I'm sitting on the sidelines at the moment watching the HDV story evolve. I started out doing wedding videos as a hobby with a little Sony TRV330. Anything I made I put back into my gear. I'm at the stage now where my gear is at a reasonable level. My main camera is an XL1 and I use a little Panasonic GS400 as a second static camera/backup (this also doubles as my family camera). I have a good amount of gear and am happy that I can cover most any situation that presents itself. My question is......should I sell my trusty XL1 and Panasonic while there is still some value in them and switch to a Sony HDR-FX1E and Sony HVR-A1 as backup (and family cam)....or.......do I sit tight and wait for prices to drop/new cameras to come out or what.

Switching to HDV at the mo looks to me a bit like the same scenario as what occired with 64bit processors. Everybody got caught up in the hype but, very little software existed that could use it so....it ended up really just a numbers game. I know that people will say that you can down res. I'm just wondering whether I am shelling out a lot of cash to effectively add not much and then be faced with spening more cash upgrading my PC to a better spec.

One thing that did occur to me was, if I bought a Blu Ray burner, would I not be able to encode at a much less compressed level which would lessen the quality difference between SD and HD (obvious image size difference excepted).

Just interested to see if anyone else has troddent he path before me and gotten any tips/advice that would help me decide what to do.

Cheers!

I am sure you will get a lot of opinions to your query. In my case I feel I would be looking at an investment of around $12,000 - $15,000 US (6400¡£ -8000£) to acquire two HD cameras and a new computer capable of handling the increased 5x or so data flow.

That is well beyond my means at this point. I will be following the lead chosen by a collegue of mine who works exclusively in commercial video. That is to simply wait for another year or so.

Just to play devil's advocate, I suggest upgrading now. If you continue to deliver SD DVDs for the moment, you have no need to upgrade your computers. You simply continue to edit in DV using the downconvert function of the camera. And the quality of the downconverted video is excellent.

At the moment, you could get a good price for your XL1, but I suspect the second hand market for them is going to bottom out soon. I bought a Z1 this year, and have not needed to deliver HDV video yet, but have enjoyed the use of a much better camera. I bumped my shooting rate up, and have paid back a good chunk of my investment already in just a few months. And I don't have to worry about being stuck with a DV camera that will be a dinosaur soon.

If you plan on continuing to shoot 4:3, you could even sell just the panasonic, and continue to use the XL1 as your backup cam....then you need only buy one HDV cam and no computer. Perhaps a way to ease into it instead of the major investment that Waldemar notes could be necessary.

The hardware cost for a decent computer, quite capable of editing HD, isn't high (less than a grand).

True, but an NLE to edit HDV might set you back the same or more. Depends on what he's using at the moment, I guess. And I don't know where you are shopping, but I would probably spend double that on a computer for HDV editing :)

The hardware cost for a decent computer, quite capable of editing HD, isn't high (less than a grand).

For the computer itself you're quite right. But HD broadcast monitors for colour correction, and the HD capable video cards to drive them etc drive the price up steeply.

Hello All

I think some have some good points on cost of a pc but if look at the right places you can get a really good deal on a pc that will handle hd. I just got a IBM Intellistation which is a monster graphics computer. It has 2 Xeon 2.2g processors (not dual core but 2 seperate processors) and 2gb of memory (upgradeable to 4gb) and 5 120g hard drives with raid and a 36g 15k scsi for the operating system and nle. The stock graphics card is a nvidia Quatro Pro with 128mb and dual digital dvi. I paid 400.00 for it and it looks brand new. I got it from a company that sells off lease servers and workstations. All I need is a good hd monitor and a better graphics card. Which I think I can get both of these for around or less than a grand. I currently use Vegas 6 which has hd capabilities.

Just my two cents

Hello All

I got it from a company that sells off lease servers and workstations.



Do they have another one they can send to Montreal? Heh, heh...

I think the driving force should be 16:9 Alastair, not HD or SD. Young couples rich enough to be buying a DVD of their wedding day, then jetting off to Mexico for their honeymoon won't be coming home to watch the film on an old 4:3 set, now will they?

So the argument to switch ASAP from 4:3 to 16:9 is a powerful one, not least because 4:3 kit still has some residual value. Next year it'll be getting harder to sell though, as Sony bring out more and more HC3 clones that make people double take when they see the picture quality vs the size of the camcorder.

I's say your choice of an FX1 and A1 is pretty good, though for weddings I'd rather do the switch to Z1 and HC1 for the audio and extra facilities on the Z1. The HC1/A1 is not good in the gloom - about the same as your GS400. When you get this new kit, simply film in the 16:9 SD mode. That way you can use your DSR-11 (whatever) to feed the pc and not put hours on the camcorder's meter.

