Resolution Comparison for Various HD cameras; Canon XL H1 Is The Winner
 

In this thread: http://dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=57341 Martin Doppelbauer provides results of a well respected German magazine Vidoeactiv Digital:

Sony Z1
610Hx750V

Panasonic HVX:
700Hx750V

Canon H1:
800Hx800V
800Hx650V progressive (This is not from the magazine, but taken from a chart that was published here.)

Tom Roper argued that H1's vertical resolution should have been higher than horizontal. My opinion is that the lens may be a limiting factor. I believe the 800 line resolution; I've seen the chart and this figure is available from more than one source.

Combined with Wafian HDD recorder, 35 mm adapter, quality relay and 35 mm lenses, the Canon should be a great film production tool.

This is not true.

See what I mean, this is how information gets miscommunicated and why I preach: DONT BELEIVE WHAT YOU READ ON THE INTERNET.
Now some poor sap is going to come here and read this post and make his purchasing decision based on incorrect information.

The XL-H1 did NOT win anything.

The Panasonic HVX-200 wasn't even TESTED for cryin' out loud. Only the XL-H1 and the Z1U was tested by the magazine. The results of the HVX-200 came from some other random guy. AND we can't even find where he said anything about its resolution. I scanned his site and came up with nothing. And even if I did find someting, who is this guy? What qualifies him to make a report? Does he "OWN" the camera? Who said he did it right? Doesn't matter...because we can't even find where he said anything.

XL-H1 is winner of nothing.

C'mon people, let's be FAIR.

- ShannonRawls.com

Shannon, I read again the thread. You are correct. The HVX figures are not from the German magazine but from Jan from Panasonic; she posted them on DVXuser. See http://zinner.org/index.php

They should probably be taken with a pinch of salt then. No offence to Jan intended, but she is obviously a heavily biased source.

Totally OT
 

This is totally off-topic, but is Jan male or female?

(Sorry, but this bugs me not knowing.)

she's a woman

I did state that possibility, but I agree the lens is probably the limiting factor.

Jan from Panasonic is a straight shooter who has been around for years.

by posting those numbers on a public forum, she is effectively staking her rep on it... think how it would look if people couldn't reproduce her test results after the camera was released.

there is a lot more to this than just lens resolution anyway... if you are going to be recording in the format the camera came with, you'll need to see what your footage looks like after it's been edited and re-encoded to the delivery format.

remember that these cameras come with codecs that have radically different bitrates, but at roughly comparable price points... in the history of prosumer video, i don't know that we've ever seen a camera codec situation like this before.