HDV on Sony VW100 1080i projector
by Derek Antonio Serra
on
Nov 19, 2006 at 6:00:55 pm
On Friday I ran a HDV Masterclass at the Sithengi Talent Campus here in Cape Town, South Africa. We were lucky enough to have the only VW100 HD projector in Africa on site, and I got to project footage I'd shot on my FX1 and HC1 projected at true 1080i for the first time. The projector has a SXRD panel, and is used by HDHUB in Cape Town to colour grade feature films shot on HDCAM.
The fifty-odd workshop participants and myself were truly astounded by the images produced by this projector. Stunning to say the least. The most striking difference between this screening and others I've done in the past using other pretty high-end projectors was the lack of strobing on movement which we always complain about with HDV. Motion was smooth as butter. The fact that this is 1080i as apposed to progressive might explain this.
The footage I screened was run from my little HC1 via component outputs, and had been produced on Premiere Pro 1.51 with AspectHD, using firewire to take HDV footage into and out of the system. The "master" tape was thus also in HDV, which is not recommended by many purists. Even after colour correction, etc, my footage looked stunning. No artifacts were apparent, and the audience of filmmakers agreed that they'd happily watch feature films shot on HDV if this was the projection they could look forward to.
So, I'll thus continue to break the "rules" and not go into a far more expensive edit suite using Kona cards via component, equipped with massive storage for uncompressed footage. There is hope for poorer independent filmmakers who cannot afford anything other than a basic edit suite.
Derek Antonio Serra
Filmmaker
www.controversifilms.co.za
www.indv.co.za
Re: HDV on Sony VW100 1080i projector by Uli Plank on Nov 20, 2006 at 11:05:11 am
A student of mine has just delivered his master thesis on HDR imaging and as a part of this project made precise measurements of of the Sony VW100 (alias Ruby) in a completely dark room. He could prove a contrast ratio of 1:2000 and a resolution of 800 lines with uncompressed full-raster sources.
This is equal or better than an ordinary 35mm cinema projection
Re: HDV on Sony VW100 1080i projector by Derek Antonio Serra on Nov 21, 2006 at 11:51:32 am
[Uli Plank]"This is equal or better than an ordinary 35mm cinema projection"
I must say that it was quite an emotional moment for me, as it was the first time I'd seen footage which I'd shot and edited projected at full 1080i. Here in South Africa HD is still in its infancy, so even hiring a HD CRT monitor is a challenge. I'd projected my stuff to students using 1080-capable projectors which upscale quite well, but native 1080i is just far superior. I look forward to the day that all cinema projection is so clean and sharp.
Derek Antonio Serra
Filmmaker
www.controversifilms.co.za
www.indv.co.za
Re: HDV on Sony VW100 1080i projector by Michael Slowe on Nov 21, 2006 at 11:30:07 am
Derek, two questions. How much does this projector cost, is it sensible or do we have to wait for cheaper ones? Also, how practical is it to produce HDV 'show' prints because they have to be played from an HDV deck or camera. These are by no means universal, what do your SD DVD's or DV tape copies look like, did you project any of these?
Re: HDV on Sony VW100 1080i projector by Derek Antonio Serra on Nov 21, 2006 at 11:43:57 am
The projector costs around $ 9000 here in South Africa, so it's by no means cheap. It's intended to be permanently mounted, and has no feet for height adjustment, etc. I'd say wait for more portable offers. I used a small Sony XVGA projector on a similar jaunt a few weeks ago, and it did a pretty good job of projecting a one hour HDV doccie from a HDV tape as well, but of course not at full 1920 x 1080 resolution.
I've been projecting straight from HDV tapes for about a year now, on odd occasions, as this has been the only way of getting HD resolution into a projector easily. Essentially what I do is export my rendered M2T file back to three seperate tapes once I've completed a project. One is a master, one is a safety, and one is for projection. I retain the M2T file on the edit suite as well.
SD stuff looked great through the big Sony projector as well, but as I'm running HDV Masterclasses I need to show full HD quality where possible. Sony have just launched their "FULL HD" range of 1080i LCD screens here as well in 40", 50" and 60". Stunning but pricey. I wish they produce a 30" in 1080i as well for use in a low-cost edit suite.
