Is the DVX (out of the box) enough?

ShamrockFilms

ShamrockFilms

Well-known member
Our movie "Townies" will be shot documentary style on all handheld with mainly natural lighting. We will be recording audio with an Oktava for indoor and Lav mics for outdoor - directly into the camera.

1. Can you shoot a documentary style movie with the DVX100 right out of the box without buying more for it, lens adaptors and what not? I'm assuming the DVX shoots in widescreen right out of the box.

2. What are the advantages (if any) on shooting onto mini-dv tapes rather than onto a harddrive like the HVX? Is this a bad idea?

Thank you
 
1. of course. but you dont get true widescreen unless you use the widescreen adapter. but if you dont mind letterbox or squeeze, then that's your ticket. again it depends on your final output.

2. the advantage of shooting on a disk is that you can edit rightaway. that's the most immediate gratification you'll get out of using a disk. There are other benefits like, using less tape and living an efficient and simpler, cleaner, greener video life.

but I think shooting on mini-dv is still the surest way to get your footage... except for dropouts. and in my opinion, unless you have the P2 like HVX, might be a pain to lug around a big harddrive- compared to just popping in a tape and shooting rightaway. but no real advantage over the speed you will have in editing with a harddrive where you can dump and go back to shooting... tape you have to wait for and worry about damage. etc etc.
 
So we'll need a widescreen adapter. Im assuming those cost more than the camera itself. The one thing I like about mini-dv is that you don't have to worry about losing all your footage if you fry a harddrive because you always have that tape.
 
How bad does the Letterbox feature make it look?

My Shitty old JVC grd had the option also to put on "Widescreen" but it was just making the black bar's and wasn't true widescreen but I actually loved that option.
 
Squeeze mode is true anamorphic widescreen to tape... it's just not quite as good resolution as normal mode. You have to try it and see if it'll work for you. The adaptor is nice, but will take some getting used to for run and gun doco work, but it's been done.

For doco tape is the way to go. Lots of recording for cheap so you don't have to worry about storage.
 
do some research before you pick up the adapter. i know some people have used it with good results, but i've read some horror stories and ultimately decided against it for my own use.
 
About shooting directly to a hard drive, it also depends. MiniDV is a very compressed format. If you use something like Andromeda (http://www.reel-stream.com) with the DVX, shooting to a drive can have incredible advantages like shooting uncompressed 4.4.4 color sampling, although this is way expensive, not only because of the adapter cost, but the massive amounts of memory it requires.
 
ShamrockFilms said:
So we'll need a widescreen adapter. Im assuming those cost more than the camera itself. The one thing I like about mini-dv is that you don't have to worry about losing all your footage if you fry a harddrive because you always have that tape.
Click to expand...

very true. i've heard of instances where fellow videographers had the luxury of recording straight to a hd, but always ended up recording a backup to tape anyway...just in case. oh well...
 
I don't think folks generally use those anamorphic adaptors for doco work—the extra rez doesn't seem to be worth the hassle. It breaks your zoom-through focus and restricts your zoom range, among other limitations.

-Stu
 
So the 16.9 squeeze would be a better way to go? As long as the widescreen looks good on giant festival screens, I'm happy. But if I purchase the DVX100 original I have to get the anamorphic lens because it doesn't have squeeze. Correct?
 
You mean add a matte in FCP? But wouldnt that chop a lot of heads off because the DP can't see where the lines would be? Or would you put black tape over the LCD where the bars would be?
 
Shamrock,

Yeh, if you want to shoot 4:3 and letterbox in post, then you should put some guides on the LCD. There is also a letterbox mode built-in, if you want to commit to the letterbox straight to tape.

Do some tests, though, and try SQUEEZE mode out before you dismiss it.

Josh
 
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