What to buy: Canon XH A1 or Sony V1U?

B&H is now listing the V1U at $3999.95 -- same price as the Canon! (Okay, $0.95 more.) I think I'm buying one at this price.
 
Elton said:
Actually, the way the Canon image is processed is full for the HDV 1440X1080i format.

Something to consider: The Canon sensor has widescreen 1.2 AR pixels that actually give it an effective horizontal resolution of well over 1600 pixels. From there, the camera only performs horizontal pixel shift to reach 1920. (which is an accepted method of gaining resolution) And HDV 1080i is an anamorphic format, which is meant to be "unsqueezed" to the full 1920x1080 HD spec.

For some reason, many seem to disregard the value of great horizontal resolution. The Canon, through internal processing, is effectively oversampled for the recording format and this helps it to achieve a very sharp, detailed look.

The Sony should maintain it's vertical resolution, but it's stretching a heavily interpolated horizontal reading of the sensor to fill in an "unsqueezed" 1920x1080 image, so it may be a wash as to which camera has better resolution.



Again, some misinformation. HDV 24F mode is a PROGRESSIVE encoding and recording. The CCD's are read in such a manner that the encoder is fed a progressive 24p sequence, which allows for better compression efficiency. There's no 48i to tape.



As a matter of fact you can. It's just not a specific preset, you have to make your own custom preset that uses the 1080p 24 HDV compressor, but you change the frame rate to 29.97.



Same with 30F(P) mode. It can be captured in 1080i HDV easily.



24F workflow is very easy with the latest FCP. Other NLE's work well too but as of right now FCP can actually print a 24F/P sequence to HDV tape.
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I have a question about editing 30f in Final Cut 5.1.2. Elton, you say that the way to edit 30f in Final cut is to create a custom setting by using the 1080p24 compressor, but change the frame rete to 29.97 fps. When I do this and place the 30f clip into the timeline I am forced to render the sequence, but if I place the 30f clip into a 1080i60 sequence there is no rendering needed. Can someone explain the best way (step by step) on how to best edit 30f in Final Cut. The 1080i60 Easy Setup seems to work perfectly. Is there any reason not to use this Easy Setup? Thanks, Hugh.
 
Man, if the A1 price drops any more then nothing stands a chance against it in terms of price/performance ratio! :)

I honestly haven't seen a V1U or even FX7 in person yet, but I have read some things and seen some footage here and there. The A1 I have seen in person and I thought it was really sleek and cool looking, surprisingly light too compared to a DVX (however subtle the difference). The image was very pleasing as well.

Honestly, Sean, I don't think you could go wrong either way. Based on everything I've seen, these cameras can be tweaked around enough to look much better than default or to look similar to one another, just as long as it's HD(v) you should be fine. The biggest weakness I see on the A1 is the lack of an HDMI out, because then you could use it as a studio camera with the Blackmagic Intensity card, not that you couldn't with a higher end card but it would have been simpler and cheaper with the Intensity. Other than that, it's up to you.

As far as 35mm adapter compatibility goes, I've heard mixed things about the A1, some say you should use a spacer tube, others say you shouldn't or don't need to. The V1 I haven't read much about in that regard, but a quick look around on the Redrockmicro forums should give you a general idea.
 
Actually, I think you can go wrong. Unless that oil paint effect has been eradicated on the V1U it doesn't make sense to buy it for 24p purposes. It looks pretty bad.

The other thing is encoding efficiency. There isn't a whole lot of HD footage from the camera out there, but from what I can tell the V1U suffers from the wasted bandwidth of adding pulldown into the HDV stream. This is a loss of at least 20% efficiency, which can make a difference in challenging motion scenes. That's not even commenting as to whether Sony's MPEG 2 encoder is actually as good as Canon's. Hard to tell at this time because it isn't allowed to encode progressive-only to tape.

The V1U may prove to be an excellent camera, but it has some issues that need to be carefully considered before pulling the trigger.
 
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I've shot with the v-1 and it has a nice 24p look. It is about 3 stops slower than a dvx100b. As far as the Cannon goes I would be hesitant to buy a camera that has no tape deck that will play the tapes.
 
Bucknfl said:
I've shot with the v-1 and it has a nice 24p look. It is about 3 stops slower than a dvx100b. As far as the Canon goes I would be hesitant to buy a camera that has no tape deck that will play the tapes.
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Canon has the HV10 for $949 and the new HV20 at $1100 due in April. These cameras will act nicely as a deck and are considerably less than any dedicated Sony, JVC or Panasonic deck. Many DVX user's use an inexpensive DV camcorder to play back tapes during capture. Now you have a similar although not quite as inexpensive option for the Canon HDV.

The HV10 plays back 24F and 30F in addition to 60i. The HV20 also offers playback of 60i, 30F, 24F and 24p.

There are no less inexpensive options for the V-1 unless you just use the camera for record and playback, and of course the same option exsists for the A1.

Good shooting

SCannon
 
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As posted above, I've got a Sony HC3 which is a really underrated (albeit now discontinued) camera. It's got HDMI-out for the Blackmagic Intensity inclined, and B&H now carries a $20 part that enables microphone input. I'm presently using the HC3 with an AT897 and getting nice results.

That said, the HV20 looks to deliver everything the HC3 does PLUS 24p and a cinematic gamma curve. An HV20 and XHA1 combo looks very appealing (although I'm curious how 24p and 24F will play together.)
 
Elton said:
Actually, I think you can go wrong. Unless that oil paint effect has been eradicated on the V1U it doesn't make sense to buy it for 24p purposes. It looks pretty bad.
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Barlow summed up the point especially this major one.
 
scannon said:
Canon has the HV10 for $949 and the new HV20 at $1100 due in April.
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It seems the future proof HDMI's & 24p HV20 is a better deal than each one of the elder sisters.
 
Can anyone tell me if the V1U or the A1 can completely turn off the zoom lever and can only be controlled by the zoom ring? Like the DVX100 zoom servo switch... Reason I ask is for the use of 35mm adapters, if you can turn off the zoom lever, you don't have to worry about accidently pushing it down.
 
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