And it seems the MPEG compression is actually used fairly well, producing a nice HD image at a reasonable price.

So cost aside, obviously the Panasonic ProHD format will provide a better picture than HDV. But how much better? I'm sure shootouts will prove ProHD the better format, but again, how much better?

I'm willing to bet that 95% of the people of earth couldn't tell a difference between the formats when viewed on a nice big plasma tv. Keeping this audience in mind, the performance/price difference becomes almost moot, and we're simply stuck with the price difference.

So how is the footage from the Sony FX1 using the HDV format? Stunning! It shoots a full 1080i resolution, which scales nicely to 720p, 480p or 480i. Some people seem to think going from a high-def source to a standard-def output (DVD) provides for a nicer image than starting in standard-def to begin with. I tend to agree with this thinking, as the higher overall resolution allows for much better color resolution which then translates down to any resolution – meaning this camera will produce awesome DVDs. There's quite the debate about this between the nerds of the internet.

Judged against equally priced standard-def cams, the FX1 is a great deal, even if only ever used in standard-def mode. I've been waiting a long hard time to buy a completely different cam – the DVX100a. Its main feature is shooting 24 fps. It's a pretty close call, but I realized that emulating 24p is fairly easy in post, and I've seen an assload of DVX 24p movies that still just look like video. So 24p wasn't enough to make me buy, but high-def was, and – my favorite part, true 16:9 CCDs.

So now for my corporate video jobs I've got a setup that will allow great standard – def recording (and motivation to find more jobs to offset the money we – my wife and I – just spent). And for my own projects (details coming soon!) I can shoot in HD, downrez and edit in SD, and hang on to the raw HD footage for the future. I am pretty stoked right now.

german car ad: sixt rent-a-car

another sighting from the munich airport. this car appeared to be hanging from snot. up close it looked like a real car, not just a plastic shell. I don’t know how light a normal car would be without the engine, but I imagine still heavy enough to crush someone reading the ad.