If you want to rent a F900 package for a week be my guest. Have you
checked on price? You'd have the HD1 half paid off.

I make nature documentaries and run a video studio. I would need to
rent a camera for a summer, not a week to shoot a nature doc.
An HD1, though expensive for me on my University salary,
will provide amazing results via HDSDI that even National Geo, BBC and
Discovery will accept.

In the studio, guess what?
I HAVE lights and CAN shoot at almost whatever Fstop I want.
1/3" chips can do an amazing job given the right support.
ANY camera's output can look horrible with bad lighting.

I don't have $120,000.00 for a F900. I don't have $60K for a Varicam
that needs a $25,000.00 lens.

I do HAVE:

A Canon EOS adapter, 100-400 lens, 16-35 Lens, a Apple 2g/2g G5
and a fibre channel array. The HD1 interfaces like a dream come true.

Yes, HD decks cost lots of money, but actually less than my Avid Xpress
cost years ago. Will someone make a device inexpensively that can
capture HD-SDI? It is only a matter of time IMO. (HELLO CANON?)

Remember people, this camera will give HIGH END results. You gotta pay
to play, but with the HD1, that cost as just dropped $50,000.00!
Those who can pony $10K can give the real pros a run in the quality dept.
Heck, even the $20K SDX900 when put side to side with a XL2 by no means
looked better, so I expect the HD1 will rock the middle world of film and video because it's all about the glass and it's removable :)

The only down side to the JVC HD100 camera with the SDI port is that they take out the HDV tape deck making it a studio only camera. You now have no options at all for shooting outside of the studio. With the XLH1 you can shoot some killer video in a studio or on a nice set but then still go into the woods and shoot HDV. THE XLH1 might cost a lot but at the same time it does a lot.

If you're in a studio, such devices already exist. In specific, you could check out the BlackMagic cards, or the cards offered in Cineform's turnkey ProspectHD systems. For $12k, you can have a fully loaded editing suite that captures HD-SDI in an excellent editing codec (better than DVCPRO-HD).

Yeah yeah... $12k is a little steep - but you could do it for less with a little computer know how and wizardry.

-Steve

Also signal to noise ratio, sensitivity (although you kinda covered that) and exposure latitude. It does make a big difference. I have just been editing a project shot on a DSR-570 and I had to intercut a few pieces shot on a VX2000/PD150. The difference is clear. You don't notice the amount of noise on a 1/3" until you put the footage next to a 2/3" camera.

I know what you mean about Sony's skin tones, they are pretty good. I don't like the skin tones the XL2 produces, so I hope the XLH1 does better. The JVC HD100 is a bit iffy on skin tones as well.

Jacques you might have lights in your studio, but you won't have them when you are out making nature documentaries.

As for renting an F900, or F750, I am talking about making a living from video. If you are just at university or are an individual who is making videos for fun or out of your own finances then one of these handycams will be ideal for your purposes. Nobody is suggesting you go out and buy or rent something costing $100,000 just because an HDV camera isn't the most ideal camera in the world. Some people will be happy with an HDV camera. I however would not be.

But generally broadcast work etc is commissioned. As such they will generally have the budgets for an F900 or equivilent such as the Varicam.

There are owners of F900's and Varicams too. The prices they charge for their work reflect that. You get what you pay for. Someone who owns and runs an F900 is not going to be charging $250 a day.

If someone wants me to make them something in HD I will give them all the options that are available. If it was a small local company that wanted something in HD (I have no idea why they would want this at the present time but its just an example) I would probably recommend something shot on HDV because that is the only likely HD format that is within their budget. In that case I'll hire in a Z1 etc. I'll probably curse every second of having to use it, but if thats what the client wants I have to go along with it.

If someone wants me to make something for broadcast, and wants something very highly polished, I'll recommend them HDCAM or DVDproHD. I'll rent accordingly.

