Sony and JVC are soon to come out with new HDV cams for about 5k or so. I was looking seriously at the pani hvx as a potentially better option because of the 4 channel of sound and the hd signal. But since I have not seen footage from these new cams (including the pani, though I will next week) I have to ask those of you who have experienced the color rendition of the pani versus the hdv cams to comment on which format give the truest rendition of captured color. To the extent known please give concrete examples (or links). BTW, by better I mean greater quality in a technical sense as well as aesthetic. Thanks again.


Dwight

Sony and JVC are soon to come out with new HDV cams for about 5k or so. I was looking seriously at the pani hvx as a potentially better option because of the 4 channel of sound and the hd signal. But since I have not seen footage from these new cams (including the pani, though I will next week) I have to ask those of you who have experienced the color rendition of the pani versus the hdv cams to comment on which format give the truest rendition of captured color. To the extent known please give concrete examples (or links). BTW, by better I mean greater quality in a technical sense as well as aesthetic. Thanks again.


Dwight

In direct tests that I've seen between the HVX and the HD100, the HVX had better color resolution and was able to discern between more shades of the same color than what the HD100 could do. And, mathematically, this would be the expected result.

I think head to head comparisons are always difficult, in part because cameras have different characteristics and because the wide variance in possible settings of those cameras. So, to look at footage from one camera and then compare to another is, in my opinion, only a beginning point in making the assessment of which is right for you. I am an advocate of the DVCPRO HD codec because of its I-frame compression rather than GOP compression and because of its 4:2:2 color space. Now, it is entirely possible over the years that we will see better HDV codecs even as we are now starting to see a shift to CMOS chips, like in the Sony. But, let's face it,, 4:2:0 of HDV vs 4:2:2 of DVCPRO HD simply means you are working with more color information.

Ned Soltz

I've used many cameras and I have to say, the HVX produces color that smacks you in the eyes. (in a good way)

Example attached. This was shot in 1080/24 at Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania.

with DV50 and HDVProHD100 to the naked eye, colour wont be as discernable between formats... in the HVX case, its not simply colour, but motion and compression artefacting (or lack of) which plays a major role in this.
Many say the HVX is noisy, but from what ive seen, its one of the CLEANER cameras out there... being the codec is clean.. motion is clean, edges are clean ... mind u its running 4 times the bandwidth, but its not MPG

MPG2 brings noise and colour nuances into the picture on its own accord. This is the format, not the camera. Colour gradation wont EVER match... no matter what u do in post.. close but theres no way in hell your going to get the dynamic range from a HVX on any HDV system.
Biggest dissapointment with HVX for me though is the P2 system (being i work longform projects 99% of the time) and image sharpness (being teh upscaling in cam...

If they were smart, theyd allow the cam to capture in its native resolution, then we could scale that to HD in our PC's to whatever res we need. This would save space on the P2 card and allow the potential upgrading of the scaling engine through SW updates etc etc..

If they were smart, theyd allow the cam to capture in its native resolution, then we could scale that to HD in our PC's to whatever res we need.

They have this with the big brother HDX900. Somewhat more expensive though I'll grant, but in par with the market for the features.

Panasonic are missing a cam with a CCD bigger than 960x540 somewhere between the 200 and 900 I think, maybe a HVD500? :)

Big dissapointment for me, pixel shifting can really produce some bad pictures in certain situations and the 200 is not for every job.

Colorspace is 4:2:2 but only in digital post. So any form of keying on the analog picture or non-native workflow will reveal the CCD pixel shifting.

Look at http://dv.com/news/news_item.jhtml;jsessionid=J5IHDDZT13KV2QSNDBGCKH0CJUMEKJVN?articleId=177103305