What are you waiting for!

hmmm

hmmm

I gotta chime in here.....

We have been doing the HD thing early on and it is a great product...our HVX's are awesome. BUT in reality the cost is not just a camera for 5 grand. You gotta seriously adapt your workflow to use P2. Storage starts biting your ass quick and so you go and get a 5TB to push data to.
Then you need to dump stuff on location.....

Did I mention that all these extra's can start costing double that of your camera......oh yes I nearly forgot, get a super new comp to run it or you will see spinning balls and eggtimers all over your desktop.
HD is more than just a little initial investment --- go on admit it to us dude!

I picked up the DVX the other day threw some dv tapes in and shot for 2 days casually and produced a great warm result that my client loved.

Just remember - LP is in, it's hip and costs alot more than your dime a dozen CD's.

Never turn your back on a great product and a medium that is not gonna be pushed out that easily.

Did I mention that I love HD too! (there is room for it all)

my two cents.....
 
fantasticfilm said:
HD is more than just a little initial investment --- go on admit it to us dude!
Click to expand...

Exactly. I can afford the HVX and I can run the HD footage on my Macbook Pro, but the P2 cards, the workflow, the storage limitations... gah. I've mastered my workflow and will be able to pull of DV for at least 2 or 3 more years.
 
Relax, we have until 2009...

Relax, we have until 2009...

Before consumers are forced to get DTV sets (which will mostly be HD, IMO)


1. When will the transition from analog to DTV broadcasting occur?
The Congress has now passed legislation requiring all conventional "analog" TV broadcasting to stop on February 17, 2009. After that date, your local television broadcasters will be making only "DTV" broadcasts. If received via an antenna these broadcasts will require different TV tuners.
 
That is another point, the cost for computer upgrades or even a brand new HD(v)-editing-capable machine. You could do top of the line SD work on a (now old) Socket 478 Intel Pentium 4 machine at 3.06ghz with a 533FSB, that was it, that's the top of all you needed. Faster processors of today are just gravy for SD work so anyone could get along fine on a $299 Walmart Special computer today. Trying to do HD(v) with one of those is going to be a little overwhelming for it.

So, the investment in HD(v) will be considerable, even now. This is one reason why a lot of people aren't crossing over to HD(v), it's just not easily economical yet.
 
fantasticfilm said:
I gotta chime in here.....

We have been doing the HD thing early on and it is a great product...our HVX's are awesome. BUT in reality the cost is not just a camera for 5 grand. You gotta seriously adapt your workflow to use P2. Storage starts biting your ass quick and so you go and get a 5TB to push data to.
Then you need to dump stuff on location.....

Did I mention that all these extra's can start costing double that of your camera......oh yes I nearly forgot, get a super new comp to run it or you will see spinning balls and eggtimers all over your desktop.
HD is more than just a little initial investment --- go on admit it to us dude!

I picked up the DVX the other day threw some dv tapes in and shot for 2 days casually and produced a great warm result that my client loved.

Just remember - LP is in, it's hip and costs alot more than your dime a dozen CD's.

Never turn your back on a great product and a medium that is not gonna be pushed out that easily.

Did I mention that I love HD too! (there is room for it all)

my two cents.....
Click to expand...

This is the first semi- real reply against HD....

The investment isn't just the cam the CPU and rendering is a real big issue hence why I am saving to pickup a Mac with a decklink extreme card.

I am not running with DVCproHD files which are fairly large but processing isnt that bad.

the point is try to generate money with your business not make excuses why not to invest. If you have a great product and you sell how great your product is you will make the money to afford your investment.

If you show up to a wedding, film project or commercial with the aditude like this is what I could afford and stand thiere with one angle and do what any consumer can do with a handycam ...ya I would want to pay more that $400.00 bucks for you product as well.

When I read these responses I think Jess these people don't have any pride in their work no wonder they can't afford HD.

it take money to make money and its the person that stands out that gets the dough.

When I made the transition to HD mid last year it was the first time I got real complaints. I had no idea the rezzo jump from SD to HD was so high in the END produc which was SD ..yes DVD... When you shoot in HD and down sample to DVD it still looks way better than shooting in SD across the work flow chain. Try it ..it does. anyway I used my DVX as second cam and tried to mix it with HD100...

