Xl3 Hdv 24p

[Paul Brady]

Is this three years away?

[John DeLuca]

The real question is.......How long do you think it will take for blue ray, or HD-DVD to be as big and wide spread as standard dvd is now? I've heard that HDV pauses in the middle of taping at any given time (please tell me im wrong) due to its mpeg compression. Can you imagine taping a live/non-repeatable event, and having your camcorder pause in the middle of it....unexceptable. I can only see HDV being used in controlled environments where you can retake a scean if the compression screws up. Canon would have made a big mistake making the XL2 HDV at this point.


John

[Jimmy McKenzie]

...but it will depend on the yet to be formed consortium of companies that will make the hd/dv/dvpro the final format for optimum quality and throughput to the masses via a huge capacity disk as the deliverable.
No doubt one will break from the pack and launch a mildly disruptive consumer marketing campaign to boost short term sales of yet another ground breaking early adopter pay the freight maybe it'll sell platform to muddy the waters at that point.
My guess is that it'll be a company that uses an acronym for their corporate name/identity.
Look for Canon and Panavision in a joint venture to create a mid level cinema hd cam at 24p with an aggressive price point for digital print to film houses set up at the many Canon service centers throughout North America.
It'll come standard with pro rack for focus and matte box to eliminate the afternarket and of course the 35mm lens will be standard.
That should be useful for about 10 years.
The indies will cheer the ease of production and price point to get their stories to the masses.

[Zack Birlew]

Well, the problem I see with Canon making an HDV camera is "when?" I mean, I think it was a TERRIBLE idea to make the XL2 now and wait for HDV later. I mean there will, of course, be that small group that uses the XL2, but that's just it, it's a small group. Canon could have simply lowered the price of the XL1S one more time to maybe the $2500-3000 range for one more year and make the XL2 HDV. They could have also probably taken the time to set up an XL1S-lense adapter for the XL2 on the side. But hey, I'm not the president of Canon, so what do I know? I forsee Canon losing some dough on the Sony HDV cameras, but that's my guess.

I personally think that the next step, after HDV, should be for better lenses that are on the same quality as professional 35mm lenses and affordable enough for the prosumer. I'd pay $500-1000 for a lense that probably cost less than that to make (like most lenses are anyway [metal tube + glass + connector fitting = lense])

[Jimmy McKenzie]

I personally think that the next step, after HDV, should be for better lenses that are on the same quality as professional 35mm lenses and affordable enough for the prosumer. I'd pay $500-1000 for a lense that probably cost less than that to make (like most lenses are anyway [metal tube + glass + connector fitting = lense
Jack, what a poignant and brilliant statement to punctuate your hundredth post!
Kind of supports my hybrid theory of dv/lens evolution that will pave the way for the next generation of prosumer gear, leaning more to the pro side of the production equation.
Well stated.
Jimmy.

[Richard Alvarez]

Jack,

Your analysis of what goes into a lens reminds me of the old saying "A souflee is just eggs..."

It's the quality of the glass (often determined from the area of beach the sand comes from) the tollerance for polishing, the quality of coating, the tolerance for mounting, the machining of the threads, the electronics in the drive... And much more that goes into the price of a lens.

Still, I think you are right that better lenses are due. Myself, I opted for the 16x manual with my XL2. I'd buy a manual wide angle if it were available.

[Rob Lohman]

Well, the problem I see with Canon making an HDV camera is "when?" I mean, I think it was a TERRIBLE idea to make the XL2 now and wait for HDV later. I mean there will, of course, be that small group that uses the XL2, but that's just it, it's a small group.

I'm wondering why you think this. A large part of the world is still
not ready for HD. I have no real use here in Holland for any HD
material. Yes, it might be nice to have higher resolution if the
footage gets ever used in the future, but how realistic is this?
Not very much for most people.

I'd much rather have the more professional form factor, inter-
changable lenses and true progressive instead of the Sony's
current HDV interlaced offering for example.

[Lawrence Stevens]

I agree
At the end of the day, the format you record onto should be determined by the final medium to which the footage is to be viewed. Not many people have HD TV's, so it's a bit of a waste of time for that - also standard PC's are just only on the verge of being able to deal with HDV.

It seems similar to the debate of shooting in 24/25p mode on the XL2. If you are shooting for broadcast then you should shoot 50/60i not in progressive - forget that it captures the full frame! Broadcast is not HDV at the mo except for a few pockets around the world, so shoot for what most of the world is using NOW.

