As I have not yet been able to get my hands on either version of this cam (AAAAARGH!) would it be possible for some of you with the HD1 to download some clips from it? I saw the brief two that were available here (hd1demo), and they looked very nice, although they were so short it was really hard to look for that over sharpening issue.

I would like to see them to evaluate the difference between the two cams on my HD monitor. Not sure it's worth the almost $700 difference in the cams.

By the way, I have downloaded all the clips that were available here, and made a 5 minute DVD with all the clips back to back. The video quality really is amazing! I know I'm being redundant saying this, but this cams' output blows away ANY other DVcam footage I've seen. If only all of the anti-mpeg, pro DV detractors would just shut up and LOOK at the video - I'm sure it would just shut them up once and for all :)

I lined up all the clips in Vegas Video, and output them using it's MPEG2 plugin to a single file, with the highest quality settings. Then I used a DVD authoring program to create the disk. Very simple, fast process.

In Vegas, I set my project settings for DV Widescreen, Progressive Scan.

Here is a tip for viewers with 16/9 monitors: I made two versions of the timeline footage:
1. First, simply taking the footage and having Vegas trying to squish it into the DV Widescreen format which resulted in the typical "letterboxed" output with black bars on the top and bottom. (Also, becuase DV widescreen is actually a different aspect ratio, you end up with a very large amount of the image on the sides being devoured by the "safe area". This can really ruin framing composition). When viewed on a true 16/9 HDTV, the image came out with a very horizontally stretched, (annoyingly so), image. Blowing it up in the TV, to fill the screen resulted in an unacceptically, soft, mushy picture.

2. In Vegas using the Cropping and Panning function I simply made a preset that squashed the footage inward to JUST inside of the "safety" margin of the 740 widescreen frame. The resulting footage comes out just right, in the proper aspect ratio, in anamorphic full-screen on my 16/9 monitor now. Here's my surprise discovery: strangely HD footage seems to look better, the larger you view it (within reason...) just the opposite of DV! The larger frame ratio of my upper example resulted in video quality that was much crisper looking. It's not quite HD comming off my DVD player, but it really gives the real thing a run for it's money. The resulting JVC footage looked more like it was shot on film, in my experiance, than anything from a DV cam - the DVX100 included.

Other observations:
The true progressive scan adds a gorgeous smoothness to motion that reminds me of film.

The footage just doesn't "feel" like video.

I noticed in many of the shots that the camera gave a nice, short depth of field, unlike most other consumer DV cams. This contributed to the "film-like" quality.

The color was mostly very warm, vivid and acceptable - especially on the beautiful indoor shots. Maybe with a slight desaturated look outdoors. This is very similar to what is usually done in post-production anyway. I've always liked the "popped" Sony look, but I wouldn't have any issue with the response I've seen from this cam.

Downside: The more I study the clips, the more I am starting to notice the chroma noise in areas of bright, solid color, especially reds. This could be really annoying, if we are stuck with this new problem....

Upside: I cannot from these clips, see where this camera has any issues with low-light. The clips taken at night in the car, and of the church at night shocked me. Details remained sharp, yet there was NO noise in the dark areas. I have never seen this in a $3000 video cam before. I feel this more than compensates for the slight color chroma noise.

Anyways....would it be possible to see some more clips from the HD1 please? Thanks, everyone for all the wonderful input here.

I am using an HD1 and I hear you about the cost difference. I will try to put something together tomorrow however I don't have the capacity on my server to handle much larger than 100 Mb files. If you have a place to download them that would be great? In worst case I can mail you a DVD with HD1 footage on it.

Thanks for the info on Vegas I'm trying to decide what editor to buy. Premier with Aspect HD sounds real good but the cost is out of sight. I need to look at Vegas closer I don't exactly understand how you’re working with the files because without the software its hard to understand.

Mike

Thanks for the offer Mike. 100 megs should be plenty for a few short clips. I think they also let users post some clip files here. That way everyone could share them. Moderator, is this possible?

If it doesn't work out, I would be happy to pay for a DVD from you.

Note: Circuit City is having a Web only $1'000 price drop on the HD1 for Sunday and Monday only. That makes it $2499. Shades of things to come?

Kevin Sturges wrote:
"Downside: The more I study the clips, the more I am starting to notice the chroma noise in areas of bright, solid color, especially reds. This could be really annoying, if we are stuck with this new problem....

Upside: I cannot from these clips, see where this camera has any issues with low-light. The clips taken at night in the car, and of the church at night shocked me. Details remained sharp, yet there was NO noise in the dark areas. I have never seen this in a $3000 video cam before. I feel this more than compensates for the slight color chroma noise."

I agree on both assumptions but DV also has this chroma noise in the reds and blues. As for the low light, it is the reason why I put those clips, I wanted people to see how impressive night shooting was with this camera. Glad you appreciated the clips :)

About the HD1 footage, the only way to have a clear view is still a comparison between the two. If someone having the two models or two people willing to meet having each a model could do a head-to-head shoot and post the results this would clear the matter definitely. From my little experience with the HD1, edge artefacting is much more visible than the HD10 and the lcd really is bad compared to the HD10, makes focusing a little tricky though not impossible of course. These cameras can be used if you can make compromises but there are clearly less compromises to be made with the HD10 than with the HD1 from what I saw. On the other hand, the clips posted by Mike look very good (there is still more visible artefacts than what I am used with the HD10 but it clearly shows that you can do good images with the HD1), color is pretty equivalent but then again, only a comparison made in the same environnement and lighting can give you straight answers. Personally I cannot stand too much edge artefacting, this is one thing that looks like a bad video camera, it kills the "film look effect" of these cameras. I wonder how these edge artefacts would look in night shots...

Yeah, I kind of agree with you. If there's one thing I personally hate, it's the oversharpened "video" look. Now that the price of both models seems to be coming down to reasonable levels for a budget conscious consumer (me :), I think I will hold out for the HD10U.....or something new that's bound to come out in the near future :)

Having just seen the HD10U on the net for $2342. (if that's real) for the Japanese model is really very tempting. That's $500 cheaper than the English version!

By the way, I downloaded the manual for it off of JVC. Nothing in there really looks that new or complicated. I don't think it would be very hard to transpose the instructions to match the Japanese screen menues, as long as the numbers are in english (for things like FStops). In fact I saw a screen shot of the LCD in Japanese last year, and I think they were.

I know a lot of Americans bought the Pana MX5000 from Japan, and didn't have any problem transposing.