So, sell your SD kit next week. Film in 16:9 the week after, and switch to HDV when you've upgraded the PC and found a market for your BluRay discs.

tom.

Tom's right on the button. And the Z1 records SD 16:9 natively. Much better than the cropped 16:9 of the PD150, for example.

Hi Guys,

I already shoot in 16:9 using my XL1 (isn't true 16:9 if I understand right) and GS400. To be honest, I think the GS400 blows away my XL1 but.....doesn't give the professional impression the XL1 does.

How does this sound. I sell my XL1, buy and FX1 (I can't afford anyhting bigger at this stage). I keep my GS400 for familiy stuff and as second "static" camera for ceremonies. Seeing as I will be downresing my FX1 footage to SD for output, I can mix it with the GS400 footage.

Gets my foot on the HDV ladder without spending too much.

I build my own PC's so.........upgrading isn't too much of an issue. I currently have a 3200 Athlon which I may just keep for Photoshop stuff and then build a new PC based on the New Core 2 Duo processor which I hear is the dogs ganglies for HDV.

You're right - the GS400 has a bigger chip. Switch from 4:3 to 16:9 and you can see that in the widescreen mode more of the imaging chip surfaces are being used, and you get more wide-angle coverage into the bargain.

The XL1 doesn't work like that, and I'm not surprised the Panasonic looks better in the 16:9 mode.

I think your plans to go for the FX1 is sensible, but you'll probably need a Beachtek box to allow you to plug in proper XLR mics.

tom.

Cheers Tom,

But....now I'm hearing about the new HDR-FX7 which sounds like its aimed at us guys specifically. May be worth holding off until Nov to see how the prices shake out for both it and the FX1.

As far as XLR's go, I'm wondering if my MA100 XLR adapter for my XL1 will work with the Sony??????

I take it until I can actually supply HD discs, mixing HG and SD footage shouldn't be an issue as I will be down resing the HD anyway?

Good thought, and the Canon XLR box should work well. And you're right, downconverted HD will intercut on the timeline with SD footage and then be carried on normal DVDs.

At the end of the day, What are your customers comments re technical quality of your video? What do your competitors offer? All the latest dinky toys may be great fun, but unless it puts a extra buck in your hip pocket it may not be worth it.

Research the market. Do your sums. Do a business plan. Then decide if a upgrade is warranted now or later.

At the end of the day, What are your customers comments re technical quality of your video? What do your competitors offer? All the latest dinky toys may be great fun, but unless it puts a extra buck in your hip pocket it may not be worth it.

Research the market. Do your sums. Do a business plan. Then decide if a upgrade is warranted now or later.


I agree with Owen and to some extent TomH. Unless you find out what your customers require then you may be introducing something they are not prepared to pay the extra for. You may find that this is currently a niche offering that people will want to pay an extra -say- 25% for so that in the decades ahead their great day can be seen in all its glory. From Toms perspective, HDV cameras are now cheap enough for the prosumer -imagine the feedback if your well shot SD video is outshone by the cousins HD one in 5 years on their 1080p 50" Plasma. History programs in colour are more powerful than B&W as it has become the defacto standard.

The longer you hold off the more that Moores Law will eat into the expense. If a competitor launches this product and starts eating into your market you can then invest at that point with the latest cheaper technology and undercut them.

In the meantime, you could purchase the HC1-HDV cam as your 'family cam' as you say to get used to the 16:9 format and it's quibbles (although given your experiance I don't think you are likely to find much that is strange to you). An HD capable NLE like Vegas can be bought and run on your current machine -albeit with long render times


Nick [Product Manager amongst other things!]

hi Alastair

(how you doing? it's Rich, will send you an email soon...)

cheers loads for pointing out the forthcoming HDR-FX7...sounds great although...

does it actually shoot in 16:9 or not??...i'm reading mixed reviews on that using google searches!

it's worth noting that i haven't had a SINGLE client ask for 16:9 or HD yet...i think it's more about the fact they come home from the honeymoon with a DVD to watch.... until of course people get HighDef TVs/players then yeah, the requests will change!

Rich
(shooting in 16:9, but NOT HD with the FX1!)

Shooting in 16:9 isn't a problem as I've been doing that for awhile, and yes, you are right in that it does take some getting used to.

