1/2in or larger chips?

FatBird19 said:
What's preventing companies from moving up to larger chips? Is it just cost? I really have no idea.
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Actually, it is the 1/3" HD CCD that is the new kid on the block.

You can buy a Sony CineAlta F900 for around $100,000 (save some cash for a lens.) The same goes for the Panasonic Varicam HDC27. They are both 2/3"
Next year JVC is releasing the HD7000 for around $25000. It is 2/3" HDV and will also have a higher bit-rate ProHD EX mode.
There is also the Thompson Viper that shoots 1080 uncompressed 4:4:4, and I believe it is a 2/3" chip. I have no idea on price, but I would guess at least $250,000.

The biggest chip is in the Dalsa Origin, which has an image sensor larger than a 35mm film frame. It will record uncompressed 4K 4:4:4 resolution straight to an array of hard drives. I don't think you can even buy this one. I think it is rental only. Check it out: http://www.dalsa.com/dc/origin/dc_sensor.asp
 
Just look for the cost between a 1/2" and a 1/3" professional SD camera...

the sensor size automatically adds a lot. however that's not all there is to it. Look at the size of all this so called 'prosumer' cameras. They're tiny compared to the pro ones. 1/2" means bigger camera, 2/3" even bigger!

Anyway, there a 2/3" coming soon from JVC. If you have $35k to spend...
 
Barry_Green said:
Don't forget that they've been pushing CCDs smaller too... there's 1/4", and even 1/6" CCDs out there...
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I currently have to deal with a 1/6in CCD.....I hate it.

I'm going to move up to a DVX100a. I would do HD, but for one thing it's not in my pricerange, and for another I'd like to give it a little bit longer for the technology to round itself out a little better.

Hey, do any of you think that the DVX will go down in price? I'd be inclined to think not, becuase it's not like any of the HD cameras are competetively priced with the DVX.
 
There's already a $500 rebate on it... that's all the cost reduction we're likely to see. The 100A will be replaced by the 100B, probably sometime next month. Jan's already said that the 100B will carry the same retail price as the 100A currently does ($3995).
 
FatBird19 said:
What's preventing companies from moving up to larger chips? Is it just cost? I really have no idea.
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I think the words we're searching for are market size and market segmentation. I was pissed as hell when I went to NAB 2005 and found that NO ONE chose to introduce a 1/2" 24p camera (SD or HDV). You know, like a decent, pro-body 24p camera for about $8K-$12K. Get it? Something in BETWEEN an HVX200 and an SDX900 in price. But I guess the market size for this price point is smaller than the size for a $6K camera--so, they don't. Instead, they ALL just make MORE $5K-$6K 1/3" cameras with the name noise and sensitivity limitations we've been suffering with since the development of the original VX1000 (which we were damn glad to have at the time).

Why does every manufacturer try to eek out every ounce of performance out of these tiny little 1/3" CCDs? Just upgrade the CCD block to 1/2' or 2/3" and charge us a few grand more! Noise and sensitivity issues disappear! But that would diminish the manufacturer's product line differentiation among their higher-end, SDX900- and XDCAM-class cameras. So here I go on my 2/3" chip rant again . . . the hell with 1/3" cameras. I'm going with a 2/3" native-16:9, 24p standard-definition camera, the Sony DSR450WSL. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's only 4:1:1, but it's DVCAM at 5:1 DCT compression--none of this weird long-GOP, non-I-frame-only MPEG crap that falls apart if you even look at it funny. At $15K, I think it's a bargain.
 
Cost due to production scale. The market for the larger chips is small (well compared to say mobile phones - not everyone has a 2/3" camcorder) and the customers tend to be relying on the equipment to make money, so they can charge plenty for it.

If 2/3" cameras were a must have item, you would probably see them for sub $1000, problem is the market is too small to warrant the production processes and R&D that would make the chips that affordable.

Also, like NBC pointed out, these companies, especially Sony, like to have a line of division between their high-end and low-end gear. They deliberately crow bar this divide to keep it open. They have little interest in customer benefits, only profits... someone should probably point out that the two can go hand in hand very well.
 
And there should be deferent size chips because there are different needs. Folks shooting their kids don't need to spend $3000 on a camera, while guys shooting TV shows want all the bells and whistles in terms of how the picture is made. None is wrong, just different and that difference fits the particular need.
 
Walter_Graff said:
And there should be deferent size chips because there are different needs. Folks shooting their kids don't need to spend $3000 on a camera, while guys shooting TV shows want all the bells and whistles in terms of how the picture is made. None is wrong, just different and that difference fits the particular need.
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Yeah... the last thing a consumer cam wants is depth of field. Everything wants to be in lovely focus :laugh:
 
Actually, there finally is an announcement on a 1/2" cam: the Sony XDCAM-HD camera is 1/2". No mention of 24p though, nor of cost...
 
mmm said:
Also, like NBC pointed out, these companies, especially Sony, like to have a line of division between their high-end and low-end gear. They deliberately crow bar this divide to keep it open. They have little interest in customer benefits, only profits... someone should probably point out that the two can go hand in hand very well.
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which is actually why I'm suprised that the HVX is supposed to be having all of these professional features. :o
 
Barry_Green said:
Actually, there finally is an announcement on a 1/2" cam: the Sony XDCAM-HD camera is 1/2". No mention of 24p though, nor of cost...
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I haven't heard that. Do you have a source on this information? Everything I've ever seen/heard from Sony was 2/3" CCDs for the current standard-definition, PDW-530, and 2/3" CCDs for the upcoming XDCAM-HD models. That just doesn't make any sense that Sony would introduce a 1/2" 16:9 XDCAM-HD product. I mean it would be GREAT if they did, but . . .

Was it maybe a 1/2" HD block camera you heard about?
 
A post on dvinfo said about $25K with lens for the 1/2" XDCAM-HD. We have one standard-definition PDW-530 XDCAM (w/24p board) in-house at NBC that we're trying out. XDCAM-HD isn't out yet, and final data rates, specs, I don't believe, have been defined yet. It will be, however, a new Sony-defined HD codec.
 
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