HVX Closer To The Higher End HD Over JVC?

[stephenlnoe]

Barry, you do love to try and drive you point home but in this case you'll have to wait and see how the work flow goes. Digitizing tape is a pain for sure, but there are many tape indexing programs on the market that will create a tape index at 12X speed. As I said in the other thread, if the DVCProHD tape & deck was affordable people would get it. You have stated on the other thread that you dislike tape and will never go back and that's OK. But, the fact that the HDV content can go on a tape economically and be stored economically is a nice advantage that others may appreciate.

 

[brianluce]

(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 --barrry green

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so a $600 laptop is all you need to get footage off the hvx?

 

[Antoine_Fabi]

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if the DVCProHD tape & deck was affordable people would get it. You have stated on the other thread that you dislike tape and will never go back and that's OK. But, the fact that the HDV content can go on a tape economically and be stored economically is a nice advantage that others may appreciate." dixit Stephenlnoe
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...no doubt in my mind.


Guys,

All arguments here are valuable.

OK,...

First, i really dont want to carry a laptop on a normal shooting session.

So...

If i go with the JVC, the HighQuality lense, the deck, the Anton Bauer battery kit...

How many P2 cards could i buy for the equivalent price, including the HVX + 3 batteries ?

I dont doubt the HVX lense will be better than the stock JVC's lense.
The DVX lense is very very good.

My only concerns are about the noise level (a real and big problem with the DVX) and the dynamic range (that can be partially compensated by a good ultra contrast filter).

 

[ChuckS]

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 separately 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 common sense and use an F900.

Barry's answer is probably the best. If you don't understand that answer then I'd recommend hiring a DP and using the type of camera he/she recommends for that production. If you’re 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 technology. :beer:

Check this out, I quoted myself. :cheesy: Sometimes I read these threads and am amazed at how we all talk ourselves in circles. I did not post my original comments to disparage SquidLips or anyone else, but there was no doubt in my mind that the way in which the original question was asked would lead to this type of mental masturbation.

We are having these incessant debates over a camera we know little about and hasn’t even been released and one that we know little about because it has only recently been released.

I suggest we consider the validity of the original post and respond appropriately. In this case there was nothing there that hadn’t been asked and discussed a hundred times. That’s not to say that we shouldn’t try to help SquidLips, but lets please try to do it in a way that doesn’t end up with everyone regurgitation the same answers – over & over & over & over again!

I sometimes have real problems getting real work done and I look to this forum for help and sometimes it takes longer than I’d like, because you know how it is – totally screwed something up and now I feel like I’m drowning then Barry will ask “did you plug it in.” Doh! :shocked: But I might not get that tidbit of wisdom because everyone is busy debating which camera is better.

Sorry for being selfish, I’m just hoping we’re all smarter than this. Also sorry if this offends anyone. :laugh:

 

[Barry_Green]

Okay, all fun 'n' games over with now, we can get back to more serious discussions. Of course I think the JVC is going to be a viable production option -- I wouldn't plunk down $6,000 of my own cash if I didn't think it'd work.

I just get bent out of shape by the near-hysterics that some people (and no, not anybody on this thread!) go into about the fear and uncertainty, and how they think the HVX workflow is going to be sooooo expensive, and how tape is "safer" and "cheaper" or whatever. If I went too far I apologize; as Stephen said, I was trying to drive the point home.

Point is, I think they can both be made practical solutions. And I flatly, thoroughly reject the notion that the HVX is going to be the necessarily-more-expensive solution. The JVC has issues that need to be dealt with. 20-minute runtimes off of batteries is an issue. The lens is an issue. The wide-angle aspect is an issue. And the deck is an issue.

23 dual-layer DVDs? yes that'd take a while. I said it probably wasn't practical, I was just pointing out that it was possible. If you really want to cut costs you could go with 46 single-layer DVDs and back your project up for $23. Probably less, if you bought the DVDs in bulk!

Does 23 DL-DVD's have to be impractical? No, it can be totally transparent depending on how you establish your workflow. Presume you have a laptop to offload footage onto; well, as soon as you finish offloading the card, tell the laptop to start burning a duplicate DVD of it. It'll happen in the background, transparently, while you continue to shoot. In fact, I don't doubt that there will be some software developed to automate that process. The DVD should be done burning long before you have another card ready to offload.

There are ways to make it work. And there's substantial incentive to get it to work (1080/24p, for example; 4:2:2, for another; 4 channels of uncompressed audio, for a third). If you do end up having to jump through some more hoops, it's not like there's no benefit for doing so -- there may be substantial benefit for doing so. It's up to each user to determine their priorities.

