ADDENDUM 31 : Assessment of, and settings for, Panasonic
Contents
1. 5 This document is a report of the results of tests that are the precursor of those described in the EBU technical document Tech3335 It is not an endorsement of the product Panasonic HPX 171 April 2009 FNC TIONS __moae ea aa fice User file Load Save Initial After Load turn power off on to take effect Backup via 1394 Ext controls remote deck with Start Stop Chain uses remote deck as extra record Off Ext Both Chain 1394 control Camera gt Set clock calendar Really honest that s what it do time sone remeron Time zone offset from GMT for foreigners 59 94 50 System freq Shows power on time 5 digits per hour i Operation Press Disp Mode Chk button and Menu to get this menu then Menu to cancel OPTION MENU mode range comments BBC _ Format Rate 60 50 Ch 1394 status Cam Mcr Speed Status Video TEEE1394 status info display Audio Dflt 1 255 1394 extended menus 1394 config 6 This document is a report of the results of tests that are the precursor of those described in the EBU technical document Tech3335 It is not an endorsement of the product Panasonic HPX 171 April 2009 2 Measurement results The HPX171 has no built in test signal generator This alone sets it apart from most professional and broadcast cameras Thus measurements of the gamma curve are difficult using optical2. The lens showed some chromatic aberration in the corners In this example there a displacement of between 4 and 5 pixels Thus is rather poor performance for an HD camera 2 3 Noise No calibrated noise meter was available during the measurement procedure and the camera specification does not mention noise Software analysis of captured frames gave some indication of performance Measuring the signal to noise ratio at several signal levels all at 12dB gain produced noise levels from 39 2 to 40dB Allowing for the 12dB gain in the camera this means that the camera noise at OdB gain must be about 52dB quite good in any HDTV camera This was confirmed by direct 38 0 i observation on the crt display and ojo 100 20 0 30 0 400 50 0 600 70 0 80 0 900 100 0 waveform monitor 38 5 However the noise level is normally expected to change with signal level since it is primarily caused by the sensors and head amplifiers before gamma correction and thus should correlate with the slope of the gamma curve typically by 10dB or more noisier near black There was no evidence of such a noise distribution 39 0 39 5 One possible cause could be the use of head amplifiers with a limited gain bandwidth product this would produce 40 5 softer pictures at low signal levels and reduce the noise near black It is very difficult to measure resolution at low 41 0 signal levels so it is almost impossible to esta
3. 6 9 12dB 12dB gain is fairly noisy but probably acceptable aa mens T N a il Camera Down open Up open Reverses iris control when Manual Handle zoom Iris dial These values for detail enhancement are taken from the settings document for the HVX200 since this camera is almost identical to it One set of values was checked and found to produce the expected results Noise levels are lower than in the equivalent camera the HVX200 so coring level can be set lower resulting in slightly sharper pictures gt The knee function cannot be switched off Although this makes some measurements difficult to make at least it ensures that overloading will not necessarily cause clipping 4 Norm1 appears to be normal Norm2 produces higher saturation the other matrices produce special effects 3 This document is a report of the results of tests that are the precursor of those described in the EBU technical document Tech3335 It is not an endorsement of the product Panasonic HPX 171 April 2009 SW MODE mode range comments BBC RecCheck Spotlight Backlight Rea de Assign user switches Whi tefade ATW gt 18dB works only with 50 60i p formats ATWlock Gain18 dB and not with slow shutter F Rate works User 1 2 3 Camera gt Dzoom TextMemo only in 720p ShotMark LvlMeter LastClip PreRec F Rate F Rate Default 1 Whitefade 2 Backlight 3 Index Me
