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| Here is a rather lengthy review of it. I didn't read the whole thing, but it seems that they liked it. |
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I had a Sony HDR-FX1 for about a year. Very good quality video. However you need a VERY fast PC to edit the video, Mine is a P4 LGA775 3.4ghz overclocked to 4.ghz w/2gb of ram with SCSI Ultra320 drives. It takes 1hour to render a 15 minute video clip of HDV cineform codec using Vegas 6.0. On my other PC, a AMD 2700+, it takes 3 or 4 hours to render a 15 minute clip. Basically it takes 5 to 10 times to processing time as regular DV. For that reason alone it makes HDV not quite ready for most people in my opinion. |
wow. Apparently this unit compresses to MPEG-2. Does that make a difference? |
Oh, If it goes to Mpeg2 strait to tape it might make it easier to process. However, Mpeg2 has problems of its own. Mpeg2 is a compression, so you are not getting all of the data from the CCD from the HC1, another problem is that Mpeg2 uses "keyframes" for the compression, so if you are doing action shots or simply panning the camera, you will get blurring. This blurring happens with the FX1 and the HC1 as well. |
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As some of you know, I shoot/produce/edit for a living. Recently got the Panasonic HVX-200 DVCPro HD cmacorder that shoots on P2 cards.  Best hing is it shoots DV25, DV50, AND DVcPro100 HD with the flip of a switch. it also shoots in multiple framerates, which has led some people to call it the baby Varicam. Shooting on P2 cards means no more digitizing from tape (yuk, tape is a four-letter word.) Okay, I'm all done video-geeking out now. ETA, I RFEUSED to buy the current crop o HDV cameras because of the sucky long GOP codec which breaks up on busy backgrounds. And Mpeg2 is a good delivery format but SUCKS for editing with. |
I actually thought about IMing you. I was actually considering the Canon XL2 since I already have $10k worth of Canon lenses. Is that just crazy talk? |
I dont think you can use your regular 35mm lenses. But you could use a mini35 adapter with it. You can buy one for 6k or make one yourself. Btw, the XL2 is an Ok camera, not the best you can buy for the money. That Panasonic that bulldog has is a really sweet rig, but they are pretty expensive at $6.5k, good for pros but out of the league of the consumer. |
The Canon EF adpater plate is around $400, IIRC. I thought was all I needed to attached EOS lenses. 
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I'm considering using an Ag-dvx100 for a feature a few friends and i are putting together, I've heard it's low lite ability is pretty good, and the test footage i've seen of it shooting in 24p versus a pd170 shooting the same scene in 60i looks pretty impressive. I'm going to have a few scenes at nite, how do you feel about this camcorder versus some of the other ones on the market? |
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To edit 1080i Avid Liquid recommends dual core 3.0GHz, 1 GB of RAM, and a video card with 256 MB of memory. Not much of a computer really - pretty much average in fact! Most gamer machines will beat this by some. Give HD a bit of time for the prices to come down - come Christmas there will be more competition and choices available. |
right, but you wont get the the DOF like your 35mm...unless you use a mini35. |
If you want to shoot uncompressed HD video it's like a gigabyte a second. Good luck with that. Even the professionals compress with the current MPEG2 standards. Shooting all "I" frames will help but then you're on the far side of six figures for gear that will support that. Standard definition uncompressed is 260 megabytes a second. High defininition is about four times the bandwidth. I was in Georgia last month looking at the next generation MPEG4 compression equipment and was very impressed with HD at just 6 MB per second! There were still some issues and the company is still tweaking the code and working on the consumer decompressors chips for the set top box required. Up at 8-10 MB per second the video looked fantastic on the 42" professional CRT monitors. Consumers are not going to notice the difference on their consumer plasmas and LCD screens. Sony makes four different lines of camcorders for digital use ... only the professionals buy the top two and only the wealthy buy the third. Most of use poor slobs suffer with the lowest versions. You are correct in that panning and tilting with a digital camera is much different than film and directors and producers have actually changed their art to meet the limitations of their tools. Back in the analog tape days we worried about interlace, luminance/chroma timing, and herrinbone interference. With HD everything in the entire creative system is undergoing change from the makeup on the actors, the very lens to shoot them and all the way to the broadcast chain. |
