DVX100 vs. Consumer HD Cam

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worldwidestudios

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Hello all, I am a student filmmaker looking to get a new camera, and I'm torn between getting a prosumer SD cam (such as the DVX100), and a consumer HD cam (such as the Sony HDR-HC7). Bear in mind that I likely wouldn't be burning any HD-DVDs, just downgrading it to SD. My budget is around 1,200 (certainly no more than 2,000). Any thoughts? Is there a more ideal camera I'm not seeing?

Thanks!
Zak
 
If you re not going to be burning any hd dvds then why get a hd camera?
I have learned if you are going to get a good hd camera you might as well save up for something like a panasonic hvx-200 because those 1080i cameras do not compare to a 720p camera with lots of progressive & hd options.
But with the dvx you will get a amazing cinema look.
The dvx really is your best bet if you are looking to produce movies.
one more thing , there is no reason to shoot in hd when you are going to be converting it to sd because if you are going to convert you might as well just shoot in sd.
But if you want hd more then sd , get the sony
 
the undercrank and overcrank options and many other options let you use your imagination and film creativily.
anyway if you don't have the budget my bet would be the dvx. not just because it has better chips, optics.... just because you will be able to film your ideas without the limitations of a small consume camera.
 
jdmoviemaker said:
If you re not going to be burning any hd dvds then why get a hd camera?
I have learned if you are going to get a good hd camera you might as well save up for something like a panasonic hvx-200 because those 1080i cameras do not compare to a 720p camera with lots of progressive & hd options.
But with the dvx you will get a amazing cinema look.
The dvx really is your best bet if you are looking to produce movies.
one more thing , there is no reason to shoot in hd when you are going to be converting it to sd because if you are going to convert you might as well just shoot in sd.
But if you want hd more then sd , get the sony
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It makes the most sense to acquire your footage in the highest quality possible.

Resolution is a factor. It's hardly the ONLY factor, but it's a factor. Simply saying "you're only going to deliver in SD, so only shoot SD" isn't terribly good advice . . .

Now, regarding this specific question, the DVX is better-suited for narrative filmmaking purposes than any consumer handycam . . . but that's really in SPITE of being SD than because of being SD.
 
In my opinion, for the money you should get a dvx. The only other step that I would see possible would be the hvx, but considering the way I would like to run it, it would cost me around 10 grand. I'm not sure if that includes a new computer as well. SD is the stple for right now, and there is nothing set in stone for exporting movies to a disc yet, besides sd dvd. I have a friend who went nuts and bought an fx-1, now he is extremely disappointed because he now realized the the dvx has far superior sd images. He doesn't have an hd tv, and his downrezed 1080i footage looks, like a GL1 compared to the dvx.

then again I have a dvx like nearly everyone here, so I'm immediately biased because of my $3000 investment
 
If you do not plan shooting in HD , I suggest get a dvx.
If you are making films you should get an SD 24p camera.
But if you do get HD you will be better set for distributing your film for HD viewer audiences.
If you are doing a HD film I say buy a HVX because you get 24p and HD.
HD without 24p does not always create a movie look.
But 24p without HD can create a movie look.
If you are going to buy a consumer Sony camera more then likely you are going to be sacrificing 24p for HD.
BUT If you get a canon A1 you can get 24p and HD which is something that I like about the canon consumer cameras.
You may have a solution there;)
 
David Jimerson said:
Resolution is a factor. It's hardly the ONLY factor, but it's a factor. Simply saying "you're only going to deliver in SD, so only shoot SD" isn't terribly good advice . . .
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With the caveat that David knows a lot more about this stuff than I likely ever will, I have to disagree. By and large, the only thing you will get by downconverting HD footage to SD is noisy SD. In particular, if your choice is between a high quality SD camera and a medium quality HD camera, you'll do far better with the SD camera.

Higher resolution might give you some advantage in post production effects, but aside from that it just won't be visible on a DVD or some other SD medium.
 
iain.bason said:
By and large, the only thing you will get by downconverting HD footage to SD is noisy SD.
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Hm, you ever seen properly downconverted SD from an HD source? It's unbelievably sharp; as sharp as any native SD source I've ever seen. The extra resolution does make a difference. The image below is downconverted from HDV 24F materials that have been rendered out from an SD timeline. I took a screencap directly from the video in Windows Media Classics (which doesn't seem to recognize PAR unfortunately). It's as sharp as I can hope for.