With Standard Def I am generally covered. My 510 isn't the highest level SD camera as it cannot record to any of the 50Mbps formats. However it still covers me for the vast majority of jobs I am needed for, and makes me look good in the process. It will be a long time until there is an equivilent camera to the DSR450 and PDW510 in total cost. One of the big hold ups is the cost of glass.

HD has a lot of infrastructure needed before it becomes anywhere near standard. As it stands I am not prepared to be an experimenter. I just do not see the point of offering HDV if I have no way of delivering a widely viewable master to my clients. By the time everything has settled down and there is an easy way for everyone to distribute HD video there will be a second or third generation of cameras out.

<<<Steven White]If you're in a studio, such devices already exist.>>>

Yes, I should have specified a battery powered-solid state (or disk) based
field recorder that has all the cool features therein. I bet in a couple of
years there will be a laptop that can capture HD-SDI and provide
all kinds of other cool functions such as monitoring, scopes etc. Edit
at night in the hotel or tent.

True, but it is not the only option. Both the Z1 and HD100 have uncompressed component out from the CCD head and theBlackmagic compoennt to HD-SDI converters are quite cheap. I'll bet it is next to impossible to tell the difference without a full res large reference monitor or enlarging frame captures.

Then, if you consider 2x JVC HD101 is about $11,0000 (one SDI/one HDV) but one XL HD is $9,000+, you get an extra camera for not vey much more, and can even do two camera studio shoots etc

$9,000 is a lot to pay for this camera, too much I think.

I have to agree. $9,000 is alot. The HVX200 even though it does not have removable lens is looking to be my camera. I like the P2 concept alot but not the price for them. I'm sick of tape though. I will just have to see how the 1080/24 on both H1 and HVX looks. If the H1 is way better, then that will be the camera if not then the HVX we be the camera.

Anyone know if there are free passes to res-fest to see products? I want to see the HVX200, but I'm not paying to see it. That seems stupid.

Michael Pappas
PappasArts Entertainment

What, you're going to choose your camera based on how well you like the video it produces? Now there's a new concept...
:)

Personally, if I were to think about the $9000 price tag and the maybe $5,000 to $10,000 to rent a deck for 3 weeks, I'd rather use my friend's FX1 and use the $14,000 to $20,000 on making the movie, paying the cast/crew and feeding everyone, not to mention insurance.

But Shannon's enthusiasm is always cool here at DV Info.

heath

$9000 is ridiculous, unless you're setting up a low-budget TV studio, in which case the Genlock and HD-SDI will definitely be an advantage. But otherwise, yes, $9000 for an HDV camera is absurd. Nobody is going to shoot with an HDcam Deck in the middle of Times Square.

The HVX w/Firestore will give you full-out 1080/24p 4:2:2 DVCProHD for less than $8000 ($6000 HVX + $2000 Firestore) and it seems by far the best bang for your buck for indie filmmaking. Portable, inexpensive (for HD) and full quality DVCProHD.

Excellent point. No ammount of uncompressed anything is going to feed your crew, or buy lights, costumes, props, and pay for salaries and transportation and insurance. I love more options, and I'm glad Canon is getting into the HD mix, but this camera doesn't seem like the best indie filmmaking camera out there.

I USED to think that way--better camera=better movie. I do know having the right tool works out best (for my DV needs, the DVX100A is better than my old XL1; for my HDV needs, the FX1 is better than my old HD10), but it still comes back to the story.

It is an impressive camera, though.

heath

That just made me put the HVX200 on my radar screen! That's the beginning of a good workflow. And it's cool because you could always switch over to P2 cards (if you wanted to) as the prices came down in the future.

I think we're getting off topic--let's talk more about the Canon (the P2 HVX200 should be discussed here).

heath

it's gigabits, not gigabytes. roughly 200megabytes/sec. still a lot, but far from impossible. definitely doable on a prosumer budget.

Do you have any products to recommend? Or are you just referring to overall storage space? I haven't spent too much time looking into it, but it seems like you'd need a RAID of six or 8 hard disks, and probably more if you want to have redundancy to avoid losing all your footage if just one drive crashes. Then you need to multiply that by the amount of storage you want to have on hand; 10 gigabytes per minute goes by pretty quickly.

