See http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=34511 for details -- event is open to everybody.

Just curious if any of our members are planning on attending this event...?

Thanks for putting this up. I am definately going to attend. It sounds like a really great opportunity to learn more about HD. I am planning on buying a HD camera soon.

Thanks,
Garius Hill
MuseCycle Media
NYC

Just got back from this thing...

It was great presentation that broke down everything basically about HDV and who&what it is for...MPEG compression, editing, delivery and price points.

PostWorks, which hosted this thing, had a great HD projector(projecting on a twenty foot diagonal screen?)and when they finally showed footage from the Sony camera--- the crowd really came alive.... this camera is positively amazing!

I cannot believe that a HD camera is now within reach of mere mortals...

The Sony rep broke down the differences between the pro version and the consumer version.

The rep then showed a clip of the "24p" mode with cinema gamma....

The footage really does look like film....and even projected to that size, the image holds up so well.

The only thing about the 24p mode was that there was some "stuttering" & "strobing"...I don't know if one would find that "acceptable" but for an enthusiast like me--I find it to be very convincing and pleasing.

Informative show--glad I went.

This terms comes to mind in describing the FX-1...."Holy Grail"...

John,

I too attended the HD SMPTE event and was stunned by the high quality of the footage. (There was one part where the footage show a close up of a very colorful parrot. The colors and details were amazing. )

I am about to buy a new camera and the Sony may be the ticket. Still there are some interesting challenges ahead for HD. I still have a lot of questions. For instance, How is the editing expereince in Premiere Pro or FCP? DOes the algarhythm of the codecs add a lot of render time. Are there limits to the amount of movement you can do with the camera and still get a good image? How would the footage of galloping horses be, campared to a relatively still parrot? Don't get me wrong, I am very excited about the camera and the format but it will require some real investment. i.e. HD monitors, playback and record decks.

If you care to discuss it futher you can email me privately and I would be happy to send you my phone number. Also, I( would be interested in hearing how you plan to use the camera?

Garius

I couldn't believe how packed it was... I wound up sitting on the floor in front of the first row. Glad they could figure out their projector inputs. A great presentation!

Jon Fordham wanted to go, but had a shoot. Chris, email me privately or email Jon, because he'd like to meet you.

heath

Ok, that's it...I'm going to start going to New York for these things. I'm only in Boston, so anyone out there looking for a car pool type situation let me know.

I'm about a 4 hour drive away from New York City, so anyone in ME, VT, MA, NH, NJ or even upper state NY...contact me.

I want in on the party!

Murph

<<<-- Originally posted by Christopher C. Murphy : Ok, that's it...I'm going to start going to New York for these things. I'm only in Boston, so anyone out there looking for a car pool type situation let me know.

I'm about a 4 hour drive away from New York City, so anyone in ME, VT, MA, NH, NJ or even upper state NY...contact me.

I want in on the party!

Murph -->>>

I don't know if this was spam or not...
but I got this in the email the other day...

In Boston:

http://www.1beyond.com/

Some kind of HDV open house...

Hi John, thanks for the information. It's definately not spam because I've heard of these guys. I just registered, so I'll go and then report on it.

If anyone else wants to go let me know. I'll probably take the Haverhill train into Boston and take the subway to Somerville.

Murph

Someone who was at the HD SMPTE event posted on dvxuser.com that he was extremely disapointed with the footage and HDV as a format, as were most of the people there.

http://www.dvxuser.com/cgi-bin/DVX2/YaBB.pl?board=sony;action=display;num=1100107659;start=15

Just curious what other people who were there thought of the footage, HDV, etc.?

Man, this type of stuff really sucks....confusing as hell.

The bottom line has been and will always be....check it out with your own eyes. I guess we all have to wait and see the camera in-person.

I have to add this though - I tend to believe that high motion (or even fairly high motion) would be fraught with problems. The size of the video and the lack of bandwidth would most definately have issues. But, for my specific purpose of shooting drama films it won't be a major problem. If you don't plan to shoot action films - maybe this camera is fine?

Who thinks so?

Murph

Yeah, this is getting confusing. Clicking the link, I fully expected the argument to come from someone who believes 24p on Hi8 is superior to Digital Betacam in 60i. But this was not the case. The disapointment is with the highly compressed MPEG-2 format - not the camera. I too share this concern in both aquisition and edit.

Fortunately, my interest is in the Z1. So there should be more than enough time for FX1 users to fully explore the strenths and weaknesses of the format over the next few months.

Mike, you're right. What I'm hoping is that the few extra "tweakable" items on the Z1 will benefit us. If not, I guess we're going to have to play games with the shooting.

At least this time around we're not dealing with lack of controls. (To anyone reading this who doesn't know...the JVC HDV cameras have sucked bad in the controls dept. and we're all looking forward to having manual everything.)

Does anyone know if Pana or any other company is going to announce their new offerings soon? If they all opened their darned mouths and gave AT LEAST the specs - we'd all know what camp we fall into. It stinks when you have to wait and then the announcement comes....and typically there is SOMETHING on the camera that sucks. This time around from what I can see it's a sh*t audio setup (both the FX1 and Z1) and motion issues.

You know this is actually the same darn problem the JVC's had. Maybe I shouldn't have sold my HD10U?! Argh! I've got to wrap my head around the concept of "prosumer". Maybe we're forgetting that we're not on George Luca's budget?

Having said that - for God's sake!! At least give us CD quality audio on a $5,000 video camera. Even the sub-$1,000 cameras you buy at Best Buy are CD quality when they shoot. WTF!!!!

Murph

Update from another forum:

Agreed that the Sony demo looked "horrible," but pointed out that it did so on a "$1000 Sanyo projector." Reported that clips looked fine on a Sony Quala (sp?)

My take is that anything out of a sub-$25,000 camera isn't going to look "great" on a large screen, unless that camera has "aaton" or "arri" plastered on the its' side.

So I picked up Scott Billups book "Digital Moviemaking." Excellent book by the way. In it he writes that they were tapping out of the HD cameras and recording to a D5 deck on the side. From what I've heard so far-- and I could be wrong-- is that the FX-1 camera has a higher bandwidth output, but that it's the recording mechanism (and the MPEG2 encoding) are where the trouble lies. Why not take an output from the camera to a higher quality recording deck?

Maybe the problem would be that using the camera would be a cost saving measure, and would be for people (like myself) that couldn't afford the D5 deck?

More questions than answers...

Jeff Patnaude

I disagree--I've seen great stuff with the DVX100A, a camera I use almost daily with my students.

Panasonic, from what I saw, is not part of the four making HDV. Canon, Sony, JVC and Sharp.

heath

I was there and the Macaw shot was very pretty and HDish, but you could see the compression. Overall I'd rate it a very poor demonstration. Is HDV a practical application for HD or is it just a gimmick? I still don't have an answer. What they should have done is shot something in front of us, assembled it in Final Cut Pro or AVID, outputed to an HD format, like HDCAM, and displayed the footage on a true HD monitor.

The only good thing was I got to hook up with Chris Hurd.

Great to see you again, Chris! Next time it'll have to be dinner. I saw a lot of friends at this SMPTE presentation and that was definitely the best part about the whole evening. Except that D.S.E. didn't make it (but at least we were able to get together at Sony earlier that morning for the press conference).