I know the topic of a suitable, smaller b-camera to complement the HD-110 has been talked about here before at great length. However, it always seems that the conversation devolves into how nothing really plays back the JVC's tapes at 24fps.

Currently I use a Sony PDX-10 as my B camera. I know its interlaced, I know its only SD, but I found with a fair amount of color correction I can get the two cams to look OK together. However, I am considering selling off some production gear I no longer use and purchasing a more suitable B-camera to use on shoots along with the JVC. My budget will probably only be around $3000.

I am considering several different options, including Sony's FX7, Canon's XH-A1, as well as some SD cameras that can do 24fps progressive scan such as panasonic's DVX100 or an XL2. I know the SD cameras will look fairly soft when uprezzed to HD, but being progressive scan and shooting at the same frame rate I figure they will have to be an improvement over the PDX10.

I am wondering if anyone here has any thoughts on this subject, and for those of you that are using a smaller camera as a B-cam, what kind of success are you having?

well not so long ago I posted on this thread about using the 1st generation JVC HDV camera which I owned. 720 30p.
30p is more suitable than 24p for many things, and the camera is a bit clumsy in some situations, but it looks great in the right situation.

Sean's solution is the best. A JVC 720/30p camera.

If you can't do that, then your next option would be to use a 1080i camera. There's a lot of options out there. If you buy something used here on dvinfo you'll get more for your money than new.

Your last choice would be a sd camera.

Frame rates and interlaced/progressive issues are a lot easier to match up than hd/sd quality issues. Right now, my second camera is a canon hv10. It's just my family camcorder but I take it out for extra angles to use with my hd100. I convert the footage from the .m2t file directly to a 720/30p file. The footage matches up ok in the final video. I spend a lot more time tweaking the color to match than I spend on the frame conversion. Overall, I'm not unhappy with mixing 1080 and 720 footage and I don't think it's a big issue in most situations. I think that SD is a poor investment at this point in time and I wouldn't even consider it if I was adding a camera.

Ben

I use my JVC HD1 with my 110 as a b-cam. To match up 30p to my 24p footage from the 110, I just slow down the 30p to 80% of it's original speed, and it looks great. I've shot tigers and mixed both cameras together, and the video came out really good. I only use it when I really need it though, or plan to use it that way. I'm really interested to see what an hv20's 1080p24 video looks like mixed with the 110's 720p24. so far what I've seen of the HV20 looks pretty darn impressive, in the hands of the right user.