This was the complaint...customer found the change in rezzo distracting. this is were I sold my beloved DVX100 which made me to that point. I realized the quality difference was greater than I thought and I could not half ass the HD transition. Hence two HD cams no dvx100.

the arguements of that Bluray is not readily available ....well... thats your choice to be behind the wagon. My sales pitch to the customer (which I barely hafto explain after they have scene the demo) is this video is not for you to play next week and put it away. it is life memoies that your grandchildren can enjoy and it maybe a time capsule that might endup out living you. So why record it in yesturdays technology when its all changing in the next year ir so.

Anyway, I might sound like a new car salesman... but think to yourself ..what really would I have to profit from sharing this success with you other than creating more competition for myself.

Rent HD...Try HD...use HD..and see for yourself what a jump in quality it is. and Don't jundge it by what you see on the viewfinder of the cam because no viewfinder on anycamera is HD.. use your computer monitor still not true HD but close enough.

Don't hate the player...(because I am malking money :) love the game.. and make money too.
 
The Good the Bad and the Ugly

The Good the Bad and the Ugly

My experience is this: First off I'm assuming "sonisfear" is refering to shooting weddings in HDV ie Sony, Canon, or JVC, because using the HVX to shoot progressive HD in any event videography is just insane at this point...I think we all know the reasons why.

So shooting HDV is definitly an option but it has it's limitations. I had originally been holding off on HDV to see what the initial adopters had to say. So far it seems positive and a lot of people are saying that they are able to raise prices and possibly make more money in the future selling their client an HDV version on BlueRay or like product. I really wonder if the added cost to the consumer getting a downrezzed HDV to SD DVD is all that much better, and is anyone really going to order the BlueRay version down the road?




Here are some good and bad things about HDV.

One thing about HD which is both good and bad is you see everything better…The bad: blemishes, crow’s feet, etc. Not all brides are models. The good: more resolution adds the emotion of the wedding. Flowers and other things look amazing with HDV.

HDV uses a 15 frame GOP where frame #1 of 15 is the only full i-frame image and #2-15 take bits and pieces from it to fill in the rest of the information. If you have one dropout you lose all 15 frames a full 1/2 second. This is how the same 1/3" chip can record 4x the amount of pixels to be called HD. Because of the long GOP when panning or doing any fast motion with the camera it takes 1/2 second for the background to come into focus upon stopping the motion.

Sub-standard audio: My DVX 100a captures 16bit 48khtz audio at 448 kb/s (DVD quality) while the HDV format requires compression down to 384 kb/s. 384 kb/s is not bad at all, but I do many other projects other than just weddings where I need the better quality audio.

Compatibility issues between different cameras and HDV formats.

Hardly anyone owns BlueRay so you have to take the step to down convert to SD.

No cheap HDV VCR options to save wear on the heads. The cheapest HDV cam to use as a deck is around $1,500.

The Canon XL A1 seems to me to best the best all around prosumer HDV camera out, with the JVC HD100 a close second. Canon has XLR inputs, with nice manual controls, and a 20X optical lens. I would like the JVC more if it wasn’t for the split screen issues reported.

I think HDV is perfect for news/documentary type purposes, but with weddings where we slo-mo everything up the ying yang I couldn’t see interlaced HDV replacing progressive SD fully until recently when I actually got to see some HDV uncompressed on a 40” plasma. I expected to see interlaced lines on all the slow motion footage and lots of motion blur. It wasn’t the case. There was a little motion blur when panning especially in the color red, but not too bad. The interlaced lines were not very visible, and I attribute this to the added resolution making the interlaced lines smaller. The JVC HD100 is 720p with great glass and an interchangeable lens. Without the split screen problems it would be a great cam, but why spend $ on HDV when for a little more you can have the HVX?




So in conclusion with all the new cameras including all the HDV cams, HVX200, and even RED, I will be keeping my DVX and focus on story telling rather than the tools I use to tell my story whether it be with wedding videography or anything else. Besides that I really don't have the money to spend on another camera. ; )

If I did buy a new camera I would buy the HVX200 for $5k and just shoot in SD mode to the tape drive and wait for P2 to drop in cost and raise in storage amount. I would like to have (2) P2 cards capable of at least 1 hour of continuous recording. Then I could offload (1) P2 while continuing to record on the 2nd P2. It would be nice to have a 3rd P2 as a backup just in case the 1st P2 had issues offloading to the laptop. I would consider doing a continuous offload to a laptop if it seemed more viable. I just can’t imagine running around at a wedding with a laptop strapped to my back all day long.

My dream camera is the HVX with the 20x optical Canon lens, the JVC HD100 720p HDV mode to record to a minidv tape and the option to use the HVX200’s true HD options later when P2 is really a viable (cheaper) event recording format.

