Please, need you help!!! I ve been reading all the post about differences between the 2 cams, and I still cant make up my mind.

I live in paris, but going to shoot a documentary in argentina beginning 2008, and then plan to do some fiction.

The question is: its progressive mode in Sony V1 PAL such a great feature that can twist the balance in its side???? Cause for me the Z1 its a great option, but then progressive and HDMI port makes me doubt about it.

price is almost the same in bhphoto...

thanks...
martin

I just got some really good tests of 50i (Z1, set to PAL) to 25p to 24p. I was really impressed. I'll be editing a bit of quick video I did today (more testing) and let you guys take a look!

Carl

If you are going to shoot 24p then the V1 is the only choice. How are you going to edit the footage? If you need HDMI into your edit system get the V1, if you need component get the Z1. Finally, who is your client/end user. If they require PAL get the Z1.

Also remember that the Z1 can shoot both PAL 50i and NTSC 60i, which can come in handy if you work in different countries.

I have just gone through the same situation and bought the Sony Z1.
I highly recomend this camera as a great HD 16.9 camera that will not let you down.
The down convet to SD is great looking.
Very easy to use ( i have just come from the Sony PD170)
Is a bit bigger than the V1, so your arms will tire quicker.
I like the look of interlaced.
Shoots 50i and 60i.

Great camera from doco to movies.

Cheers
Simon

Cause for me the Z1 its a great option, but then progressive and HDMI port makes me doubt about it.

As most of my work is for data display (web, plasma, LCD, data projection), I really wanted a progressive camera, which the Z1 isn't.

My solution has been to shoot HDV 50i, edit at High Definition, then do an adaptive deinterlace and down-scale to 720p or to Progressive PAL.

An alternative for SD DV - which I haven't tried - would be to shoot HDV using the Z1's CineFrame mode and then downconvert to DV, but CineFrame at 50i basically chucks out every other field, so the vertical resolution would be 540 rather than 576. The general feeling is to leave CineFrame switched off and do it in post (DVfilm Maker (Mac/PC) and Nattress (FCP) are two I use regularly.

The lack of HDMI was a downer from an FCP user's viewpoint if you wanted to edit using ProRez (e.g. ingest through hardware) but I think you can do it directly by FireWire in FCP 6.0.2 now.