But these little cameras have serious limitation of their own. Their image quality is no where near that of their big brothers', and some of the most important feature (for a professional) are buried in higherachical menus, instead of having dedicated, ergonomically sensible switches. Simply put, it's easier to get a professional result out of a professional camera. If it weren't, who would be stupid enough to buy a $15K or $30K or $60K camera?

Does the DSR-570 have a flip out screen? No, but it has a much higher resolution finder that will allow you to achieve a much higher degree of accuracy with critical focus, whether you're flush in the eye cup or looking from a couple feet away.

Tripod? Who said anything about a tripod? I love hand-held camera work (take a look at SAVING PRIVATE RYAN and BAND OF BROTHERS if you want to see hand-held work!) But hand-held doesn't mean restricting yourself to the look and limitations of a three pound camera. People put 35mm camera on their shoulders, or carry them lowmo and do amazing work. Is doing this as easy as whipping a PX-10 around? Hell no, but who the fuck said this was supposed to be easy!?! If you can't craddle a DSR-570 for a low shot, or one-hand it by the top handle, time to hit the gym brother!

Will handholding a fourteen pound camera change your shooting style? Of course it will! But it could well change it for the better! A heavier camera has more inertia, so it will move more smoothly and be less susceptible to camera shake. You'll be able to use longer (often more flattering) focal lengths when shooting hand-held (and still achieve stable images) than you can with a midget camera. The focus and zoom controls have a much more natural and predictable response. All of this contributes to more transparent, natuarlistic camera work.

In the end it comes down to the irrefutable fact that as image-makers, our tools are an intergral part of our vision. Telling me you can only make gonzo with a handicam is like telling me I can only be a photojournalist if I shoot B&W films. Why should your vision, or Brandon's, or anyone else's be limiitted to what can be done with $3,500 camera? I know you've got the money (at least enough to rent one and give it a try.) I bet you've got the biceps too!

-T.C.

Edited by - TonyC on 5/22/2004 8:55:22 PM

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Fuck you, Sony!

-T.C.

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If a company like PXP wanted to give it a try, they could buy one and let all the directors try it out.

Though, I think the real argument here is one of philosophy. People are used to certain cameras and price points and seem to be comfortable with the results they get. Most consumers of porn aren't expecting too much beyond some fucking and sucking. The extra $17,000 cost of an upgrade like Tony's talking about is probably the talent budget for the next Jule Jordan opus (3 hr director's cut, plus bonus scenes, etc), with cash leftover for catering, couch-cleaning, and new high-heels and ball-gags for the lovely starlets. And it's probably a season's worth of weekly updates for some paysite devoted to teenage cumguzzlers.

All that aside, though, it would be cool to see what higher-end equipment can do for gonzo, though many would argue it's a contradiction.

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Brandon, Youre Intensities in 10 Cities #1 was just excellent...very Gonzo...can't wait for the second!

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Yeah, I can't wait for WoAD 3, either, Ironman. That clip was mind -- and LOAD -- blowing!

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I think one of the most defining visual factors of the whole Gozno style movie making is the use of the small mobile DV cameras. It’s all about the right tool for the right job. I think it will be quite a challenge, to make a POV style blow job Gonzo with a big heavy ENG style camera in one hand, while trying to capture your own dick getting sucked like crazy. By upgrading to bigger cameras in gonzo, I think you run the risk of throwing the baby out with the bath water, and loose some of the closeness, intensity and realness that makes Gonzo such a winning formula in porn today.

However there is no doubt that a bigger and better pro camera can produce superior pictures compared to the pro-sumer types. But it also takes skills to pull that off. Just upgrading to a big expensive camera don’t give better results, if you don’t upgrade your skill too. If you’re moron with the pro-sumer camera, you will just be a even bigger (and poorer) moron with a big expensive camera. By the way, anybody who wants to check out a movie shot with big expensive equipment, can check out LIFE by Italian Pinko. Is shot on DigiBeta (now THAT’S expensive) and it has some of the best picture quality I’ve ever seen in porn, but the movie is still mediocre to my taste.