However, let's keep in mind that you may not need to use the full 200mB/sec bandwidth -- there are lossless codecs that can compress the data to around half its size while losing nothing (think an LZW-style compression, like WinZip... I believe the Video Toaster 2 also employed lossless compression). You wouldn't get the massive 10:1 or higher compression ratios that you'd get from a lossy compressor (like MPEG-2 or DV-based compression) but you would retain 100% of the uncompressed quality... and when you're talking about needing a RAID of 8 hard disks, cutting the data rate in half gets you massive benefits as far as workflow, cost, etc.

Specific products no (I rarely look at proprietary solutions for a particular problem - my mileage will vary :)... but you could easily build a good RAID array for $2-$3k.

12 250GB drives (~ $100 each @ Pricewatch) = ~ 1000GB of RAIDed space
2 Rocketraid cards (or something similar)
Server PC + case to hold it all (full server size cabinet (not a rack) or roll your own)

100 minutes of uncompressed HD

I guess nobody read my post on options to use instead of uncompressed capture. There are other ways to capture HD other than uncompressed but would also be better than HDV.

One example of storage for HD would be a Lacie SATA II 5 disk external raid that can get a sustained 189 MB/S for the first 75% of the storage unit and only costs $2,000.00 for 1 TB.

Just because a signal is uncompressed doesn't mean you have to keep it that way. Heck even the HDCAM SR deck records the uncompressed dual port 4:4:4 as a mpeg4 2:1 compression.

One example of compression I listed is the bitjazz codec which on a Decklink and Apple you can capture uncompressed video at around a 2:1 ratio with 100% quality. This alone cuts your harddrive bandwidth in half and would even work with a raid-0 with only 2 drives.

If that is still too much for some people you can always capture directly to live DVCPROHD at 1280x1080 and 4:2:2. While this isn't the best format in the world for HD it is only around 14 MB/S which almost any off the shelf hard drive can handle. This will allow you to use the XLH1 with the SDI port to at least give you a nice clean format that would be pretty good for keying without the need for special storage. I'm sure most of the indie people on here already have a G5 with at least one extra hard drive. Now all you need is a $595.00 Decklink card and you are all set to go to capture DVCPROHD from the SDI.

I just do not understand why people want to put up with all these cumbersome solutions to obtaining footage.

No high def for me until I get all of this stuff in one unit.

Me too... pain in the arse IMO.

So HDV or spend a whole loada £££ on P2 is basically my option..hmmm...

I think every one is getting far too wound up by formats anyway.

These are 1/3" cameras! There is no point in capturing on some ridiculous quality, because there are so many other weaker links in the chain.

Aim to make all your links about the same size, that way you'll get the best compromise between quality and cost - which is the aim for EVERY SINGLE PERSON ON THIS BOARD.

HDV is good enough for all these camera in most situations. However, I would have liked to have seen at least one of these manufacturers come up with a built in archive method of shooting a 50Mbps interframe at this price range. I though Canon would be the one because they have no higher end cameras to protect, but again, this very obvious path has been ignored!

If you need to blue screen etc, you can use the ridiculous quality of HD-SDI for that small, controlled part of you film. If you are planning on making an Indie Sin City, the XL-H1 is perfect.

The cost is still going to be a problem but the HD7000 comming from JVC should have a few more options than just HDV.

JVC really don't have a high end to protect, but they don't seem very interested in creating anything more than HDV in this price range either.

Sending reps to push an agenda is not at all, not even 'basically,' defamation. To defame something is to damage its reputation, character, or good name.

To do it cheap, maybe in 2 years or so. You could always go 4:4:4 with the F950 or the Viper FilmStream.

heath

Whew! Not just this thread. I've been reading avidly (not an endorsement for anyone's NLE) the posts on this new Canon. People really need to stop vacillating and form opinions. Yes, sarcasm is a blunt weapon. Sorry.

