Here's your shot to convert me (HVX or no)

I'm kinda leaning for the A1 again, HVX might be possible to get but with even an extra battery your talking like april before I could even get anymore video work :/. Its going to be hard enough to afford just the camera by the time the rebate will be over with. Camera aside I do have to consider the other issues like a Mic, good sticks, extra batteries, etc. I think the A1 might be my only choice right now, inferior or not, production possibilties lower or not it might be the only option thats practical without getting myself into some serious financial trouble.

- Kyle
 
Do you plan on making money with your setup or are you just screwing around? If you do some serious work and market yourself you should be able to get it to pay for itself. Credit cards, loans, whatever.... you can't make money if you don't invest it in the first place! Consider the deliverable formats and then ask yourself if the A1 can deliver the same goods to clients that the HVX can. Nobody will hire you to dig a ditch with a shovel.
 
kyle, i don't mean to pry but you mentioned that you make $800 a month gross. Can you tell me what you do?
 
Kyle, ya gotta do what ya gotta do.
But to be honest, it looks like you have already bought 2 items with buyers remorse. How much did you lose on the cam and computer? Only to have to upgrade so soon?
I'm again suggesting, find a way to make a purchase that will be viable for some time and that opens the door to a large variety of higher paying jobs.
I wish you well.
 
You should just get an external HD and unload directly to that from your HVX. I've read that it can be done.
 
if you get the hvx. `get the free p2 8 gig and buy a usb on the go drive to begin with.(btw the 8gig p2 you get later in the mail not right away)`once you get more money you can get a laptop for offloads. But then the a1 might do the trick too....Clarify what you wanna do with your cam then read all you can on the net and get whats the nearest to what you will use it for...I bought mine after months of research.Depending on were you live rental might not be an option.It was not for me. Im not disapointed...i chose it for the colors. All the cams in this price range have drawbacks....you need to find what they are and if its a problem in the situation you will use it.
Good luck.
forum search is your friend
 
To answer the "what do you do?" im the media director at my local church. Pay is minimum wage at 30hrs a week but hopefully will increase to around $8-$10 an hour.

Someone please explain the USB drive thing to me? I think I made a thread recently asking if this could be done and someone said no. So now something is saying it can? HVX with P2 and a usb drive, can I unload to it?

EDIT: NVM I did a forum search, they do work. My question is why hasn't anyone talked about those before with me lol? Wouldn't have posted half of what I did had I known this option was available. This looks like my ticket to getting actually.

Like I said I can have about 4900 if I finish all my jobs, save 400 in the next 2 months outside of that, and sell my practically new XL2 to someone. Then it just might be possible.

- Kyle
 
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Usb on the go is a battery powered case for 2.5 inch hard drives. It basicly acts like a bridge. You put your hvx in usb mode and the usb drive copies all the data on the p2 cards to the hard drive. The draw back is you have no means to check the data transfer after its done unless you plug it in a computer and check it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_On-The-Go
I used it a lot when i was traveling with a motorbike on mountain roads in indonesia. Easyer then carrying a laptop around.
I learned about the usb to go in this forum so you should be able to find more info here. Its called usb2go, usb on the go ,usb otg.....

Btw buying and selling stuff is very costly....you always loose a lot when selling. Its better to put a little bit more and get the good stuff in the first place. U end up saving even if it looks more expensive at first.
 
Pierre Petit said:
Usb on the go is a battery powered case for 2.5 inch hard drives. It basicly acts like a bridge. You put your hvx in usb mode and the usb drive copies all the data on the p2 cards to the hard drive. The draw back is you have no means to check the data transfer after its done unless you plug it in a computer and check it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_On-The-Go
I used it a lot when i was traveling with a motorbike on mountain roads in indonesia. Easyer then carrying a laptop around.
I learned about the usb to go in this forum so you should be able to find more info here. Its called usb2go, usb on the go ,usb otg.....

Btw buying and selling stuff is very costly....you always loose a lot when selling. Its better to put a little bit more and get the good stuff in the first place. U end up saving even if it looks more expensive at first.
Click to expand...

I've been trying to find info on this same thing but can't see to pin any down. Similar to the idea of transferring footage to an iPod.

Where do you find the battery powered case at?
 
P2 sound's scarier than it is. I recently shot several training videos for the NCPTT (in post production now). We only had two days to shoot with uncertain weather conditions so we were shooting constantly while we had the light and praying it didn't rain. All I had was 2 4 gig P2 cards yet we never had a problem. My girlfriend came along with her laptop and offloaded one P2 while the other was in the camera. When we finished for the day, we burned all the P2 files onto DVDs and we were good. That's all I needed. Didn't have to find some pro and pay them union wages. Just had to know someone with a laptop. The funny thing is that we really didn't even have to unload much since, when you can delete bad clips, 20 minutes of footage (what you get on 2 4 gigers at 720p 24pN), can stretch pretty far.