4. shutter and fps values also sets i ee ee _Nico Film SynehroScan indicator to time or angle 12 15 18 21 20 22 24 25 26 27 28 30 A 32 34 36 40 44 48 54 60 Frame rate Camera segs Oh Soe ee AA AUN Shooting speeds for 720p only i 12 15 18 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 lt 30 32 34 37 42 48 n frame rate or degrees for FILMCAM will not set longer than 1 field or frame 0 10801 2 1080p Horizontal and vertical edge detail 2 720sport 4 720film 2 10801 4 1080p Vertical edge detail 3 720sport 0 720film 2 SD V Detail level Camera Camera i Color temp Bch Fine white balance offset affects B preset Camera 10 0 10 Auto iris gain f A Iris level ibe Tow SDn Sees skin press SDnorm DVX100 IE er ae Gamma Camera High B press Cine ees HD likeD Cine lineV High black stretch B press crushes High SD et eer en ae EASES are comand theW more contrast than Cine pe i Knee nnn amera__ Auto Low Mid High Reaches 250 knee at 80 90 100 90 Norm1 Norm2 Fluo A Norm1 Matrix Camera inie Not tested in depth Norm 4 Name edit Camera Names the selected scene file CAMERA SETUP Aspect conv mode tange comments BBC Side crop Letter box Squeeze Camera Recording format for SD Mid gain Camera 0 3
5. specific film look for it However there is sufficient flexibility to achieve much of what is desirable in film look settings Photographic speed was not specifically measured but is assumed to be similar that that of the HVX200 about 640ASA since the camera is strikingly similar to the HVX200 in very many ways Many of the menu items have little or no effect on image quality Those that have significant effect are highlighted The full set of menu items is given for completeness In boxes with a range of numeric settings e g 99 99 the values indicate the range and zero means no alteration to factory setting not zero effect and no scales are given For each item the factory setting is given if it is known and the range offered by the camera under test BBC settings are in the last column where appropriate The following table shows the menu settings when the camera is in Camera mode these affect picture performance other menus are included for completeness Values that are underlined are the factory default settings The menus are very similar to those of the HVX200 and share some features with the Varicam in that Scene Files store a great deal of information permitting widely different settings to be stored When shooting in 720p mode the camera can shoot at a variety of frame rates between 12 and 50 or 60 depending on the system speed BBC preferred values are given for SD operation for 1080 interlaced an
6. CTIONS Audi t M Ch1Ch2 Ch1 Ch2 Channels 3 and 4 available only on P2 eae cr Ch3Ch4 Ch3 Ch4 recording AV IN OUT range mode comments BBC SETUP Auto 1080i 5761 4801 Set output to component or SDI Cmpnt SDI sel f SDI metadata Adds metadata to HDSDI Side crop Letter box Squeeze Downcon mode Usual stuff Add 1kHz to bars ch 1 4 Enable on board mic Test tone Camera mode range comments Default 80 DISPLAY SETUP Zebra detect Camera left leaning zebra Camera On Off Press Zebra button to display markers Screen info to video output beware it goes Video out OSD Camera Date Time Off Time Date Time amp Date Camera Zoom focus Card Batt Remaining capacity Show camera settings on DV playback i Camera data i LCD color level LCD i EDE e brightness LCD contrast D e eta ast LCD color level LCD N EV Eist brightness LCD contrast Auto 4 3 Display aspect Camera Total Clip Rec counter CARD FUNCTIONS Scene file mode range comments BBC File select Read Write Title reload File select Read Write Save up to 4 file settings not Scene to SD Title reload Camera Camera Save up to 4 scene files to P2 card Wipes the lot SD card format
7. Panasonic HPX 171 Aprilt 2009 Colorimetric and Resolution requirements of cameras Alan Roberts ADDENDUM 31 Assessment of and settings for Panasonic HPX171 This document is a report of the results of tests that are the precursor of those described in the EBU technical document Tech3335 It is not an endorsement of the product Data for this section is taken from the user manual and a short examination of a production model of the Panasonic HPX171 camcorder serial number J8TCA0195 This is a HDTV camcorder physically very similar to the standard definition DVX100 and HVX200 with 3 4 ccds the manual gives no clue as to the sensor resolutions The model under test ran at both 60 and 30Hz video rates actually 59 94 and 29 97 24Hz actually 23 98 and 50 and 25Hz It records HDTV using the DVCProHD algorithm 10801 1080psf 720p SDTV using any of the DVCPro50 or DVCPro or DV algorithms 480i 480psf 480psfa or 5761 576psf 576psfa all onto P2 flash cards There is no tape mechanism The camera is relatively light 1 9kg and has an integral lens and viewfinder with side Icd panel and seems aimed at the high end consumer professional market rather than full broadcast which would normally demand interchangeable lenses It has the usual internal menus for setting the performance not as complex as in broadcast cameras but enough to control most of the important features It is not suited to multi camera operation because it can