1199062644.jpg
 
I just shot a short film on a brand new DVX100B... i took the final cut to a friends house and watched it on 41 inch or so plasma TV..

It was absolutely stunning. And i shot in squeeze mode too , with no special lenses or adapters.

To me, its not even an argument. The DVX, all the way.

I dont count pixels...the dvxb delivers PLENTY good enough quality as long as things are shot and lit right. Not sure why we would need more resolution.

You can keep your HD cameras!! :)
 
While I'm not a huge HD fanboy or anything, it does seem to me that the images shown on a computer monitor look significantly better when downressed from HD to SD, as compared to being shot originally in SD. Heck, even when upressing DVX SD footage in Instant HD and then resizing back down to SD the image appears sharper.

And yes, I know the final judgement for a lot of people can only be done on a television screen, but honestly, when I shoot (both motion picture and still photography) I don't really expect 99% of my stuff to ever leave the monitor.

Anyways, one big thing I don't like about native HD is how peoples' faces can appear (seeing every pore and pimple just doesn't look that great). Upressing from SD to HD and redisplaying it at SD size seems to sharpen things up and give the appearance of HD without bringing in too much detail. It can look a little fake and plasticky sometimes, but most people I know who are outside of the videography world seem to like it just fine.

My two cents.
 
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iain.bason said:
With the caveat that David knows a lot more about this stuff than I likely ever will, I have to disagree. By and large, the only thing you will get by downconverting HD footage to SD is noisy SD.
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I have to agree with jade -- if you're experiencing this, you're probably not downconverting effectively. You can see a great deal of HVX footage on the BootCamp DVDs, all downconverted to SD, of course, and much of it looks nearly 100% noise-free . . . and part of that is because while there is noise in the footage, the size of a speck of noise relative to an HD picture is much smaller than it is in an SD picture, and when the whole image gets downrezzed, the noise in the picture often gets reduced to nothingness. Depending on how much noise you had originally, of course.

We have another DVD coming soon which has many cinematic sketches shot in HD; they look gorgeous in SD, and they look better than they would have had they been shot with the DVX. You start with high-quality stuff, it looks better on the back end.


In particular, if your choice is between a high quality SD camera and a medium quality HD camera, you'll do far better with the SD camera.
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That is true; a top-tier 2/3" SD camera will likely come out better than the HVX when all is said and done. But if you shot the same project with an HVX (in HD) and a DVX, then delivered both on DVD, the HVX version, all else being equal, will look better for having been shot in HD.


Higher resolution might give you some advantage in post production effects, but aside from that it just won't be visible on a DVD or some other SD medium.
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Would you agree that 35mm film transferred to DVD looks better than SD video?

Anyway, in this case, as I said, the DVX is the better choice between it and any consumer HD camera, resolution notwithstanding, if what you want is a professional-looking filmic product. But that's because of many factors other than the respective resolutions of the cameras.
 
David Jimerson said:
Would you agree that 35mm film transferred to DVD looks better than SD video?
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No, not necessarily. I watch DVD movies on a ~5 ft wide screen, so the details are fairly easy to spot. Iraq in Fragments looks as good as most films that originated on 35mm. Naturally film has advantages other than resolution (most notably latitude), so it's hard to compare without letting those things influence.

I agree with the general principle that starting out with higher quality source is an advantage. I just don't agree that higher resolution is going to translate to a sharper SD image. (Comparing HVX to DVX isn't that instructive, since there may be other differences between the cameras that affect the image. A proper double blind test could possibly be done using Andromeda.)

David Jimerson said:
Anyway, in this case, as I said, the DVX is the better choice between it and any consumer HD camera, resolution notwithstanding, if what you want is a professional-looking filmic product. But that's because of many factors other than the respective resolutions of the cameras.
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Agreed.
 
iain.bason said:
No, not necessarily. I watch DVD movies on a ~5 ft wide screen, so the details are fairly easy to spot. Iraq in Fragments looks as good as most films that originated on 35mm. Naturally film has advantages other than resolution (most notably latitude), so it's hard to compare without letting those things influence.
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OK . . . on average?

I agree with the general principle that starting out with higher quality source is an advantage. I just don't agree that higher resolution is going to translate to a sharper SD image.
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I did say resolution was a factor among many. What (again) I was arguing against is the idea that if you're planning an SD release, you shouldn't use an HD camera, or that an SD camera will give better results. And I never said anything about a "sharper" image.


