100b to do it all? or go hd?

N

nostatic

New member
first time caller, long time listener...

OK, after many years of audio production, still photo, and some video (mostly as a producer for educational shorts), I'm finally going to take the plunge and get a "good" camera for my own projects. The stuff I produced was PD150 and DSR300 captured. I have somewhat varied needs though:

capture meetings for research projects I'm involved in
documentation of events to be used in short vid, both dvd and web distribution
shoot a documentary or three

I have an old Sony that i could use for the meeting capture. I value the film "look" (hence being a fan of dvx100 and 24p), and am biased towards being able to get very good audio. I also need to shoot available light as often it is just capturing whatever is there.

But I've got friends in the biz who almost all advise me to go HD. The problem is that my budget doesn't really stretch to $5K to get a 200. So at this point I'm thinking either dvx100b in SD, or a Sony FX1 in HDV. I cut using FCP.

thoughts? Am I missing other alternatives?
 
I honestly think you'll be fine for awhile with SD. Especially with the kind of stuff you'll be doing. And honestly, you might not even need 24p for those kinds of projects, so you may want to look at something like the Panny DVC80. Might be a good idea to save some money now, so in 2-3 years, you could make the move to HD more easily. Of course, that's just my 2 cents. Good luck.
-Ryan
 
If you don't need HD, don't spring for HD. The DVX will do everything you described very well. If you want HD, that's one thing, but if you don't anticipate HD any time soon, why not save some money and get a fantastic product that does exactly what you want? And by the time you're ready for HD, the manufacturers will be on their second or third generation.

Don't spend a lot of money to get something that's not what YOU want. If they're all gung-ho about HD, let 'em buy their own HD camera.
 
thx for the replies. The problem is that I'm not quite sure what *I* want, other than my biases towards performance and look. As a video guy I'm a relative newbie, mostly serving as a producer while my dp/editor/director did the heavy lifting. I've done audio for years though, and have a good eye with stills. Being a big fan of analog look and feel (I used to edit audio with razor and tape, love tube distortion/compression, and a warm film look), I have been drawn towards 24p.

I know that I don't need HD, and by my figuring we're still a couple years out from having it be anywhere near mainstream. The main advantage is that anything HD has a decent shot at getting distributed as the HD content providors are hurting for content.

Mainly I just want to shoot stuff that is solid from a story-telling perspective, but that also is warm and filmish. I don't anticipate transfering to film down the road so 24p doesn't provide that attraction for me.
 
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