Regarding hand-indexed EDL's: that totally misses the point. With P2 there is no such thing as a batch capture list or EDLs or anything like that. The clips are the clips. They're captured on P2 when you shoot. You back up the clips. The only additional thing you back up is the project file (the .ppj or .veg or whatever). There's no need for indexing or anything like that. You back up the stuff on the disks (or tape or blu-ray or holographic or whatever). If you need to access your footage, you restore the project.

Now, if you're talking about how do you identify what's on the disc unrelated to a project, (like stock footage, for example) the question becomes: how do you do that with tape? It'd be the same. Except with the disc you can instantly view every clip, unlike tape where you need to fast-forward and rewind and index. With backing up to DVD or hard disk or whatever, you just double-click a clip and play it to see what it is.

 

[Haakon]

The fact that the HDV content can go on a tape economically and be stored economically is a nice advantage that others may appreciate.

Sure, some people will. But those who care about their content won't as long as it's super compressed long-GOP starved-bitrate poop on a MiniDV tape (which, the last time I checked, was the unbendable specification for the format). Obviously those who are buying into HDV feel that price is the trumping variable no matter what. For me, quality is the trumping variable, and HDV isn't even a considerable option. If Canon is really going HDV with their new offering, I think there is going to be quite an interesting dynamic created. Three huge companies will now have cameras, support, and backing for the HDV format, vs. Panasonic being the only company using P2 and DVCPROHD in a 'prosumer' camera. Just by nature of the fact that there is so much more HDV "stuff" available would lend me to think that more and more people are going to get into HDV because that is what they will start to constantly see and read about (and again, because it's "cheap"). The allure of "HD on a MiniDV tape!" is what draws people in, not the specs or the pictures. Luckily, Panasonic's high-end fleet is all based around DVCPROHD and it looks like they are going to really agressively start pushing P2 given their marketing for the SPX and the upcoming Varicam successor, so I don't think either of the formats are going to "lose" and dissapear. What it will come down to is professionals using a professional codec and equipment and consumers who will buy into the HDV spec because the tapes are cheap. This is already evident by Sony's 1-chip sub-$1,000 CMOS camera that looks almost indistinguishable from its current line of SD MiniDV cameras. And I'll be the first to say that I think the HVX is by far the ugliest of all of these "prosumer" HD cams, but you won't see me walking around with an XL-like form factor (black or not) just to be "sexy" if the thing says "HDV" on the side.

As I said in the other thread, if the DVCProHD tape & deck was affordable people would get it.

I wouldn't. I think P2 is the best thing about the HVX, even far more important than having HD. The benefits of tapeless acquisition are countless. The sooner it becomes the norm, the better.

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?

The last time I shot film, which will hopefully be the last time I shoot film.

Barry already explained it well, but I anticipate my workflow being a pretty straightforward card-to-disc backup until Blu-Ray or something more logical comes out. One DL per one 8 gig card. Simple, easy, archived on the shelf if I need to go back to it. Every take you shoot on the P2 has its own clip, one with embedded metadata including the shot and take numbers (easy to implement). I don't need to "log" anything anymore; I'm certainly not going to be handwriting any EDLs. All you need to do is keep ahold of your NLE project file, and it's much easier to restore your footage should you need it again than getting it off of a tape. There's no recapturing or worrying about timecode. Just load up the clips that are referenced in your project file, and off you go. That's precisely why all of this "new era" P2 workflow is so exciting. I think people will start to appreciate it more once it's available and they can actually start to work with it.

 

[Barry_Green]

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:

Oh, now hold on... as biased as Hudson? You wound me, sir! :grin: Gotta love the Hudson, but I think he may be a little prejudiced towards the DVX!

The thing is, I could probably make an equally-compelling case for the HD100. They are both viable tools. What I spelled out wasn't evidence of bias, it was an attempt to get people to THINK, instead of to immediately dismiss one solution merely because it's new or different. I usually use extremes to illustrate points, because it is in the extreme case that people can see the difference. So I went for extreme.

I try to remain as unbiased as possible, recognizing that each solution has its merits and it's up to the user to determine whether those advantages are applicable to their own particular situation. I just get frustrated when a false notion gets repeated often enough that it threatens to be taken as fact.

In that context, yes I probably did go overboard, but I wasn't trying to paint a "fair" picture necessarily, nor was I trying to discredit the HD100 or promote the HVX. I was trying to go to lengths to disprove a false notion.

 

[mmm]

Point is, I think they can both be made practical solutions. And I flatly, thoroughly reject the notion that the HVX is going to be the necessarily-more-expensive solution. The JVC has issues that need to be dealt with. 20-minute runtimes off of batteries is an issue. The lens is an issue. The wide-angle aspect is an issue. And the deck is an issue.