I can dream can’t I.

I think at this point HDV is a reality that is here to stay and buying a SD cam at this point in time is just plain stupid. Same goes for buying a 4x3 aspect ratio cmos or ccd chip camera. 16x9 is here to stay. I don’t however think 24p is worth anything when shooting just wedding videography. The only reason IMO to shoot 24p for weddings is to offer a DVD with more footage due to the fact that 24p carries less information/less space on the DVD. I would shoot 60p all the time if it didn’t eat up the P2 cards 2x as fast as 30p.


One more thing to add to this novel... Has anyone every remembered a time when so many different types of cameras with so many options have come out in such a rapid sucession of one upmanship? I think Panasonic Sony JVC and Canon are finally realizing that we know what we want and if we don't get it we go elsewhere. Brand loyalty no longer carries as much weight as it used to.

Any thoughts?
 
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I agree with your strategy Kevin - however don't expect to record HD for 1 hour on 2 x P2 cards anytime soon.......at the moment I am getting 6 minutes at 720p per card.

Buying the cam and using it for DV is going to last 5 minutes....I mean not 1 tape has passed through the reels of our 2 hvx's. Once you got the ferrari - are you really going to keep to the speed limit???

As for sony FX HD cams they are not really in the realm of serious film makers because at the end of the day the compression is very high and when you start looking at the images they just don't have "soul"

Lastly as mentioned by another member - HD is high quality and it means you can't fudge a production and get away with it - you are going to agonize over all the fluff and crumbs that start appearing as clear as anything.

All I am saying is - yes HD is awesome but alot of the people on here are going to continue to make amazing movies with their dvx - purely from a creative perspective.

The real cat out of the bag with the hvx is the frame rates which is probably the holy grail for alot of indie guys. I really love that part of it....
 
its fascism sonisfear :) . why do u think people are lying to themself or thinking wrong if they don t go to hd?? when 35mm movie cameras showed up did 16mm died? no. a lot of great movies are still made with 16mm cam. even a movie shot with a cellphone was released this summer.
some people are speaking business, other are thinking fun and art. respect that! you're just speaking about money, product, business, investment, competition. i bought my dvx100 after having bought a hdv cam .... hd is hd, it s not better, it s different, very digital, not ready yet at that price range, hvx200 will be obsolete in 5 month, probably before. stop thinking in a "mine is bigger than yours" way. your cam is just a tool. some people are doing some fantastic videos with a fischerprice cam. hd will not make you a good cinematographer. my last music video was on mtv for weeks and i made it in Poser, a 200$ software, nothing else than this software.
 
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Kevin Briggs said:
The FX7 is a 4 lux peice of garbage in comparison to the Canon XH A1 ...IMO. Sony also says that the FX7 is geared towards the consumer market and not the prosumers. Sony has dumbed down the FX7 for consumers by making more options automatic and limiting manual functions.

http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/Canon-Unveils-New-Prosumer-HDV-Line-XH-G1-and-XH-A1.htm
Click to expand...


Hmmm.. I like...thruly they are all good... I would buy this too...

BTW ...I find that low light noise looks different with HD. the noise sparks are so small they come off like a film grain. I was concern about lux before with both the Z1U and the HD100 and customers don't mind or notice anything. To the point where I have reduced my lights. I used to light the podium with a pplug in 100 watt. now I use a 60 watt or just the 35 watt freezy on the cams.

look great. My sujjestion is to not noost past 6 DB on HD100 and not past 9DB on the sony. trust the cam and boost in post. if under etreme low light and it is something not moving too much like speeches and you are on a tripod drop the frame rate to 30FPS.

Lux ist as much as an issue as it use to be with SD in a wedding situtation anyway.
 
Kevin Briggs said:
My experience is this: First off I'm assuming "sonisfear" is refering to shooting weddings in HDV ie Sony, Canon, or JVC, because using the HVX to shoot progressive HD in any event videography is just insane at this point...I think we all know the reasons why.

So shooting HDV is definitly an option but it has it's limitations. I had originally been holding off on HDV to see what the initial adopters had to say. So far it seems positive and a lot of people are saying that they are able to raise prices and possibly make more money in the future selling their client an HDV version on BlueRay or like product. I really wonder if the added cost to the consumer getting a downrezzed HDV to SD DVD is all that much better, and is anyone really going to order the BlueRay version down the road?




Here are some good and bad things about HDV.

One thing about HD which is both good and bad is you see everything better…The bad: blemishes, crow’s feet, etc. Not all brides are models. The good: more resolution adds the emotion of the wedding. Flowers and other things look amazing with HDV.