(Comparing HVX to DVX isn't that instructive, since there may be other differences between the cameras that affect the image. A proper double blind test could possibly be done using Andromeda.)
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In that case, you'd have to use the Hydra for the HVX . . .
 
If you can afford a DVX, go for that. However, if you opt to go for an HV20 you're not likely to regret it. When shooting in HD for a product in SD, there's a lot you can do with the image (reframing, smoothing out shake, doing quick and accurate zooms in post, etc) which can be very helpful depending on what kind of work you're doing. Music videos come to mind.
 
David Jimerson said:
OK . . . on average?
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Hard to say. A lot of perceived image quality has to do with the lighting, color correction and other factors outside the camera. Aside from Iraq in Fragments, all I've seen on the big screen that originated with SD is home movies of my kids. It looks pretty good for raw footage from an untrained camera operator, but it can't compare to a theatrical release on so many levels that it's hard to isolate the effect of resolution.

David Jimerson said:
I did say resolution was a factor among many. What (again) I was arguing against is the idea that if you're planning an SD release, you shouldn't use an HD camera, or that an SD camera will give better results. And I never said anything about a "sharper" image.
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My mistake. In what respects do you think HD images scaled down to SD resolution are better than original SD images?

I'm not sure anyone said that one shoudn't use an HD camera. Rather, the argument has been that HD resolution is not in itself an advantage when you intend to deliver an SD product. (Yes, I did say downsized HD images would be noisier. I'll defer to your greater experience on that issue.)

I've been talking about the effect of resolution all else being equal. In the real world, of course, all else is not equal. For example, the HVX has a better codec than the DVX. Its CCD sensors are presumably better, being more modern. Its optics may be better too, for all I know.

Maybe it makes more sense to talk about individual cameras at a given price point. But then you're talking real work!

David Jimerson said:
In that case, you'd have to use the Hydra for the HVX . . .
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Well, I was suggesting that one could compare DVX to Andromeda, to minimize the differences other than resolution. On reflection, however, the image processing will be different too, so it probably wouldn't be that informative a test.
 
iain.bason said:
Hard to say. A lot of perceived image quality has to do with the lighting, color correction and other factors outside the camera. Aside from Iraq in Fragments, all I've seen on the big screen that originated with SD is home movies of my kids. It looks pretty good for raw footage from an untrained camera operator, but it can't compare to a theatrical release on so many levels that it's hard to isolate the effect of resolution.
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There's BTS stuff you can watch where the lighting, etc., is the same between the images. Things like that.

My mistake. In what respects do you think HD images scaled down to SD resolution are better than original SD images?
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Now, don't paint me as making such a blanket statement -- again, I said it was a factor.

But advantages can include, as I said above, less noise once it's downconverted, and yes, more detail -- the image starts with more, and though it's being downconverted to the same resolution, it had more detail to begin with. The effect is comparable to having used (as a rough example, not meant to be taken too literally) a 1/3" SD camera and a 2/3" SD camera -- both SD, but the latter resolves more detail.

Also, you have other advantages. You can downconvert HD to SD (uncompressed) and end up with pretty close to 4:4:4 color, even starting with something like HDV. There's simply more information in the image to work with.

And, using the full HD image in SD post, you've got a luxurious amount of freedom to push in and pan around the image, if you wanted to. A 720p image is four times larger than a 480p image; you could take 1/4 of the image and still be at the exact resolution of SD with no quality hit.

Just a few examples.


I've been talking about the effect of resolution all else being equal. In the real world, of course, all else is not equal. For example, the HVX has a better codec than the DVX. Its CCD sensors are presumably better, being more modern. Its optics may be better too, for all I know.
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There are differences, but they are the most comparable SD/HD cameras I can think of in terms of overall image.
 
There is also the audio, the DVX has manual controls including independent channel volume adjustment, sensitivity, line/mic and of course balanced XLR inputs for professional mics.

Consumer HD cam wont have any of this, and you will notice the limitations straight after you buy it. An on cam microphone is great for home movies but immediately you want to do something more professional it will drive you mad. You will have to get a beachbox or something but you still wont get as good a result as you would straight from the dvx.

I just got my DVX100A and was quite surprised at how good the audio was compared to some other cameras.

Some of the consumer HDV cams don't even have an extension socket for a microphone.
 
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