OK, if I shoot in DV mode in the Z1, am I capturing a better DV image than one could get in the XL2 or the Panasonic, that is, are all 1.2 million pixcels/chip being used in the DV mode on the Z1 or is it "dumbed-down" to something similar to the XL2 (~400K)? Or can one even compare a native 16:9 to a 4:3 chip? Just curious...

Cheers!

Andrew Stone

For 60i, each 720x240 field will be derived from a 1440*x540 field.
For CF modes, each 720x480 frame will be derived from a 1440*x540 field.

*It is not clear that the downsampling to DV happens from a 1440 matrix or a 1920 matrix when coding straight to DV... though that's not likely to introduce much in the way of artifacts.

In a nutshell, it seems you get about the same performance with an FX1/Z1U in DV mode as you would with an XL2/DVX in DV mode for 60i. I imagine CF30 is very close to 30p on the XL2 and DVX. Since the temporal sampling of CF24 is not the same as the true 24p of the XL2/DVX, differences will crop up, though the resolution of a CF24 frame is probably similar to a 24p frame on the XL2/DVX.

Colour representation/control, handling, and lattitude will be somewhat different on the three cameras.

Thanks for the info...it'd be interesting to do some empirical comparisons, but I busted the bank getting the Z1 and don't know anyone in my nneck of the woods with an XL2...:)

Cheers!

Andrew Stone