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http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content...H1A-34876.htm# The fact is that no format lasts forever and they can all be considered transitional; it took several years to get HDV going, it now has more software/hardware support than ever, and it's not going to go away overnight. The OP asked if the A1 is really worth it...the evidence says, yes it is. |
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Like John Estcourt said HD can actually be a negative in regards to focus. I've read others say when shooting in HD if your out of focus its very apparent due to the detail of HD. HD TV: Remember that more ppl have HD tv than a blueray player. Almost all content that is available comes from broadcast not disc. So its common that someone might own a HD tv but not have a blueray player and won't be able to watch your blueray wedding video, which then will force you to offer an HD and SD version which is a royal pain. Until the majority of movies are offered on blueray and the price is lower than 400 for a player the majority of clients will stay with sd. HD over the web: All of the quality gains you get from HD are lost when optimizing for the Web. HD is counterproductive if you trying to get a movie down to a reasonable size. Sounds like your sold on the camera. I'm not saying you shouldn't get it just in my experience of two years work and over 20 clients I've never receive a request for HD. Btw, I own a Sony Z1. |
Regarding the Scarlet ... not too many brides I've come across are after 3K resolution for their wedding ;)
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Think that most people don't even know that they can have their wedding video in HD on their LCD as they believe that's only possible with "real" movies. There are several of my competitors that have been offering their weddings in HD for years with a big slogan on their site but actually were delivering in SD, in that way people will never know the real meaning of HD. That's the reason why I will refuse to downconvert with the XH-A1 as I intent to use it for what it was designed for, I might not use it a lot in the beginning but for sure I will push it as much as possible to sell it in a HD package with a blu-ray disk. It's just a matter of educating your clients and show them what HD is all about. |
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As far as the LCD viewer goes, its not feasible to attach a larger viewer to the camera. Sony FX1/z1 have large LCDs. You'll pay more but if thats important to you, you might as well get what you want. What I'm saying about the web is in order to see the quality of HD it needs to be fairly large with not much compression. That makes the movie take a long time to download. If I have to wait more than a minute for it to load I'm out of there. Do you think you could tell the difference between a youtube movie shot in hd vs sd? |
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I've shot the same footage in SD (DVX) and HD with downconvert. No comparison. I stripped my DVX and moved everything over to the HD camera. Rendering will take more time, but I'm willing to wait.
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Since I have not been able to compare I will find out soon enough I guess and also might have to reconsider my opinion on SD camera's. |
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sorry to say but it makes my old vx2100/pd170 footage look quite ..er..sad!
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After more then 1.5 year, I can only confirm that the A1 is an excellent camera. It's not surely not the swiss knife for a Steven Spielberg, but a perfect companion for every advanced amateur and, I assume, small pro performing production work.
In a volatile environment, there's probably no issue at all with tapeless workflow. In any situation where there is a more profound desire to keep footage available over the years: in a tape-oriented workflow there's one VERY BIG ADVANTAGE: you have the original copy of your footage instead. I can recapture footage from tapes of 10 years old (recently did so), flawness, no issues, immediately. In a tapeless workflow, how are you going to accomplish the same? Via back-up tapes (again tapes, thus?). This is not only a very expensive solution (surely for an amateur, paying with already a leg to buy a camera) both hardware and software - after some years over change of systems you will probably discover it's impossible to read the back-up tape format. Also copies to disks and disks and disks is... at the end of the day unworkable. To my feeling... there is always too much focus on tech-specs, and I can understand technology must evolve, but in many cases, it is more the commercial story that is pushed. Sometimes a bit too hard. AVCHD is a bit this type of story - it was there before you could even buy a decent NLE to edit it. More than once I've seen very creative people making impressive short movies with incredibly cheap camera's, while others fail to produce any acceptable shot with a prosumer cam. Keep that in mind, it's more important than any discussion about a slightly higher bit-rate or more advanced codec. Whatever choice you make. |
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But your logic here doesn't fly to me. What difference is there in the person who acquires on tape or backs up to tape when the march of progress is what we are considering. I have no more problem reading in VHS, or miniDV tapes now than I did 5 years ago. Fifty years from now I won't be able to read either. We'll be able to say the same thing then about bluray, XDCam, DCVAM, DVCProHD tape, etc. My primary workflow now is truly tapeless end to end, and I love it. Acquire on Firestore or SxS, ingest, edit, deliver on DVD/Blu-Ray, archive to DVD/BluRay. Not everyone can do it, but releasing myself from the bounds of both codec AND tape format has been VERY liberating. Part of the reason solid state recording is so wonderful is that it prevents locking you into ANY codec OR proprietary format. |
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But for the non-pro, let us say advanced amateur/consumer, it's a different story. No tapes, thus you don't have a fallback copy. Any crash will kill your footage instantaneously if you don't make a copy, because, ofcourse you will always reuse your memory cards. How many of this type of consumers have a real tape-driven archive system in their PC? Or will even save copies from their PC HDD to terrabits of secondary/archive HDD's? In my case, for the time being, I appreciate to have a DV/HDV tape archive. I know it sounds a bit old fashioned, but at least, I'm sure I can restore whatever I want, even over a few years. Ofcourse, then end is predictable, I understand. But this is basically true for ANY digital system or storage standard. |
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BUT, there is nothing saying that the consumer can't make a tape backup of their materials. I have a shelf-full of mini-DV and fullsize DV or DVCam tapes of archived materials. I just had to reingest a short from 2003. I had it on full-size DV. But, I think today, the better choice is to archive to something like Blu-Ray. At least that is what we have gone to instead of full-size DV. The 25/50GB it offers is a nice size to back off materials. I view it like optical tape. But it's not susceptible to water damage, warping, mildew, magnetic fields (like those unshielded speakers in so many NLE arrangements), etc. |
I went to a store a few day's ago that had one xh-a1 in stock and they let me look at it and try it out, now the camera was lying unprotected on a shelf in the store and I'm a bit worried that if i'd buy it they sell me the display model.
