HD Cameras?
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Eek, touchy subject!
The question is "what do you plan to use it for?" There are three cameras I know of at the moment (2 of which will be announced at NAB) which record versions of HD (I don't count the early JVC cameras because they are NOT worth the money).
Do you plan on shooting short films? Feature films? Do you plan to have a film out? Are you going to shoot Documentaries? Shoot family outings? Do you have a fast computer? Do you have lots of storage space? What's you price range? Each camera has it's good and bad points. Which one you choose will depend on your requirements.
The question is "what do you plan to use it for?" There are three cameras I know of at the moment (2 of which will be announced at NAB) which record versions of HD (I don't count the early JVC cameras because they are NOT worth the money).
Do you plan on shooting short films? Feature films? Do you plan to have a film out? Are you going to shoot Documentaries? Shoot family outings? Do you have a fast computer? Do you have lots of storage space? What's you price range? Each camera has it's good and bad points. Which one you choose will depend on your requirements.
True HD or HDV?
Budget?
I imagine you're talking about HDV format rather than Sony HDCAM or Panasonic DVCPro HD, because I doubt you'd be asking this question for either of those $80,000 options here.
Budget?
I imagine you're talking about HDV format rather than Sony HDCAM or Panasonic DVCPro HD, because I doubt you'd be asking this question for either of those $80,000 options here.
!I wish they'd just make the DVX100's DV50. That would be enough to get me stiff.
Not sure how excited I could get about a DV100 camera for under 10K. You'd need to spend twice that for glass good enough to use it.
Not sure how excited I could get about a DV100 camera for under 10K. You'd need to spend twice that for glass good enough to use it.
You have a good point. I'm not sure though. Nikon lenses, for instance, are only a few hundred and yet they are used to shoot stuff much higher res than HD. Granted, still lenses aren't corrected for breathing etc but it seems like it should be possible if someone wanted to do it.
I wish the DVX was dv50 as well
. I don't need HD yet myself, just a good image.
One things for certain though - NAB is going to be very interesting this year!
I wish the DVX was dv50 as well
. I don't need HD yet myself, just a good image.One things for certain though - NAB is going to be very interesting this year!
I'm with ya on that. DV25 was better than cheap analog (has less noise than good analog) and is capable of much smaller form factors, but it still sucks compared to the other options.
HDV has yet to impress me and I think it's still in its infancy, so there is hope for great strides in quality - but I wouldn't buy one yet.
NAB is definately gonna rock this year. Are you going?
HDV has yet to impress me and I think it's still in its infancy, so there is hope for great strides in quality - but I wouldn't buy one yet.
NAB is definately gonna rock this year. Are you going?
Unfortunately I'm not. Technically speaking I could probably get the information just as fast or faster off the internet once the day actually comes but there's something to be said about actually handling the new products! I wish I could go but I don't have the extra time or money at the moment .
I'm definitely going to be following the online results though! I think HDV has potential if it can be recorded to hard disk (as the announced JVC cam) - I wouldn't trust tape with such long drop out possible. I'm quite intrigued by the Panasonic announcement though. Having a 4:2:2 codec is worth more to me than 1080 (vs 720). Can't wait to see what they have in store for us! These next few years are going to be huge for independent cinema.
On a separate note:
I'm not sure if you'll see this, but did you ever go through with purchasing a HD camera Clive? I know you were thinking about/planning to do so a while ago. Some of the new HD offerings might be high enough quality for your purposes and certainly a lot cheaper!
.I'm definitely going to be following the online results though! I think HDV has potential if it can be recorded to hard disk (as the announced JVC cam) - I wouldn't trust tape with such long drop out possible. I'm quite intrigued by the Panasonic announcement though. Having a 4:2:2 codec is worth more to me than 1080 (vs 720). Can't wait to see what they have in store for us! These next few years are going to be huge for independent cinema.
On a separate note:
I'm not sure if you'll see this, but did you ever go through with purchasing a HD camera Clive? I know you were thinking about/planning to do so a while ago. Some of the new HD offerings might be high enough quality for your purposes and certainly a lot cheaper!
Shaw said:
Hard drives, and optical drives for that matter, are far less forgiving to shock than tape. Panasonic's RAM based storage is a great solution, but still a pretty penny to outfit a rig with any reasonable amount of storage. Since HDV is using the same 6mm tape format as DVCAM and miniDV, there is a significant history of reliability (as long as you stick to one lubricant or the other - or do Adam Wilt's alternating method). Optical and harddrive storage is advantagous because it has the potential for faster than real time data transfer into the post environment. Tape is still real time, and that is where it's issue lies. Dealing with long form, that's rarely an issue. In news, every second is one more chance for the competition to go to air before you - that hurts.