I know for a fact that a guy like P. Woodman uses both types of cameras, both small handheld and bigger shoulder mounted one. He uses the small one for his gonzo type series like Superfuckers, Anal Intensive and the bigger ENG style cameras like Sony DSR-570 for his bigger feature type productions. He is definitely able to pull excellent quality out of both cameras types, but the type of camera also definitely affects the whole visual style and mood of the scenes.

If you take look at the work of Jules Jordan, it obvious that A LOT a quality can be pulled out of the pro-summer type cameras like the VX-2000 and its cousin, that are so popular in Gonzo. If all directors/cameramen in Gonzo are able to rise to the level of Jules, I personally would stop whining about “the generally low visual quality in porn” for a long time.

All the performers turning into Gonzo director lately need to realise, that their primary tool of work is no longer their dicks, but the camera and creativity. Being a director / camera man they need to learn some new skills. The cameras they are using may be labelled “point and shoot” but doesn’t’t mean it works like a dicks,- you just don’t whip it out and it instantly works.

Jules, maybe you could start ”The Jules Jordan Summer School of Gonzo Camera Techniques”? And when it’s over you all probably have plenty of footage to release as an series called ”All Stars Summer School Frenzy” I’m sure it all would be very popular!

Trying to get back to the original topic. I still don’t think the halo effect on the PXP DVD is a camera problem. All this camera talk is very interesting, but I don’t think it will get us closer to understanding the roots of the halo effect.

Edited by - ingenmann on 5/23/2004 9:39:53 AM

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The sweater offer sounds good, but it is bit out of season.

Sorry, the PowerDVD 5 software is PC only. But, if you pay me 1000 dollars for the software, I’ll throw in a my 2 month old Dell PC - for FREE! (shipping not included). Do we have a deal?

If you had MacOS X on your G4 these tool these tools would capture screenshot from DVDs.
http://www.ambrosiasw.com/utilities/snapzprox/
http://www.digitallyobsessed.com/software.php3

Maybe, it’s time to upgrade your computer, and start hanging out with the cool guys with their shiny new aluminium Mac G5s and the hot Final Cut Pro HD software.

Edited by - ingenmann on 5/23/2004 2:07:55 PM

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Yes, there were one chip Hi8 cameras back then. I bought a copy of the first palm camera (a Sony TR-5) around the same time. Was ADVENTURES shot on a one chip Hi8 camera? There's a frame-grab in Flash's review; that sure looks like a full-sized camera to me.

At any rate, the camera isn't the point. We're talking about blue halos and bad color and the general lack of quality in much (most?) of porn today. I'm not suggesting that Brandon or Jules or anyone else run out and drop $50K on a Digibeta cam.

I am suggesting that most porn is being produced using equipment that is the bare minimum sufficient for the job. That's worked fine because pornographers have been able out do one another with double this and double that. But once you've stuffed two dicks in her ass and got her sucking on another one, what are you going to do to top yourself? (Yes, Skeeter. I know. Good luck and God bless, blah blah blah.)

For the rest of us, maybe the answer to is step up our technical game. Real lights would be a good first step, and lights don't go obselete the way camera and computers do. Real microphones/sound recording couldn't hurt, and mics tend to hold their value pretty well. Once the scene is well light and well recorded, maybe a some experiments with better, (and yes, heavier) cameras would be in order. A G5 running FCP isn't the be all and end of of post-production tools either.

All of this equipment can be rented at very reasonable prices. If companies like PXP are making bank to the tune of $10 million barely into their second year, the costs of pushing the quality envelope would be trivial.

-T.C.

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Edited by - TonyC on 5/23/2004 9:04:35 AM

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A professional, who really knows what they are doing needs to trace the entire chain from start to finish to determine where the problem begins. Once that item has been determined and replaced, it needs to be done again to ensure that it was just a single point of failure. After the chain has been folloewd to its completion with no problems, then PXP can be confident that the problem has been fixed.