8. at HDTV cameras In most cameras with less than ideal numbers of pixels the camera is made to deliver HDTV resolutions by physically offsetting the G sensor from R and B by a half pixel both horizontally and vertically It is normal to offset just horizontally when the delivered horizontal resolution is apparently about 50 higher than would be dictated by the pixel count alone This quincunx offset increases both horizontal and vertical resolution just how well can only be judged by measurement at the expense of introducing some coloured aliasing similar to that from a Bayer patterned single sensor This is particularly relevant since the camera delivers signals at 1080 720 and SDTV both 576 and 480 lines in the two variants Although this camera 7 This document is a report of the results of tests that are the precursor of those described in the EBU technical document Tech3335 It is not an endorsement of the product Panasonic HPX 171 April 2009 does have quincunx precision offset there is only faint evidence of the diagonal aliases it inevitably produces either the lens is a little soft or the camera has good bi refirngent optical filtering or both A zone plate test chart was used calibrated for 1920x1080 HDTV It contains 6 circular patterns each being a phase space of the spatial frequencies i e all possible frequencies in all possible directions which such a camera should resolve Analysis was made of one zone in luma or gr
9. blish whether this trick has been played If it has it has worked Another possible cause could be that the primary source of noise in this camera is the digital coding system rather than the sensors and heads amplifiers themselves The performance measured is typical of 10 bit data in the linear signals or 8 bits after gamma correction DVCPROHD is an 8 bit recording system so has a noise floor of about 54dB but all measurements were made directly from the HDSDI output which would normally be expected to be 10 bit and to have a noise floor of around 70dB However on closer inspection the data content of the HDSDI feed was confirmed to be only 8 bit even though 10 bits were output i e the lowest 2 bits were permanently set to zero and so a noise floor of about 54dB is appropriate 9 This document is a report of the results of tests that are the precursor of those described in the EBU technical document Tech3335 It is not an endorsement of the product Panasonic HPX 171 April 2009 Clearly the camera noise performance is being limited by the nature of the digital processing Nevertheless it performs well in its class 10 This document is a report of the results of tests that are the precursor of those described in the EBU technical document Tech3335 It is not an endorsement of the product
10. d psf and for 720 film and sport where sport covers all uses that are not intended to look like film Items that have an important affect on picture appearance are highlighted It is unfortunate that the colour bars that the camera generates are only 100 0 75 0 i e EBU rather than the much more useful SMPTE or ARIB bars that are ubiquitous in HDTV Factory default values where known are underlined This is not intended as a replacement for reading the manual 1 Menus and Settings CAMERA MENU E SCENE FILE Camera operational controls needs lab work to get the best from these CAMERA SETUP Basic camera setup controls RECORDING SETUP Tape and P2 card controls CARD FUNCTIONS e P2 flash card controls OTHER FUNCTIONS Sundries that don t fit anywhere else OPTION MENU Control of IEEE1394 Firewire connection MCR MENU RECORDING SETUP Timecode IEEE1394 User bits audio etc f AV IN OUT SETUP OTHER FUNCTIONS Sundries that don t fit anywhere else OPTION MENU Control of IEEE1394 Firewire connection 2 This document is a report of the results of tests that are the precursor of those described in the EBU technical document Tech3335 It is not an endorsement of the product Panasonic HPX 171 April 2009 CAMERA MENU SCENE FILE 1 6 mode range comments BBC ie Load Save Init Camera Load Save Init a Oad Save or initialise a scene fi el Set
