CMOS ignorance

[Jerry Mohn]

I read the description Sony provided but I was a little taken back by all the assumptions that you can compare CMOS to CCD on a chip to chip basis. Can one chip do it all now with the CMOS technology. I think that is worth entertaining instead of writing it off on a chip to chip count, it might be comparing apples to oranges.

[Chris Hurd]

Actually one chip can do it all with CCD technology. The secret is not in the image sensor. Instead, it's a question of the color filter which is built in over the CCD and the quality and bit-depth of the Digital Signal Processor. A single-CCD camcorder with an RGB color filter will meet, and sometimes even exceed the color accuracy of a 3-CCD camcorder.

Case in point: compare a Canon GL1 3-CCD camcorder to a Canon Optura 60 1-CCD camcorder and you'll immediately notice a better looking image on the Optura 60. That's because it has an RGB color filter which emulates the three-chip look, and it has a newer, better DSP than the older GL1.

Although I haven't seen it yet, I'm willing to bet that the output from either of these new Sony single-CMOS camcorders will be at least as good as (if not better than) their recent 3-CCD camcorders (with the possible exceptions of the FX1 and Z1), not so much because of the CMOS image sensor but due more to their new Enhanced Imaging Processor.

You can't evaluate a camcorder by the number or type of image sensors it has or by the number of pixels. It's always going to have more to do with the camcorder's brain (that is, its image processor) than anything else. Hope this helps,

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

You can't evaluate a camcorder by the number or type of image sensors it has or by the number of pixels. It's always going to have more to do with the camcorder's brain (that is, its image processor) than anything else.

How dare you have a voice of reason?? :-)
It's the same argument or position I take when the math of the sensors starts coming into play. Let's not forget the value of how Sony's S-HADs work, either....

[Graeme Nattress]

I wouldn't be surprised if these new baby HDV cameras (lens permitting) have a better, higher resolution picture than the FX1 / Z1, at the expense of poorer low light capability.

You just have to look at the PDX10 compared to the PD170 - better picture on the PDX10, but worse low light than the PD170. The new HDV "pro" model even looks like a PDX10.... Now if they'd only made that 1 CMOS chip bigger.....

Graeme