Sony HVR-Z1U compared to Panasonic HVX-200

[Noah Kadner]

Pretty vast difference. Main advantage of the Z1 is price and use of tapes. HVX has it beat with higher quality HD compression and a greater variety of frame rates(including 60p and 24p) as well as 720p.

Noah

[Rob Katz]

noah-

why suggest the use of tapes as a difference between the camera?

i can imagine many that would use the hvx200 to shoot sd onto tape.

just one persons reason to purchase the hvx200

be well

rob katz
harvest film company

[Noah Kadner]

It’s one of the major differences between the two cameras which is what the original poster asked for. The Z1U shoots SD _and_ HD in the form of HDV to DV tape. The HVX200 is only capable of shooting DV to DV tape. DVCPRO50 and DVCPROHD go to P2 which on a per minute basis is quite expensive at current prices. Though of course there are major workflow benefits to going tapeless.

Noah

[Barry Green]

Well, simply put, the HVX does almost everything the Z1 does, and lots and lots of things that the Z1 doesn’t. The HVX produces sharper footage in 1080/60i, with better sensitivity and way more latitude. Its footage looks substantially better than the Z1’s.

Unique selling points for the Z1: it’s switchable 50i & 60i, and it records on tape, and can get an hour of HDV-caliber footage on a $5 tape.

Unique selling points for the HVX: it’s got a better focus assist, a true manual zoom, a less-cluttered LCD and viewfinder, it uses real DVCPRO-HD recording, it has four channels of uncompressed audio, frame-discrete compression, it can record true progressive scan in 1080/24p and 1080/30p, it also supports true progressive scan in 720/60p and about a dozen variable framerates in 720p, it also has near-DigiBeta-caliber recording in the excellent DVCPRO50 mode, and its focus assist system is way better than the Sony’s and can be used while recording (which the Sony cannot do).

They’re not in the same class, other than at price. HDV is not DVCPRO-HD, and never will be. It’s quite amazing for what it is, but it just isn’t as good as DVCPRO-HD (and don’t just take my word for it, take Canon’s): Canon makes the HDV XLH1, but when it came time to shoot expensive footage to demo their own camera, did they record it on their own HDV format? No, they sure didn’t. They instead went out and rented (or bought) a $30,000 DVCPRO-HD deck, and piped out the HD-SDI signal to that deck! Yes, you heard that right — Canon wouldn’t even use their own HDV format, they instead used Panasonic’s DVCPRO-HD format, and paid extra to do that. The exact same format, the exact same codec that the HVX records natively. And at DV Expo, Canon dubbed their HDV footage over to DVCPRO-HD and used that to play back the footage in their booth. They didn’t show any footage from HDV at all, they showed it all from DVCPRO-HD. So, what does that tell you?

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[Gary Taylor]

Hi Barry,
Thanks for all your reports from the floor at the conference floor. The HVX-200 looks to be mighty cool, and I see myself getting one once everything gets things get sorted out. Especially once there are a couple of shipping hard drive recording options.

I agree that the XL-H1 is an excellent complement for a DVCPRO HD tape deck. That HD-SDI port presents alot of options if you can accept being tethered. I have also been reading pretty good things about the native HDV capabilities. How do you think the HVX-200 will compare to the XL-H1 when shooting 1080 60i?

Wasn’t some of the XL-H1 footage originally shot in HDV and then edited on DVCPRO HD? In particular I thought the Italian footage was shot in HDV. I think there are many like me who are shooting in Sony HDV with plans to finish with Final Cut in DVCPRO HD. Because I also do a fair amount of studio shooting the XL-H1 looks like it will find a place in my collection, especially since Canon appears to have them available now in quantity. Did you get a chance to do many comparisons between the two?
Thanks,
Gary

[Barry Green]

[Gary Taylor] “I agree that the XL-H1 is an excellent complement for a DVCPRO HD tape deck. That HD-SDI port presents alot of options if you can accept being tethered.

Well, actually, I don’t really understand using the Canon and tethering it to a DVCPRO-HD deck. That part doesn’t make all that much sense to me, as in: why spend $25,000 for a deck to record in the same format that you could get on a $650 card? I think the HD-SDI going to the Wafian, or to HDCAM, might make more sense — but then why use a $9,000 head to record on a $50,000 deck?

I really don’t see the Canon as being in competition with the HVX, and certainly not due to the HD-SDI port. I think that port, and the accompanying TC jacks etc., are there to make the Canon a live studio head camera. And frankly, I think that’s very intelligent on their part — they’ve staked out a segment of the market where nobody can come close to them. There is certainly nothing within $20,000 that compares to the XLH1, as far as a studio HD camera with an attached recorder.