I would also like to add the main reason everyone is in debate over MiniDV and HDV is the topic of the increased resolution it provides. Well it's the same old cheesy addage of it's not how many you have but it's what you do wiht it that counts. More pixels does not neccessarily mean better image quality. This is exemplified by looking at the mega pixel wars in still digital cameras. Not all cameras with the same number of pixels (eg 4 MP) produce the same image quality. In fact some lower (more expensive) mega pixelled cameras produce a higher image quality than the higher (cheaper) megapixelled cameras. I have had a 1 Mega Pixel photo printed professionally at standard photo size and it looks amazing - 1 mega pixel!

Keep in mind Sony still only have the same chip size (1/3") for their chips too. More pixels crammed into the same area means smaller pixels and that can be bad.

Going back to the "it's what you do with it" line - I think the Canon processes the image it gets from it's chips very well - The best in fact of all the MiniDV cameras (I have used lots and now own an XL2) It is a good camera for here and now, and HD is not quite here and now. If you keep thinking about holding back to try and future proof your investment, then you are wasting your time! It's like computers (or any digital equipment for that matter) it's always going to be superseeded by new stuff.

To finish, it seems there are mainly 2 groups of people that are going to buy the XL2. People who make money form the XL2 - and if you make money from it, then get one now and it should pay for itself, and get it's replacement when you can no longer get away with making money from the XL2.
On the other hand are short film makers trying to get into the industry. You are showcasing your talent - not your ability to buy the latest gadget. You film will not be judged on whether it is shot on HD or MiniDV or not - your talent WILL shine through whatever format.

Lawrence

[Hayden Rivers]

<<<-- Originally posted by Lawrence Stevens : You[r] film will not be judged on whether it is shot on HD or MiniDV.
Lawrence -->>>

Right.....

[Jose di Cani]

Canon is playing with us, people! Don't you see it? Like all the rest camcorder companies, they introduce new variants of existing camcorders, trying to sell and expand the lifespan/lifeccycle of products. The xl2 wasn't really needed, but only one change (24 fps) was enough to introduce a new variant.

I agree that Canon can better invest their money in better technology like HDV. Period.

[Brent Ray]

In my opinion, HDV right now looks almost too crisp. It doesn't have that charming film look you can get with the Canon XL series cameras. I don't want a super-clear picture most of the time. It's nice when it has that soft, film-like look to it. Just an opinion.

[Ignacio Rodriguez]

> In my opinion, HDV right now looks almost too crisp.

I agree. However, I want a camera that will let me decide what kind of look I want, by capturing high resolution, wide lattitude and in a reasonably intelligently compressed format (DV is that past, HDV can be better, especially if they push the bandwidth to 50 Mbps). Good optics, a large and sensitive sensor will do the trick. CMOS, probably, and 35mm optics, the photo lenses are already on the market. The only thing missing right now is a 35mm RGB CMOS chip at a consumer price that can do 30p or 60p at a high enough resolution. The Sony FX1/Z1 is a step in the right direction, but it badly needs a larger sensor, because it's low-light performance is insufficient.

[Murad Toor]

<<<-- Originally posted by John DeLuca : I've heard that HDV pauses in the middle of taping -->>>

I hope you remember who told you that, so in the future you know he/she is full of nonsense. HDV does not pause in the middle of taping, even if you shoot an entire tape non-stop from start to finish. The picture and sound is unbroken. The only "break" you get is at the very beginning of recording, which should be of no consequence to professional shooters because we account for pre-roll and post-roll as s.o.p. anyway.

[Ignacio Rodriguez]

Hi Murad, I didn't go back and read the original post so I don't know who posted it. Whether that person has said nonsense in the past or not I cannot say. What I can say from what I have learned lately is that the MPEG used in HDV is of the GOP variety, GOP stands for Group Of Pictures. In GOP-based compression, the group of pictures are dependant on one other, in this case picture 2 depends on picture 1, picture 3 depends on picture 2 and so on. This works really well because the compression scheme uses the available bandwidth to describe the changes in each picture (as related to the previous picture) and thus you can have such high resolution video at such a small bandwidth. Now enter the world of tape. Tape is an inexpensive, wideley available technology that has evolved across decades and basically stems from analog times, where a certain degree of noise was to be expected. When you put digital information on tape, noise becomes error and when error occurs you get a lost frame. In DV, you can hardly tell when a frame is lost, because there are 29.97 per second (or 25) in PAL. In HDV, if you miss a frame the WHOLE GROUP OF PICTURES can be lost. For a group of 15 pictures, this is half a second. More than enough to notice. Actually, very terrible. This seems to be HDV's main shortcoming, and this is why Sony has come up with a new tape that promises much less error rates. This is also DVCAM track pitch will probably be mandatory for any professional HDV work. With DV you could get away with some skipped frames so many pros work their DVCAM equipment at DV (SP) tape speed to save on tape costs (and perhaps on head wear) and nobody seems to mind much. This shorcoming is addressed by Panasonic, who allegedly will be pushing a higher bandwidth disk-based MPEG consumer HD format.