The resolution to problem could be as simple (and inexpensive) as a $30 cable. Throwing money at the problem by buying expensive cameras isn't the answer (although it might fix the problem). It just isn't the logical method of solving a problem.

If I had a computer programmer (even an entry level one) working for me, try to fix a problem by randomly changing pieces of code in attempt to fix that problem, he would be my ex -employee by the end of the day.

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-T.C.

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Attempting to replace a $4.99 Radio Shack video cable can damage a $2,000 studio monitor.

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-T.C.

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I should know better.

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Mike John shoots with a VX2000. Most of my compadres at Platinum shoot (or have shot) with a PDX10. I believe different editors are also used for both teams though I may be wrong.

Doesn't this point the finger of blame on the next level of post production after the editing is complete?

Brandon, I saw your DVD Baker's Dozen and found it excellent. However, don't take this as a knock, I found the colors unbelievably bland and dull and mistakenly attributed it to the camera. I used this as an excuse not to by the camera.

However, I've seen Johnni Darkko's work for New Sensations and have never seen richer colors in my life and again used that knowledge to buy the Panasonic 24P.

I'm not sure what the problem is but I'm sure Platinum will find an answer.

Jewel may be a bit feisty and react too quickly at perceived threats but, trust me, there's nobody in the industry that cares about their product more than her.

Chico

FWIW, I didn't notice a halo effect on my flat screen from any platinum DVDs. Perhaps it's a situation based on certain TV types.

Edited by - Chico Wang on 5/23/2004 9:23:52 PM

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{ig'nant question from the peanut gallery}

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Example:

When used with its XLR audio adaptor, the Sony DSR-PD100 had a ringing problem that was a result of bad interaction with the cameras noise cancelling circuitry (used to cut camera noise that would otherwise overwhelm all other sounds on the unboard mic.) The PD100A was released with this problem was supposed to be corrected. However, the PD100As the I bought (purchased 1 month apart) still had the ringing problem. They went back to Sony where it was discovered they still had the old PD100 circuitry. There's every possibilty that Brandon's camera is fucked up, either from the factory, or in use. It's even possible that there's a whole batch of bad cameras. This happens all the time. If your a pro user with a pro camera you get a letter in the mail. But for PDs and similar, it's up to you to dig through the technical notices and find out. I had to fight like hell to get Sony to fix my cameras under warrenty (otherwise it would have been $550 for each of them) and it was only because I had a couple of favors I cashed that I knew about the PD100 --> PD100a "upgrade". The model change was Sony's way of trying to avoid having to fix the problem under warrenty in *all* PD100s.

The only way to trouble shoot is to start at the begining of each process. The cameras in question much be shot under idea conditions, and then the footage played back on calibrated equipment, the footage in question must be played back on calibrated equipment, and so on through the entire production chain. Each variable in each step of the process must be isolated, checked, and re-checked. This is what engineers do. Their services are invaluable in a professional production enviorment (that's why they get $250+/hour to set up and fine tune suites, studios, etc.

My bet is that this will come back to poorly shot footage. Footage that is over or under exposed, impropterly light balanced, slightly out of focus, moving unsteadily, or any other flaws, stresses the already overburdoned DV codec. In short, if you don't shoot clean, you're using up all the data on your mistake and not leaving much for the pretty pussies.

Unless editors are turning color dials willy nilly, or compressionist are making wildly inappropriate compression choices, there's little they can do in the Firewire image chain to screw things up. However, every step in that chain will exasperbate whatever flaws there are in the source footage. Poor footage can even make titles look worse by sucking up codec resources that could have been used to render better lettering. By the end of the line footage that looked okay on camera masters can look pretty poor by the time it gets to the DVD.