Since I don't want a used camera that has been collecting dust, is there a way to check the hours it has been running on a XH-A1? |
Dear Noa,
Sorry, no, the XH A1 does not have an "hours" meter. I doubt that they recorded much, if at all. |
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I would like to thank everybody for taking the time to reply as it has really helped me in making a choice. |
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<EDIT>Never mind, looks like you beat me to it ;) |
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A store must have a model on display but it could be in their shelf for a month and tested by several customers, I don't understand why they still sell those at full price, the camera I saw was not protected in any way from dust. It's like when you buy a car, you can make a testdrive but they sell those cars at a reduced cost after a while, I would expect the same for a camera actually. |
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Noa,
Man did your question open a can of worms! Glad you got to a point where you are confident in making a decision--the A1 is a beautiful camera at its price point (and is available NOW). I apologise in advance if this seems to be raking over the coals, but Scarlet IS going to change the face of videography (I'll try to avoid the hype of "revolutionise" and "paradigm shift", although I personally reckon they're apt). Certainly any resolution beyond "HD" (ie 1080p) is (arguably) underutilised/un-utilisable for weddings etc, however greater-than-HD (ie 2k+) CERTAINLY results in way more beautiful images when they are down resolved to 1080p. Also note that Scarlet not only resolves at 3k, but is a 2/3" censor (whereas the A1 is a 1/3" sensor) so you innately have a much narrower depth of field, resulting in more filmic images (to create a smaller DOF with the A1s you can of course use adapters which allow the use of 35mm (or equivalent) lenses (look to the beautiful work of Stephen Dempsey on this site for an example). I have 2 G1s and love them but when Scarlet is released it's going to be difficult to argue to keep them, given one G1 is then same price as 3 Scarlets, here in Oz anyway. Having said that the post-production path is more intricate with redcode and to archive footage that is shot on compact flash cards in a secure, reliable manner requires another capital investment (whether it's big RAIDs, LTO tape etc). Until Scarlet arrives I just have to continue my love affair with our G1s... |
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Everybody talks about the fact how cheap it is and out of the box it appears you can go right ahead with it but as far as I can tell it has only the bare essentials and all the goodies making it an better camera to work with will make your bank account a lot lighter. If it proves to be the holy grail it is still not too late to upgrade in about 2 years when I made enough money with the XH-A1 to pay for the options as well :) For regular clients the "old" hdv codec should perform more then OK as I don't think it will get much better then what it is now. Who knows the Scarlet will put all other competitors to shame which will result in lowering their prices or push their technologie to the same level as Scarlet but at the same price of a XH-A1? :) |
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Hey Noa,
We're of course only goofing around here, as Scarlet doesn't even exist yet, and you've made (a very considered) decision t go with an A1 (and I'm sure you won't be disappointed). As I've said I'm a Canon guy myself but I do feel obliged to say that Scarlet doesn't need anything extra BUT for compact flash cards. Your 2 year plan sounds great to me--broadcast HD sux right now (http://provideocoalition.com/index.p...is_resolution/) so HD is a superb medium, but if you're wanting to future-proof what you shoot now, >2K is the go. I really look forward to seeing some of your footage Noa, from the beautiful flat countries... |
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Ofcourse he was right that resolution is just a small part of the experience but I don't agree with him that you hardly notice. You notice it the most when you go fully wide with an sd camera, everything which is a bit further from a lens looses detail, eye's from people become black dots f.i. This also has to do with the fact that I'm currently using a 4:3 camera which looses resolution trying to imitate a 16:9 camera. On big lcd's that resolution loss becomes more apparent. We do have mountains you know :) |
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HD down converted to SD is so much better and later on all our work will be offered in HD. I edit TV commercials for a living and shoot HD always. Once edited I down convert to SD for broadcast. The difference is amazing. Not that it matters but I use the jVC HD111. HD is so important to my business. I offer it to clients and get the job. I don't charge extra and offer clients HD at SD rates. It's a shame not to. |
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I have to admit that you clearly see the difference when the lens was completely wide, the VX couldn't hold any details on objects that were further away while the XH-a1 did. Only when I zoomed in the difference became less noticeable. When I was editing the HD footage in premiere it was impressive to see how clear my preview was, in no way my sd footage could compare with that, I guess that on a blu-ray and when looked on a lcd the image quality should be comparable. Does that mean my vx2100 has to go? Yes, does it mean my dvx100b has to go? no. The pana performs better then my Sony and eventhough it can't compete with downconverted HD material the difference is not that big, the pana gives me nice colors and an acceptable sharp image, also on large lcd tv's and it is better when it comes to ease of handling. I found the Canon to be a quite complicated camera and the instruction manual didn't make it much easier. The Pana was much easier for me to learn how to operate. Quote:
