Is this JVC a better buy than the Black Magic Cinema Camera?

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The JVC looks like video, because well it is a video camera.

There's much more to a good looking image than just spatial resolution.

The reason no-one cares about the JVC is because it's a prosumer camera no different to any of the others, with the exception that it records in a higher spatial resolution.

It has a 1/2" sensor, so the way it gets a 4k image is to record onto 4 seperate SD cards - 1/4 of the image on each SD card, and then stitches them together at the other side.

No interchangeable lens on a tiny sensor - I'd rather a Blackmagic with native 2.5k than pseudo-4k, especially with 4k television still a fair while away.
 
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The JVC is a Frankenstein camera. Recording to 4 separate SD cards to get 4K? What could go wrong with that idea? A lot. To JVC's credit, they were the first into HD in lower cost camcorders, but they always have their quirks. Btw, I own three JVC cameras so I'm not a JVC hater.

Scott
 
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I've also found I just dislike the image out of a JVC camera, and there's a reason they never really got a foothold in the professional or broadcast sectors, unlike Panasonic, Canon and Sony
 
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It has a 1/2" sensor, so the way it gets a 4k image is to record onto 4 seperate SD cards - 1/4 of the image on each SD card, and then stitches them together at the other side.
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I cannot see the sensor size having any bearing on how it stores the images. It's that 4k needs more than 10MB/s and it's a cheaper way than to insist on SSD drives. Not saying the system is perfect, just saying the sensor doesn't have bearing that they use 4 SD Cards. Though, the fastest recording speed seems to be 18MB/s, so going beyond 3 class 6 SD cards seems odd. Just seems like more can go wrong the more moving parts you rely on. For 1080p, you shouldn't be forced to continue to use multiple cards (if it does).

Specs: Image Sensor: 1/2.3" 8.3M pixels Back-illuminated CMOS

As Jax was saying, the sensor has some bearing on the quality of the picture being taken. The sensor seems rather small for a 4k camera. It's only slightly larger than what sensor you can find on a t2i/t3i/t4i. (Note, I believe the Red Cameras have a 4/3" CMOS sensor, so consider the approx 19:1 sensor size difference) Also, as Jax noted, not being able to change the lens could come to bite you on the ***.

That all being said, it's way better than what I personally have. It's a complete 4k package that can do the ratified 4k standard in 60p, 50p and 24p, or 1080p. It doesn't seem to be able to do 720p though. Apart from the 4 SD card thing, I don't see it being that horrible if you don't have access to a better option.

Am I looking at this all wrong?
 
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I think if the prices were the other way around, e.g the jvc costing £2500 then it would be a really good way for someone with a smaller budget to shoot 4k footage. However personally I would rather save the money buying a bmc or dslr and spend the savings on good glass
 
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Sweetie said:
Specs: Image Sensor: 1/2.3" 8.3M pixels Back-illuminated CMOS

As Jax was saying, the sensor has some bearing on the quality of the picture being taken. The sensor seems rather small for a 4k camera. It's only slightly larger than what sensor you can find on a t2i/t3i/t4i. (Note, I believe the Red Cameras have a 4/3" CMOS sensor, so consider the approx 19:1 sensor size difference) Also, as Jax noted, not being able to change the lens could come to bite you on the ***.

Am I looking at this all wrong?
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Could you please explain how the JVC's sensor is "only slightly larger than what sensor you can find on a t2i/t3i/t4i"?

http://easybasicphotography.com/digital-camera-sensors.html

Also the Red Cameras do not use a Micro 4/3 sensor.

http://blog.abelcine.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/35mm_Digital_Sensors_2012MAY.jpg

I can't comment on the JVC vs Black Magic debate, I've never seen either. But the JVC is a camcorder. When I googled it, I saw a depth of field estimate for the JVC. Wasn't a very scientific test, but at best, the JVC could achive the DOF of a DSLR at f11. That's not very shallow, and not really what I think indie film makers are looking for.
 
