G400 Marvel - What happened to the sharpness adjustment?

[Robert@MZ3.Net]

Spent the weekend comparing my old mystique/rainbow runner to my new G400 Marvel. The differences (or lack there of) was a surprising letdown. Produced nearly identicle three minute videos from scratch using the two different setups. Pushed both back out to video tape and then comparted the results.

To my untrained eye I really didn't notice a difference. If anything the Marvel version looked softer. Both videos were made with the default setups so I was going to adjust the Marvel sharpness up a little and was surprised that I couldn't find a sharpness adjustment.

Did I just miss it or is there a reason for the missing sharpness control.

[This_Idiot]

I'm amazed that you didn't see any difference. From the time that installed the G400-TV the quality on the monitor was so much better than anything i've seen before.

And I found that both the video input AND output to tape were more saturated and better balanced.

The sharpness setting was dropped when the original G200 Marvel was introduced.

[Patrick]

Robert, what was your raw footage shot with? Was the quality of this footage good? (Lighting, focus, etc.) What are you viewing it on?

I'm still using a Mill2/RR-S, so I'm interested in your observations.

[Robert@MZ3.Net]

Footage was shot with a Sony Hi8 camcorder. Camera was mounted in a BMW M roadster and was pointed backwards at the other three M roadsters that were chasing me through the blue ridge mountains.

Lots of darting in and out of shadows on very tight twisty mountain roads. There was a lot of heavy tree coverage which made for a very colorful and fast paced video. You can see some still pictures shot during the filming at the address below.
http://www.mz3.net/articles/events/22.html

Just to clarify, I'm not disapointed with the quality of the picture with the rainbow runner video. I was just hoping the Marvel would be even better.

[Patrick]

The point of my earlier questions was that the G400 Marvel might only be able to demonstrate it's superiority (if it exists) over the RR-S if it's being fed good quality footage. The still photos (taken with a film camera) at your site only demonstrate that there was good lighting available. There is nothing to indicate in your last post or at your site whether the raw Hi8 footage was of good quality or not.

I doubt if this would be the case, but for example, if the camcorder was manually focussed at a distance of say five feet (when your subjects are one hundred feet away), the footage might look pretty much the same edited on any system.

Also, if the footage was being viewed on a vintage 1967 Philco TV, it might be difficult to discern which system produced the best results. However, judging from the car that you drive, this is probably not a valid concern.

[This_Idiot]

Hi Patrick,

From my perspective, you should be able to see the differences plainly with mediocre shots upwards. Bad clips are never going to be anything but (I should know, I'm the worlds worst cameraman).

But on mediocre to good quality footage the difference should be immediately apparent, and I'm concerned that it isn't in this case.

In the clips that I posted as part of the review I deliberately tried to throw rich colours and fast action at the compressor with the results that you can see, it worked a treat. I know that I couldn't have got those results "out of the box" with the G200 Marv and severely doubt that I could have done as well with RR-S.

[Robert@MZ3.Net]

I would consider the raw footage of the mountain chase scene "good quality" but maybe we can still blame the original footage.

Because the camera was mounted to the car the sony image stablazation was turned on (to counter the vibrations transfered from the car to the camera). While the sony image stablazation is good, I'm told that you loose some of the sharpness. Maybe this loss took away the Marvels edge.

Problem is I just about always use the image stablazation so if this is what we're going to blame it doesn't change the bottom line at all for me.

(Question: When people went from the Mystique to G200 Marvel, did they think the image improved?).