I find it very interesting that on some threads there are some people raving about how this camera sucks, and on other threads saying it's for them. I mean even the same people. More to the point, for myself, it's the PICTURE that is created, the IMAGE that is captured that's the ultimate concern. I've heard very few people speak to this. Perhaps not having seen what this camera produces, as I haven't, people would rather go on and on ad ifinitum on gearwhore comparisons. I will note that the XL series from Canon has been roundly dissed since before I first got an XL-1. Hearing all the knowledgeable damning of it, I'm just amazed anyone would want to use one. Or an XL-1s, or the XL-2, or the newest member of the family, the XL H1, subject of this thread. Yet, more than a few have been made, sold, used and some amazingly creative motion pictures have been produced with them.

There are a lot of different cameras out there, both SD and HD. A lot I've had the pleasure of using were good, albeit in different ways. More of both will come. This and that are important (I, for one, find the dismissal of SMPTE syncing as a gimmick ludicrous- It is important). What really counts, above all: The PICTURE. As to the high-hatting 'professionals' posting that this is somehow the latest version of the Fisher-Price camcorder, well. Do you ever SEE some of the quality broadcast television on the air? No, no, on your air right now. Go look. It's not all 'Six Feet Under'. I'm talking about network programming, too. Lots of poorly lit crap that may have been shot on a camera big enough that the cameraman felt secure in his masculinity. And yet it looks bad. The PICTURE. By the way, long ago in the medieval ages when I worked at a TV station they had REAL he-man cameras. And huge wide video tape running on open reels at what looked like mach 1 in the booth. Things are better in this modern world, and don't you forget it.

Now I'll stop ranting, in my culmination of an hour reading posts. I want to see what this camera outputs. I really do. Anyone who thinks HD resolution, of any stripe, is comparable side by side with NTSC or PAL is kidding themselves. It's, how do I put this, Higher Resolution. What the camera is pointing at, how it's pointed, how the subject is lit, what glass captures and reveals the framed image- Those aren't all easily reduced to numeric distortion analogs.

I don't know when I'll jump to HD, but this camera pushes me closer. Resolution for the revolution. Or something catchy like that. Now everyone can yell at me.

Totally unrelated, but your sig had me in stitches.

Thanks, the signature is the only part that should be taken seriously.

<<<Heck even the HDCAM SR deck records the uncompressed dual port 4:4:4 as a mpeg4 2:1 compression.>>>

Right. Most pros will tell you that they cannot tell the difference between
uncompressed and 2:1. Even 4:1 HD using a modern I frame compression
codec should rock.

As I always say, test and make a decision. Especially with a $9,000 price tag.

heath

Hooray! If I could give awards for Post of the Day, this would be it. Well done!

Quad is dead! Long live the Quad,

But the image quality has to do with a lot of things, such as the resolution and manual control.

Who would want a F900 in auto mode and 60i to make a movie?

True, but if you can't communicate a story in the first place, all the manual knobs in the world won't change that.

All this focus on specs this, manual that - it's all just wankery that avoids actually doing something w/ the gear :). If you can make a movie, tell a story, share something - that ability doesn't depend on the hardware you use.

Don't turn the #s on the hardware into a crutch.

$.02

Yes, yes, YES! IMHO picture quality in the indie film sector is about 10% of the equation. No indie film is going to rise or fall just because it was shot on an FX1 or a F900

All ye shall be sainted.

Now if I could just work this message into our registration page somehow...

The first part I agree with; truer words were never written. The second part I don't. If any of us believed that, we'd be out shooting with a cheap ol' VHS camcorder we got at a garage sale rather than with the best equipment we can afford, while debating the merits of the latest technologies. A good camera with a great feature-set doesn't give you talent, but allows you to better express your talent -- or at least increase the challenge -- as compared to a cheap-o or yesterday's technology.