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Sweetie said:
I cannot see the sensor size having any bearing on how it stores the images.
It's that 4k needs more than 10MB/s and it's a cheaper way than to insist on SSD drives. Not saying the system is perfect, just saying the sensor doesn't have bearing that they use 4 SD Cards. Though, the fastest recording speed seems to be 18MB/s, so going beyond 3 class 6 SD cards seems odd. Just seems like more can go wrong the more moving parts you rely on. For 1080p, you shouldn't be forced to continue to use multiple cards (if it does).
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Actually, the compression rate is 36Mbps/card - read/write speeds do not correlate to compression ratio.

As Jax was saying, the sensor has some bearing on the quality of the picture being taken. The sensor seems rather small for a 4k camera. It's only slightly larger than what sensor you can find on a t2i/t3i/t4i. (Note, I believe the Red Cameras have a 4/3" CMOS sensor, so consider the approx 19:1 sensor size difference) Also, as Jax noted, not being able to change the lens could come to bite you on the ***.
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t2i etc. are APS-C sensors which are slightly smaller than S35, but certainly a hell of a lot larger than 1/3". REDs are APS-H sensors, slightly larger than S35.

I'm not 100% sure how the debayering works, but you can get 4k out of a 1/2" sensor, the same way you can get HD out of a 1/4" sensor. But, as I've said many times - spatial resolution doesn't mean all that much in terms of picture quality, and the fact that you can have 4k on a 1/2" sensor kinda proves that - you'll get better images out of a native 2.5k raw BMCC than a 4k compressed 1/2" sensor JVC. I shot on an FS700 recently, which isn't as compressed as a DSLR and has a S35 sensor, and it looks horrible on a big screen - not as bad as a DSLR, but still pretty bad. I'd be interested (and probably horrified) to see this JVC's images on a big screen.


That all being said, it's way better than what I personally have. It's a complete 4k package that can do the ratified 4k standard in 60p, 50p and 24p, or 1080p. It doesn't seem to be able to do 720p though. Apart from the 4 SD card thing, I don't see it being that horrible if you don't have access to a better option.
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Max 2 hour record time on four 32GB SD cards. Assuming you're already used to a DSLR setup, perhaps you could get away with it, but the issue comes that if you need to shoot more than 2 hours full res, you don't need one SD card, you need four. Those who are used to carrying around 5 or 6 SD cards just in case for their DSLR shoots will now need to carry around 20-24 SD cards proportionally.
 
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Yeah, cmos sensors are something that I'm trying to learn at the moment. It looks like I have heaps to learn on the subject :(

I thought I had some some research on the subject, but it would appear I got it all upside down.

Mind if I ask some more questions to help me understand better?
 
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It occurs to me that it would be nice to have two lists: one a list of cameras that give video that looks good on a big screen, and the other list the cameras that filmmakers also want to use but that give video that those filmmakers should be warned won't look good on a big screen. =)
 
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The issue with such lists is that it's all relative: for someone shooting DSLR, an FS100 is going to look better on a big screen; for someone shooting 35mm, Red is going to look average on the big screen.

And at the end of the day, you can spend enough time in post and colour making things look acceptable.
Plus, it's more of a cinematographer's discussion - if you're a director, I doesn't necessarily matter so much, at least in comparison to the quality of story you're trying to tell - a crap story on Alexa will still be a crap story.

This JVC could be a decent doco cam, for those who are distributing in theatres, but want cheap acquisition for example.
 
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Sweetie said:
I cannot see the sensor size having any bearing on how it stores the images. It's that 4k needs more than 10MB/s and it's a cheaper way than to insist on SSD drives.
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Recording speed is actually no problem, there are plenty UHS-I cards that will do 50+ MB/s out there. The reason they use four cards is because they use 4x1080p encoding chips and you can't write to four different places on the card at once at that speed. Also they can use 4 regular 1080p HDMI out, everything is done "on the cheap" by essentially packing four consumer HD camera backends into one body. When 2160p encoding chips come down in price, they will use one card. With DisplayPort 1.2/HDMI 2.0 they'll display it over a single cable. But that is all new technology that takes time and money, hopefully we'll see it in a year or two.
 
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