Paul Mogg has again supplied us with excellent tests to view. Paul filmed a resolution chart and table top of flowers and chart with his JVC-HD10U & Ikegami HLDV7W. You can see the definite difference between SD video and HD. Thanks Paul!

PS: Take a look at the resolution chart with the flowers on the table of the JVC & Ikegami shot.

The Link: http://www.dvinfo.net/jvc/media

I've been watching my tests on an 8 foot screen and a JVC HD monitor. The 720p footage is vastly better than DV or commercial DVDs in both rez and color. Very close to 1080i HD from PBS.

I shot fish in a Thai resturant tonight. Simply unbelieveable detail and color. Then an outdoor flowershop -- at nite -- and it looks just like Paul's flowers shot.

Strawberries have all the fine detail you can see with your eyes.

By the way, very dark areas are noisless even with AGC. It seems only reds have chroma AM noise. And areas of medium tone gray or brown, where chroma PM noise appears.

Outdoors -- wide shots have detail. And very natural color. Faces show every detail! :(

It's no wonder Sony et al have decided to get going with HDV.

Why are you posting images where the Ikagami images are not properly magnified or don't have correctly set color balance?

The charts indicate about equal resolution on the SD Ikegami and on the HD JVC. The JVC does not have high definition resolution. The resolution is about equal to DV.

The charts should have been posted with equal magnification, and the Ikegami chart should not have been compressed horizontally.

The JVC chart indicates about 600 line H and about 400 lines V resolution -- about equal to DV, certainly not HD.

The Ikegami chart is posted with lower magnification and it is compressed horizontally. It indicates 400 lines H and 400 lines V resolution. If posted properly, it would probably indicate about 550 lines H x 400 lines V.

The pictures with the flowers -- look at the chart below. While the JVC has a properly set color balance, the Ikegami is totally off. And I believe that this was shot by someone who owns the Ikegami.

Looking at all this stuff makes me more and more convinced that the DVX, when shot in progressive with the Century Optics anamorphic adapter will give you a lot better results than this JVC.

To start with, the JVC CCD provides only about 960 effective H pixels, not 1280 as JVC claims. The effective vertical pixel count is not complete either.

I suggest to wait for a new Canon XL1HD, or whatever the designation will be to get a decent low cost HD camera. Although the HDV format was announced by Sony, Canon, etc., Sony invented the DV format and from the start had HD provision in mind. It is likely that JVC had to work with Sony to get the approval for the HD DV format. Panasonic is not among the companies listed in the HDV group because it's been in a war with Sony for some time -- VHS-Beta war, now SD-Memory Stick war for camcorders is beginning to shape.

I think that JVC was well aware that other companies were involved in the MPEG2 HD DV development, because this year Japan is switching its HD broadcast to digital, and it jumped the gun to be the 1st one, and by doing so gave us an unfinished prototype-type product. I'm sure Canon or Sony would not do that.

No matter what some flowers or fish picture indicate, put this camera into a real test against DVX in progressive with the Century Optics anamorphic adapter; there will be no comparison. And forget what 2-pop has to say about the JVC, which advertised their HD10 on their site for some time. You advertise and the reports will show that your product is good -- that is the rule.

Joseph, I will respond to your post later, point-by-point, when I have time. For now, suffice to say that your assertions about how the test I conducted was done, and what was posted, are completely wrong. Your assesment appears completely biased against the JVC and bears no resemblance to what the tests actually prove on way or another.
I should also point out that Michael Pappas shot the same test chart with the DVX100 which clearly shows that the JVC produces siginificantly higher resolution pictures than the DVX100.

Joseph, on one point you are right. I just saw that I posted the wrong still for the Ikegami test chart shot. I will repost with the correct 1280*720 still later this evening.
I will also redo this test with closer white balance between the two and repost. So hold your horses on jumping to conclusions until I do that please.

<<<-- I should also point out that Michael Pappas shot the same test chart with the DVX100 which clearly shows that the JVC produces siginificantly higher resolution pictures than the DVX100. -->>>

Paul, I'm glad you posted your pix -- but I think it's a waste of time. Bottom line -- DV cameras can't shoot HD. It doesn't matter if they'll make your coffee and cost only $100.

With Sony announcing HDV support, DV25 is as dead as BetaSP was when the VX1000 arrived.

They can shoot 24p or use an anamorphic lens, but they'll never get HD out of whatever they own.

Plus most of these guys don't have HD equipment to see the difference with running video. So they'll try to compare stills.

It's really a waste of your time.

How is the editing coming with FCP?

Thanks Steve, you're probably right but I'm doing the comparisons for my own interest as much as anyone elses. I bought the HD1OU in part to have a camera I can leave running on a wide shot as a backup when filming single camera events with the Ikegami. I used to own a GL1 for this but found that the image quality on that or an XL1 was too noticeably poor compared to the Ikegami to be able to cut them together, plus those cameras don't do native 16:9 This camera I believe, has a sufficiently good picture to be edited with my Ikegami. I did some color correction tests on the JVC footage yesterday and have no problem saturating the colors enough to match the Ikegami's very cinematic gamma. If anyone is concerned about the JVC's color they shouldn't be, they just need to learn some basic color correction skills. I didn't notice much color noise addition through color correction either, so long as you don't get too radical, but this applies to any footage.

All the best

<<<-- I did some color correction tests on the JVC footage yesterday. -->>>

Are you using FCP 4? Are you importing using DVHScap or using the KDDI utility on a PC?

I'm using FCP4 and doing everthing on the Mac uncompressed, then re-encoding short clips using Heuris's demo encoder to test. Hopefully they'll come out with their new encoder soon , at an affordable price.

Just to let people know I've posted the correct 1280*720 test chart jpeg still for the IKegami HLdV7W on the dvinfo.net site if they want to make a direct comparison to the JVC. I hope to redo this test with closer white balancing when I get time, I also stuck Michaels DVX100 test chart still up there, I hope he doesn't mind. I think it clearly shows that the JVC has a higher resolution image than either of these cameras, which is no news for many people I know.

You can absolutely see a difference in resolution between the two cameras when viewing the proper charts. A dramatic difference, actually.

No one (except perhaps Joseph) would seriously question whether the JVC is actually HD. It's everything else about it that sucks! :)