AC130: AC-130 vs Canon XH-A1 - Anyone?

F

Firefox39

Active member
I would like to hear from anyone going from the Canon XH-A1 to the AC130. I really like the XH-A1, I am still blown away with the picture quality (with good lighting) I get with the A1, but they are getting old. When I compared the Panny 150 with the A1, the A1 had a better picture quality to me, so I did not switch. Does the AC130 have noticeably better picture quality then the Panny 150? The Canon XH-A1?

I really want to upgrade my Canon XH-A1, it either is the AC130 or the Sony NX5U, however I do not want to loss picture quality with the "upgrade".

Any thoughts would be great!
 
Might not be the best opinion, since I actually considered the XH-A1 a while back but thought the HMC150 had a better image! Maybe you saw one of the lower quality settings...?

Anyway the 130/160 are a bit sharper and cleaner than the HMC150, that's about all I can tell you. Good luck!
 
Hi
I'm also interrested in experience of the picture quality differeces between the XH-A1 and the AC130/160.

I am just a film hobbyist but I'm thinking of upgrading my cameras to solid state models sometime in the future when my savings allow for a change. The delicate problem is that there are many options to chose between.

One thing that I directly can see on all test sequences I've found, is that there seems to be none or very small amount of chromatic abberation (CA) from the lens of the AC130/160 models. On the XH-A1 I've found the CA to be the weak point of the lens and CA is very visible around the edges in high contrast scenes.

Differences in resolution and dynamic range between XH-A1 and AC-130/160 would also be of high interest.

Another thing I wonder is if there are visible(!) differences between the picture of the AC130/160 models compared to the HPX250. I know that there are big differences in the codec as the HPX250 is 10bit 100mbps Intraframes, and the AC-models is AVCHD 8bit 21mbps. This will of course give an advantage for the HPX in terms of keying and color grading in post, but it would be interesting to read some opinions
about the visible differences of the picture directly from the camera, given all other factors are the same.


Regards,

/Bo
 
The general consensus between the IQ of the AC130/160 vs. the HPX250 is that they look almost identical.

The exceptions seem to be that the 10-bit 422 is better for green screen and for scenes which have lots of fast motion -- how much better? I don't know.

But the cost of the P2 workflow is a roadblock for many.
 
I have had my XHA1 since late '07, I believe, and still use it with my HMC150's. In my view the 150's have a cleaner picture in low light conditions, and that's where I shoot a lot, doing a lot of concert work.
But the real diff you will see between the 130, the 150 and the NX5U is in the workflow. If you have a strong computer, going tapeless is just such a joy. No more waiting an hour to capture a full tape-more like 10 minutes to transfer the contents of a full 16 GB chip, and you're ready to edit. Plus the chips are so much more portable, less costly and overall more reliable than tape. Now that's a serious upgrade, right there.
 
I do a lot of multi-cam concert work with the xha1 and hmc150, and have just added a hpx250. I have found the hmc150 to produce slightly better overall results than the xha1, and the hpx250 does much better now. I am still fond of the xha1 and will use a blackmagic componet to sdi converter and a Sound Devices PIX240 to keep the old a1 going in the post tape world.
 
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