HDV uses a 15 frame GOP where frame #1 of 15 is the only full i-frame image and #2-15 take bits and pieces from it to fill in the rest of the information. If you have one dropout you lose all 15 frames a full 1/2 second. This is how the same 1/3" chip can record 4x the amount of pixels to be called HD. Because of the long GOP when panning or doing any fast motion with the camera it takes 1/2 second for the background to come into focus upon stopping the motion.

Sub-standard audio: My DVX 100a captures 16bit 48khtz audio at 448 kb/s (DVD quality) while the HDV format requires compression down to 384 kb/s. 384 kb/s is not bad at all, but I do many other projects other than just weddings where I need the better quality audio.

Compatibility issues between different cameras and HDV formats.

Hardly anyone owns BlueRay so you have to take the step to down convert to SD.

No cheap HDV VCR options to save wear on the heads. The cheapest HDV cam to use as a deck is around $1,500.

The Canon XL A1 seems to me to best the best all around prosumer HDV camera out, with the JVC HD100 a close second. Canon has XLR inputs, with nice manual controls, and a 20X optical lens. I would like the JVC more if it wasn’t for the split screen issues reported.

I think HDV is perfect for news/documentary type purposes, but with weddings where we slo-mo everything up the ying yang I couldn’t see interlaced HDV replacing progressive SD fully until recently when I actually got to see some HDV uncompressed on a 40” plasma. I expected to see interlaced lines on all the slow motion footage and lots of motion blur. It wasn’t the case. There was a little motion blur when panning especially in the color red, but not too bad. The interlaced lines were not very visible, and I attribute this to the added resolution making the interlaced lines smaller. The JVC HD100 is 720p with great glass and an interchangeable lens. Without the split screen problems it would be a great cam, but why spend $ on HDV when for a little more you can have the HVX?




So in conclusion with all the new cameras including all the HDV cams, HVX200, and even RED, I will be keeping my DVX and focus on story telling rather than the tools I use to tell my story whether it be with wedding videography or anything else. Besides that I really don't have the money to spend on another camera. ; )

If I did buy a new camera I would buy the HVX200 for $5k and just shoot in SD mode to the tape drive and wait for P2 to drop in cost and raise in storage amount. I would like to have (2) P2 cards capable of at least 1 hour of continuous recording. Then I could offload (1) P2 while continuing to record on the 2nd P2. It would be nice to have a 3rd P2 as a backup just in case the 1st P2 had issues offloading to the laptop. I would consider doing a continuous offload to a laptop if it seemed more viable. I just can’t imagine running around at a wedding with a laptop strapped to my back all day long.

My dream camera is the HVX with the 20x optical Canon lens, the JVC HD100 720p HDV mode to record to a minidv tape and the option to use the HVX200’s true HD options later when P2 is really a viable (cheaper) event recording format.

I can dream can’t I.

I think at this point HDV is a reality that is here to stay and buying a SD cam at this point in time is just plain stupid. Same goes for buying a 4x3 aspect ratio cmos or ccd chip camera. 16x9 is here to stay. I don’t however think 24p is worth anything when shooting just wedding videography. The only reason IMO to shoot 24p for weddings is to offer a DVD with more footage due to the fact that 24p carries less information/less space on the DVD. I would shoot 60p all the time if it didn’t eat up the P2 cards 2x as fast as 30p.


One more thing to add to this novel... Has anyone every remembered a time when so many different types of cameras with so many options have come out in such a rapid sucession of one upmanship? I think Panasonic Sony JVC and Canon are finally realizing that we know what we want and if we don't get it we go elsewhere. Brand loyalty no longer caries as much weight as it used to.

Any thoughts?
Click to expand...

Yes I was one of the first people check previous threads to be disappionted with the HVX200 before it was even released... I am ussually brand loyal and had it not been for the P2 situation the HVX200 would have been my next cam. But it is a great cam just not for weddings or anything that rquires run and gun all day event coverage.

HDV does have it limitations but I have found that HDV limitations are still far beyond SD strengths including the sound quality. I have no issues with sound and I advertise 5.1 surround sound using the wireless mics and center channel the shot gun on the lead HD100 as fronts and the stereo mic on the Z1u as the rear. Sounds great...

Sometimes I use the Edirol R4 as a hard disk recorder to give me a solid reference to edit to and even better sound.