You have to remember, the DV codec was never intended for professional work. It was arrived at by trying to figure out what was the very least amount of data that could deliver a servicable picture. The codec was invented to sell consumer cameras and consumer computers. As a minimal data codec, there is precious little headroom (none actually) for either tough shooting conditions or operator error. If anything shooting a handicam means you have to be that much more spot on to get good results. Unfortunately, the people who are using these cameras in "professional" circumstances are often those least able to make them look good.

-T.C.

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The PDX10 is a replacement for the PD100. Both shoot DVCAM, but the PDX10 has smaller/denser chips, and more professional features than the PD100.

All things being equal, smaller chips suck! Getting that nice subject sharp, background soft focus effect is a bitch, and whatever aberations there are in your lens are spread over a larger proportion of the CCD.

However, the PDX10 is an amazingly small package, and in the right hands/circumstances it (like any other small MiniDV/DVCAMcan deliver a picture that will intercut with broadcast quality cameras/formats without anyone but the most discerning viewer noticing.

BTW: If you want to get a good side by side comparrison of handicam vs. full-featured cam, look at the "Paige Cam" on TRADING SPACES (a Canon XL2, I think.) If you can't see a distinctive difference between the quality and clarity of the Paige cam and the rest of the show, it's time to see an optometrist!

-T.C.

Edited by - TonyC on 5/23/2004 7:13:42 PM

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That's from the Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino yarn, it's $7.50 a skein, it will cost you. (For some reason, I find it satisfying seeing her name on a porn forum. Doesn't it sound like the made-up name of a Czech or Hungarian porn actress? Wouldn't that be funny if an enterprising director used that name in an upcoming film?)

Back to this issue of customer service, it's the rare yarn company that will offer replacement yarn, as opposed to porn companies that at least will offer a replacement DVD. And as bad as the people at Debbie Bliss Yarns are, there someone else out there even worse.

She is the sweater designer Alice Starmore, and she and her cronies troll the Internet looking for knitters who have dared to post complaints about her designs, yarns, prices and business practices. People have gotten threatening emails with the word "legal action" and "libel" highlighted. Starmore got Yahoo to shut down a knitter's Yahoo group, because too many people were posting their complaints about her. And if she does find your name and email on a complaint post, you go on her blacklist. That means if you dare to order a sweater kit from her company in Scotland (you can only order by email), your order will mysteriously disappear without a trace. (I pray that Alice herself doesn't read ADT, that means I won't ever be able to order from her.)

It wouldn't be so bad if she were a lousy designer, but she's one of the best out there. Sort of like a John Stagliano. I guess the moral is, if you don't like porn customer service, don't take up knitting, you won't be any happier.

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@Brandon, on a serious note, I sincerely hope you dont get too depressed by all the critisism thats surfaced here. People who spend much time on various online forums tend to be a "tad" unbalanced, and have been know to at occasion, to blow things out of proportion.

The mere fact that you show great patience with most folks and bothers to post/answer/explain on this and other boards makes you one of the good guys. Your concern for your product is apparent.

That said, I dont think there is any pornproducer out there who shouldnt make technical quality a higher priority. Porn can and ought to look better.

As for your specific technical problems, I just hope youre able to identify and rectify it. Getting a REAL professional computer whiz to look over your setup is probably the safest bet.

Regards

Mr Woland

/me thinks all porn directors should fire their lightning guys, or atleast start with actually hire some ;)

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Neondon

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-T.C.

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Edited by - sanchez_1960 on 5/26/2004 4:16:07 PM

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If you take one of those cheap wide-angle adapter and look through it, you can see that nice little blue halo around any areas of high contrast.

-T.C.

Edited by - TonyC on 5/26/2004 7:24:37 PM

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Right now I think the text and logos are a red herring. My guess is over exposed and/or contrasty acquistion, with the resulting logo/type weirdness being a result of codec stress.

But at this point who knows for sure. Not me, not anyone at PXP. If you had the field tapes, it probably wouldn't take more than a few hours to track down the problem. But who knows what it might take to fix it.