I've been a Vegas user since Vegas 4 and wouldn't switch to anything else. I wasted a LOT of time and money on Pinnacle until I was guided to Vegas by a friendly Vegas user. It's ULTRA stable. Pinnacle should hang their heads in shame for some of the dross they have un-leashed over the years (man I'm still angry...thought I'd got over that!!!!!!)

As I said way back at the start, my XL1 still has some value. 6 months time........it will be a different story. I'd sooner jump now. LOTS of guys around my area are crowing about shooting in HDV (lot of baloney I know), However, this way, I get started shooting/getting used to HDV.

The one small advantage that others have mentioned is that you can crop/pan a HDV shot further than you can with SD and any grabbed stills will be of a higher quality.

"While the chips have been upgraded in resolution, they are still 4:3 native aspect ratio chips. The lens on the HDR-FX7 is also smaller than the HDR-FX1 at 62mm thread size (versus the HDR-FX1's 72mm) . The smaller lens also impacts low light performance. Although the camcorder ultimately produces 16:9 aspect ratio video, it does this by slightly stretching each pixel horiztonally. The Canon XL H1 and XL A1 do not have to do this because they have native 16:9 chips"

Oooooooo, you mean this bit about the new HDR-FX7. The HDR-FX1 has native 16:9 chips. Well spotted! Not sure what this translates to in real life though?????

Full article here:-
http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/Sony-Announces-Smaller-Less-Expensive-HDR-FX7-with-3-CMOS-Chips.htm

Of course, when you use two cameras for Weddings, if you upgrade one camera, you have to upgrade the other one, don't you?
Since HDV, is not being asked for, and, might never catch on, what with Brides' not wanting too much facial, detail showing, I suspect anyway, and wanting more black and white scenes included, and T.V. Presenters aren't very keen on it, are they? And they have a team of makeup artists at hand! Why must we fall again for the sales hype, e.g. Widescreen, we use it now in the U.K. but everywhere else, seems to still be happy with 4:3. ( I do shoot wide)
Who is making enough money to keep on getting rid of perfectly good gear? Just to keep up to date? There's got to be a limit.
Plus, I'm sick of all these new instruction books. Togs can keep their cams for years, and charge twice the price that we can!

Alastair, this is a common misconception, and I quote:

''The lens on the HDR-FX7 is also smaller than the HDR-FX1 at 62mm thread size (versus the HDR-FX1's 72mm) . The smaller lens also impacts low light performance.''

Rubbish. The diameter of the filter thread has no bearing whatsoever on the speed of the lens. The VX2100 has a 58 mm filter thread but its lens is faster (i.e. it has a wider maximum aperture at telephoto) and the camera is far more light sensitive than the XL2, the DVX100B, the FX1 and many more cameras I could mention. These all have 72 mm filter threads BTW.

tom.

I'm finding this thread interesting. I am moving toward doing mostly weddings and I own an XL1. I've been stumped on what other cam to buy. I was thinking PD170 (i'd use the low-ligh capabilities of the PD for WS/MS and get CUs with the XL1) but now I'm leaning toard the FX1. I plan on continuing shooting SD for now so I'm hoping the FX1 and XL1 will match up OK. I've heard that even the SD from the FX1 is great and that if you crank the gain it gets almost no noise and is fine in low light. I'm thinking that if I get the FX and plan on investing in beefing up the computer and monitor etc ove the next year or so I'll be covered nnow and when people are ready for HDV I'll be ready.

Any opinions on my plan are appreciated.

-Don

The FX1 is indeed a fine camera, but it's shooting onto native 16:9 and if you switch it to 4:3 you're using a smaller portion of the 1"/3 chips.

Generally cutting between cameras from different manufacturers will land you with colour correction headaches, so I hope your NLE has a real-time white balance filter.

The PD170 is a lovely camera for weddings because of its audio varsatility, its good low light performance and its telephoto reach. If you're seriously considering the FX1 you should really bite the bullet and get a Z1 - you'll be so pleased you did.

tom.

The longer you wait the cheaper it gets. I just don't see a point in buying a brand new HDV cam for the sole purpose of downcoverting to SD now. Stick with SD, that HDV camera you want now will be a fraction of the cost when you actually need it and can make money in the HD market.

Maybe where you are Marco, but here in Europe your theory doesn't hold up. Prices - in real terms - don't drop, and the VX2000, VX2100, FX1, FX7 etc have all remained at the same price point for years.

Even at the end of the production run prices remain high for the simple reason these (and other lines) are very good, reliable, competent cameras. There's been simply no need to drop the street price.

