SD in an HD world...

[Josh800]

Hey all,

This is my first post here and I had a few questions I wanted to throw out. I bought an XL2 back in 2008 right before the HD and DSLRs starting gaining traction. I haven't needed to upgrade my camera yet, but am looking at possible creating a documentary and/or a feature film in the future.

The XL2 can give decent looking footage, but since it is SD I wondered how this would limit my distribution options (theater, DVD distribution, even TV-wise like the History Channel if anyone has info on that). If I up-rezzed the footage to HD would this help at all?

I realize the industry is rapidly changing to HD and beyond, but wondered how SD would limit me realistically speaking. I appreciate your help.

-Josh

 

[Cassius]

You have no realistic distribution options for broadcast using that camera, with the exception of public access. But let's be totally honest here- if your budget doesn't allow you to rent a camera and in five years you're not at the point of buying something better I'm willing to bet your documentary won't be at the point where the History Channel would be looking at it anyway. If you were at that point you would have funding enough to either hire someone who can bring the proper equipment or rent what you need. If you have something good you could probably get it screened at small film festivals, but the larger film festivals are going to be hard to get into unless your content is really compelling.

I have screened some productions from DVD for one of our local film festivals, but it was rare and I tried to avoid it. And this was a pretty small festival. Properly converting to HD might help your odds if it's shot well enough to make that work, but again, we need to be totally realistic. If this documentary is at such a scale that these steps are necessary, you'd probably be shooting on a newer camera in the first place. That's not to say there's anything wrong with old technology, depending on what your goals are, but you did say realistically speaking.