Is the DVX for me?

So, let me preface this by saying that I was seriously thinking about purchasing an HVX, but that after giving it a little more thought, I am considered a DVX. Here is what I am thinking. Please let me know if you think I am on the right track, off base, an utter loon, etc.

I am, at this point, a complete newbie to filmmaking. I have made every effort to learn (from here and other places on the internet, etc.) about the basics, but I am realistic - no one is paying me for my services, I am not asking to be paid for my services, and in all likelihood, my work will only ever be viewed on the web and in my friends homes (most of whom own SD sets).

Having said all that, I'm the kind of fella that thinks that if you are going to do something, you do it correctly. In my mind, in this instance, doing it correctly means not putting all the money into the camera at the expense of (a) sound and (b) lights. I would rather pay the price of the DVX and take the approximately $2,000 in change and split it among sound gear and a lighting kit so that the things I begin to do actually look and feel like a "film" and not like some goof screwing around with a video camera.

Also, HD seems so young in its lifecycle that it seems that, purely from the perspective of investing in a camera, it is better to wait and save for a next generation camera. Again, I say this from the perspective of someone who doesn't have client requirements and doesn't have a large set of acquaintenances with HD sets. I think it seems like I'd rather develop my skills and my sense of what I want out of a camera while saving my money so that I can buy something that I really want when HD is finally here in everyone's homes.

I know this sounds like I'm talking to myself...welcome to my wife's world. :D In a sense, I am - I wanted to lay out my logic and get a sense as to whether people would make the same decision in the same circumstances or whether they would go for a different camera (namely the HVX).

Let me know what you think and whether you think the DVX is the right choice given my circumstances.

Thanks!
 
I think you are on the perfect track! Thank you for realizing there is more to filmmaking than just a camera. Please post in the lighting and audio forums (after reading the stickies of course :)) when its time for those purchases and you'll get some good specialized assistance there if you need it. There is nothing wrong with SD or the DVX and I think its a fantastic way to learn. The camera is very capable and is a dream to use. Sure when people are paying you maybe HD is an asset, but for yourself and for your self-education SD is great. After a while people will see your work and off you money for it and SD will still be a great choice. Its easier to edit, its easier to archive and its cheap to shoot. Here's to logic! Happy shooting!
 
As SD cameras go, the DVX series is maybe near unbeatable.

If you find a compelling need to move up to HD later, you can have your DVX equipped with the Andromeda modification, which turns it into an HD-resolution acquisition device (using basically the same principles to extract HD from the sensors, as does the HVX).
 
Save your bucks!

Save your bucks!

Certainly don't buy the HVX 200.
We use both this camera and the DVX at work and I can assure you that you will be able to do/learn a lot with the DVX. It is a pro camera used every day to shoot shows shown on national TV.
And you are right about the HD world: Changing, unstable and going all over the place.
 
cheapest market price for dvx?

cheapest market price for dvx?

thanks so much for posting your thoughts on purchasing a DVX. i'm in the same situation, so your post was extremely helpful. i've noticed some dvx-b cameras being offered for under $1000 . . . sounds fishy to me, but was wondering if anyone has ever purchased one for such a price?
 
Thanks for all the responses. I am curious as to this statement:

Its easier to edit, its easier to archive and its cheap to shoot. Here's to logic! Happy shooting!

How is it easier to edit? I don't doubt you, but I just have never heard this before and wondering about what makes it easier to edit.

Thanks.
 
ok maybe "easier to edit" is a poor phrasing - you dont have to have as powerful of a computer to edit DV as you would HD. The actual skill in editing is going to be the same. edits are edits.
 
I am not going to go HD until I can inexpensively export to Blu-ray or HD DVD.

That's another thing...

I would say that very few of my friends have an HD set. Among that limited circle, I don't know whether any of them have a Blu-Ray and/or HD-DVD player. There might be a PS3 in the group, but I'm not even sure of that.

For me, that really highlights one of the issues with HD. Unless you are being broadcast, distribution on HD almost seems like a non-starter. Again, I am completely new to most of this, so I might be talking out my posterior orifice, in which case...feel free to correct me. :D
 
nope your pretty much spot on. I can think of three reasons to go HD
1- clients that will pay for it.
2- shooting shorts/features with budgets to support HD
3- you just have craploads of money and fancy having the latest and greatest
 
this still requires the burner and the player though. both are getting cheaper, but neither are quite mainstream

And (not to open this topic again - its been discussed ad nauseum elsewhere :D ), the Blu-Ray/HD-DVD divide seems to further complicate the issue, forcing folks who otherwise might jump in to the technolgy to sit on the sidelines while they wait for a clear leader (if not winner).

Ironically, it seems that the only group of people who have really enjoyed HD non-broadcast programming are the video gamers. They already own the Blu-Ray player in the PS3, so they haven't really "invested" anything additional in the format war. Less true to a certain extent with the XBox 360 with its $199 add-on HD-DVD drive, but a $200 investment in the format war seems pretty minor all things considered...especially if you are getting media over NetFlix and aren't really committing to the format beyond the player.
 
this still requires the burner and the player though. both are getting cheaper, but neither are quite mainstream

Do you mean HD DVD burner? If so, that's not true; I simply burn with a cheap (but fast) USB 2.0 DVD +/- dual layer burner. My disks play back on the XBox 360 HD DVD and the Toshiba player, the latter of which I own and test my disks with.

My HD DVD burns will also play back in full quality from the external burner--all the way up to 1080p on a computer display. However, you definitely need a fast 16x DVD burner for full quality playback to work throughout the entire disk.

Agreed about the format war--the complexity of the situation from the consumer standpoint is certainly not a good thing. The reason I'm rooting for HD DVD is because the standard works right now with inexpensive media, and the format itself is simply more cost effective overall for a producer.