The point about moving to an HDV camera now is to take advantage of the second hand value of your current SD camcorder, to get you using 16:9 chips, and in the case of the FX1 vs the VX2100, say, to give you the far better ergonomics of a more modern camera and the option to shoot your master tapes in HiDef. And all for no more money. What's not to like?

tom.

Don. You were hoping your xl1 and a new fx1 will match up. The answer is yes and no. We have shot field interviews for a tv show using the xl1s and the fx1 together. With proper three point lighting and matching through a field monitor you would be hard pressed to tell the two cams apart. You can cut from one to the other and I really doubt if anyone can spot the difference.

I'm a great xl fan but I must admit the fx1 beats the xl1s hands down in run and gun situations in poor lighting. In my experience the xl1s in low light gained up will look grainy compared to the fx1.

I appreciate everyone's input. Owen, thanks for sharing your exoperience of mixing cams. I don't even have the XL1s, but just the ol' XL1 (which I believe is even worse in low-light).

I guess I still wonder...

IF I went with the FX1 for my main cam I'd keep shooting SD and use my XL1 for mostly the second cam at ceremony. I am the main shooter on my gigs so the second cam isn't that important (I hate putting those words together:) since I would get most of the final product with the FX1. Maybe get the FX1 and keep having my partner shooting with the XL until I save a few $$$ and get a A1 (or some other 1 chip) to use as my back-up/second cam... moving toward eventually (hopefully this would happen just as HDV players are becoming more prevelant) 2 FX1s. (The again who know what will be out next year:)

I presume you plan to shoot with the FX1 in the 16:9 mode Don. What's the XL1 like in this mode? I have a friend who has a PD170 as his second cam to a Z1 (both shooting widescreen) and to anyone's eyes the PD simply can't match the FX1 though both are shooting SD of course.

tom.

I've shot about thirty music items using xl1 and xl1s cams but never tried it in 16:9 Mainly because they don't have native 16:9 so I shoot in 4:3 and fake it in post. The xl1s makes it a bit easier as it has the 16:9 frame lines in the viewfinder. I'm in the same dilemma as hundreds of others. It's time to upgrade, but to what. Nobody in my neck of the woods has asked me for HD so untill thet do I'll stick with what I've got.

Now just to give you all REALLY sore heads why not do the following:-

http://www.redgiantsoftware.com/instanthd.html

It costs $99, the samples look pretty impressive. Now, doing this, I could up convert to HD which is going to look comparable if not better than a downconverted FZ1's footage. Yes/No?


OK, with me so far?

I then need to offer a way of delivering this HDV Footage to my clients.

Blu-Ray burner...yes...but who has a DVD Player that can play them....almost nobody.

Alternatively, I've seen a standalone hard-drive unit that you can hook up to your HD-Ready display that allows you to load your full resolution High Def footage on. I could offer this unit to clients at cost.

As you can see, for a total outlay of $99 I can potentially offer a HD service.

Discuss!

Then, after I've done all this, I then start wondering about ULTRA High Definition which I've just read about. MOMMA!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra_High_Definition_Video

Never answered the question on what is the XL1 16:9 footage like. To be honest, I'm not that impressed with it. As others mentioned it's native chip size os 4:3 so it's electronically achieving it which looses quality. Probably explains why I prefer the footage I get from my GS400 "family cam".

Gues that me talkingmyself BACK into needing a new camcorder.

Maybe where you are Marco, but here in Europe your theory doesn't hold up. Prices - in real terms - don't drop, and the VX2000, VX2100, FX1, FX7 etc have all remained at the same price point for years.

Even at the end of the production run prices remain high for the simple reason these (and other lines) are very good, reliable, competent cameras. There's been simply no need to drop the street price.

The point about moving to an HDV camera now is to take advantage of the second hand value of your current SD camcorder, to get you using 16:9 chips, and in the case of the FX1 vs the VX2100, say, to give you the far better ergonomics of a more modern camera and the option to shoot your master tapes in HiDef. And all for no more money. What's not to like?

tom.


Yes I have to totally agree with the your statement about Europe, but that is there. Here in the U.S., prehistoric era still, people are lazy and reluctant to trash their 32" 4:3 TV just to watch 10 extra channels in HD at another $5 -$10 a month. Now I am more than happy to and have upgraded to HDTV and service, but as for the millions upon millions here in the states, pffft!
Also, the VX2100 has dropped by a third of the cost in under 2 years. In another year I don't see the VX2100 above $1800. I got my for $1750 with less than 15 hours on it. I could be wrong, but as newer better cams come out at that cost, why would they keep the old camera in the same price range?