16:9 native?
 

Is the CCD in the JVC HD camcorders native 16:9? I have read conflicting things said about this.

The specs just say this.

Image sensor 1/3 inch
1.18 million-pixel
progressive CCD Area for motion pictures (pixels)
HD16:9 1280x720 840,000
SD16:9 940x480 460,000
DV16:9 940x480 460,000
DV4:3 940x480 610,000
DV4:3 720x480 340,000

Area of still picture 1280x960(max) in memory mode 1,120,000

the chip is NOT 16:9 native, its 4:3 (hence 1280 x 960 still images which are 4:3), the full resolution as far as i understand is 1280x960, so thats 4:3, it just reads the centered portion (1280x720) for 16:9, which it saves with a 1:1 pixel aspect ratio. so its sort of a yes and no, the ccd isnt 16:9 but it captures to 16:9 (and its not an 'effect'). hope that helps some, it does many different formats, so its a lot to figure out.

Thanks
 

Thanks for the reply and explanation Joe.


What would an anamorphic attachment do for this camcorder?

Absolutely nothing? Or does it allow us to use the full 1280X960 somehow?

it does 16:9 so you do not need an anamorphic lens, it uses a portion of the CCD instead of the entire CCD but this portion IS 16:9 even if the CCD is 3:4. As a matter of fact it does not use 1280X720, it uses a lower resolution (1280X720 is 921 600 pixels but the effective pixels of the camera counts to 840 000 in a 16:9 ratio, much like the XL1s witch uses 270 000 pixels on the CCD's to produce a 345 600 pixel image being 720X480) Some cameras will do the opposite (witch is better of course but in HD difference is less noticeable), use higher count CCD's to produce lower count images like a 410 000 pix CCD to produce a 345 600 pix image.