I know people are excited about the prospects of the HD-SDI port, but for indie shooters/filmmakers/etc., I just don’t see it as having much practical value. Just about the cheapest device you can hook up to it is a DVCPRO-HD deck, and you can record native DVCPRO-HD on an HVX (and get variable frame rates and true progressive scan while you’re at it). So I don’t really see the two as being in competition at all.

[Gary Taylor] “I have also been reading pretty good things about the native HDV capabilities.

As an HDV camera, nothing can touch the Canon. It’s way sharper than the Sony, it has more usable rez and framerates than the JVC, and their HDV/24F mode seems quite robust. I don’t know about its 60i mode, I’ve always thought 60i was too much for HDV, but for 24F they gain two benefits: they encode a progressive frame, and they encode 20% less data so it’s more efficient. I used to say that the JVC implementation of HDV was the best/most robust, but now I’m thinking, after having seen it, that the Canon implementation is actually better. It seems to be on par with the JVC for robustness, but it also provides 60i capability. Now, of course, the downside is that no deck in the world will play that Canon footage; they went and created their own format to do it. But assuming that gets sorted out someday, the Canon 24F HDV looks like a pretty reasonable, nicely sharp, quite robust implementation.

[Gary Taylor] How do you think the HVX-200 will compare to the XL-H1 when shooting 1080 60i?”
Well, 60i is where the HDV will be at its weakest, and AFAIK we haven’t seen any Canon 60i footage at shows yet. 60i is tough to encode in HDV, the 4:2:0 color sampling doesn’t play nicely with interlace, and the faster update rate taxes the codec more. However, the Canon appears to have top-notch glass on its lens, which is always a bonus. It does appear to have significantly narrower latitude though — there were burnt-out highlights in every outdoors shot and most indoors shots on their demo footage, indicative of narrow latitude. I’d guess that it’s probably a half-stop narrower than the Sony, but definitely significantly sharper than the Sony.

The HVX should be comparable in noise, better in sensitivity, with wider latitude and double the color sampling. So while I expect that the Canon will likely turn out the best-looking HDV 1080/60i, I do expect the HVX will be a noticeable step up in that comparison.

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Get the most from your DVX camera. The DVX Book and DVX DVD are now available at https://www.dvxuser.com/articles/dvxbook/ and at Amazon (https://www.fiftv.com/db)

[Barry Green]

[Gary Taylor] “Wasn’t some of the XL-H1 footage originally shot in HDV and then edited on DVCPRO HD? In particular I thought the Italian footage was shot in HDV.

That’s what they said at the booth. The Italian footage was shot in HDV, the Watchmaker footage was shot tethered to the DVCPRO-HD deck. Then it was all edited together and played back from DVCPRO-HD.

Because I also do a fair amount of studio shooting the XL-H1 looks like it will find a place in my collection, especially since Canon appears to have them available now in quantity.

Sounds like the XLH1 might be perfect for you.

Did you get a chance to do many comparisons between the two?”

No, not like I’d like to. I spent some time with the HVX against the FX1 and the HD100, and it was easily the class of that group. The Canon is in a whole different league from the FX1 and the HD100 though, and seems like a much more formidable competitor. I stared at the Trinitron at the Canon booth for quite a while, and I thought it acquitted itself very, very well. It’s definitely some beautiful high-def footage. I can’t wait to put them side-by-side and have some double-blind judges compare the footage.

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Get the most from your DVX camera. The DVX Book and DVX DVD are now available at https://www.dvxuser.com/articles/dvxbook/ and at Amazon (https://www.fiftv.com/db)

[Gary Taylor]

Hi Barry,
My main interest is in using DVCPRO HD to finish HD content. For most of my studio captures I am planning on using a Kona LH which offers both analog input for my Sony camera HDV camera and HD-SDI for the XL-H1 or any HD deck I might be using. As you said both of these can captured as uncompressed or DVCPRO HD. It’s amazing what you can do with a $2500 dollar G5!

Most of my projects will be finished in SD, and of course I am planning on keeping an HD master for future use. For the projects that I am planning on delivering in HD DVCPRO HD seems to be the tape format used the most by the stations I am working with. I will likely keep an uncompressed master along with the DVCPRO HD.

I am very excited about both the HVX-200 and the XL-H1 although they are very different cameras. I looks like both Panasonic and Canon have raised the bar. I would love the see that double blind comparison you mentioned, and I would like to see uncompressed captures used as well those using the native codecs.
Thanks for your observations,
Gary