Right now you can get the camera for $5300 with a free 8 giger. Just buy another 4 gig card (you can easily find one used for $400) and you're good. That'll give you 30 minutes of record time before having to offload. In heavy event shooting just use mini-DV for most shots and only switch to HD and P2 for slow motion and other important shots. Your clients sure as hell aren't going to know the difference since you'll be giving it to them on DVD anyway and, since everything in the HVX200 is downrezed form a 1080p origional, you can still tell them it was captured with an HD camera and charge the appropriate rates. Good luck.
 
*BUMP*

I bumped this even though I had a bunch of great comments because now my situation has changed. I know have a good opportunity to get my hands on one in the next month but I still have that A1 floating in my mind. I read the article yes before anyone says anything and read all the comments. The issue now is wondering if I need the features the HVX has, and even if I dont will I miss them if they aren't there when I DO want them? Without this opportunity I probably was just gonna get A1 but I recently found out I got a pay raise so that solved the issue, not to mention a buddy of mine (who ill undoubtably make a glorious thread for if I do get the HVX from him) is going to do something that I think is insane but he's a God for doing so.

I'll be completely up front, IM NOT A PRO. I dont do a couple 1000 dollar gigs every month or something like that. I'm 18 with a fulltime media job doing editing and things of the sort and yes I love moviemaking. I want to go to film school in 2 years so the HVX could be great there (I know a friend who is hunted down for folks to use it at the school all the time) so that could help with connections, I'll get my p2 card right away since my buddy already got his, it just seems like its the PERFECT situation.

Since ill be doing personal projects with it more than likely to start having one P2 card and no laptop wont be an issue since I plan to use an OTG drive for myself for now. Weddings will be shot in SD since DVD is the intended medium anyways so thats not an issue, just seems too good to be true.

I guess I should just do it since everything fell into place. HVX here I come...I hope :)

- Kyle
 
KyleProhaska said:
*BUMP*

I bumped this even though I had a bunch of great comments because now my situation has changed. I know have a good opportunity to get my hands on one in the next month but I still have that A1 floating in my mind. I read the article yes before anyone says anything and read all the comments. The issue now is wondering if I need the features the HVX has, and even if I dont will I miss them if they aren't there when I DO want them? Without this opportunity I probably was just gonna get A1 but I recently found out I got a pay raise so that solved the issue, not to mention a buddy of mine (who ill undoubtably make a glorious thread for if I do get the HVX from him) is going to do something that I think is insane but he's a God for doing so.

I'll be completely up front, IM NOT A PRO. I dont do a couple 1000 dollar gigs every month or something like that. I'm 18 with a fulltime media job doing editing and things of the sort and yes I love moviemaking. I want to go to film school in 2 years so the HVX could be great there (I know a friend who is hunted down for folks to use it at the school all the time) so that could help with connections, I'll get my p2 card right away since my buddy already got his, it just seems like its the PERFECT situation.

Since ill be doing personal projects with it more than likely to start having one P2 card and no laptop wont be an issue since I plan to use an OTG drive for myself for now. Weddings will be shot in SD since DVD is the intended medium anyways so thats not an issue, just seems too good to be true.

I guess I should just do it since everything fell into place. HVX here I come...I hope :)

- Kyle
Click to expand...

My suggestion? Get the a1. Why? Because what you get from the HVX is probably important for Industry professionals, but not for the first time independent moviemaker or prosumer. You don't need dvcpro HD for Broadcast distribution, and you don't need variable frame rates for fluid slow motion or fast motion, because you can do similar (not as good, but passable) effects with normal (no frame blending) slo motion. Have you seen Moulin Rouge? They use normal slo-mo from 24p footage. It looks good and expressive. Of course I love "In The Mood For Love" Style slow motion, but you can get that later, when you go to film school, with the HVX200 or 300a. The A1 is one solid camera, and you'll get fantastic results from it. You'll learn with it, make money with it, and, in two years, you'll be able to go to a bigger and better camera. Don't forget: Grass Valley and RED are coming to the market, and they will certainly change the pricing of video products around. Don't be surprised that, in two years, an HVX with 2/3 ccd's, interchangeable lenses, AVCintra encoding (whats the name of that again?) and P2 will be available for purchase for the price point of the current HVX.

If you were an industry pro, no question: HVX all the way. Independent low budget filmmaker, doing it for a hobby? It all depends on your budget. For me, low budget is being barelly able to afford the camera, and an editing solution. And trough that perspective, I would say go for the A1.
 
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