HVX Closer To The Higher End HD Over JVC?

S

SquidLips

Well-known member
Though I am a neophyte technically about all this, is the look and features of this HVX closer to say, the 900 pro HD camera than the JVC? In other words, I used the 900 on a feature and was completly taken by it's cinematic look when you have the right DIT and DP playing with the colors/contrast/gamma etc.

Is the thought here that this prosumer camera will mimic closer that look over the JVC100HD, for instance? I know there is an 80K difference between the two cameras and don't expect equal results, but this 1080 over 720 24P thing sounds like a deal clincher for many here. And I guess the p2 card seems to be the "future" over the less reliable tape.
 
We haven't seen footage from the HVX yet, so can't tell... however it is due TODAY!!! So stay glued!
 
in my opinion, you more or less usually, for the most part, get what you pay for...usually. both units are priced comparatively, i'd be surprised if there is a huge difference in image quality. however! the HVX has a better HD format and can record SD in 4:2:2 and yes, the P2 capability. it also has a wider lens. the jvc kicks ass but it's biggest advantage over the the hvx seems to be that it sexier looking. it's also $500 cheaper, shoulder mountable, and available. many of us here are starting to believe the HVX is like the california grunion... or bigfoot perhaps--a fictitious creature invented to inspire, tease, and give magic to our incredibly dull, mundane existence.
 
The simple answer is the HVX offers 50% more luma resolution, and three times more chroma resolution, than the JVC does. There are many other reasons, but that's the biggest one, to me.
 
Barry, can you give me a layman's explanation as to what the chroma and luma resolution advantage will do for the final product over the JVC? I would be more than happy to sacrafice camera unit look to get a better looking result.

My only known "fear" of the Panasonic is that it does not have an interchangeable lens and I as a director like working with longer lens' and more shallow focus over the wider end of the lens.
 
Well, the biggest difference to me is that the HVX is going to cost you A LOT more to be practical. Is it better? Sure. But people aren't taking into account the hidden costs, and if you buy it you need to make sure to factor in those costs as well.

The advantage of HDV is that to me it's kind of like the bridge between full on HD and SD. I don't feel like the prosumer market is quite ready for full on HD, yet at the same time it would like a taste of HD. HDV gives you that. It makes compromises sure, but like with the Sony camera, the main advantage is that you can use cheap and disposable tapes which everyone should be able to afford.

In a perfect world, it'd be good to have both. But if you can only have one, and budget IS a concern, I'd go with the JVC for more practical reasons until the market matures a little more.

In the meantime, you can still make a lot of money with the JVC and it's still got great potential as a low-budget filmmaking camera as well. Best of both worlds to me for those who are on a budget. If money's no concern, then by all means wait for the HVX, just be prepared to shell out more to make it functional for you, P2 cards, your rickety old Pentium 60 may need an overhaul, though...MAYBE, just maybe though! So don't factor that in.
 
I recently went on a shoot with a crew shooting a documentary on a Sony F900. They took the composit feed out of the ass end of this little box than downconverted to SD and made all of thier image adjtsments looking at an NTSC monitor WITHOUT A SCOPE. :huh: I was floored. And then when these idiots digitized the footoage and it didn't look like what they expected they tried to blame the post house, the camera, the rental company etc, everyone except themselves. they would have been so much better off if they would have just defaulted everything, white balanced and just focused.

I have been on several HD shoots where the DP didn't scope anything I just thought maybe I'm too old and you don't need it anymore. Even though this was a freind I was amused when they tried to post it and it looked like crap :evil:

SquidLips you raise several issues in your original post, 1080i vs 720p, P2 vs Tape, HVX vs F900 vs HD100 and truthfully I'm not sure if addressing any of those issues seperately answers your original post. I know people who can shoot with a digital8 on auto who can produce more professional results than some who have more money than commen sense and use an F900.

