Sony Handycam DCR-HC53E -- help!

[Gew]

Hi guys.

I could really use an helping hand. If anyone else here has worked with this DV camera (or similar models in the same family) it would be awsome. My camera captures at 720x576. Anyways, when capping raw DV .avi clips, I notice how the far left edge gets some sort of yellow shimmer.

http://i47.tinypic.com/2447czr.jpg

Is this normal??? Or have I somehow damaged my camera? Some people say that PAL D1 is actually 704x576 active pixels, i.e. the far out 16 pixels is therefor not to be trusted.

However, this leads me to the follow-up question, which PAR value is correct to use? Is it 16:15 or 12:11? If it's 12:11 then I guess I'm safe in the way that I could still get a satisfying 4:3 square pixel picture by cropping down to 704x576 and then do 12:11.

However, if the actual PAR to be used is 16:11, then I feel sort of screwed, because I will mess up the AR if I first crop 16px and then do 16:11, hence I cannot achieve proper 4:3 output if I don't start calculating and then crop top/bottom respectively, which would feel like a somewhat faulty work-around. Main question is concerning that yellow shimmer to the left. It annoys me, really.

Any ideas, suggestions?

Ty in adv~

[communist]

I'd say this is normal. I worked with some Panasonic DV cams and they showed similar artifacts. I would not waste too much time on it. Just crop it and replace it with black or desaturate/recolor that part.

[Gew]

I'd say this is normal. I worked with some Panasonic DV cams and they showed similar artifacts. I would not waste too much time on it. Just crop it and replace it with black or desaturate/recolor that part.Thanks for your reply dear communist.
In fact, the answer I was deep inside devoutly hoping for (i.e. my DV cam isn't broken).

Anyways. Since I have you on the hook, could you fill me out on the real de facto in regards of PAL DV PAR? 16:15 or 12:11 for 4:3 DAR? I've come to realize that different references gives different answers on that one. Some clarity would be awesome!

:thanks:

[Guest]

If I bought a camera and it did that I would return it immediately. Broken or poorly designed, no way it is "normal".

[Gew]

If I bought a camera and it did that I would return it immediately. Broken or poorly designed, no way it is "normal".That was bad news, indeedy.
I bought this camera about two years ago.
I think I accidentally dropped it to the ground -- once.
I'm asking myself whether this could have caused this issue.

However(!)

Crop(8,0,-8,-0).BilinearResize(704,528) gives me a nice 4:3 scaling, and yellow gleam is gone.

Question is, will this aspect ratio be correct, or ~2% of the grid? I.e. would just BilinearResize(704,528) (without pre-cropping 720->704) be the correct approach to maintain natural AR? Like I said earlier, seems like 50% of the people says one thing; whereas the other 50% says otherwise ;(

[Ghitulescu]

It presents also the rolling shutter [d]effect. Unless your (??) house was designed by Hundertwasser.

[Gew]

It presents also the rolling shutter [d]effect. Unless your (??) house was designed by Hundertwasser.
Oh my lord, have you found yet another defect on my camera??

[um3k]

It can't possibly have rolling shutter, as it is a CCD camera. Disregard what Ghitulescu said.

I have a very similar problem on my Sony DCR-TRV310, though I think it's a different color on mine. If you're viewing it on a TV, it will be completely in the overscan, and thus not visible. For computer viewing, Crop(8,0,-8,-0).BilinearResize(704,528) is correct. However, you should deinterlace before resizing vertically (since your footage is interlaced), and I would suggest using a higher quality resizer, such as LanczosResize.

[Ghitulescu]

There were moving (?) objects rotating to the left (camera pan actually), the image it it's no good to discern if it's rolling shutter or another defect. Sorry for my mistake, I've seen the rolling shutter only in other people's videos. The yellow part was also missing in the top left part - is it normal to have curves instead of straight lines (not due to wide lenses!!!)?

PS: It's a misconception that CCD has no rolling shutter effect while CMOS automatically has one (I knew it before but only just found one paper from Kodak, a renown CCD manufaturer), especially for interlaced CCDs that need mechanical shutter. Sony does now CMOS with global shutter, probably only for their profi line, don't know.

[Gavino]

However, you should deinterlace before resizing vertically (since your footage is interlaced)
For that reason, it is preferable to resize horizontally instead (to 768x576), and no deinterlacing will be required.

[Ghitulescu]

The only issue with DV is that the frame SAR is imposed to be 720 but only 704 are considered to form the actual image. My Sharp leaves them the 16 pixels black, the Panasonic fills them all up with the actual image. My JVC deck has them blacked, but I don't know if it blacks the VHS overscan or not (it's a combi, not a camcorder, so the only analog signal available is that of a [S-]VHS tape), eg to mask the left margin irregularities that are associated with tape formats.

The way I do the DV tapes is to feed them directly to my DVD recorder by firewire, the DAR/PAR of both products is identical (DV through DV camcorder vs. DVD through DVD player on the same TV in the same analog system (S-Video)). I don't watch movies or listen music on PC.

[Gew]

The only issue with DV is that the frame SAR is imposed to be 720 but only 704 are considered to form the actual image.Yeah.

