[Jeremiah Black]

I captured 24pA from Panasonic and removed the frames- seamless. Looks nice.

I’ve also captured Sony 24p with a 3:2 pulldown and then removed the pulldown. Not so pretty. recompressed footage. Ick.

Sony’s lack of commitment to good 24p is a dealbreaker for me time and time again.

jeremiah black
dual 2 gig G5
2.5 gigs of RAM
Decklink Extreme capture card

[Jeremiah Black]

[Peter DeCrescenzo] “Detachable LCD monitors with coiled cords — mmmmmm, even better stuff! 😉
“

True!

jeremiah black
dual 2 gig G5
2.5 gigs of RAM
Decklink Extreme capture card

[Jeremiah Black]

[Luis Caffesse] “One thing to keep in mind is that generally you are comparing something shot on a 2/3″ chip camera with (probably) really good glass on it, with the footage we see from fixed lens cams with 1/3″ chip”

This is a good point. There are several factors at work in image quality besides just resolution (and all the HDV fanboys who think that a $5000 HDV camera is better than a 30,000 SD camera just because it’s HD would do well to keep this in mind). Compression is one, chip size is another, color space is another, lens is another, resolution is another, etc. etc. So, although downconverts from the varicam have the advantages of coming from material with the advantages of (1) chip size (2) better lenses; the resolution of the source material is the same, as is the color space. So, while I don’t expect downconverts done on the HVX to look as good as downconverts from the varicam, I still expect them to look better than footage originally shot on mini dv.

But then maybe just mini dv footage shot straights from the chips (and not downconverted from P2) will be the best, since (a) it’s still coming from HD resolution and (b) it’s coming from a 4:4:4 space.

Like you, Luis, I’m eager to check out all the comparisons.

jeremiah black
dual 2 gig G5
2.5 gigs of RAM
Decklink Extreme capture card

[Jeremiah Black]

Also, with SD PAL, you get the extra 90 lines of vertical resolution.

I, for one, as an American, would LOVE it if the USA ditched 7.5 IRE setup and 29.97 framerates and adopted PAL. It’s too bad America can’t just “adopt” PAL since our electricity is based on 60 hertz cycles and not 50.

Graeme,

When CRT completely dies, is it possible that we could go finally there?

jeremiah black
dual 2 gig G5
2.5 gigs of RAM
Decklink Extreme capture card

[Jeremiah Black]

I’ve done both online and offline editing for Varicam (and Cinealta) footage, and I can tell you flat out, that mini-dv downconverts of DVCPRO HD look so much better than dv, that there’s no comparison.

While it’s true that you’re compressing the footage twice, it still winds up looking way better. Not even slightly better, but a lot better. Formats higher than dv, when transferred to dv, still look pretty great. Just like if you went to the store and rented “Lawrence of Arabia” on VHS, it would look beautiful. Because although VHS is crappy, the material did originate on 70mm neg. Now compare that with something originally shot on VHS tape. Where you came from is as important as where you end up, resolution wise.

jeremiah black
dual 2 gig G5
2.5 gigs of RAM
Decklink Extreme capture card

[Jeremiah Black]

[toke lahti] “One thing I would have copied from fx1/z1 is to place lcd in the front of the camera.
That way you can look more closely on your subject at a same time as looking lcd”

That’s a good point. That was the only thing I really liked about the Z1U. I remember thinking, “I hope Panasonic decides to put their LCD on the front.” It’s just so much better. The HVX-200 is going to blow the pants off Sony’s HDV cameras, but I hope they do copy this one bit of design from the Z1U. No more “flip out” LCDs.

Front mounted LCDs- mmmmmm, good stuff.

jeremiah black
dual 2 gig G5
2.5 gigs of RAM
Decklink Extreme capture card

[Jeremiah Black]

Yes JVC is planning on realeasing 50 mb cameras but not until next year. Price was given as being around $20,000.

jeremiah black
dual 2 gig G5
2.5 gigs of RAM
Decklink Extreme capture card

[Jeremiah Black]

[toke lahti] “In the end we are all making products to be seen, not to be calculated by some machine! “

Very, very true. All the tech stuff is helpful, but you can’t argue that something looks better by pointing to a calculator any more than than you can argue someone into laughing at a joke.

jeremiah black
dual 2 gig G5
2.5 gigs of RAM
Decklink Extreme capture card

[Jeremiah Black]

I initially had the same reaction as Graeme on this one, but after thinking about it, I’m actually kind looking forward to trying out the tape drive. One thing changed my mind, and that was that I’m really curious to see how the camera’s downconverted HD looks recorded to mini-dv. Maybe it’s silly to look forward to the tape drive just to satisfy a curiousity, but I have to admit, I’m REALLY curious as to how it looks. One of the first things I’m going to do, is record to a mini-dv tape and see how it looks coming from the HD chips, and then I’m going to shoot DVCPRO HD to P2 and then downconvert the DVCPROHD from the P2 card onto mini-dv tape in camera, and compare the two side by side for fun. At the very least, we’ll have true 16×9 and true 24p DV on a Panasonic camera for the first time, and that’s a pretty cool bonus on top what is already promising to be a great HD camera.

Also, DV does still come into play on some jobs. For example, sometimes I do some web shows, that, being web shows, end up getting shown in a little box on your computer that’s two inches big. I’d probably still shoot those with DV beacuse DVCPRO50 or 100 don’t increase the viewer experience enough to knock out the mindless convience of shooting to tape. So, what that does is allow me to really sell off the ol’ DVX-100, because on those jobs where it would’ve actually been useful, the tape transport on the new camera guarantees that I still have the ol’ DVX-100, if I ever want it. It’s clear that flexibility is Panasonic’s goal, and I kinda like it, even as eager as I am to have new technologies replace the old. As had been said before by Graeme and Luis, it’s a great transition camera on many levels.

jeremiah black
dual 2 gig G5
2.5 gigs of RAM
Decklink Extreme capture card

[Jeremiah Black]

[Barry Green] “For customer confusion purposes, it probably would have been better if they hadn’t lumped both formats under the HDV banner. “

Barry,

Isn’t JCV’s format called “Pro HD”? I always found this to be a bad choice since it might confuse consumers into thinking that it’s somehow not HDV or worse, another flavor of HD superior to even HDCAM. I know the guys and gals on this board will laugh at this, but I’m sure we’ll all find ourselves over the next year debating with people who insist that “ProHD” is miles and miles above HDV- just like I spent the last two years debating with people who INSISTED that DVCAM has more resolution than mini-dv. Some even thought DVCAM had a 4:2:2 color space!

Oh, and one more thing I’d like to add, is that JVC previous one chip HDV camera isn’t compatible with the new JVC decks, and also JVC is going to be releasing a 50 mb HDV camera that will also not be compatible with any gear from its other two HDV cameras. So that’ll make 3 flavors of incompatible HDV from just JVC alone. Yow!

jeremiah black
dual 2 gig G5
2.5 gigs of RAM
Decklink Extreme capture card