Barry's answer is probably the best. If you don't understand that answer then I'd recomend hiring a DP and using the type of camera he/she recommends for that production. If your looking for an education and hands on experience then buy a DVX100a and learn with that before spending a lot more on a HVX or HD100.

Nothing against you personally, but not everyone should be an early adopter of technoloy. :beer:
 
I think it depends...

For me, it is much much more important to have a good camera section than a good format.
I always prefer the image of a great camera dubbed on an average format than a average camera that records on a superior format.
The noise level and the dynamic range are so much more important than the format to my eyes.
If the HVX has a much better noise level and dynamic range than the DVX, than, and only then, i'll buy it.

Very small HDs should be available very soon anyway, so i dont care "that" much about P2 cost. I dont see myself carrying (and buying) 10 P2 cards...
 
SquidLips said:
Barry, can you give me a layman's explanation as to what the chroma and luma resolution advantage will do for the final product over the JVC? I would be more than happy to sacrafice camera unit look to get a better looking result.
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I wrote about seven hundred pages about chroma sampling here a couple of months ago, including photos showing the difference between DVCPRO-HD and HDV. I looked for it recently and couldn't find it; try searching.

Basically the HVX is going to offer three times as much chroma resolution as the JVC.


My only known "fear" of the Panasonic is that it does not have an interchangeable lens and I as a director like working with longer lens' and more shallow focus over the wider end of the lens.
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Granted -- I think we all would like that. The JVC's lens goes to 88mm, and can get some very sweet shallow-DOF (although, to be fair, the chromatic aberration issue is much more prevalent at that focal length). The HVX's lens only goes to 60mm. If you get a 1.5 teleconverter (assuming such a product is made), you'd be able to match the JVC's focal length. It remains to be seen how well such a combo would work.
 
dudewaba said:
Well, the biggest difference to me is that the HVX is going to cost you A LOT more to be practical.
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Really? Depends on what you decide as "practical".

Let's really look at it. To have a well-rounded kit, you really need (and I'm not talking "want", I mean NEED) to be able to get wide-angle shots. If you need wide-angle, the JVC requires a $12,000 lens. Or, if you want to shoot footage that doesn't have purple and green fringing around high-contrast objects, you'd also need that $12,000 lens. In fact, if you want to shoot high-def worthy of the label of "high def", you may just need that $12,000 lens. The "wide converter" for the stock lens is only 18% wider and doesn't qualify at all. You want wide, you need the 13x3.5 lens.

So the camera (body only)+lens is $17,500.

What about batteries? Much talk is made about the HD100's ability to shoot long takes on its tape. But did you know the battery won't even last as long as half a tape? The stock battery will run dry in maybe 20 minutes. And that the "big" battery they offer will barely make it 60 minutes, and that's only if you don't use the zoom. You'll more likely get a max of 40 minutes of runtime out of the "big" battery. So you'll need batteries. Lots of 'em. It takes four hours to recharge a battery, so you'll need at least 12 of them if you want to make it through a full 10-hour day; those are $150 each. So add on another $1800 for batteries, and now we're at $19,300.

Of course, you may decide that juggling a dozen batteries is silly (because, of course, it is) so you may decide to invest in the Anton Bauer battery system instead (which would probably help with the very, very front-heavy balance issue you'll get from using that $12,000 lens). So instead of $1800 for BN-V438U batteries, you'd get an $1800 Anton Bauer system. That's obviously a much better deal, and better batteries too.

Now, are you going to digitize the tapes off of your camera? Or are you going to get a deck? Surely you wouldn't spend $19,300 for a camera and then tie it up as a deck, right? So throw in another $3,400 for the BR-HD50 deck too.

So there you have it -- to get a functional system, comparable to what the HVX offers, you're needing to spend about $22,700 for the JVC. Versus $10,000 for the HVX and two P2 cards (which needs no wide-angle adapter and no deck, and whose batteries will last 5 hours each).

And we won't even get into the whole 1080/24p vs. 720/24p, DVCPRO-HD vs. HDV thing either. I'm just talking about outfitting the rig so that you have a usable production system that you could actually use to get work with. Is the HD100 really that much better of a deal?

