Regarding camera size.

When I put my HC1 on a monopod with it's lens hood, including a wireless receiver, and a 6" LCD and a lanc on a seperate appendage, it became an impressive piece. I carried this throughout a hospital in one of my shoots and was stopped by security guards "are you a member of a news agency?", and drew the attention of many on lookers "whoa, look at that camera". Much of this attention I receive with a decked out XL1s on a rig.

Rip the HC1 camera down to it bare essentials, and your instant tourist. Zero attention. I know this because I brought that camera into the very same facility a week before to scout locations for the shoot.

On the other hand, I've taken my barebones XL1s to family events and became the center of attention where I wish I hadn't. Don't knock the size of the camera. Like a good meal, it not just the taste, but all in the presentation.

All Sony has to do to make a successor of the Z1 is to take all of the features of the V1 and stick em on the Z1, add HD-SDI and set the retail price to $7,000. Simple.

What's really funny are all the pictures of the mini SI-1920 from Silicon Imaging--it's a teeny, tiny little head with a big ol' lens, but it makes wonderful pictures.

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/forumdisplay.php?f=129

Don't let the size of a camera fool you anymore.

heath

At the risk of being a total geek, this reminds me of a point I reached over two decades ago: I got into recording live bands on a Walkman Pro (WM-D6C) with two ECM-55s. It worked really well, way beyond the usual of the time, a new way of using standard tech - bit like HDV. Then comes mini-disk. I tried it, had some bad experiences, binned it, missed the bandwagon.

The Z1 is the Walkman Pro. We're waiting for the mini-disc (AVC?), but Sony will twiddle with the Walkman Pro spec yet never achieve the balance and assertive feature set established at get-go. All this is stalling for the next 'big thing'.

As a Z1 owner, I envy the 20x lens and progressive scan of the V1, beam confidently about my Z1 image quality in SD, but I remember the jump between Cassette and Mini-Disc. Sony's answer to the new Canon cameras is comforting, but I feel - with a Z1 - I can wait a little while longer.

If I were a PD150 owner looking to upgrade, though... Ouch.

But did someone mention 1/4" chips?

So how about a Z1 based DSR-250? 2/3" chips? Interchangable lenses? Oh right - DSR-450. With good glass, maybe the upconvert is better than HDV?

How can a true 1920x1080 signal going to the 25mbps minidv tape?
I hear, that pana hvx200 has P2 card because 25mbps wasnt enough for this resolution.

Keep one thing in mind, the Panasonic's sensor size is 960x540 which then captures HD at either 960x720 or 1280x1080.

Too bad they're aren't any specifications, etc., on Panasonic's site that I can find that explains how this works, unlike Canon and Sony. Best I could find was the user's manual, but all it says is 720p and 1080i, nothing about horizontal resolution (I found that out by looking at Final Cut Pro's DVCPro HD settings and it's 1280x1080 and 960x720).

heath

Panasonic's white paper explains this. Go to:

http://catalog2.panasonic.com/webapp...0&displayTab=R

Then at the bottom left click on
Tech Paper - AG-HVX200's Advanced Progressive CCDs.

Thanks for linking to that.

heath

It's ridiculous to attempt to compare bitrates only, because they are two different compression schemes. I know it's tempting to do so, and have seen presenters comment on that specific attribute of both camcorders. It's good market hype, but that's effectively all it is.
DVCProHD is DV-based, and varies from as low as 40Mbps to 100Mbps.
HDV is MPEG based-HDV is either 25mbps, or 19mbps depending on whether it's 720 or 1080. No variances in the bitrates.

You can't compare them based on bitrate alone. They have to be compared via image, because MPEG is significantly more efficient, but is a GOP structure vs intraframe structure.

With compressed formats, you have the option of spatially or temporally compressing. Most manufacturers have expressed that temporal compression is a more efficient means of working, as spatially compressing means shifting up/down at various stages. This is where AVC HD has gotten its legs, there is no spatial compression, but rather temporal compression. Both compression schemes have merit, but again...they can't be compared as bitrates and math; it's a waste of time. you're comparing apples to breakfast cereal.
You can compare the imager, you can compare the images, but that's about it. Does it look good to you or not? If you like one over the other, then that's the one you should buy/rent/borrow.

Thanks for pointing this stuff out, Spot!

heath