Graeme Nattress
Forum Replies Created
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I think it’s “nice” that these new cameras record DV as well as their brand of HD, be it DVCProHD or HDV, but really, this is a feature that you’re not buying the camera for. I doubt anyone is buying an HD camera, just to shoot DV on it – that would be daft. If you want a better DV picture, you’d be going for a big chip camera, not an HD camera with the same sized chip.
This camera is all about getting DVCproHD into the hands of the masses. It’s about making P2 a commodity that’s popular among the masses. It’s about giving indie filmmakers the tools they need, affordably.
However, what this camera offers, which Panasonic haven’t done before (and why not??) on their DVX, is proper widescreen. And indeed, proper widescreen (which Sony have not done often in their consumer cams) is what people are buying the FX1 and Z1 for too.
But really, I don’t see much point in spending the cash on an HD camera (wether it shoots SD or not) unless you’re going to be shooting HD. If you’re wanting a better picture from SD, get a beter SD camera, with bigger chips etc. That said, I certainly like the idea of shooting DVCpro50 which is a very nice codec with a father fine picture quality above that of DV and DVCproHD, albeit at SD resolution. It might be fun to shoot DV once in a while to see “how it compares”.
Graeme
– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects for FCP
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I think it’s all one of the trade-offs for getting DVCProHD down to a reasonably affordable price. I know, for one, that if the camera has a DV deck, that I’ll not be using it, and it will just be taking up weight and space on the camera. For other’s a DV deck on the camera will be a life-saver for them.
But tape’s days are numbered. Consumer cameras are now shooting MP4 to RAM, or MPEG2 to DVD. High end cameras are going P2, XDCAM disc, or direct to hard disk. Sure, there’s still some tape cameras, and there’s some life in tape still left, but still, I’d not be buying shares in tape manufacturers….
It will certainly be interesting to see exactly what the camera brings next week, and what workflows develop from it.
Graeme
– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects for FCP
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In NTSC, DV and DVCPro are identical apart from tape formulation. The advertising copy, what I’m reading now on the site is sloppy. I wouldn’t read too much into it until it’s the final version with all the features / specs etc.
Graeme
– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects for FCP
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I think the answer is that as you upgrade to HD, you hang onto your old DV camera. If you’re doing that kind of event, it might be better to hook the camera to a DV deck if you can (we don’t know yet…) and record to “big” DV tapes so you don’t have to change in the middle. I know plenty of people who use that workflow now for event work – they don’t even record onto the tape in the camera.
Graeme
– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects for FCP
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Sure the price would drop, but the price of the P2 cards will drop more dramaticaly, and remember putting a tape deck in the camera means we need a tape deck for the studio, doubling the cost of use. Either way, even with some mass production behind it, a DVCProHD tape format camera is an expensive proposition.
Graeme
– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects for FCP
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Jason, I’ll look forwards to meeting you.
I managed to do a quick experiment this morning though. I told quicktime to give me a frame from some DVCproHD footage, and it gave it to me with 960×720 dimensions not 1280 x 720 dimensions, so there’s certainly hope for editing / effecting DVCproHD without doing the shrink and squeeze routine, and this also means that once magic scaling is up and running, I can probably do better 960 to 1280 scaling anyway.
Graeme
– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects for FCP
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Well, either Apple change quicktime / FCP, or they change HDV into something more easily editable. Most people change the HDV as no matter how hard you try or how clever you are, MPEG2 was never designed to be edited natve.
Graeme
– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects for FCP
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I wouldn’t edit any MPEG based codec in FCP. Best thing to do is to open it up in Quicktime and save it out as either uncompressed or lightly compressed. FCP doesn’t like the MPEG codecs because of their predictive frames, which cause FCP to hiccup when trying to get the frame it wants from the video.
Graeme
– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects for FCP
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Yes, but the DSR-85 was a nearly $20,000US deck! https://www.roscor.com/products/pdf/Sony/dsr85.pdf
Seems that it will record and play at 4x, which is fairly cool if you ask me.Graeme
– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects for FCP
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