And apparently we'll be seeing cheap $150 and under Chinese-made HD DVD players this fall. That's the WalMart factor that could very well usher in the maintstreaming of HD players.
 
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oh - well then i've learned something new today :) so all you need is a good fast dvd burner (which are a dime a dozen) and the hd dvd player. Thanks for the education Elton, I need one every once in a while :)
 
Do you mean HD DVD burner? If so, that's not true; I simply burn with a cheap (but fast) USB 2.0 DVD +/- dual layer burner. My disks play back on the XBox 360 HD DVD and the Toshiba player, the latter of which I own and test my disks with.

I've heard that doing this, you're limited to approx. 18 minutes in length. Is that correct?

Again, given what I am likely to do with a DVX/HVX (i.e. mostly shorts), that is not a real limitation, especially when you consider that any relatively new computer can do this.
 
I've heard that doing this, you're limited to approx. 18 minutes in length. Is that correct?

It depends on the HD format and encoding quality. You can get an hour of h.264 720p on a single layer DVD -/+R and 2 hrs on dual layer media. At full 1080 resolution you can get about 25 minutes on a single layer disc.

Again, given what I am likely to do with a DVX/HVX (i.e. mostly shorts), that is not a real limitation, especially when you consider that any relatively new computer can do this.

Just wanted to say that I author with DVD Studio Pro 4, which is part of the FCP Studio package. I don't have much knowledge about the pc side of the fence for HD DVD authoring. I've heard of a ULead app that can do HD DVD, and of course there are the high end authoring apps which are VERY expensive.
 
For me the argument is not HD vs SD, it is 16:9 vs 4:3. In Europe and Australia all SD is widescreen for about 10 years already. With better SD resolution (576 vs 480 lines), better TVs (widescreen 100Hz dual-scan CRTs became the norm before plasma started flooding mass market) and with 16:9 format, Europeans sit pretty close to the gates of holy HD land. This is one of the reasons why they don't rush switching to HD.

American TV standard is inferior, TVs are inferior, and there were no widescreen SD TVs besides EDTV plasma panels of early 2000-ies, but with price of $4K and up I don't think that many of these TVs had been sold.

Ask an average joe what is great about HDTV -- or even EDTV -- and he will reply: large picture, wide as in the theater, bright, and oh yeah it is sharper. For many, wider format and bigger picture are the main assets of HD. All of you have seen horrible promo videos in retail stores with artefacts, jaggies and screwed up gamma. But ordinary people don't notice the flaws if the picture is large, wide and bright.

What is my point? When North-Americans say "SD" they usually mean "4:3 SD". Well, 4:3 sucks. I hate shortsighted idiots who were shooting 4:3 shows in late 1990-ies, or even in early 2000-ies. Heck, many of them still shoot 4:3 and think this is ok.

Couple of examples: recently I watched a really good documentary "To the Moon" by NOVA, made in 1999. Great stuff, great interviews with real people who participated in the program. But it is 4:3. Come on! It was 1999, not 1979, widescreen cameras were available at that time. Now they cannot even cut top and bottom, because interviews were shot in a way that interviewees take all the frame from top to bottom. But if they shot it in 16:9 preserving all important characters in the center, they could make a center cut for 4:3 broadcast, keeping good stuff for widescreen and keeping full vertical resolution for both modes. They did not think this through. Baaaaaad decision. Should they reshoot again? They should hurry, because the participants of the program will not live forever.

Another example: "Building Big: Skyscrapers", first aired in 2000. This one is smarter, it is letterboxed widescreen. I hope they shot it as real widescreen and letterboxed for standard TVs. If they shot it letterboxed, well, it is their mistake. Also, why would anyone in their right mind distribute letterboxed video on DVD? DVD players automatically letterbox widescreen video when they output to a 4:3 TV. So, while this title is better, it is not THAT good. Blown up onto full screen of my 50-inch plasma it looks very soft.

So what I want to say is whatever you shoot, make it at least widescreen. Well-mastered DVDs look very good on HD TVs despite that these DVDs are SD. HD players are too expensive as well as HD blanks. I believe that HD-DVD/Blu-Ray will marinate for another year or two before they start to offset DVD players. With this in mind, SD WS seems as a good middle ground to me.

Returing to DVX, I am considering upgrading from a consumer camera myself. I don't care much about HD, but I want proper WS. Sadly, DVX is not a real WS camera, it does not widen view when switched to 16:9 mode, and it uses less pixels. From another hand, everything else in this price range seems either inferior or lacking features. I am thinking about 100B because it at least displays WS image as WS on the LCD. Also, I've heard that WS picture from DVX is actually pretty good.

If I wanted streched up stuff on the LCD I could find a used GL2 for about $1K. Maybe this is what I will finally do. HD is here, so spending $2K+ on an SD camera does not seem wise. If it were proper WS then it would definetely tip the scales. Panasonic, what about 100C with wider imagers? This would work for those who don't need HD.
True|Funk|Soldier said:
I would say that very few of my friends have an HD set. Among that limited circle, I don't know whether any of them have a Blu-Ray and/or HD-DVD player.
TVs are getting cheaper and cheaper. 50" HDTV was about $8K three years ago, $3K last year, less than $2K this year. This summer one could buy a last-year's Panasonic for as low as $1500. Prices are dropping. There are a lot of WS TVs in different sizes and price range. Shoot for WS! Blu-Ray is different thing. Few manufacturers, expensive disks, high prices. I have an HDTV, but I will wait at least another year for an HD player. One can find the Toshiba A2 for $300, but I want the proper XA2 with Silicon Optix chip, this one is much pricier. I'll wait.

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Michael, Canon Elura User Info
 
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