MiniDV limitations (including DVX100)

patreb wrote on 7/18/2004, 9:44 PM
While editing my short film (shot with superb DVX100) i was amazed that closeups and mediums shots look great but the long shots -- no matter what look crappy. At first i assumed that the long shots are much harder to control in terms of composition, colors, textures, etc... but i discovered that it has also to do with the compression. While compression is usually not noticeable on med and close up shots, it does become a problem with long shots.

Just a friendly warning/observation.

Comments

apit34356 wrote on 7/18/2004, 10:17 PM
yes, you are better off using a camera with 4:2:2 vs 4:1:1for fine detail in complex shots, but don't forgot about the lens. The lower-end pro cameras do not have good glass. Small imperfections in the glass effect color and file detail. There are many articles about these issues.


AJP
busterkeaton wrote on 7/19/2004, 12:57 AM
DV magazine had an interesting interview with Robert Altman about working in HD. Talking about what colors to watch out for and how far to push the lighting schemes. The more experience you have with your medium, the better your artiistic decisions.
farss wrote on 7/19/2004, 12:58 AM
The other issue to consider is long shots mean shooting through more air. You don't even need a camera to see the difference in clarity of far away objects. Shooting early in the morning when the air is colder and cleaner can help as does lower humidity.
Depends of course just how long a shot you're talking about.
Could also add that even without the limitations of DV25 compression the video system itself isn't very high resolution and long shots which oftenly contain more detail highlight that. From what I've noticed video seems to require the subject to fill a large part of the frame else it starts to look fairly bad.
patreb wrote on 7/19/2004, 11:42 AM
The atmosperhic distortion definately adds to it. But still the bigest problem is the number of details needed for a long shot to be great. It's quite disapointing when a distant house made up of 6 big compression squares where all teh squres attemp to show details all the suden shows one of those squareas as nothing more but one color...
apit34356 wrote on 7/19/2004, 12:04 PM
I like using a digital camera(any thing over 5meg with good lens) , shoot a number of scenes, different angles, then merge video with high detail stills,using masks and other techniques.

AJP
apit34356 wrote on 7/19/2004, 12:11 PM
don't forgot len filters, match the needed filters for the outside shot. If there is any smears, no matter how small, will effect the shot.

AJP
patreb wrote on 7/19/2004, 12:13 PM
Yes, i wa sthinking of using Dig Camera too instead with some footage added later on. Now i just need to see how well it can match.
farss wrote on 7/19/2004, 2:00 PM
There are many factors that can affect the resulting video and you need to understand how they interplay to get the ultimate image quality. Apart from the issues affecting how good an image ends up on the CCDs you also need to understand what happens to it from then on. Firstly there is the color sampling issue. This is color sampling, it shouldn't affect resolution as I understand it. Next you have compression, DV uses a compression system similar to jpeg, the more detail you have in a frame the more likely the compression system is to hit the bit budget and then something has to give.
Then you have the final resolution of the format. No matter anything else you're stuck with that. Then you have the resolution of the display device, this is usually the weakest link.
One thing to watch. Shooting 24p makes any motion more of an issue. The way I see you need to look at this is not how fast the camera moves, its how fast the finest detail you want to resolve moves within the frame. At 24p shutter speed is probably 1/30 or 1/50 of a second. So if in the time the shutter is open your 'house' moves one pixel within the frame you just dropped your effective resolution to half. You can get around this with a faster shutter speed bu that removes the 'dreamlike' appearance of film. A better solution is to keep the camera still, I mean VERY still. On a long shot just a puff of wind will be enough to move the image one pixel on a wobbly tripod.
That's where the big boys toys have an extra plus. Those massive lenses and cameras need heavy tripods so apart from anything else the shots are very stable. Even during a pan you'll get no 'jitter' in the vertical direction from poor bearings in the tripod.
Trying to match a still from DSC might prove very difficult, not just the color balance but the lack of blur might be the hardest part.

Bob.