11. ey scale to investigate the frequency responses and the presence of aliases 2 2 1 Detail enhancement The settings for the HVX200 were used here since there seemed to be no good reason for changing them Although this setting produces a little overshooting on edges there was no setting in the HVX200 at which the overshoots were absent Detail level settings of O and 2 horizontal and vertical are still recommended but the coring level can be lowered since the noise performance is rather good see section 2 3 below 2 2 2 Resolution 1080 line This is a quarter of one circular zone plate from the test chart with zero frequency at bottom left The right hand extreme is 1920 lines picture width the top extreme is 1080 lines picture height The alias i patterns are clear where the concentric i circles are reversed taking centres outside NAYA As the pattern and indicate that the camera does not deliver full resolution at 1080 either horizontally or vertically However it is reasonably well behaved in that there do not appear to be significant aliases centred on other frequencies as would be expected if the interpolation process from the 960x540 of the ccds were compromised in any way The absence of coloured aliasing is evidence to support the supposition that nthere is no precision offset of the sensors and why there is no extension of the frequency response beyond 960x540 The aliasing is not particularly st
12. mo Assign Focus Assist button Graph shows Expanded Graph Both frequency graph Camera Semi auto focus refer to manual Focus assist Camera MF assist Camera LCD rev Overscan LCD bl Assign LCD button BI is backlight range comments AUTO SW Camera 6dB 12dB Off Set auto gain maximum Camera On Off AutoFocus disables Focus Push Auto i ae mode fae comments BBC 1080i 60i 1080i 30p 1080i 24p X 1080i 24pa 720p 60 720p 30 720p 24 Recording format this aoa 720p 30pn 720p 24pn 480i 60i terminology is non 480i 30p 480i 24p 480i 24pa standard but the 1080i 50i 1080i 25p 720p 50p meaning is clear Rec format Camera 1080i 60i ES 720p 60p D 720p 30pn 720p 24pn 480i 60i 1080i 50i 720p 50p sn 720p 25pn SOU SOE nnn sn DVCPro50 DVCPro DV Set recording mode for SD DVCPro5 0 DVCPro DV i Set playback mode for SD or TEEE1 394 Playback form at or JEEE1394 input format MCR format MCR 5761 4081 MCR mode Normal Interval One shot Loop Rec function Camera 2F 4F 8F 16F 1s 2s 5s 10s 30s 1m 5m 10m Camera Memory cache for prerecording Interval time Camera Prerec mode Camera External mic level control i Mic gain 2 1394 TC regen On TC from 1394 Off other controls Only rele
13. not be genlocked or remotely controlled It has analogue video outputs components at both HD and SD via a multi pin connector and digits via IEEE1394 Firewire and USB and perhaps crucially HDSDI The HDSDI facility raises the expectations of the camera a little but its performance is somewhat mixed There is a section on measurements at the end of this document The same assessment procedure was used as for other HD cameras partly attempting to get a good film look and the settings reflect that It is useful to think of the camera when used in this way to be mimicking a film camera and telecine with best light transfer to tape with about 10 5 stops maybe 11 of tonal range Assuming that a grading operation will be used in post production the settings attempt to give the colourist the same range of options as with film The recommended settings allow about 1 3 stops of over exposure and one of under exposure relative to normal operation This is not as good as can be achieved in most 2 3 cameras Panasonic HPX 171 April 2009 Colorimetric and Resolution requirements of cameras Alan Roberts ADDENDUM 31 Assessment of and settings for Panasonic HPX171 The assessment of this camcorder was aimed mostly at discovering what it could do rather than deriving a preferred setting results are given in Section 2 The controls are not as flexible as for full broadcast cameras so it may or may not be possible to derive a
14. rong indicating that either there is probably good optical low pass filtering bi refringent The diagonal aliasing from the quincunx precision offset is well suppressed The settings given in Section 1 are not ideal they are a reasonable compromise but overall performance of the camera is not a good match to other HDTV cameras in this respect it is subjectively rather soft 2 2 3 Resolution 576 line The down converted zone plate pattern to 576i shows that the vertical filtering is better than the horizontal since some new horizontal aliasing is clearly visible Almost certainly 8 This document is a report of the results of tests that are the precursor of those described in the EBU technical document Tech3335 It is not an endorsement of the product Panasonic HPX 171 April 2009 this is because the SD output is interlaced and the down conversion is correctly limiting the vertical to that admissible in an interlaced signal However since the HDTV image is not particularly sharp anyway and relatively free from aliasing the down conversion is actually rather good This is one of a very few HDTV cameras that makes a good SD picture 2 2 4 Resolution 720 line Resolution at 720 line was not specifically tested since the BBC has little interest in 720p operation However since the 1080 line image is fairly soft down conversion to 720p should not introduce any new problems a welcome change 2 2 5 Lens aberrations
