Okay, So I just purchased a Z1. I found a great deal on this camera and couldn't afford to pass it up (2K, less than 7hours on meter).

I haven't decided if I want to keep it or "flip" it.

I love the PD150 that i have had for years. I do freelance news in the Houston area and shoot a TON of stuff in low light. I read several reviews saying the Z1 had poor low light peformance.

Here is my question. I don't have the "ability" to edit in HD currently. I want my final product to be in 16:9 SD with the best picture possible. How do I do it? I have played with this new camera for hours. I have recorded in HD and converted to SD. I have recorded in SD and captured in SD. I don't know what I'm doing here. I guess I need a simple exlanation on where to start.

Pleae help, I love this camera, but the camera doesn't like me.....yet. Help me get started on this.

Thanks in advance.

Chris

Record in HDV mode, then down-convert in camera when it comes to capturing. That way you have a HD master for the future, plus the benefit of editing using you're existing DV-friendly software.

If you need more specific help - just fire away!

Record in HDV mode, then down-convert in camera when it comes to capturing.

Word. :)

The Z1 is very useful in that you shoot HDV, get all those great features like viewing the whole image (Sony calls it AllScan, pros know it as overscan), and even shoot up to +12dB Gain and it will still look great - even more so when it's downsampled to DV.

The downsample means you can get 4:3 DV from 16:9 HDV, and although there may be some infinitesimally small gains from doing downconvert in your editing system, 99 times out of 100, you're going to get great results from the built-in down-convert.

Okay, so if you're doing chromakey, integrating into motion graphics, shooting maniac action or want an SD 4:2:2 source, let's talk. But most mortals will get nice clean DV with an upgrade path and total flexibilitiy from shooting HDV and downconverting in-camera.

Yeah if you can hang onto it, do so. You're current computer may not edit HDV, but your next one will.

If you want SD 16:9, shoot 1080i to tape. Then go into the menu of the camera and somewhere you'll find find down convert options. Turn down convert on. Then there is another option on which type of down converting you'll want to do. The choices will be letterbox, crop and squeeze. Choose Squeeze. Then you'll get 16:9 DV.

If you decide to go with plan B ("flip" it), I badly need a second Z1 for my church. Seriously!

Thanks,

I've never "down sampled" HDV video out of the camera. Where is the setting to do so?

Where is the setting to do so?

See page 73-74 in the manual.