Here in South Africa, there's about a $200 difference between the Sony VX2100 I'm looking to get and the FX1 which is HDV...Most homes here havn't really upgraded to HDTV ready televisions, so would investing in an HDV camera be quite a moot point? Should I rather stick the VX2100 I'm looking to buy? If DV is about 12gb an hour, how large are HDV video files? Would I encounter problems capturing, editing and exporting (with Premiere 2.0)?

IS there a very large difference in quality between HDV and Mini-DV? $200 doesn't seem like such a huge difference for camera's that are worlds apart.

Hi Aviv

HDV files, when captured, are the same size as DV files - about 13Gb per hour. After that, it may well require more hard-disk space and more processing power to edit / render etc but i'll leave this for others to answer.


Resolution is 3 or 4 times as high with HDV compared to DV so it's a massive difference.
My opinion is to go for the FX1 certainly. You will still get superb DV footage out of that, even if you can't currently deliver HDV to many of your friends and family etc. Also if you shoot HDV now, you will have the HDV for all time, and so when HDTV's etc become more prevalent, you can go back to footage you shot years ago with your FX1 and you'll always have it in HDV.

You know you want to...... get the FX1.

cheers from the UK.

I'm editing on an AMD 3400+ 64bit
1GB RAM
Geforce6800 Ultra graphics card...

Will this cope?

My father offered to buy me the VX2100 to help with my business start-up, and he knows it's the camera I've had my eye on for a long time (which I have)...I'm going to have to spend some time researching the specs of the FX1 to the same degree I've studied the VX.

How easy is it getting HDV tapes? (Especially in a country where HDV really hasn't hit the mainstream?) the camera can still record on Mini-DV tapes, you say?

My editing monitor is also not HD so would I even notice the difference whilst editing?

i'm not an editing expert but yes by the sounds of it your system would cope fine with editing HDV.
Rendering times on HDV stuff can be longer, but you can just kick it off at night and it's all done in the morning (if it takes that long).

You don't need the expensive HDV tapes for recording HDV. Good quality MiniDV tapes do fine - the quality as recorded is identical as it's recorded digitally and not analogue like in the old days of 'normal' audio tapes where you would get a better quality recording out of a better more expensive tape.

Sony Premium tape has been used by a lot of people recording HDV perfectly fine, and essentially any miniDv tape should work.

You won't *need* a Hi-Def monitor to edit HDV but in the end it'd be nice to actually *see* the qualityt of something that's 3 or 4 times the resolution of standard DV, so if you've got an HDTV or can get one then that'd be good.

If you're going to watch your footage on a PC monitor, it's probably best to de-interlace since PC monitors are progressive-scan and the footage from VX2100 and HDV cams like the Sony's are interlaced scan.

Actually you can just completely put aside the issue of HDV. The FX1 can be used as a regular DV camera, just like the VX-2100. But there are lots of reasons to choose the FX1 even if you don't shoot HDV:

* Vastly superior LCD screen and viewfinder
* Vastly superior manual iris control
* All around better manual controls
* Vastly superior 16:9 in DV mode
* Many more image controls and ability to store multiple picture profiles
* Multiple white balance options
* Truly independent control of shutter speed (VX-2100 has some caveats)

Now you can also shoot HDV and record to tape, but turn on iLink Downconversion when you capture and you'll then have an HDV master tape for future use but be able to edit regular DV the same as always for now. This also seems to give better quality than shooting in DV mode.

The main reason to choose the VX-2100 would be if you need to work in very dark places. It may have a 1 to 1.5 f-stop advantage, but there are other factors which offset this. See the following: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=54414

Also see the following collection of threads comparing the two cameras: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=50112

I have a VX-2000 and an HVR-Z1. I don't use the VX at all these days. The FX1 and Z1 really represent the evolution of the VX-2100 and PD-170. If the prices are that close together in your country I'd have to say that this one is a "no-brainer" unless there are some external forces you didn't mention.

Thanks Boyd,

The local Sony site lists there to be a $2000 difference, while a local site (www.sacamera.co.za) has them down to a few hundred dollar difference.