zzcoyote
Member
After months of deliberation, we finally went with the XH-A1 over the FX1, HVX200, and DVX100. It was a difficult decision, mostly because we didn't have a primary application that dictated the feature set. In the end it was the versatility & price of the XHA1 that won out.
Here's a summary of what we wanted to do and why the A1 won out:
* sports events: I wanted to be able to shoot skateboarding and roller derby events, with the primary intent being to pull out stills and short sequences later (basically replacing a high-end sports still camera). This is an odd application I know, but I wanted to see what the current limits were since I believe that still cameras have a lot of inherent limitations. For the stills, high resolution was a must so this limited it to the HD cams right off the bat. Being able to shoot without having to juggle P2 cards was a requirement, so that meant I'd have to add an external drive to the HVX, which put the price too far beyond the A1 to justify. This brought it down to the FX1 and the A1. From all the info gleaned on this board, the motion artifacts in Sony's HDV implementation (plus the lack of any progressive recording format) meant the A1 was the best practical choice. The HVX with a drive would have been a better solution (due to the variable frame rates), but I couldn't justify it at twice the price (or more).
* bands: We plan to do some small-venue shots for friends' bands. Here the resolution wasn't so important, but again being able to record an hour at a time was a huge advantage. Plus being able to easily mix A1 and HV20 (second-camera) footage seemed ideal.
* shorts: For film-style shorts we had a hard time deciding between the DVX100, HVX200 and the A1 (due to the vast DVX/HVX support here and the stellar low-light capabilities of the DVX). The tape format didn't matter here... P2 would have been fine. We ruled out the DVX for an odd reason -- we wanted to use a 35mm DOF adapter and I understood that we'd lose some resolution in the process. We also wanted to shoot widescreen, so between the native 4:3 chip in the DVX and the resolution loss from the adapter, I reasoned that we'd be better off *starting* with one of the HD formats. The FX1 was out for lack of 24p support, so it was between the HVX and the A1. The HVX would have been ideal (better audio, color sampling, manual lens controls, etc.). But the A1 was still half the cost, and being new to this arena, I reasoned (and read here from various members) that the camera would almost certainly not be the limiting factor. Lighting, audio, script, basic cinematography skills, etc., would be far more important than bells and whistles on the camera.
So, in the end it came down to versatility at much lower (relative) price point. Specific features of interest were long-recording times, native 16:9, 24p (or similar), and high resolution. Most of my info came from posts here and elsewhere, so thx to dvxuser and all the posters for all the valuable information. I'm not trying to add to the info pool per se, just showing how I used the info here in making the first-big-camera decision.
Here's a summary of what we wanted to do and why the A1 won out:
* sports events: I wanted to be able to shoot skateboarding and roller derby events, with the primary intent being to pull out stills and short sequences later (basically replacing a high-end sports still camera). This is an odd application I know, but I wanted to see what the current limits were since I believe that still cameras have a lot of inherent limitations. For the stills, high resolution was a must so this limited it to the HD cams right off the bat. Being able to shoot without having to juggle P2 cards was a requirement, so that meant I'd have to add an external drive to the HVX, which put the price too far beyond the A1 to justify. This brought it down to the FX1 and the A1. From all the info gleaned on this board, the motion artifacts in Sony's HDV implementation (plus the lack of any progressive recording format) meant the A1 was the best practical choice. The HVX with a drive would have been a better solution (due to the variable frame rates), but I couldn't justify it at twice the price (or more).
* bands: We plan to do some small-venue shots for friends' bands. Here the resolution wasn't so important, but again being able to record an hour at a time was a huge advantage. Plus being able to easily mix A1 and HV20 (second-camera) footage seemed ideal.
* shorts: For film-style shorts we had a hard time deciding between the DVX100, HVX200 and the A1 (due to the vast DVX/HVX support here and the stellar low-light capabilities of the DVX). The tape format didn't matter here... P2 would have been fine. We ruled out the DVX for an odd reason -- we wanted to use a 35mm DOF adapter and I understood that we'd lose some resolution in the process. We also wanted to shoot widescreen, so between the native 4:3 chip in the DVX and the resolution loss from the adapter, I reasoned that we'd be better off *starting* with one of the HD formats. The FX1 was out for lack of 24p support, so it was between the HVX and the A1. The HVX would have been ideal (better audio, color sampling, manual lens controls, etc.). But the A1 was still half the cost, and being new to this arena, I reasoned (and read here from various members) that the camera would almost certainly not be the limiting factor. Lighting, audio, script, basic cinematography skills, etc., would be far more important than bells and whistles on the camera.
So, in the end it came down to versatility at much lower (relative) price point. Specific features of interest were long-recording times, native 16:9, 24p (or similar), and high resolution. Most of my info came from posts here and elsewhere, so thx to dvxuser and all the posters for all the valuable information. I'm not trying to add to the info pool per se, just showing how I used the info here in making the first-big-camera decision.
