HVR-V1U and the HVR-DR60
 

I'm trying to understand this and I could use the help of the pros out there who own and use this setup or know a lot about it.

With the DR60 connected to the V1U the HDV files that are being recorded in the hard drive, are those at 1920x1080 at 4:2:2 since it's bypassing the compression before going to tape or are they being compressed at all?

Thats has been driving me nuts for days now and I cant find enough information on it. Thanks for your time and help!

Everything going out the firewire port is compressed HDV or DV.

Thanks for the reply. After a little more searching I found the HDMI port to be the only way to bypass the HDV compressor.

Is there an HDMI port on the camera only or on the HDD as well?

The only port on the HDD unit is firewire.
With the V1 you can play back clips the same as if they were on tape.

forgive my ignorance, but what you do mean playback just like on tape? Do you mean monitoring?

play button
 

There's a play button on the DR60 so you log and capture it as if it were tape. you can also watch the footage on your camera's LED screen in the VCR mode. I assume you can then watch it by hooking up the RCA cable into a monitor as well. I haven't done that yet but i don't see why it wouldn't. It's pretty amazing. I just got one. Annoying thing for me is that FCP does not recognize M2Ts and i heart Final Cut so i have to deal with capturing the footage as it it's tape. I have also converted it in MPEG streamclip but this seems risky and i've been told on forums that it is generally a bad idea.

However the only way to get the 4:2:2 is to capture by tape though right? I probably would sacrifice the capture time to get the extra color data.

After finding out that the DR60 reduces the color space I'm figuring that I probably won't get one. I'm sure it's convenient for quite a few things, but I like that 4:2:2!

No HDV cam shoots 4:2:2 to tape. All HDV camcorders shoot 4:2:0 to tape.
The DR60 is merely an HDD clone of exactly what is on tape. The primary benefits are:
No capture, just file transfer, saving HUGE amounts of time
No dropouts, as there are no bad emulsions on an HDD
Instant playback
Longer record times
Instant archive of what is on tape, or vice versa

ahh. well then it sounds like I may get the DR60 after all. Use tape as a backup and then edit with the HDD. This just makes me ask... is Sony falsly advertising when they say 4:2:2 for the V1U then? Or do they do some sort of upconvert?

It is a bit missleading for sure. The camera processes the signal in 4:2:2 but once the HDV codec gets ahold of it poof.. 4:2:0. The HDV standard is what it is and unfortunately it is not 4:2:2.

You could capture video live via the HDMI port and it would be 4:2:2. You can do a search on the forum and can read a good bit posted already about this option. It doesn't sound practical for anything other than a set shoot.

Chris

<sigh> It is not misleading at all. All INTERNAL processing is done at 4:2:2 14bit. This is not common, therefore it's well worth mentioning. Additionally (like any camera) you can get 4:2:2 from the HDMI pipe or the analog outputs in real time, so if you have a fast system, a large RAID, or an external recorder such as the Wafian et al, you can easily record 4:2:2 out of the camera.
4:2:2 ain't all it's cracked up to be if the info isn't there.
If you take a VHS tape, dub it to HDCAM, you now have 4:2:2 uncompressed video. Is it any better? Nope. Just having 4:2:2 guarantees nothing. It's a combination of imager, bitrate, and colorspace, plus speed of storage.

It doesn't seem misleading to someone with lots of experience and is current with the technology. To someone not totally familiar with the technology or the marketing methods it can be overwhelming. Look at the confusion over the Canon HV10.. They market it with having a 1920x1080 sensor but yet it only records 1440x1080. A couple of people over on the AVID board were upset when they found out that it was the HDV format that was causing them to loose resolution. They weren't at all unintelligent people.

These cameras are at a price point where they are very attractive to users wanting to become more serious but are just learning what all this stuff means. There is a lot to learn (especially if this is only a part time or hobbist thing).

Maybe I go too far the other way in overexplaining things and empathizing but that is just me.. It goes back to my early days of teaching new techs how to properly setup Ikegami tube cameras that we used at the station. Trying to keep them from being electrocuted, now that was fun.

BTW, Real cameras glow in the dark (if you leave the side panels off of them that is). :D

"Overwhelming" suggests that the information is more than you're capable of comprehending.

"Misleading" implies/suggests dishonesty on the part of the manufacturer and is a serious charge, and one that isn't taken lightly here on DVInfo.net or in the industry as a whole.
I can think of one camera company that engaged in an attack campaign on another, citing that their sensors weren't large enough to be considered HD. Then when same attacking manufacturer released their own camcorder with sensors smaller than the manufacturer they'd attacked, it was *assumed* by everyone, that their sensors were larger than the manufacturer they'd attacked.
Was this misleading? Perhaps. But in fact, they never said their sensors were going to be, or actually were larger, just by absence of information, it was implied.
Sony on the other hand, says that all "internal processes" are 4:2:2 prior to being recorded at 4:2:0, which is absolutely correct, and even the overwhelmed person can quickly find information to enlighten even the darkest question.
Ignorance isn't the same as being fed inaccurate information although both can surely lead to frustration.

Thanks for the clarification. I really appreciate it. I have been tossing up the idea of the V1U or the JVC HD110. I just really like the price of the sony though. Plus Sony's camera do much better in low light. Is this camera the same in low light situations as the other sony cams Douglas?