Kevin, my comments were based on comparisons between two HD cams, not an SD vs. an HD cam. Specifically I was comparing a Canon HF10 to a Sony SR12. I'm well aware of the huge differences in resolution between SD and HD. :)

My mistake, sorry. Too many things going on in this thread...

Adam's article was accurate, but projections of smaller screen size may be partially due to folks buying LCDs for their bedrooms. And, the fact that 60-72" HDTVs are still very expensive.

As the ability to make really large panels at the under $3,000 point I suspect that these screen sizes will be bought given the average seating distance is 8-9 feet. In fact, in Mac Mansions I suspect it is more like 12-15 feet.

Once one gets to 72" resolution plays a far bigger role than it does at 40" -- which is really tiny. You need to meet the SMPTE or THX requirements for field-of-view.

But, why pit resolution against anything. This is strawman argument. No reason not to go for the maximum resolution with the minimum aliasing PLUS everything else.

PS: the softness of the Varicam footage in Planet Earth is painful to watch.

There is no reason in an ideal world. However in the consumer cam world we have only the choices we have and that forces us to make a choice. There is no one consumer cam that has the best resolution, color, gamma etc. So one makes choices and one determines if it makes sense to gain an extra small margin of resolution that probably won't even be seen for an increase in quality in other picture parameters.

I do agree with you about Planet Earth. I'm always amazed at how many people hold this series up as the 'definitive' show-off material for a new HDTV. There are many many scenes that are just plain 'soft' as you put it. There are so many other nature specials that have had much more impressive footage. I actually think the issue of softness also applies to the "Sunrise Earth" series. There are some beautifully composed shots in this series, but so many are on the soft side. It also seems to me that they are using a number of editing tools to alter color which IMO should be left alone. But each to his own I guess.

We have a 42" 1080p display in our living room, and while it's a little on the small side it looks fine at our main viewing distance of ~11 feet. According to Carlton Bale's chart I shouldn't see any difference between 480p and HD at this distance on this TV, but I just did some tests and the difference is visible. At 480p fine detail looks blurry and sharp edges look dull; at higher resolutions the image is noticeably clearer. The benefit of 1080p over 720p is negligible on this setup, so maybe that's where larger displays will make a difference.

Getting back to the original question in this discussion, most HD cameras will produce a visibly clearer image than an XL2, but that doesn't mean a consumer model is an adequate replacement. As I said earlier, get the consumer model to mess around and then think about trading the XL2 for an XL-H1 (or Sony EX3, JVC HD250, etc).

Like with everything else, the resolving power of peoples' eyes varies. According to my optometrist friend, many people are only correctable to 20/30 or so with lenses, while many others are correctable to 20/15 or better. That's a 2:1 range of resolving power which falls within the range of the "normal" population.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if statistically, the people who value resolution more in a video image (or still photo for that matter), are the folks who tend to have better visual acuity and are used to seeing a sharper world in general.

That occurred to me after I wrote my last post, and my vision is better than my wife's when we're trying to read road signs and such. But given that I can see a difference where Carlton's chart indicates there shouldn't be one, the chart leaves something to be desired.

SD video is sooooo 20th century...time to move on! :-)

I agree. The difference between 480p and 1080p even on a 42" monitor at 11 feet is so pronounced that even those 20/30 people should be able to see it. This may be another case where you have to be careful how you interpret numbers. 20/20 visual acuity is based on the ability to resolve 1 arc minute, so you could translate that to lines on a screen at a given distance and come up with a chart of what an average person should be able to see at various screen sizes and distances. But, visual perception is subject to a lot of processing in the brain, and even though someone might not be able to resolve two lines at a given distance, they might still be able to perceive a difference in edge sharpness.

Would you hazard a guess as to why this is? With modern manufacturing techniques I would have expected AWB, color and sharpness to be pretty darn close for a given cam model. Apparently that's not the case.

Good luck.

Dennis

A couple of things -tolerances, meaning that the individual components can have a slight variation, as well as a tolerance in any adjustable internal settings.

On top of that add that as components age, there is some drift and things can slowly go out of alignment...

Finally, to add another layer of complexity, most modern cams have heavy reliance on firmware, which can be "upgraded", as can design specifications over the course of a production run...

I find that two cams purchased around the same time from the same vendor typically will be pretty close. I saw a wide variation in output between the HC7 and the CX7, even though the guts were supposedly nearly identical - the HC9 was more like the CX7, but still slightly different... again, the HC9 was just an updated HC7...