True... When you put it like that Barry, it seems so much more rational.

I think the point is: Don't PRESUME the HD100 will be cheaper. Do the maths (Maths has an "s" on the end BTW ) and work out the true costs before buying.

That is a good idea about burning the DVD's straight away. Instead of learning how to load film, AC's better get learning Nero and Toast!

 

[SquidLips]

Wow you guys...that was a great lesson in these cameras. I appreciate the time you have taken to address issues with these cameras. I wasn't aware of the battery life and the lens issues. I can see that both these models have their pluses and minuses (though one may be more hypothetical at this point).

I guess I will maybe show some of my lack of understanding here, but I had always reached the conclusion that "film" was the ultimate for what I do (make films for DVD/film festivals/TV/possibly back to film) and that a viable budget alternative on my smaller experimental films was the introduction of 24P (gave less "video" like results.

The DVX or XL2 were the cheaper alternative to 16mm but would still ring of video no matter how good. But with introduction of HD 24P the video like moments were greatly reduced (one upon a time in mexico only looks "videoish" in a few quick pan shots, etc). So, I felt if I was going to invest in a camera to do several feature "films", it seemed to make more sense to spend a bit more money ($5500 on the JVC vs the $3500 on the DVX or XL2) to get a higher end camera and the JVC and the HVX seem to be the birth of that affordable camera (though I have read in here a few times that there are those favoring the DVX 100A as a "film" camera over even the new JVC).

My recent experience in shooting the feature DUAL on the Panasonic HD was great. I was completely sold on being able to recreate the film experience closely with video on HD. This was partly achieved in being able to create color settings in camera and crunch blacks and tweak hues as well as using LONG lens' to creat the depth of field needed. I know these prosumer cameras lack many things in the high end cameras to get the same effect, but my search is to find which of these two cameras has the nearest attributes that helped me achieve the feature film look (camera settings, lens adaptability, etc) of the higher end camera.

This conversation has helped a lot though and it may be about one plus over another...

 

[Barry_Green]

I think the point is: Don't PRESUME the HD100 will be cheaper. Do the maths (Maths has an "s" on the end BTW ) and work out the true costs before buying.

Exactly. Think it through, examine your intended workflow, and sort your priorities. If someone is absolutely certain that the stock lens of the JVC will be completely adequate for all their needs, then that becomes a non-issue for their circumstance.

If they're planning on shooting all their own projects and never giving a tape to someone else, then they could just buy the DR-HD100 and then never have to digitize a tape, which eliminates the need for a deck.

If their local Fox or ABC affiliate happens to buy into HDV gear, and is willing to hire them as a shooter for the day with the intention of turning over a tape at the end of the shoot, then obviously the HD100 has a lot of merit in that circumstance (and would again eliminate the need for a deck).

If they're planning on shooting real estate home tours for realtors, then they have to factor in that the stock lens on the HD100 is nowhere near wide enough, and they will have to budget for the 13x3.5 lens (if they want to do it right).

Everyone's circumstances are different, and when someone's looking at making a $6,000 to $20,000 investment in hardware, I'd hope they would examine the gear in context of what their individual needs and requirements are, and not just take blanket statements like "oh, the JVC's cheaper" and run with it.

 

[Barry_Green]

The DVX or XL2 were the cheaper alternative to 16mm but would still ring of video no matter how good. But with introduction of HD 24P the video like moments were greatly reduced

This isn't true. High Def does nothing to change the overall feel of the image, it just adds lots more pixels. 1080/60i looks exactly every bit as "video" as 480/60i, just sharper. What you're seeing from the big cameras (like Once Upon A Time In Mexico) is not due to high-def resolution, it's because the camera is just so, so much better -- it's a $100,000 camera using a $60,000 lens.

So, I felt if I was going to invest in a camera to do several feature "films", it seemed to make more sense to spend a bit more money ($5500 on the JVC vs the $3500 on the DVX or XL2) to get a higher end camera and the JVC and the HVX seem to be the birth of that affordable camera

And it may be. The HD100 offers a huge variety of image control settings and the ability to really "paint" the picture. The HVX should offer at least as much control as the DVX does, and probably more (at the bare minimum we know it'll have the News Gamma feature).

The point being, High Def doesn't make something look more like film. It just makes it higher-definition. The 24P frame rate, the gamma and color matrices and things like that, those are what can make video look more filmlike. High Def just means more pixels per frame, but doesn't necessarily imply anything more filmlike about the image that's made by those pixels.

