This camera "WILL" be an awesome camera! and must have for indies...

[Chris Hurd]

Hi Aaron,

Originally Posted by Aaron Koolen

Still, I would have expected Canon of all companies to provide a completely manual lens.

And what makes you think they won't do that? Remember the XL1 came out in 1997 and it wasn't until much later in 1998 when the 14x manual lens was offered. Just because there isn't a manual lens for the H1 now, doesn't mean there never will be.

I'm talking here about the people who look for an all in one package without having to buy lots of extras like recording decks. Of course, it's looking like the market for this camera is not those people anymore and that's fine, for those who it's now aimed at, but not for us.

This particular camera clearly is not aimed at that market. Maybe their next one will be?

If I'm doing run and gun, I'm not going to carry a deck with me, so it's HDV.

I think the XL H1 does great HDV, but I wouldn't buy it for that. You'll be much better off with the Sony Z1, unless you must have the 24F mode. The Z1 is still king of the mountain in that range in my opinion.

[Michael Maier]

Originally Posted by Thomas Smet

With the CANON I can do
1080i
1080p 30p
1080p 24p
720p 30p
720p 24p
softer 720p 60p
1080i 50i
1080p 25p
720p 50p interpolated
720p 25p
and any SD format I want to down convert to either NTSC or PAL at 24p, 25p, 30p, 50i or 60i.

Where is it written the H1 can shoot all that? Canon's site says only 1080i with 30f anf 24f.

[Michael Wisniewski]

I wonder if Canon will sell the PAL version in Europe and then sell an NTSC upgrade. Hmmm ...

[Guy Barwood]

It has been stated that the CCD block is interlaced, not progressive, so I don't know why anyone is getting excited about recording 1080p. From an interlaced CCD is can only be an electronic conversion, nothing a NLE can't do from 720p or 1080i etc

The best thing about this camera is the CCD being pretty much native 1440x1080 for its 1080i. This might make sensitivy even more of a problem with this camera though (even smaller pixels than the Z1 and HD100).

[Chris Hurd]

The 50i/60i conversion is available to both North American and European versions.

[Chris Hurd]

Originally Posted by Michael Maier

1080i
1080p 30p
1080p 24p
720p 30p
720p 24p
softer 720p 60p
1080i 50i
1080p 25p
720p 50p interpolated
720p 25p
and any SD format I want to down convert to either NTSC or PAL at 24p, 25p, 30p, 50i or 60i.

Where is it written the H1 can shoot all that? Canon's site says only 1080i with 30f anf 24f.

Michael, I don't think you're clear on the concept of uncompressed HD out to HD-SDI. All those formats are possible because there are various HDCAM, DVCPRO HD, D5-HD etc. decks which accept HD-SDI in and record to those formats.

[Ram Ganesh]

Originally Posted by Chris Hurd

Michael, I don't think you're clear on the concept of uncompressed HD out to HD-SDI. All those formats are possible because there are various HDCAM, DVCPRO HD, D5-HD etc. decks which accept HD-SDI in and record to those formats.

is there a way to store it until we can get it to a rental house deck?

Eg: I can shoot it in a museum, store the footage in a tape/hdisk, take it to a HD deck rental place - and convert it to whatever format i want?

[Chris Hurd]

You'd be shooting HDV. Not that HDV is all that bad. I saw some beautiful HDV at the Canon Expo, looked absolutely stunning... but the few pans that were in that video were very slow pans. Those are my favorite kind anyway.

[Adrian Vallarino]

"crappy HDV" ? Last time I checked before HDV came out indies were shooting on MiniDV... so,unless all have suddenly won the Lotto and changed to the new Arriflex D-20, HDV is a hell lotta better than DV.
So how I see it HDV is a blessing for indies on a below zero budget.

So yeah, the new Canon has HD SDI output, great!! I will plug it straight to my Quantel iQ v1.2 with 7TB of storage so I can handle it... gimme a break!

In my world 99% of the work I do I can do it with a Z1, if I ever need more for that 1% Ill rent a Viper and post somewhere else.

And people should really get over the 24p thing, if making a good movie absolutely depends on you being able to shoot 24p then you might start looking for another job.

If you really need to degrade your work to make it look like a choppy 100 year old technology you can always do it in post and save thousands of dollars.

Don't get me wrong, I do like film look in many cases and I have converted to 24p a lot of my stuff, but I rather capture as much information as I can and then tweak it to my liking in post, witch I can do with my cheap G5 dual 2.7MHZ and a couple hundred gigs in IEEE1934 drives. There is a path from 60i to 24p but there is no path the other way. 60i gives me options that 24p dosn't.

So, here is my prediction for the REAL world : the new Canon is not even going to bruise Sony's dominance of cheap HD market. Nor will the new Panasonic. The only one that may do a bit of damage is the JVC, then again not having 1080 is a bummer.

[Chris Hurd]

I agree with you completely Adrian. The new Canon's biggest competition is the JVC HD100. The HVX200 is over in another arena entirely; the Sony Z1 is also in another place altogether. Each of these cameras have specific target markets and very different applications from each other.

[Michael Maier]

Originally Posted by Chris Hurd

Michael, I don't think you're clear on the concept of uncompressed HD out to HD-SDI. All those formats are possible because there are various HDCAM, DVCPRO HD, D5-HD etc. decks which accept HD-SDI in and record to those formats.

Oh ok. It's because I was counting what the camera can record, not what it can send out. But anyway, doesn't it have to output 720p in order to a DVCPRO-HD deck to record it? Or the deck to the convertion from 1080i to 720p? I was under the impression te H1 outputs 1080i only.

[Chris Hurd]

That's what's so cool about it... a DVCPRO HD deck will record that incoming HD-SDI video at 720p.

[Michael Maier]

But doesn't a DVCPRO-HD deck has also component IN? So it would also record what comes out the Z1 as 720p. But that doesn't make the Z1 a 720p camera right?
See, what I'm not getting is all this hype over the SDi and people saying the camera can do 1080p, 720p etc. The camera can not. The decks will. But that's a different piece of equipment. You have to buy or rent it. There’s an added cost for that. And the other cameras can do it too. It sounds like a market gimmick to me. Really does. Sorry, but the H1 is a HDV camcorder. If people will consider it a 720p or 1080p HD camera because it can output video, which can be recorded by other decks as such, then so is the HD100 and Z1. Can you record 720p or 1080p to a computer from the H1? I would think not. So, it's a 1080i HDV camcorder, which outputs 1080i via SDI.

[Kevin Wild]

Originally Posted by Michael Maier

But doesn't a DVCPRO-HD deck has also component IN? So it would also record what comes out the Z1 as 720p. But that doesn't make the Z1 a 720p camera right?
See, what I'm not getting is all this hype over the SDi and people saying the camera can do 1080p, 720p etc. The camera can not. The decks will. But that's a different piece of equipment. You have to buy or rent it. There’s an added cost for that. And the other cameras can do it too. It sounds like a market gimmick to me. Really does. Sorry, but the H1 is a HDV camcorder. If people will consider it a 720p or 1080p HD camera because it can output video, which can be recorded by other decks as such, then so is the HD100 and Z1. Can you record 720p or 1080p to a computer from the H1? I would think not. So, it's a 1080i HDV camcorder, which outputs 1080i via SDI.

I think you're right in your thinking, Michael. A better way to describe this would probably be to say it outputs the highest quality signal, so if it needs to be converted to other resolutions, it's possible. In other words, you can't take 720p out of the JVC and get real 1080i signal even with a deck. This is just an uncompressed stream...highest quality possible. You want to convert it? Fine...

Remember my post about wanting more than HDV from this camera? This is exactly what I was talking about. It's a high quality option that will allow a MUCH higher quality signal than HDV, if needed. Options are always good and Canon did a great thing by putting the SDI out on this camera.

In essence, this is what those Andromeda/Reel Stream guys were trying to do...grabbing an uncompressed signal (though SD for them) before it compresses for tape output. Only it's built in and it's a fully digital signal...

Kevin

[Michael Maier]

Originally Posted by Kevin Wild

I think you're right in your thinking, Michael. A better way to describe this would probably be to say it outputs the highest quality signal, so if it needs to be converted to other resolutions, it's possible. .

That’s a different thing than saying “It’s a format agnostic camera”.

Originally Posted by Kevin Wild

Remember my post about wanting more than HDV from this camera? This is exactly what I was talking about. It's a high quality option that will allow a MUCH higher quality signal than HDV, if needed. Options are always good and Canon did a great thing by putting the SDI out on this camera.

Ok, and what are you going to do? Buy a HDCAM deck for the camera? For a 1/3" prosumer camera? Ok, you may say you can rent. But if you are renting a HDCAM deck, rent a F900 already and get the full specs. Why rent a HDCAM deck for a 1/3" prosumer camera? It's like hyping around you are buying a camping tent and is renting a garden in a Bervely Hills mansion to camp on the weekend. No sense really. The whole idea of buying a 1/3" camera is to get good quality video on a budget, otherwise get the higher end stuff. If you pay 9k for a prosumer camera, but have to add on expensive hardware to make it perform above the 6k cameras, what's the point?

Originally Posted by Kevin Wild

In other words, you can't take 720p out of the JVC and get real 1080i signal even with a deck. This is just an uncompressed stream...highest quality possible.

Well, in my opinion, highest quality would be 1080p.