Derek Antonio Serra
Filmmaker
www.controversifilms.co.za
www.indv.co.za
Re: HDV on Sony VW100 1080i projector by Michael Slowe on Nov 21, 2006 at 5:24:23 pm
Derek, thanks a lot for the info. My problem is that I'm finishing up with HDCAM tape which obviously I can't project and I can't easily get back to HDV from my system. This is why I am so keen to get HD DVD's which I will be able to project just as soon as there are burners and players. Presumably the DVD's won't look as good as your tape pictures but better than SD or DV?
Re: HDV on Sony VW100 1080i projector by Derek Antonio Serra on Nov 21, 2006 at 8:00:00 pm
[Michael Slowe]"Presumably the DVD's won't look as good as your tape pictures but better than SD or DV?"
Blu-Ray DVD's looked great on the 60" 1080i display at a recent Sony Roadshow I attended, so I'm sure we'll be amazed at how good they'll look projected. To be honest, I've projected high bitrate SD DVD's onto a large theatre screen using a 5000 lumen SANYO industrial projector and even they looked pretty good. I'm also waiting for Blu Ray burners and players to become affordable - the PS3 seems like a good option at a reasonable price for a player.
Derek Antonio Serra
Filmmaker
www.controversifilms.co.za
www.indv.co.za
Re: HDV on Sony VW100 1080i projector by Michael Slowe on Nov 22, 2006 at 4:07:30 pm
Derek, how high is a high bit rate for you? I use BitVice and at a double pass VBR I put an average of 7.5. I am advised that any higher and I may have problems with compatability. I am not all that thrilled with my pictures considering how good they look on tape.
Re: HDV on Sony VW100 1080i projector by Uli Plank on Nov 21, 2006 at 8:02:49 pm
There is a smaller brother now for the VW100, called VW50, and it has the same resolution and excellent color space for about half the price. Just not as much light.
And well-encoded H.264 or (higher rate) MPEG-2 in HD can look terrific as well, we are projecting it from a MacMini.
Regards,
Uli
Author of "DVDs gestalten und produzieren", a book on professional DVD-authoring in German.
Re: HDV on Sony VW100 1080i projector by Derek Antonio Serra on Nov 21, 2006 at 8:25:11 pm
I'm guessing that native 1080i projectors and displays will be pretty commonplace within a year or so. The bump in resolution from SD is really dramatic. I just went to see The Devil Wears Prada on 35mm, and was struck by the poor print quality. Motion in places was anything but smooth, and image quality was soft. Digital projection at 2K will be a vast improvement, at 4K breathtaking, with no scratches or speckles to annoy.
Derek Antonio Serra
Filmmaker
www.controversifilms.co.za
www.indv.co.za
Re: HDV on Sony VW100 1080i projector by John Frey on Nov 22, 2006 at 2:40:24 am
Isn't it amazing how hard many people work at getting their video to "look like film"! And I don't just mean the "film-look", but adding judder, jitter, scratches, etc. After working recently on a large venue projection project using industrial projectors fed from our 5 camera shoot, it really struck me the next day, while sitting in the local cinema watching film projection, just how many distractions there really are in that process - bad release print, scratches, burns, debri, and especially, film weave. This has been really bugging me over the last few years. Even first run big-time features suffer from this. I'll take digital projection any day!
John D. Frey
25 Year owner/operator of two California-based production studios.
Digital West Video Productions of San Luis Obispo and Inland Images of Lake Elsinore
Re: HDV on Sony VW100 1080i projector by Uli Plank on Nov 22, 2006 at 6:39:53 am
Well, while I'd also prefer a perfect digital projection to a bad release print: IMHO there are just not enough good films these days where content is distracting you from these artefacts ;-)
Regards,
Uli
Author of "DVDs gestalten und produzieren", a book on professional DVD-authoring in German.
Re: HDV on Sony VW100 1080i projector by Peter Wright on Nov 22, 2006 at 11:05:13 am
Derek - just discovered this thread.
Thanks so much for confirming what most of us HDV converts have been hoping for a while.
When people write about "how do I get the film look" and "what's the best way to do 24p?"
etc., I often feel like saying "why are you trying to restrict the quality of your product?", but I don't really have enough actual facts to back this up - you post was a refreshing addition to my knowledge base.
Here's hoping that some cheaper "mobile" 1080i projectrs come along soon, so we can stop talking and start showing, as you already have!
I'm a Z1 shooter/Vegas7 editor, with a new Core 2 Duo machine that means full framerate editing of m2t footage, and even when I produce SD DVDs they look fantastic - so I am very much looking forward to showing HDV projects straight from tape.
Regards from Perth.
Peter Wright
Perth, Western Oz
www.allroundvision.com.au
