DVCPro50 for B&W?

[daveswan]

Ok, my film making club is getting ready to shoot a B&W silent short (Think Harold Loyd), in Academy ratio, and I'll be using my HVX.
Now the perfectionist in me says "Nothing less than DVCPro50", but am I being a little precious in this? After all, we'll be taking out the colour eventualy, though we will be doing a little compositing, nothing fancy.
Because of the aspect ratio I've already ruled out HD.
Hoping for some advice,
Dave

 

[gilgamesh]

Definitley shoot DVCPro50, even though you are not using colour, 4.2.2 colour will make all of the greys more textured (less compression) and you'll be able to adjust the luminance of each rgb colour to create your b&w better. Remember, simple desaturating to create the b&w is the simplest but not best way to make black and white - the best way is to adjust channels individually. Here's an explanation of what I mean in stills, but I am sure it can be applied to video as well.

http://www.macworld.com/2006/04/secrets/maydigitalphoto/index.php

 

[daveswan]

Thanks.
I'll go with DVCPro50 then. I've tried using the RGB sliders in Avid's Colour Efect tool followed by desaturate (Like using Chanel Mixer), but that just left me with one colour.
I may use my monochrome contrast filters and desaturate later to get the effect of having shot on B&W film.
Cheers,
Dave