Will the HVX-200 have any improved features on the digital video end?

[Noah Kadner]

Yes- native 16:9. It’s got a lot of other tricks up its sleeve for standard definition as well. For example- you can shoot 720p slow motion and automatically get a downconvert to DV on tape. That means this is the only SD camera that shoots true slow motion in camera.

Noah

[Pierre]

Wow that sounds great. What are the advantages to the camera slowing footage down (instead of in post)? Does it look better… even though “better” is relative. Is the standard def resolution the same as the DVX-100 or is it slightly higher? For instance I know that the Canon XL-2 has slightly higher resolution in 16:9 mode.

thank you,

Michael

[Graeme Nattress]

Yes, doing slowmo in camera looks 100 times better than doing it in post, and doesn’t require ridiculous render times either.

All DV formats have the same resolution – 720×480, but how that resolution is made is different in each case. The XL2 uses over-detailed chips so that you don’t loose resolution when making a 16:9 image – the DVX100 does not, and hence it’s 16:9 mode will have lower detail, although the resolution is the same in each case. The 16:9 from the HVX200 will be better still in terms of detail due to the higher resolution CCDs, even though they are downsampling to DV resolution.

Graeme

– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects for FCP

[Nate Ford]

to clarify on your slo-mo question:
the camera is not “slowing down” the footage, it is shooting at a higher frame rate, just like how slo-mo is achieved on film with movie cameras. the reason the hvx200 will allow for high quality slo-mo is that it’ll shoot 60 fps (at 720p). any post-production means of creating slo-mo from dv footage involves taking the 30 frames (or 60 fields,) that were originally recorded and playing them back slowly. sometimes this involves creating interpolated frames to “fake” the effect of a higher frame rate, but nothing will ever work as well as actually recording more frames per second to begin with.