Look, I like the JVC for what it is. But tossing around statements like "the HVX will cost more", without considering all the ramifications, don't help matters much. The JVC, straight out of the box, is quite limited -- you get 20 minutes of runtime on the battery and a lens that, to be generous, has "issues". Whether you find that lens acceptable or not can lead to a substantial cost savings, but it's still going to cost more for an HD100 system than it will for a comparable HVX system.
 
Hang on, what about buying batteries for the HVX and all the extra cost of backing up footage.

That is far from a fair comparison Barry!

Fact is you can start shooting HD on the JVC out of the box, and get damn good results, even with the stock lens for sub $6K

You simply cannot do that with the HVX unless you already own the required laptop, hard drives and software.

We probably don't need to argue that the HVX is superior, but it is misleading to say it will be the cheaper option. If you can power the laptop to off load the data from the P2, you can power the HD100 for example.

I see your point Barry, but it is rather biasedly presented.
 
The simple answer is the HVX offers 50% more luma resolution, and three times more chroma resolution, than the JVC does. There are many other reasons, but that's the biggest one, to me.


barry's right squid. but as a lay person, this statement most likely means you'll get a slightly better image perhaps and probably be able to manipulate it better in post. however, is does NOT mean the image will be 50% brighter and 3x better.

i think the most tangible real world difference will be in features. not image quality.
 
mmm said:
Hang on, what about buying batteries for the HVX and all the extra cost of backing up footage.
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Batteries are $79 for 5 hours. It comes with a 5-hour battery. So you spend $79 and get a second one.

As far as backing up footage, that is a workflow issue that remains to be seen. I figure the workflow will be to download to hard disk, finish the project, and then back up the necessary data to dual-layer DVDs. Total backup costs probably wouldn't ever exceed $50 per project.

That is far from a fair comparison Barry!
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I know. I tried to be fair, but I couldn't cut the costs for the JVC any more than that... :evil:

The point is, if someone's going to point out that you have to spend a lot to get the HVX configured as a production package, then it is only fair (and yes, FAIR) to point out the extra expense one would need to go to with the HD100.

Fact is you can start shooting HD on the JVC out of the box, and get damn good results, even with the stock lens for sub $6K
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For 20 minutes, maybe. Then your battery's dead. And I have my doubts about whether anyone's going to get "**** good results" with the stock lens. Maybe in some circumstances; obviously wider-angle = better, but are we going to compare apples to apples?

Let me put it this way: if the HVX's lens suffers the same chromatic aberrations that the HD100 does, then I'll totally drop that line of argument. I'm assuming it won't, Jan's assured us it won't, but that is still an assumption (as, to be fair, *everything* about the HVX is).

So if the HVX's lens is clean, and the HD100's isn't (which we already know it isn't), shall we still compare them? Or would it be more fair to compare them with comparable glass (comparable in focal length, 4.5-60mm vs. 3.5-60mm etc)? Assuming that the 13x3.5 lens is clean, it would seem that it would be the more fair lens to compare.

At some point you have to decide where to draw the line in the comparison. If your argument is going to be "well, yeah, sure your lens is better than mine, and your footage is a lot higher resolution than mine, and you have a lot more frame rates than I do, and your compression is a lot cleaner than mine, and your batteries last 15 times longer than mine... but my camera can make chroma-aberration-filled lower-res footage cheaply"... well, that's not much of an argument. I'm trying to at least put them on equal footing.

And it's not cheaper, anyway, so that argument totally falls on its face.

The argument for the HD100 is that it is a shoulder-mount form factor with interchangeable lenses. No other argument makes sense for it, and definitely not the "cheaper" argument.

I see your point Barry, but it is rather biasedly presented.
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Of course it was. To make the point. I used an extreme case to illustrate a point. People always rag on P2 to say "how are you going to shoot an 8-hour event with it?" Well, first of all, I wouldn't -- but don't you think it's fair to point out that the JVC wouldn't stand a chance of doing that either, at least not without an extra $2,000 of batteries?

