Hello everyone, I'm a wedding videomaker and I'm thinking of buying a hv30 with merlin steadicam to use with my pd170.

Is the image of hv30 good?

What do you think about that? Would be too shocking use both videos together, or it's ok, since the hv30 with merlin will only be used sometimes at the wedding?

I'm buying this setup so in the future I can finally upgrade all to hdv.

EDITED> Decided to buy the HV30.

The question you should ask yourself is how well it will blend with your Sony's footage, from what I see on this forum the hv30 produces nice images as long as it doesn't get too dark, an area were you PD will 'shine'

One thing I wonder is how the colors and such match, your talking about canon/sony here and you can expect to color correct.

I would be much more concerned about 16x9 vs. 4x3 and the loss of resolution on the pd170.
Bill

I would be much more concerned about 16x9 vs. 4x3 and the loss of resolution on the pd170.
Bill

That would only be a concern if the output would be blu-ray, also if his camera is a PAL version, it won't differ that much when compressed to a regular dvd.

I think the resolution difference would probably be noticeable to us, but maybe not to the customer. I was saying that if he converted the pd-170 to widescreen that the resolution loss would be very noticeable.
Bill

I've only used a PD170 once, but I do know the PD150 has a 16x9 mode... doesn't the PD170 as well? Can't imagine not.

I cut something together recently shot with a Canon XH-A1 in HDV & a PD150 in 16x9 mode. A1 footage was down converted on capture. Both cut well together. Of course there was a bit of a quality difference, but nothing to be concerned about.

But it's ok to use the hv30 as a second cam at the wedding? I mean, does this handycam have quality for 42" playback?

Thanks

affirmative!

I can tell you after shooting a bunch of footage with a VX-1000/HC3 Sony combo that I put a budget together to get a V1U. Now the 1000 has not been turned on in almost 2 years.

Once you start looking at how nice the HD downconverts to SD you'll start feeling that twinge to buy more HD cameras.

The HV30 is a very nice small camera. One of the things I really like is the ability to do a CROP in software later and have the footage still look GREAT when downconverted to SD.

Chris