Do both these cameras share the same chipset?

If, by chipset, you mean the optical block, then yes. Everything else may be different.

I belive they do. As far as I can tell, the imaging-proccessing and optics is the same in these two cameras. The 250 could be said to be a pd150 shooting off the shoulder. There are of course differences, some bigger than others, but they seem to me to be mainly practical, like size and connector-options.

SaferSeas.com seems to say that the DSR250 has different DSP characteristics that give it higher quality than the PD150/VX2000...Take note that there is an electronically coupled iris along with the zoom and focus on the lens barrel of the 250.

Are there any DSR250 owners out there who can confirm the higher image quality due to a better DSP?

Here is the safer seas website:
http://www.saferseas.com/vsd/eye/eye2.html

Dave,

Odd that you should mention that. My reason for the original posting was that I shot with a demo 250 last week and found the footage surprisingly good - better than I remember seeing off an earlier 150. Memory is a strange thing and, not having both cameras in front of me, wanted to see if others had similar experiences. Still, for what it's worth, the 250 produced some very clean images.

RUMOUR has it that there are slightly better optics.

It's tough to find 250's to test out without paying for it.. Last time i was in NYC, B&H couldn't even show me one because they were completely out of stock on them, and the guy just told me that it was a PD150 is a shoulder mount...which is obviously a lie. Someone out there MUST have a 250 and a 150 that could put them side by side and show the results to us....anyone???

I have a DSR-250 and a friend has a PD-150. I shoot with both often.

There are differences. The lens is the obvious one. I think the DSR-250 is distinctly sharper and has better contrast. The contrast could be a result of a less compact lens or better signal processing. Color rendering is also better in the DSR-250.

There are limitations to the programming in DSR-250 that should be different from the PD-150 but unfortunately are not. But the tape transport is different and it shows when connected to a non-linear editor such as Avid XpressDV 3.5 or Adobe Premiere 6.5. The DSR-250 reacts almost as well as a regular VTR.

I should also say that I use a DSR-200, along with the DSR-300 and DSR-300a. The DRS-200 is similar to the PD-150, the 250 shows improvement over those two, but the 300a is clearly the winner. No surprise here.

If anyone wants me to test situations side by side, let me know.

Yeah, a side-by-side would be great!

I'm shooting an interview this weekend, a two camera shoot. I'll do a side-by-side then. Probably indoors only.

Sorry, folks, I couldn't make the side-by-side comparison of the PD-150 and the DSR-250.

My friend had a PD-100 that we often shot with, but it was stolen not long ago. I recommended that he get a PD-150 but he opted for a less expensive alternative: a TRV-900.

I did use the TRV-900 for the interview. Compared to the DSR-250, the coloration was not nearly as natural, the video only slightly softer, but the most unfortunate difference was in the contrast. The TRV-900 had way too much contrast and needed a flatter light to look good. The blacks could not hold detail. I have not looked at the video on the scope, but I bet you there will be a difference in black set-up levels; the DSR-250 sets at 7.5 IRE for black but I bet the TRV-900 is at 0 IRE.

Wish my buddy would have bought a PD-150! Now I am going to waste a bunch of time trying to color correct to match the two.