Worth selling my HMC for the new NXCAM?

Robert M Wright said:
I've got an HV20 and an HMC40. The HV20 is a certainly a nice little camcorder, but the HMC40 records a noticeably better image (and the AVCHD compression is clearly part of that).
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Can you compare their low light abilities? With frame grabs? Please? Pretty please? :) In 60i @ 1/60 and in 24p @ 1/48 modes.
 
Robert M Wright said:
I'm not sure I'd call a couple hundred more lines of detail "just a bit more" and higher resolution certainly isn't the only plus for the NX5U - and it's closer to a $750 difference currently (mitigated close to another $100 if you want a couple extra batteries, and you can actually get generics if you want to save more).
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until the cam comes out and we see tests from it :) overall i still think its overpriced since its sony :P
 
Regarding the original question. Is the OP using Adobe Premier, there was a discussion on here a while back which showed that it screwed up color in progressive AVCHD footage, in Final Cut footage from the HMC150 looks very similar to footage from the HPX170, but in CS4 it looks much worse.

If this is a factor then maybe it is your NLE which is the problem, not the camera. Also those saying that the extra resolution from the NXCam is a big advantage over the HMC, this is obviously only the case if your final product is played in 1080p on a 1080p capable display (most HDTVs are only capable of displaying 720p).
 
I don't think I've seen statistics (at least not recently) on how many HDTVs in living rooms are 720p and how many are 1080p currently. Over the last few years though, I do know that 1080p HDTVs have become a lot more available in stores.
 
Robert M Wright said:
It's my understanding that a Z5 edges out an HMC150 in low light. If so, the NX5U certainly should as well.

It sure seems to me that current, modern day CMOS chips have caught up with and passed CCD chips for low light performance in general.
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Correct. Using both, the Z-5 is better in lowlight.
 
slightly better.. half a stop like barry said.
although i noticed a lot more noise on gain on the z5 than the hmc
 
having used fx1000 and hmc150 for weddings, I prefer to use my hmc for the look, weight, and rolling shutter of fx1000. also I see that hmc is cleaner even at gain 12db and easier to handle in post. So I sold my fx1000 and bought another hmc 150.
 
bottomline, if you can afford the nx5 and prefer the features there, go get it.

for me, ill have to handle an nx5 first... i aint touchng the ax2000 though.
 
Yeah, at this point it would seem the best upgrade would be an EX-1R, maybe the HPX300. Otherwise the other popular 1/3" cams will likely not have a big enough diff to make switching worthwhile.
 
dcloud said:
bottomline, if you can afford the nx5 and prefer the features there, go get it.

for me, ill have to handle an nx5 first... i aint touchng the ax2000 though.
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Haven't looked into it much, but is the ax2000 to the NX5 what the fx1000 is to the z5?
 
Only in a somewhat loose sense, is the AX2000 to the NX5U what the FX1000 is to the Z5. My take on it is there are more substantial differences between the AX2000 and NX5U. They share the same imaging blocks, but the AX2000 looks awfully stripped down from the NX5U (at least to me).
 
Robert M Wright said:
Only in a somewhat loose sense, is the AX2000 to the NX5U what the FX1000 is to the Z5. My take on it is there are more substantial differences between the AX2000 and NX5U. They share the same imaging blocks, but the AX2000 looks awfully stripped down from the NX5U (at least to me).
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It is based on a list of features [or lack of...] I read somewhere.

The NX5U is far better feature-wise and outside of GPS [which I don't need] the rest of the features are things I either need or want.
 
The lack of 720p60 recording is a bigtime show stopper for me (and fundamentally broken 4:2:0 with 24p wrapped in a 60i stream strikes me as just obnoxiously dumbing down the cam). I'd much sooner get an HMC150 than an AX2000. I'm not real whipped on low-res 1080p (frankly, being able to record 1080p with the 150 seems almost frivolous), but I mostly shoot 720p60 anyway.
 
Blown up bigtime, you see some difference. I wonder how many folks would perceive any difference at all, watching typical footage (in real time - and not blown up) shot at 720p and at 1080p. Even Barry, while generally favoring 1080p a bit, seems somewhat back and forth on which is better - it's that close.
 
Yea the reg viewer would not notice- but unless I needed 60p, I would error on the side of more color data, not less. And you might see a difference when pushing the image in post.
 
You may get a bit more color information with 1080p (like about 1/3 more max), but you'll get essentially twice the bitrate (per pixel) encoding as 720p. That pushes the image quality of 21Mbps AVCHD compression for 720p pretty safely beyond the image quality of 50Mbps AVC-I for 1080p (for typical footage at the same framerate).
 
On second thought, I guess it could be more than a 1/3 increase in color information with 1080p, but you still give up a lot in terms of compression bitrate per pixel.
 
Robert M Wright said:
You may get a bit more color information with 1080p (like about 1/3 more max)
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Over 2x actually if you do the math:

360 x 640= 230400

540 x 960 = 518400

Not that many people will notice in real life, nor will they notice the difference between 1080p and 720p generally for that matter.
 
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