15. test cards and an awful lot of data processing 2 1 Transfer characteristic gamma correction By inspection the available gamma curves seem to be identical to those of the HV X200 therefore specific measurements were not made on this camera and the results for the HVX200 are quoted here except for the overexposure range which was confirmed as 250 The found equations for the Hdnorm curve are V 4 5L for L lt 0 03 else V 1 05L40 5 0 05 This is a reasonable match to ITU709 but is not perfect The Knee causes the curve to break at signal levels of 80 Low 90 Mid 100 High and then extend to an exposure limit of 2 5 250 before clipping occurs at about 107 The ITU 709 curve the nominal standard for all HDTV cameras is V 4 5L for L lt 0 018 else V 1 0099L40 45 0 099 The contrast range for the settings given in this document are derived from these equations The maximum exposure the camera can handle is 250 while the minimum exposure that is visible in the output can be defined as that which causes the signal voltage to be 2 of the coding range the video level of the super black bar in ARIB colour bars used for setting display black level Since the noise level is reasonably low a lower point can be taken 1 would be the normal minimum considered relevant here For the Hdnorm curve this defines the contrast capture range to be about 1100 1 10 1 stops quite good for a camera in this category Measuremen
16. ts of the High Black Stretched gamma correction curve produced a decent match to the BBC 0 4 law V 5L for L lt 0 02262 else V L 0 037703 1 0 037703 0 4 This gamma correction curve generally produces more accurate colour rendering The user should generally choose one of these two curves for working in HDTV Hdnorm produces more vivid colouring while High is more accurate For normal use Knee can be set to Auto but when the production will be going to a colour grading operation Knee should be set either to Mid or Low depending on the type of programme Mid for programmes where skin tone is prevalent Low for natural history The other variants of the gamma curve were not investigated the descriptions given in the manual seem to be sufficiently accurate and explicit for the user to make an intelligent choice 2 2 Resolution and Detail The HPX171 is interesting in that the sensors do not appear to be native resolution for HDTV Although the specification does not say so the 3 ccds are each 960 by 540 pixels spaced on a 5um grid as in full resolution 2 3 1920x1080 sensors it would be more usual to find sensors in a 1080 line camera having 1080 lines rather than only 540 but that would be at the expense of either sensitivity or video noise Presumably Panasonic chose to use these lower resolution sensors in order to increase sensitivity since the pixels are bigger the same 5um square dimension as is found in form
17. vant in the 59 94Hz variant 24p uses NDF TC mode Cam Mcr 59 94 IS 7 Z J zs psfa is the slightly improved variant of the 2 3 pull down process used to derived 60 fields from 24 frames Conventionally 2 fields are made from one frame then 3 fields from the next this results in video frames grouped in sequences of 5 only two of which contains only information from one source frame the others contain information from 2 source frames In this variant the pull down sequence is 2 3 3 2 such that only 1 video frame in a group of 5 contains information from 2 source frames This solves many problems production and distribution while somewhat attenuating the uneven progress of motion caused by the 2 3 process pn mode records only new frames for over under cranking i e there is no frame repetition 4 This document is a report of the results of tests that are the precursor of those described in the EBU technical document Tech3335 It is not an endorsement of the product Panasonic HPX 171 April 2009 l TOG nnn am Me aaae TC runs free or only when tape ru zo a Set initial TC when recording 24p s Te preset MT frame to multiple of 5 for it to make sense Me 1394 UB regen un _Mer cnn Oy OFF ce nnnnrource of UserBi ee UB mode User Time Date TCG FrameRate uses a code refer to manual i FrmRate Time stamp Camera Burns in time date PLAYDATE mode pee comments BBC FUN
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