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Boy, where to start... MPEG-2 is OK for delivery but it's a HIGHLY compressed format. These cameras are still delivering about 7 times more information than is on a DVD. But you still have to make most of your exposure/color decisions up front since you won't be working with an oversampled format in your computer. For my high end stuff I shoot on 16mm film and transfer to HDCAM (140 Mbps) or HDCAM-SR (440Mbps). Film is great because of initial oversampling and HDCAM-SR while compressed, still has a lot of oversampling compared to the final MPEG product. All that being said, the new generation of MPEG HD consumer camcorders look great and I use them as semi-disposable units to give to field people when I know I need an HD product on the end. I've kind of gotten over 24p unless you are planning to transfer to film since you need to end up in an interlaced format eventually and while the 3:2 emulation has a bit of a film feel, the video acquisition is a little too rough to really sell the film look. DV formats will give you more latitude to correct and play with your images in post but to tell the truth, I'm pretty happy with the results of the Sony HD units. The cameras and compression algorhythms have gotten so good that in many cases they overcome many of the issues of the extreme compression. Sorry for the geek speek but the field is getting pretty geekified. |
I have the DVX100 and have shot national commercials in 24P with it. It was one of the major reasons why I bought the HVX-200. Panasonic just has the whole 24p thing DOWN and their cameras are really designed for the independent film maker. |
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Just rememebr that Sony is the company that decided to install MALWARE on your PCs if you played certain of their CD's. Only a very smart tech guru found them out. Sony denied it, when called on it with specifics admitted it was there but said it did nothing, when called on that lie, said it would not hurt yur PC, when called on that lie, took awhile and finally releeased a patch and pulled the CDs from distribution. SONY products, NO THANKS! |
Agreed, Panasonic listens to what people actually want and brings a product that is above industry standards. I had a Panny DV953, awesome little cam...wish I still had it. It took pictures that rivaled the PD150 and XL1 and my little cam only cost $1000, I used the hell out of it then sold it on ebay a year later for $950  Im thinking about getting one of the GS500's, I really like the Leica lens...and its only $700. 
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Thanks! I was leaning towards the sony pd170, but then i saw some comparison footage where the same scene was shot with both the pd170 and the dvx100, and the panasonic was totally drool worthy! |
what camera did you get? HC1, HC3, FX1? |
here's some good reading on SONY DV cams www.dvinfo.net/sony/index.php I don't know why he hasn't updated it recently |
Are you a DVinfo member? My name there is John Gaspain 
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HC3 |
DVInfo is a great resource. |
I was a lurker. I mostly used the site to do research. I studied the XL-1 Watchdog a few years ago |
well, I use Vegas 6.0. Thats my personal preferance, because im used to the interface and it has excellent renderers. Others like Premire. If you have XP home, you can use the internal movie maker, its easy and free. I dont like Avid because it is not user friendly and to get any real effects you have to pay alot of money. Also dont care for Pinnicle's offerings, they are second rate IMHO. Just try some out, they all offer a trial download. See which one you like. Lurk around dvinfo and see what they are using, they are the pros after all. oops, I see you were asking about a computer...not the software actually. What is your computer that you have now? Since its MPEG2, most any PC with 1gb ram and a 7200rpm drive and at least 2.8ghz should be able to handle it. BTW, you will need a large hard drive, the bigger the better. Newegg has 300gb SATA2 drives for only $85 bucks now. Nice LCD monitors are nice too, for accurate color. |
Yeah, that's the prob....I'm running a 2 ghz P4 right now, so I need to upgrade. My monitors are good to go as I use them for work (photography). I'd like to stay under $1000 or so... I've heard good things about Vegas, but I was going to check out the trail of Premier since I'm very familiar with PS and Illustrator. |
Have a look at B&H Photo and Video as they sell pre-made video editing system based on the requirements of the particular software. Some software has a higher entry requirement than others. Have a look at Final Cut Pro, Avid Media Composer to start with. |
Who? Pinnicles offerings were Fast's and are now a little company called Avid.  The several hundred effects that it comes with from slo-mo, white balance correction, the the famous Decko Type tool, and the libaray of audio tracks/loops made it worth the $500 to me. The filters can be key framed and adjusted with simple sliders through the clip. It also has a highly customizable interface which helps. The ability to work with nearly any video file format in the time line is just too cool - no worries about transcoding or rendering into the project. Drag, drop, and edit. You do have to render to output but that's the nature of the playback codeck rather than a limit of the software. When I saw Liquid at NAB 2006 I was very impressed - this product is making its way out of indie production and into the newsrooms where it will serve as a low-end replacement for Composer/Express edit suites. |
those pre-made PC's have a markup of like 1000%. I suggest that you download the trial of Vegas and try it out on your current PC. And if you need to upgrade, use newegg.com to buy. |