HVX and DV50

Brandon Rice

Brandon Rice

Distributed Producer
I've been talking with a professor at a local college. He wants to get new cameras for his film program. He mentioned the JVC. I told him he should take a look at the HVX. He said he had some reservations with using P2. I mentioned it could use DV tapes. My question is, can you record DV50 with DV tapes? It'll give you a lot more resolution, right? And, you'll still get the rich colors and latitude of the HVX's chip...
 
Sorry DV25 is all you can get onto a MiniDV tape, well, that and HDV (DV25 has a data rate of 25 Mbps).
 
Don't forget you can shoot in HD (frame rates, etc) then down-rez (dub) in camera to DV . . . if that's the format you're/he's interested in working with.

Best of both worlds, no?

edit: nope, no HDV
 
It's a matter of Mbps, NOT resolution. HDV is just a VERY compressed higher resolution format, hence the ability to squeeze, push and cram it onto the MiniDV tape. They were THAT desperate to pack it on there, that many even compressed the audio just to save space....it is one of the main reasons HDV isn't appreciated by many.

Edit: sorry I was referring to HDV only as a general
technical possibility, the HVX doesn't do HDV (luckily!!)

More edits: Oh, Briceman, BTW, DV50 WON'T give you more resolution/pixels, just less compression. Here's a page with some different formats, and their color sampling/data rate, etc.:
http://videoexpert.home.att.net/artic3/256atab.htm
 
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briceman said:
Cool thanks! But for a project destined for DVD, would the HVX shooting in DV25 suffice?
Click to expand...

Er, yes, of course it will.
But the real question is: how much better than the DVX will it be? And that needs to be answered by someone else.
 
That's what I'm really wondering. If you use the HVX with regular ol' DV tapes will it benefit from the color, clarity, and latitude that the HD footage to P2 benefits from?
 
Of course not; in that case it's a DV camera. It'll benefit from the clarity that native 16:9 brings to it, and the color and latitude that the better DSP and better processing bring to it, but HD doesn't even enter that picture. When shooting tape it's a DV camera.
 
Ok, thanks Barry! In any case... I still will recommend this camera to him... even with the P2 card thing... on that note... how large of P2 cards do they currently have?
 
briceman said:
That's what I'm really wondering. If you use the HVX with regular ol' DV tapes will it benefit from the color, clarity, and latitude that the HD footage to P2 benefits from?
Click to expand...

The simple answer is no. And you'd be amazed at how much better the DVCPro50 looks. Once you see that, you never want to shoot DV again.
 
I believe you get 16 minutes of DVCPro50 on an eight gig card. You actually get more in 720/24pn (20 minutes) because it's only shooting the 24 frames.
 
The 16:9 image from the HVX I was testing is the nicest for sure of all the cams I tested with the Brevis. The fact that it can shoot progressive 16:9 at all puts it on par or better than the XL2.

I beleive all footage from this cam is captured natively, and then converted to whatever format you're recoding, and it shows.

Douglas Spotted Eagle posted some clips of HD downrezzed to SD, vs SD, and there was a definite difference. It was very apparent when viewing the footage at the pixel level.
 
Thanks for the info Dennis! I am trying to learn all I can about this camera (for possible future purchasing/use) and for being able to present a strong case for the Prof. to purchase these cameras instead of the JVC's.
 
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