But the point about the HD100 "ready out of the box" is also misleading, I think. Out of the box you've got 20 minutes of runtime. After that you have to stop and plug in the battery and wait FOUR HOURS for it to charge. Is that "ready out of the box"? Not by a country mile. That is no more a viable solution than a P2-less HVX is.

In fact, if you'll permit me to get cheeky about it: an HVX can probably be considered the MORE viable out-of-the-box solution. Presume you get the 2 P2-card system, of course: you can shoot for 30 minutes continuously with that camera -- the HD100 would peter out after 20 minutes. Then you'd have to offload your P2 cards before you could shoot again, a process that would take about 8 minutes... inconvenient? Sure. But the HD100 user would have to sit and wait FOUR HOURS while his battery charged, before he was back in the game. I'd say that's a little more inconvenient.

I think it's fair to say that neither system, right out of the box, is going to be all you need to buy to be a viable production system. To be fair, many of us who plan on getting the HVX also already have a laptop -- and that's all you need. That's it. HVX+laptop+HDV Rack = $7000 (but for those of us who already have a laptop we can shave $600 off that price) and then yes, you do have a viable solution. Even more viable if you get the P2 cards. Whereas the HD100 is going to *need* batteries, and an awful lot of them, and then there's the lens issue and whether you're satisfied with the quality of the lens, and even if you are, many people are going to *need* a wider lens, which means another $600 or so. And then the question does become: do you need the deck? Are you really going to use your $8,000 camera system as a deck? If you want a deck that supports the 24p mode, that's another $3400.

Sorry, but I flatly reject the idea that the HD100 system is going to be a less-expensive alternative to the HVX system. I will grant you that someone could try to limp along lamely with the out-of-the-box HD100 system, but come on -- would any serious professional try to do that? Seriously? You're going to need at least a deck, some Anton Bauer batteries, and the wide-angle converter, at the bare minimum. And I'd say the DR-HD100 is mandatory too, although I recognize some people will skimp on that. And that means a minimum package of around $8600 to $10,000 for the HD100.
 
Barry_Green said:
As far as backing up footage, that is a workflow issue that remains to be seen. I figure the workflow will be to download to hard disk, finish the project, and then back up the necessary data to dual-layer DVDs. Total backup costs probably wouldn't ever exceed $50 per project.
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B.Green, I have to wax reality. I couldn't disagree with you more. One DL DVD will not even touch a project. I've included a screen shot of a show for a 60 minute slot about to be backed up. Not all the content is there and the total comes to 49Gig for a DV25 project sitting at 40 minutes of content. For the same project in DVCProHD you're looking at around 196 Gig to back the project up or keep the content.

Click here for a screenshot

You may be grossly underestimating the storage requirement.
 
Depends on the project, of course. For a 30-second commercial you might shoot 10 minutes of footage, and that might fit on a single DL DVD. For a 90-minute film, obviously those rules wouldn't apply. And other backup concerns may need to be taken into account; DLT tape, for example, or DVCPRO-HD tape, or... blu-ray disks, or... well, there are likely many options. And hard disks remain a very cheap option -- a 200gb hard disk, such as would be needed for what you mention, is around $100 now. You could buy two or three and back up redundant copies, I guess. And then when a more permanent solution comes down the road (like holographic or dual-layer blu-ray or something like that) you could then archive the hard disks onto the more permanent medium, at low cost.

And hey, if backing up is such a concern that people would be willing to go to HDV just to have it on tape... someone could always just buy a $1600 HC1 and dump their footage to HDV tape too...