-T.C.

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The wide angle perspective is the antithesis of the telephoto/foreshorten perspective that is so important to the look of traditional glamour and cheese cake photography. By using telephoto lens, all parts of the body are relatively equadistant from the camera, and this preserves a naturalistic proportion. Long lenses also have shallower DOF, making it easier to present the subject in sharp focus against an out of focus background.

By contrast, wide-angle lenses make the whatever is closer to the camera look much bigger in proportion to the rest of the figure. Get close to a woman's twat and it will be 4 times the size of her head; get close to her ass and it will look gigantic and its roundness will be exagerated. Get close to her face and her nose will be exagerated (how flattering!)

When shooting on-location interiors, wide-angle lenses may be the only way to show everything in the frame (no fly away walls in most houses.) Wide-angle lenses also reduce the effect of camera shake. On cameras with small CCDs, wide-angle lenses have an almost infinate DOF. This reduces the chance of the subject being out of focus, but makes it impossible to isolate the subject by using shallow DOF.

But wide-angle lenses also tend to be slow (they need more light) and are expensive to manufacture well (see above). On small camera, the flaws in cheap wide angle lenses cover a larger area of the CCD. My PD100s both came with stock wide-angle adaptors. Though the cameras (and the adaptors) have been all across the country and around the world a couple of times, I can only think of few instances when the wide-angle adaptors have been mounted on the camera.

While I think video can be made to look good when using moderate to extreme telephoto lens, I think video looks terrible in normal to wide-angle perspective. Indeed, if you look at my body of work over the last 10 years (all video) there are almost no wide-angle shots (sometimes you have no choice.) One of the great pleasures in moving back to shooting film has been the chance to re-incorporate wide-angle and panarama shots into my work.

-T.C.

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I don't know that I've ever noticed a halo in mainstream stuff before, but I just started looking at the extras for Return of the King, and there's a little clip of Peter Jackson scouting a location that was captured by what I would guess was a cheap family-type camcorder. The halo is very pronounced, maybe triple the degree I've seen on PXP discs.

Is that a clue of any kind, or would it fit with any of the current theories? Just throwing it out there.

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- Blue halo at the bra string and red halo at the arm and shoulder. (Screenshot from ZT - Wrecked ‘em)

- Stop those dots from crawling away! (Screenshot from ZT - Wrecked ‘em)

- At the left side of the screen the y/C delay leaves the image completely without any color information. (Screenshot from ZT - Wrecked ‘em)

I little research on the subject showed that the right name for the halo phenomenon is “Y/C delay” and it’s a timing issue between the Luminance signal (Y) and the chroma signal (C) Y/C delay s the leading or lagging of the chroma signal in time, referenced to the Luminance signal. Delays less then 100ns usually do not cause problems. The problem exists in both DV and all kind of analog equipment using component video, and not prising there are also equipment to fix the problem like a TBC with Y/C delay or a plug-in for Final Cut Pro.

But you still need to see it before you can fix it!. Secondly you need to care about the problem.

The use of a wide angles don’t explain why the halo is only present to the right side of object in the video image. I doubt any type of lens is able to make the ALL the colour information (chroma) drift to the right side in the image and leaving the black/white information (luma) untouched.

We don’t know if there is a full digital chain at PXP . Brandon newer answered my question as to what kind of encoder the DVD author uses. So they might be using a MPEG-2 encoder with analog input, just like the DVD author at Evil Angel uses a analog encoder (at least EA did so a year ago).

I think the Y/C delay on the computer generated logos tells a lot about the source of the problem in the case PXP. Seeing the same delay on two different types of footage tell me that the source is the same, and that isn’t the camera or lens. I still believe that the delay is induced somewhere later in the post-production process since it is visible on all kind of footage trough out the whole DVD.