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The Scarlet looks interesting, but if it's anything like the other Red cameras then I get the impression you will be needing a full 35mm/16mm style camera crew to go along with it. It just doesn't seem like the run-and-gun proposition that the A1 is. I think the previous comments about the costs will prove to be right on the money as well. It really does looka s though a Scarlet with a good set of options (as opposed to the stripped down basic version) will cost a LOT more than $3000. I look forward to being proven wrong though :)
In the meantime the real answer to the question "Is the A1 really worth it?" is absolutley a resounding YAY, YAY and thrice YAY. I cannot recommend this camcorder enough. I love mine and I have nothing but good things to say about it. Tape is cheap and reliable, and CF are expensive and risky. It's a no brainer really. |
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It's funny that with a HD cam you feel like starting over again, f.i. just the type of tape to choose, it toke me quite some reading on forums to decide which to use, the Panasonic AY-DVM 63AMQ seemed to be the best, and in my region cheapest, choice. I also always used a cheap sony minidv handycam to rewind and capture my tapes but I noticed that that doesn't work anymore for hdv tapes? At least not with the tape canon supplied with the camera, I wasn't expecting that either. |
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Best bet for a "deck" camcorder is the HV20/30. Plays back all of the XH-A1's frame modes and works as a nice B cam as well. If you work mostly in 1080i then any brand HDV cam will work as a VTR. |
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Some people have said the XH-A1 is more prosumer than pro. I don't get this. They can't possibly have used one. I have the EX1 as well, and the XH-A1/G1 has a comparable feature set, comparable image controls, comparable build quality, comparable image quality. Maybe they would argue the EX1 is prosumer as well, although most seem to put it in the pro/semipro category (if these "categories" are anything more than arbitrary).
Perhaps it comes down to the HDV codec not getting the full respect it is owed in the Canon XH-A1/G1 and XL-H1/A products. You can take an HV10/20/30 and put it on a tripod in good light, and you might get an image comparable, but in the details it doesn't hold up. I know because I own the HV10. Great little HDV cam. But I can still see the degradation caused by the bayer filter, the sometimes neon look to the colors. I can always spot the better shadow detail and purity of the XH-A1 image. The main problem at first glance when comparing the XH-A1 to the consumer cams, is the conservative default settings, so bland as to lack any sort of pop. Once you discover the potential of customer presets, like VividRGB or Panalook2, or come up with your own variations, what it can do cannot be appreciated. |
XDCam has been deemed suitable for broadcast by most outlets, whereas no HDV has. I think that makes a heck of a difference to people trying to get their footage on TV. Additionally, with an SDI port, the EX1 can output on a codec identical to $150k cameras. That also makes a difference.
But with no interchangeable lenses, no ability to sync timecode, etc., the EX1 would be hard to classify as a professional camera. It's just a good prosumer camera, and I don't think it was ever positioned as anything else. Quote:
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HDV is accepted for HD broadcast with some restrictions. It's already been used in too many professional collaborations to mention. |
Well yes, but those restrictions can be quite severe. By the same token, DV has been used in a great many broadcasts too. XDCam is usually accepted without the limitations placed on HDV.
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If anything seems apparent, is that HDV is disappearing from consumer/home use products, and reappearing as a tool used by professionals not needing or wanting to embrace AVCHD, DVCPRO or XDCAM tapeless workflows. A recent example of this trend is the new Sony Z7, with 3 1/3 inch sensors, HDV and interchangeable lenses. I think it would be a trivial matter to transcode HDV to XDCAM-HD or XDCAM 4:2:2 or 35 mbps HQ. I believe it would also hold up to scrutiny, (at least if I did it.) |
Depending on what your doing its absolutely worth it. I'm shooting a feature with it right now along with a Letus Extreme and let me tell you.....its impressed me. The price of this camera vs. what you get out of it is incredible. I saw our newly cut trailer in full HD on a 52in Panasonic Plasma today and yes...the camera is worth it. I'm glad I went with it for this project so far, tape is downside but the image is excellent.
Next project a better camera but for this budget that we've been working with, the A1 is a miracle. Visit StandingFirmMovie.com to see our trailer...or the Sample forum here to see more stuff. |
It seems more and more those broadcast restrictions are disappearing and don't seem to be a big issue with this camera. Here is a good example.
http://blog.digitalcontentproducer.c...daytime-drama/ |
I remember reading that article when it first surfaced, & was really surprised it mentioned they are currently shooting SD. Maybe I have something off kilter with my A1 because I'm not that impressed with the SD quality. On mine I see too much aliasing. It looks very similar to the first couple of seasons on the Curb Your Enthusiasm DVD's. :-\
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