This is just about what I'm feeling annoyed over. Like I said, when I connect DV-camera's A/V-out to my LCD television (through RCA red/white/yellow, from what I know probably composite) the 16px are left out, and I see no sign of that -- very much annoying -- yellow vertical shimmer/glow. It's simply out of the picture! :D

When I imort DV .avi clips to my PC through Firewire though, the yellow glow is visible (as you all seen in the snapshot attached in my original post).

So, I'm sitting on my butt wondering between two different ways of approach (for a square pixel/computer targeted result).

#1)
Crop to 704 (8px left; 8px right, preferably). Then use some good resizing algorithm (like the one um3k suggested) and interpolate into some square pixel 4:3 resolution, for example 640x480.

#2)
Don't crop anything. Use some good resizing algorithm (like the one um3k suggested) and interpolate into some square pixel 4:3 resolution, for example 640x480.

Since approach #1 stretches the picture by (the ITU-regulated) PAR of 12:11; whereas approach #2 stretches by 16:15, I know that one of these two approaches would be correct (for 100% accurate/natural aspect ratio), whereas the other approach would come with a (very) marginal deviation (but hey, still, a deviation).

Actually, it would be just awesome(!!!) if any of you guys could bump in here and just drop "#1 is correct, #2 is not!". That would mean that my "yellow glow situation" is very much irrelevant, since -- when aiming for computer audience and DAR 4:3 -- I will always crop 16px anyways, and thus -- when aiming for TV audience -- overscan (per se) will take care of (the yellow) business for me.

If you instead imply "#2 is correct, #1 is not!", it would be really bad news for me. Why? Because then I would always have to make some kind of trade-off between:

#1) Natural aspect, and DAR 4:3 (for example 640x480.avi), but with yellow shit in the left of my picture

#2) Natural aspect, but not DAR 4:3, for example cropping final output to 636x480 or something (calculated) similar like that.

#3) Stretching my image slightly out of it's natural aspect, just to achieve 640x480.avi and get rid of the yellow shit.

Gah!

I don't even want to think about it.

Like I said, I do really hope someone bumps in here and writes "your approach #1 is correct", and I will be delighted, and never ever have to bother with those stupid trade-offs I wrote here above.

Ty in adv, just for hearing me out! :D

:thanks:

[um3k]

#1 is correct. Just remember to deinterlace first if you're going to scale vertically.

[Gew]

#1 is correct. Just remember to deinterlace first if you're going to scale vertically.:thanks::thanks::thanks:

[communist]

Thanks for your reply dear communist. In fact, the answer I was deep inside devoutly hoping for (i.e. my DV cam isn't broken).

Anyways. Since I have you on the hook, could you fill me out on the real de facto in regards of PAL DV PAR? 16:15 or 12:11 for 4:3 DAR? I've come to realize that different references gives different answers on that one. Some clarity would be awesome!
The cam is definately not broken. I've seen other cameras do this aswell - or just have black boarders at that place. Regarding your question of PAR/DAR etc. - can't help you because I usually deal with DV hardware and there is very little you can do about what these devices do.
I'm afraid this will start another PAR war ;)
Use the search function and you will see that this topic has been discussed to death, not implying that there are answers to be found in those threads but in general this has been discussed a lot. It would help if you told us what you intend to do, output for web/DVD etc...?
If I bought a camera and it did that I would return it immediately. Broken or poorly designed, no way it is "normal".
This is a consumer device designed to be viewed on a standard TV and hence this part is never seen with a regular TV due to overscan. Some semi-professional cameras I've seen fill that part with black, others fill the whole frame.

My approach would be to ignore or if it really bugs you recolor/desaturate that part and stop worrying.

[Ghitulescu]

It would help if you told us what you intend to do, output for web/DVD etc...?
I think I asked this guy the same question 1000 times :rolleyes:
This is a consumer device designed to be viewed on a standard TV and hence this part is never seen with a regular TV due to overscan. Some semi-professional cameras I've seen fill that part with black, others fill the whole frame.This solves actually only the analog viewing part. My Sharp blacks them (not seen on TV, directly connected nor after DVD transfer), my Panny has the actual image (again, not seen directly connected nor after DVD transfer).

What I could do is to output the analog way the tape output of my Sharp (720 pixels, 704 active) and that of my Panny (720 pixels, 720 active) to VHS (it doesn't matter the quality), then recapture back the image to see if the image is distorted, maybe it can be seen only after 10 generations :(

[2Bdecided]

This has all been discussed many times before. The camcorder is perfectly normal.

To find out which resize operation is correct for your camcorder, film a ball and see which crop+resize leaves it perfectly circular. There is no other way - equipment manufacturers regularly break standards, so rigidly adhering to them isn't a guarantee that you'll get the correct result.

It's only a 2% error anyway. It's visible if you do an A/B comparison, but not really noticeable otherwise. If you can't be bothered to do the ball filming check, then just crop the junk and resize to 4x3 square pixel.

As others have said, what are you trying to do? None of this may be necessary.

Cheers,
David.