The problem with HDV is that it is compressed so much. Right now the format doesn't sustain post production and image quality is reduced very rapidly with file manipulations. Those factors can and will be overcome (since Avid has promised full HDV support this year - my level of acceptable quality should be possible in post), but a problem remains in that the encoding is such that the original footage has been compromised through its heavy compression (even DV25 is compressed 5:1) before ever making it to the tape. This is where I think the development is still in its infancy. As with all things over time, the hardware encoders used in these new cameras will improve and provide an acceptable level of quality that we'll then be able to maintain from aquisition to exhibition.
Which panasonic announcement are you referring to?
Excellent point about the hard drives. Certainly banging them around won't be any good! What I meant to say (didn't come out very well) is drop outs due to imperfections in tape. I know that this isn't very likely to occur, but I wouldn't want to take the chance and always have to wonder if my important shot is going to be screwed up.
I hear you on the compression! I want to see some better hardware encoders as well. That, the MPEG1 sound recording (I like the nice audio I can get from an external mic run into my DVX!), and the really annoying resolution loss in fast movements. I'm still not sold on the 4:2:0 color space though
. Seems to be a bad idea in general (though the images produced seem to be rather unaffected so far - at least what I have seen).
Sorry, that should have been "Panasonic leak" rather than announcement. (in reference to the "HDX").
I hear you on the compression! I want to see some better hardware encoders as well. That, the MPEG1 sound recording (I like the nice audio I can get from an external mic run into my DVX!), and the really annoying resolution loss in fast movements. I'm still not sold on the 4:2:0 color space though
. Seems to be a bad idea in general (though the images produced seem to be rather unaffected so far - at least what I have seen).Sorry, that should have been "Panasonic leak" rather than announcement. (in reference to the "HDX").
PAL already uses (has always used) 4:2:0 color sampling. It actually works out to be more desirable than our 4:1:1 (I'll let you look up why, because I don't have time to type it all out - Adam W's 24p.com should spell it out). Granted 4:2:2 is much better, but I don't think it's the achilies heal of HDV (or even a relative concern at that).
Tape dropouts are easily prevented with proper care in which type of lubricant you use in your deck/camera and or a dilligent cleaning schedule if you can't avoid it. Mp2 encoding is an acceptable distribution format, but like you eluded to, when you drop some of the data, you lose a big chunk of footage. DV is intraframe compression, so every frame has all the needed data to reproduce it. When you take a hit on a tape, you might lose a field (one pass of the head) or a whole frame (both heads - or a full rotation of the drum), but the next pass will be the next full field and the pass after that will be the remainder of the frame. This is not the case with HDV. It's interframe compressed and each group of pictures is a reference to the I frame and whatever deviations occurred since it was recorded, and whatever deviations happend to the next frame to the next and the next, etc. So If you lose one stripe, you essentially lose the rest of the GOP to the next I frame. This is perported to be 15 frames long - so now rather than a field or a frame (1/24th of a second or less, depending on shooting mode), you're now missing up to half a second!
Mpeg 1 audio compression is also not much of an issue. MP3 does a sufficient job for broadcast that it's certainly not a problem area to be recording in mp1. If anything, the uncompressed 48K we're used to is overkill.
Tape dropouts are easily prevented with proper care in which type of lubricant you use in your deck/camera and or a dilligent cleaning schedule if you can't avoid it. Mp2 encoding is an acceptable distribution format, but like you eluded to, when you drop some of the data, you lose a big chunk of footage. DV is intraframe compression, so every frame has all the needed data to reproduce it. When you take a hit on a tape, you might lose a field (one pass of the head) or a whole frame (both heads - or a full rotation of the drum), but the next pass will be the next full field and the pass after that will be the remainder of the frame. This is not the case with HDV. It's interframe compressed and each group of pictures is a reference to the I frame and whatever deviations occurred since it was recorded, and whatever deviations happend to the next frame to the next and the next, etc. So If you lose one stripe, you essentially lose the rest of the GOP to the next I frame. This is perported to be 15 frames long - so now rather than a field or a frame (1/24th of a second or less, depending on shooting mode), you're now missing up to half a second!
Mpeg 1 audio compression is also not much of an issue. MP3 does a sufficient job for broadcast that it's certainly not a problem area to be recording in mp1. If anything, the uncompressed 48K we're used to is overkill.