Hi

I have a question about recording in stand def. I'm looking to replace my pd170s with the nx5u.

Can you record meg2 at 16x9? I also need to be able to output by composite to a Sony mc5 or Sony mc6 and record a 16x9 DVD while recording mpeg2 to the sd card.

Thanks

Hi Robert,

The NX5U MPEG2 SD is recorded at 720x480.

Thats 720x480 with pixel aspect ratio 1.2121 (16:9) or 0.9091 (4:3).

Thanks for the reply. So it is switchable from 4x3 or 16x9?

If that's right, will the 16x9 fill the screen of a large HDTV? 50 inch. I'm thinking the 720 might not.

will the 16x9 fill the screen of a large HDTV? 50 inch.

If you correctly master a widescreen DVD from the widescreen mpeg2 files, then the image will fill the 16x9 screen.

I believe the composite output from the NX5 is 16x9 SD even when you are shooting 1920x1080i. My memory is that a composite cable --- the yellow RCA cable with the red and white RCA audio cables --- from an NX5u is downrezzed to SD because the cable will only carry about 350 lines of video, so it is necessarily SD.

As for recording SD MPEG2 to cards, I briefly tested SD video with my NX5 and did not like it. In 16:9 widescreen SD, the video from the NX5 looked a lot like the widescreen SD from my VX2000, which is to say that it did not look very good. Switching the VX2000 back to 4:3 improved the look but that was not true for 4:3 Mpeg2 from my NX5.

Is there some reason you need to shoot SD? If you need to keep shooting SD, why spend $4k on an NX5 when you could keep using the PD170s? Are they wearing out? Is new AVCHD-capable software and computer hardware not in the budget?

Most of my clients want the product on DVD so I record with my NX5E SD MPEG2 16x9 ratio and on my Panasonic 50" TV it looks absolutely fantastic!!!

stelios

Is there some reason you need to shoot SD? If you need to keep shooting SD, why spend $4k on an NX5 when you could keep using the PD170s?

The simultaneous SD/HD recording is one of the features I love about the NX5U. I did a shoot this past week and recorded SD on cards and HD on the FMU128 flash memory. This project required a fast turn around so it was requested to be shot in SD for online transfer. I had five interviews plus about twenty minutes of b-roll transfered online in far less time then it would have taken if I shoot it all in HD and had to render it to SD. It just moved the files off the cards and sent them. Quick and easy.

Some of the captured footage was quite good and it was a moment that might not be repeated so it's a bonus it's available in HD.

A situation like this is one reason to shoot in SD although it's not quite the same as shooting only in SD. Might even be the only reason but I'm glad for it. Makes my life a lot easier especially when I get home at 10 PM and a client is waiting to see what I have.