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What’s HDV like for everyone?
Hi, we’ve been working entirely in the DV realm, and have learned how to work within it’s limitations, and create very good images with it. This does not mean, however, that over the years we have not grown more and more tired of looking at it, and seeing more and more of it’s flaws. It’s like a Monet, if you look at it too closely, and think about what it is you’re seeing – There IS NO fine detail in the leaves off in the distance. It’s all moving colored blobs (though, Monet made it look good… DV can only be taken so far.) I’m convinced that if an alien life form saw MiniDV images, it would wonder what it was looking at, without first having seen the contexts of it, as we have; such as, “oh, this is a landscape, and that’s a rock there.” (and no, I don’t believe in aliens, it’s a hypothetical.;)
So, what are HDV’s drawbacks? We’d like to go beyond this format, too, sooner or later… but for now, it could be a nice tide-over. Does the compression ever show up AS compression? Or is it fairly well hidden within the image? That is to say, under different circumstances, such as high-speed movement, or zooms, does tearing of any sort ever occur? Is HDV a viable format for delivery of all kinds – broadcast documentary, short films, corporate, speaking, etc.? Are the cameras any good, yet? Or are the XL2 and DVX100a still better cameras, despite their lower res format?
Thanks so much, and sorry for the long post!
Joel Fisher
Beowulf Studios
http://www.beowulfstudios.com
Apple Final Cut Pro 4.5, DVD Studio Pro 3, Motion 1, etc. (waiting for any bugs to be worked out of the upgrades before purchase) -
19 Replies
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HDV is to HDCAM SR, as DV is to Digital Betacam. HDV has more resolution, but more compression, and you’re still with a 1/3″ imager. To get to the next level of picture, you need to go to a big camera. HDV is just like what you’ve got but with a bigger image. IMHO, of course.
Graeme
– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects for FCP
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Dang, that doesn’t sell me on HDV… but then, I’m skeptical of HD itself, far preferring film. So, guess as long as we shoot digital, we’ll never be truly happy. 😉 The trick is to make it look as good as the format allows, and make the CLIENT happy.
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Check out the new camera from Panasonic coming out this fall. I believe it is the HVX200 or something. It shoots DVCProHD, which it seems is quite preferable to HDV from what I can see. And it is around $6000. It also has some of the “Vari-Cam” features like shooting 60fps to get smooth slow-mo and all the cine-gamma settings that the DVX100 has.
I was excited with the HDV at first until I heard you could get closer to the “real thing” for around the same money with DVCPro HD. Now, it is still a compressed format but I’ve worked with downconverted footage from a DVCProHD camera, and it was pretty nice.
On the other hand, Apple was demo-ing some FCP setups running HDV at NAB, and they looked great also. But they weren’t really showing shots with alot of motion, so I don’t really know the answer to your question regarding that.
Hope this helps.
-Todd Beabout
Vazda Studios -
The HVX200 sounds nice and flexible, but until we see the pictures from it….. Anyway, if you want to know more, we have a forum over here: https://www.creativecow.net/forum/view_posts.php?forumid=193 for it.
Graeme
– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects for FCP
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Thanks, guys. The HVX200 sounds wonderful… only too bad the pro-sumer camera prices keep going up. I suppose that’s understandable with the format changes. What do you want to bet that we’ll start seeing thousands of independent films coming out with as much slo-mo in violent sequences as there were back in the 60s and 70s? And on top of that, it’ll be as bad as it was back then, or worse, in the hands of some of those folks! :O But we certainly won’t succumb to that temptation, will we?… 😉
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In my experience (take this with a grain of salt as the HDV I’ve seen is shot terribly with very little concern for image quality) is awfull. This is off the little JVC camera. Any kind of camera movement and it feels like you are on a roller coaster built on a barge that is in the middle of a typhoon. Weird strobing and motion blur and an odd look to it I can’t pin down. Colors are terribly washed out. I would stay away from the little JVC. The Sony and the newer/better JVC’s I don’t know. I think DV shot well will look better. But again I have a skewed perspective. DVCPRO HD coming from the same guys is not much better than run of the mill DV footage I’ve seen.
Scott Davis
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Thing is that an 8GB P2 card cost little under $2000 and will only capture 10 mins of HD. That camera takes 2 x 8GB P2 cards, which will cost $3600…… I’m not sure that camera will ever survive anything other than ENG production. But i would love to see the image quality of it besides the FX1/Z1
Paul
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See the discussions in the forum for more options with regards to record time.
Graeme
– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects for FCP
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I’ve had the Sony Z1 HDV for about two months. I got lucky and managed to pay for it on only two jobs (considering the difference in rate for DVCAM and what we charged for an HDV delivered final product). It is a different animal, but I predict it will become an ENG friendly format in the coming years. For more film-style productions, it still has some usefulness. As mentioned, the Z1 has only a 1/3″ chipset. This makes it difficult to get a pleasing “selected focus” image. I try to shoot as wide on the lens as possible and keep the ND filters in use when the existing light can’t be manipulated. This is true for the standard def cameras as well as HDV, so it’s not really an HDV issue but it is revealed more as resolution is increased. I also believe that we are conditioned to expect a shallower depth-of-field with the widesreen ratio. As for the codec, It is amazing most of the time, but can quickly fall apart when fast motion or very busy images are shot (like sunlight reflecting on waves). Any scene that has extremely short, fast or random visual events seem to choke the GOP-based MPEG2 codec. However, with the right light, some careful filtering and smooth camera movement, you could create some very convincing footage.
Editing is still the achille’s heel for now, but we’ll see how FCP 5 delivers on this. I’m using Lumiere for now and can’t wait to stop using it.
A few opinions on the HDV codec and the Z1 specifically:
– The color accuracy is much better than with DV. I have successfully done green-screen with good results. The tip is to capture uncompressed for any keying work.
– Sound quality is excellent (at least on the Z1).
– No dropouts yet. I still use the blue DVCAM (SONY PDVM-40N) cassettes for HDV.
– audio, video and timecode seem to stay in sync better than DV (similar to DVCAM)
– Since the codec works in a completely different way than the DV codec, the artifacting we all hate has been greatly reduced with HDV, but at the expense of increased potential of motion artifacts.System A Info G5/Dual 2 – 10.3.6 – QT v6.5.2 – 4GB ram – Radeon 9800Pro – Lacie FW800 L1 RAID via Lacie PCI card and internal – Decklink Extreme – Wacom 6×8 System B is identical except: 2GB ram – Decklink SP – Radeon 9600 – Pro Tools
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Will, are you suggesting that to create a shallower depth of field on the Z1 you are opening up the F Stop and compensating by using the camera’s ND filters?
Also, regarding your comment on keying and capturing uncompressed, can you explain what you mean.
Thanks
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