Edited by - ingenmann on 5/30/2004 7:22:44 PM

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Edited by - M.B. on 5/30/2004 9:21:14 PM

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You can see the green halo right beneath her bra band, and even some below her eyes, like she's wearing some green eye shadow there. In this screenshot, it looks like the halo shift is down, rather than to the right.

But maybe diehard Paris Hilton fans won't notice?

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Back to my original prescription: call an engineer.

-T.C.

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I just watched Chix in the Mix and didn't see anything wrong. Watching Fresh New Faces 4 I did see the halo ch. 8 30:20, along the outside of the painting on the wall. That is just an example. The halo is in the film all the way through but is in the background. I myself have a dlp tv and can see the halo just fine. I also can see it on my pc and on my reg. tv. I do know however that some people can see it others can't. Just like the older Dlp's have a "rainbow" effect which some people see other's do not. As mentioned Feeling Black 2 has the problem as do others. I do not care one way or the other about it because it really doesn't bother me since it's in the background.

I don't want to rip you off or anything nor do I think most of the poeple on this forum but the problem does exsist. I would agree with the people here that it isn't the camera. I also know that I have seen a "halo" in some of Elegant Angel's stuff so it just isn't PXP's films. I'm no expert on AV stuff but I know what I see. As for your question and Brandon's "why aren't there any returns?" Well I can say for myself that I am sent my stuff to review so I'm not out anything, or I rent it. If I do buy a film and see it like I said earlier it doesn't bother me and doesn't interfer with the sex. Why other people don't return it? Well they either don't see it, aren't really bothered by it, or just don't want to deal with it. I hope that you can see it for yourself that way you will know what we are talking about.

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You shouldn't make comments about technical issues when its clear you have no idea what your talking about! I've spent in the thousands on my AV equipment! I've even seen the problem on a friends $100,000 install. There is a problem and you need to fix it. It's such a shame you don't have the "Sympathetic" attitude your follow owner (brandon) has!

Your Size Queens has the problem as bad as any Michael Steffano movie!

The only reason I'm still supporting PlatinumX is because Brandon has clearly shown he's trying his best! You, However, really need to get your head out of your ass.

Edited by - sanchez_1960 on 6/1/2004 4:35:30 AM

Edited by - sanchez_1960 on 6/1/2004 4:37:53 AM

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Your statement about buying the latest equipment shows a lack of understanding of the technical side of production. Having the latest equipment is no panacea. In fact, since newer equipment and authoring software both tend to provide additional features, they steepen the learning curve and offer more opportunities to screw things up. Unless you are seeking a specific improvement that requires getting a new piece of gear, you would do much better to stick with older equipment of good quality than to buy the latest simply because it's new.

Your statement that you viewed your DVD's and saw no problems suggests to me that you need to get an A/V expert to set up a comprehensive reviewing suite for PXP AND to do the reviewing for you. Not only do PXP titles suffer from the now infamous halo effect, but from pixelation glitches as well. I have looked at 2 copies of Butt Lick'in Sweethearts now and both have glitches in India's scene. Am I going to return the DVD? No, because there appears to be a mastering defect. Unless you plan to remaster the movie then trading copies is pointless. The glitches are very brief and can be ignored, however, speaking as an engineer, there's really no excuse for letting this out the door.

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Jewel: Please go back earlier in the thread to see posted samples of the aberrations. The best thing for those of us who are not experts is to consult with a video engineer based in LA who can give an informed opinion.

No one enjoys taking criticism of their work, but this will help us to improve. Now, please, to those of you who are disappointed in our product to the point that it is intolerably frustrating to watch, stay away. Really! We love our work and are trying our best. If we do not meet or exceed your expectations, move on and savour the products of other companies. If I was hitting myself on the head with a hammer and complained that it made me see stars -- or halos -- I would stop hitting myself on the head.

We are all fans of adult entertainment and we all have a wide variety of choices. I am confident PXP will be around for a long time to come. Nothing more needs to be said.

Thank you,
Brandon

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