This was partly achieved in being able to create color settings in camera and crunch blacks and tweak hues as well as using LONG lens' to creat the depth of field needed.

You'll be able to do some of those things in these new cameras, but not nearly to the extent that you can with a $70,000 top-of-the-line high-def camera.

my search is to find which of these two cameras has the nearest attributes that helped me achieve the feature film look (camera settings, lens adaptability, etc) of the higher end camera.

Well, the thing is, I guarantee you we'll see some stuff on the HD100 that will be incredibly compelling, and we'll see some stuff on the HVX that just doesn't match up. And the next week we'll see someone's clips on the HD100 and they'll be weak, and someone will post HVX footage that will be mind-blowingly incredible. And then the next week someone will post some DVX footage that blows away anything the other guys have posted yet.

This isn't necessarily directed at you, SquidLips, because you've already experienced how much difference can be exhibited through knowing what your camera can do. I'm just addressing the general notion that "hey, if I get THIS camera, all of a sudden I'll storm down the doors of Hollywood." It doesn't work that way. The camera is part of it, and yes there are differences, but Bob Gundu or Matt McDermitt using a DVX will still produce better-looking video than John Q. Wannabe would with a VariCam.

Either the HVX or the HD100 are such a big leap forward from what we had to work with just last year that it's hard to imagine going wrong with either of them.

 

[stephenlnoe]

Sure, some people will. But those who care about their content won't as long as it's super compressed long-GOP starved-bitrate poop on a MiniDV tape (which, the last time I checked, was the unbendable specification for the format). Obviously those who are buying into HDV feel that price is the trumping variable no matter what. For me, quality is the trumping variable, and HDV isn't even a considerable option. If Canon is really going HDV with their new offering, I think there is going to be quite an interesting dynamic created. Three huge companies will now have cameras, support, and backing for the HDV format, vs. Panasonic being the only company using P2 and DVCPROHD in a 'prosumer' camera. Just by nature of the fact that there is so much more HDV "stuff" available would lend me to think that more and more people are going to get into HDV because that is what they will start to constantly see and read about (and again, because it's "cheap"). The allure of "HD on a MiniDV tape!" is what draws people in, not the specs or the pictures. Luckily, Panasonic's high-end fleet is all based around DVCPROHD and it looks like they are going to really agressively start pushing P2 given their marketing for the SPX and the upcoming Varicam successor, so I don't think either of the formats are going to "lose" and dissapear. What it will come down to is professionals using a professional codec and equipment and consumers who will buy into the HDV spec because the tapes are cheap. This is already evident by Sony's 1-chip sub-$1,000 CMOS camera that looks almost indistinguishable from its current line of SD MiniDV cameras. And I'll be the first to say that I think the HVX is by far the ugliest of all of these "prosumer" HD cams, but you won't see me walking around with an XL-like form factor (black or not) just to be "sexy" if the thing says "HDV" on the side.


I wouldn't. I think P2 is the best thing about the HVX, even far more important than having HD. The benefits of tapeless acquisition are countless. The sooner it becomes the norm, the better.


The last time I shot film, which will hopefully be the last time I shoot film.

Barry already explained it well, but I anticipate my workflow being a pretty straightforward card-to-disc backup until Blu-Ray or something more logical comes out. One DL per one 8 gig card. Simple, easy, archived on the shelf if I need to go back to it. Every take you shoot on the P2 has its own clip, one with embedded metadata including the shot and take numbers (easy to implement). I don't need to "log" anything anymore; I'm certainly not going to be handwriting any EDLs. All you need to do is keep ahold of your NLE project file, and it's much easier to restore your footage should you need it again than getting it off of a tape. There's no recapturing or worrying about timecode. Just load up the clips that are referenced in your project file, and off you go. That's precisely why all of this "new era" P2 workflow is so exciting. I think people will start to appreciate it more once it's available and they can actually start to work with it.

Are you gunning for me hombre? :happy: I have a different perspective and I know what I speak of. Look at it this way. If we all had unlimited money we'd put together the best quality content/images/audio and have all the money in the world to deal with risk management and backup strategies. Since that's never the case, balancing resource to money to time has to be considered.

 

[mmm]

Are you gunning for me hombre? :happy: I have a different perspective and I know what I speak of. Look at it this way. If we all had unlimited money we'd put together the best quality content/images/audio and have all the money in the world to deal with risk management and backup strategies. Since that's never the case, balancing resource to money to time has to be considered.

That is very true.

I find that one of the key skills in filmmaking is compromise. Compromise of money, time, lights, sound, acting everything.

I don't know if I am the first to say it, but directing is the art of compromise. :thumbsup: