HD vs. SD

flimflamfilms

flimflamfilms

Well-known member
Good morning,

Next year I will be teaching a video course to high school students. My partner and I are in the process of deciding on formats, cameras, and editing equipment. I shoot on a DVX100B and have only ever edited in SD. I would like to become familiar with the differences and issues related to HD. If anyone would be willing to share their knowledge and experiences regarding these two formats- the pros and cons- I would be very grateful.

Cheers,

John

ps. If there might be a more appropriate place on DVXuser to post this inquiry, I'm all ears. Thanks.
 
I guess HDV would be the route you'd want to go, but I've had bad experiences with HDV.

I know that FCP really needs to be handled nicely, and I had many problems trying to Print To Tape.

I hear problems with HDV all the time, and many people try to avoid it, but I think it would be easier to use than going the HD route (with P2 cards).

Just my thought..

Robbie
 
Robbie,

Many thanks for the thoughts. What are your thoughts about sticking with SD and mini-DV?

Cheers,

John
 
Sure, that could still work.

I worked with SD when I was in high school.

Also, another reason why switching to HDV would be easier, is because I'm sure most of the students would be familiar with it, as opposed to using cards.

I'm sure there familiar with DV Tapes with there SD cameras, so using HDV would still be using tapes, so they would be very familiar with it.

SD is perfectly fine, 'specially DVX's! I remember using little Canon ZR 500's, it was awful. Our school wasn't the best in that department.

Robbie
 
Yeah DVX's will be fine. I go to Art Institute of Los Angeles which has it's own video production major, and they start us out on DSR-250s and PD170s. They don't even let you get your hands on a DVX until 5th quarter.
 
Go SD for one reason: the work flow.

MiniDV as a work flow is solid as a rock and standardized over all the editors available today in terms of import and export. Your kids should be learning about lighting, framing, camera movement, art direction, sound, editing (pacing, shot selection) and not which intermediate format they are going to cut in or whether 720p or 1080p is better for their project...

Grab some used 100a's and go to town.
 
I have to agree with William. There's far too much material to cover to be slowed down by an unstable HD work flow. It's hard to teach when you're always fixing problems. Please teach them how to read a waveform/vectorscope. I've lost count of the number of college grads that have walked into my suite pointed at the scope and said, "What's that do?".
 
Many thanks for your time and very helpful thoughts. The Canon HV30 has been suggested as a decent camera to begin with seeing as it has HD and SD capabilities. I'll look into this. Are there other tape-based cameras similar to this?

Cheers,

John
 
Panasonic HVX200 can shoot both as well. But they are more expensive than the Canon and You will getting into teaching them about P2 workflow. Which is not hard and I think they should learn that as well.

flimflamfilms said:
Many thanks for your time and very helpful thoughts. The Canon HV30 has been suggested as a decent camera to begin with seeing as it has HD and SD capabilities. I'll look into this. Are there other tape-based cameras similar to this?

Cheers,

John
Click to expand...
 
Something to keep in mind is that his budget is around $800-$1000 per camera.

-Kegan
 
I'm seeing plenty of VX1k's & VX21_ series cameras selling for that price. You can easily grab a DVX for 1300 now.
 
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