My point about DVDs is that it costs 50 cents to back up a 4gb card, and about $2 to back up an 8gb card. And that's at today's prices; three months from now they might be half that. Doesn't mean DVD will be the most practical solution; even if it is, that 196gb project would take 23 dual-layer DVDs to back up. Or about $46. Not that big of a deal, really -- that's about the same cost as a single 45-minute DVCPRO-HD tape. Just need some way to automate the process I guess. But it's not overly expensive, and it'll get cheaper as time goes by. (NOTE: I'm not saying this is the best way, or even a practical way; I'm just saying it's an option).

And, while it may take time to back up to 23 DL DVDs, I can almost guarantee that it would be a LOT LESS TIME than it took to digitize all that source footage. You're just moving where that time is spent, from the front of the project (HDV) to the back of the project (DVCPRO-HD); of course, you can turn around your project and get into editing and finish it and submit your invoice and get paid a lot quicker if you move that time to the end of the project instead of at the front.

And, assuming you're shooting 49 gigs worth of HDV on tape, and counting on that tape to be your backup, 49 gigs would take up four tapes, for a media cost of $72 (presuming you'd be using $17.99 Sony HDV tapes). So the archiving of the DVCPRO-HD project would actually cost *less* than having shot on tape. Unless your footage isn't worth using the best in tape; if for some reason you shot on cheapo tapes, then yes that would be a lower cost. But I can't see why someone would do that...

And, finally, if it ever came time where you needed to access that archive, you'll be able to retrieve the footage several orders of magnitude faster off the DVDs than you could from re-scanning and re-digitizing tapes.
 
Funny this came up - I just bought a 20-pack of DVD-R DL discs from a local CompUSA store for $89.99 (bout $4.50 per disc). Barry had mentioned a $50 budget for the discs, which would let you use about 11 of them at that cost (so at 8.7GB a disc, you would have roughly 95GB of storage to use). That's well more than the current project you're talking about or almost 100 minutes of DVCPRO-HD footage that could be backed up to DL. It's conceivable your project would run more than 100 minutes in length, but I don't think Barry's example was a "GROSS underestimation..."

Edit: Barry posted at the same time as me, whoops! :)
 
Meritline has Verbatim dual-layers for $2.99 each. My $2/each figure may be a little aggressive but I'm assuming prices will come down soon... I thought they were already there, but I guess they're still higher than I thought.
 
LMAO.

Barry, you mention on the other thread how much you dislike tape! Now for the gutwrenchingly slow process of burning 20 DL-DVD's (and getting 4 or 5 coasters, hope not but it could happen). It will be interesting to see what happens when the HVX200 comes out and this issue comes up. P2 does favor Newscasters because the stations can afford Palladium stores and Vortex servers to ingest P2 MXF, host the content and database it. At the Independant level it may cause an issue.

@Haakon, how do you propose to index the content on the DL-DVD's? I'm sure it can be done (pen and paper) or is there another method in place? When's the last time you did a handwritten EDL?
 
Okay, maybe I'll put it this way: We know these cameras are different designs with different disadvantages and advantages of each. However, IMO the way you compared the pricing was misleading.

It is too complex a question, with too many different users to say that you HAVE to buy the $12k lens, you have to buy a JVC deck etc etc.

If you want to use P2 on the HVX, it will cost you (quite a bit) more.

If you want to change the lens on the JVC, it will cost you (a lot) more.

I really respect your opinions and wide knowledge base, but I think that comparisons like that can make you appear grossly biased... nearly as bad as Hudson :laugh:

I see why you are making the point, and it is a good point to make! It's just if you start preaching the HVX gospel too much, it devalues your opinions. BTW, that is just how it came across to me, other people may feel I am being unreasonable. No offence or bad vibes intended what-so-ever :beer:
 
Oh..forgot to say, If I go with the HVX, I am going to get a hot-swapable RAID together and use dedicated hard drives for each project (or a few small projects.)

Say if I shoot 5:1 for a 90 min feature = 450 min = about 400GB or so of rushes. That's about £180 worth of SATA hard drive, and may be double it for redundancy. Seems the easiest option, and isn't that major as a budget %age. It is a pain in the arse that I would prefer not to have though.
 
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