As far as the long GOP ...you know what? on both cams I use regular Maxell DVM60SE minidv for only a few bucks when bought in bulk. I rarely have a drop out like you discribe on either cam. and if I do I always shoot at least 2 cams... I don't offer a single cam package so simply cut to the other cam.

as far as decks...why...I capture from the cams that recorded it. I am dream for a great hard drive solution like the bella catapult to record to.


Slo mo yes this is a bit of an issue with the HD100 30fps per second rate. If Iam using extreme slo mo the result is abit studdered but hey.

You are correct with recording in HDV requires a bit of change to recording style which for me made me better. stay away frm fast pans, try to be on a tripod as much as possible. Avoiding HDV compression artifacts which are really not so bad in the first place actually made me a better videographer.

REgarding the detail involved in the brides face. Again shoot different reduced extereme room in with not so pretty brides and you might want to use the skin detail function as well.

But there is never a reason to have poor resultion. I recently displayed a wedding which in the bridal you could see the lines in her eyes. the bride responded with "Jess your camera is good... I need botox"

I find that the rpice of these cams are pretty cometetive for what you get. It is stupid to buy SD in this day and age.

HD down rez to SD looks great but I give my customers a DVD and A wmvHD which plays on their computer. And when they see in full rez in my studio they are happy that they purchased the best.

Once again the customers have never given any negative response for HD.

Again the only complaints I got is when I mixed HD which SD.
 
delaro said:
its fascism sonisfear :) . why do u think people are lying to themself or thinking wrong if they don t go to hd?? when 35mm movie cameras showed up did 16mm died? no. a lot of great movies are still made with 16mm cam. even a movie shot with a cellphone was released this summer.
some people are speaking business, other are thinking fun and art. respect that! you're just speaking about money, product, business, investment, competition. i bought my dvx100 after having bought a hdv cam .... hd is hd, it s not better, it s different, very digital, not ready yet at that price range, hvx200 will be obsolete in 5 month, probably before. stop thinking in a "mine is bigger than yours" way. your cam is just a tool. some people are doing some fantastic videos with a fischerprice cam. hd will not make you a good cinematographer. my last music video was on mtv for weeks and i made it in Poser, a 200$ software, nothing else than this software.
Click to expand...

I hope people are not thinking that I am disrespecting them because I am not...please bear in mind this thread was written in fun. The DVX100 made me.

Weddings for me was a hobby that was giving as a gift to family and friends and some how took up legs and now generates more money than my fulltime day gig. Yes I have a day gig as well.

What I don't understand is why anyone would buy a SD cam when HDV cams also record SD and really aren't that much more money.

if you like SD flip the switch and get SD or down rez in the software and get all the characteristics of SD.... no brainer for me....

a lot of feel and texture you describe could be simulated in post with the option to undo redeo multiple layers. But when you shoot SD your stuck. I don't get it.

it already sounds so much like the arugments of cassete/vinyl VS CD. "CD sounds too clean"

Which reminds me of another feature that my customers like... 20 still photos from the video on a data CD are free and a $1.00 for every phot after that. nobody has taken more than the 20 photos but customers find it so cool that I even have that ability and the 1.2 megapixel photos look decent. it dosen't replace the photgrapher yet but is still pleasing to the customer for the rar shoot or angle I get with either cam that the photgrapher missed especial when most of them leave after the cake is cut or earlier.

honestly.... Weather you are, being creative or making money there really isn't a reason to limit your product... I can't see it.

The only real reason I can think of is the longer work full in rendering.

So what it takes longer to render overnight...
 
maybe but we have to wait for 2007 (or end of 2006 with canon and maybe sony). until now: the hvx200 is far from being the perfect cam, sony with hdv was not listening to indie filmmakers, jvc missed something with the hd100 and canon h1 is just a little bit too expensive when we compare it to the others and to the upcoming a1/g1. they are premature babies. the a1 or sony v1 could change a lot of minds next year. small size, not expensive, good lens, 25p, lot of cinegamma settings, xlr, a hard drive for the sony. maybe it will not look enough pro for weddings or broadcast tv but it will be perfect for indiefilmakers.
 
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sonisfear said:
and really aren't that much more money.
Click to expand...

I am very proud of you making so much money and all. However, I bought my dvx for $3000, and invested no more. From my understanding of every post I have seen. Plan on around 10,000 in Camera and upgrades. That is a difference of about $7,000. Plus yeah this is just a hobby for me. Cannot invest that much in a hobby. So to answer your original question.......More than double the max I could allocate on my hobby is why. I am quite satisfied with my DVX, and enjoy it on a daily basis. :thumbsup:
 
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