Sports example: Would Lance Armstrong still be a great cyclist if he rode on a $200 mountain bike? Yep. Could he win the Tour de France once, let alone seven times, if he believed that computer-modeled low-drag titanium bike frames, etc, etc, was wankery? (Do I need to answer that?)
;-)

Besides, it is hard for me to understand how someone could have a passion for creating cinema and not care about cameras. Whatever someone's hobby or beloved vocation, an enthusiasm for the stuff that makes it possible seems an innate part of the equation.

The art of filmmaking isn't just in the mind's eye; it is what the mind's eye can do to express itself with the tools available. If there is an affordable but better tool to help me both challenge my skill and present broadened creative opportunities, you can bet I'll be after it. If that's wankery, well, WANK ON!

Finding a proper, healthy mixture of both types of discussions (that is, tools as well as techniques) is the real challenge to greatness, methinks.

If you haven't helped push 3 quad machines up ramp into a truck to haul them away, then you haven't lived in the video world long enough to diss any camera. I was in love with one-nch machines at one time because they were so small and the tape was so cheap. Life is relative.

We live in a world in which a 1/3" HDV "prosumer" camera looks better than the Ikegami HL79 state-of-the-art-high-end-envy-of-all did a scant 20 years ago. And a $10,000 1/2" chip camera actually looks better than a $35,000 2/3" chip camera of 15 years ago.

I can't say the 1/3" chip Z1 looks better than a DSR500WS, but from what I've seen, it's probably as close to the 500 in image quality as the 500 is to a Digibeta camcorder.

If I were in the market for a camera today for the types of things I do, this upcoming Canon HDV camera would cause me to come to a screeching halt before I signed up for a bank loan for a DSR570 (or equivalent) package. I'm not saying a 1/3" chip HDV camera is better than a 2/3" chip DVCAM camera, but it may be close enough to make some people decide that maybe they should give HDV a go. Even if you pay list price for the Canon, and buy a Sony HDV deck, you'v still spent less than half of what a DSR570 package would cost with a minimal quality lens.

I'm also not saying I would rush out and switch over to HDV at this time. But, IF I needed to scrap the current camera because of its age, I would most definitely give this approach serious consideration.

As for those who look at the statistics and read the opinions and say that HDV isn't good enough--well, it's better than DV shot with the same camera. The only thing I've seen is the Z1, and if I had not known the stuff I saw (on DVD on a 35" monitor) had been shot with a Z1, I would have guessed it came from a 2/3" chip camera. I was an HDV naysayer until I saw some decent footage shot by a professional.

In the past I was also a bit of a naysayer about the XL1. All the stuff I saw was oversaturated and had highlight blowouts. Then I saw a documentary shot by a real pro, and discovered it came from an XL1. I also saw an HBO short that came from an XL1 and it was incredibly good.

The thing about a 2/3" chip camera--it's a hell of a lot easier to get good footage under different conditions than it is with a 1/3" chip camera. But in the right hands, a very tweakable camera such as the Z1 or the upcoming Canon or the JVC, can turn out great stuff.

I learned some time ago to not trust most of what I read on the boards, and even some allegedly apples-to-apples comparative tests have been suspect sometimes. In the early days of DV, there was all the buzz that said it's not as good as Betacam, you can't chroma key it, it has artifacts. I rented a DVCAM camera and found that it looked better than the Betacam camera I had, I could indeed chroma key the footage, and there were no noticeable artifacts. Just as HDV won't be as good, from the same camera, as HDCAM SR, DVCAM from a DSR500WS isn't as good as Digibeta from a DVW700. But it's good enough for the types of TV spots, documentaries, corporate sales and training videos, and the occasional transfer to 35mm film that I do. I suspect that HDV would also be as good, depending on the camera chosen. And the quality I have seen so far makes me think that, in the proper hands, a 1/3" chip camera could be successfully used in many professional contexts.

Having said all that, however, I wouldn't buy one without renting first and testing thoroughly, just as I did with DVCAM before buying.

Nice thread grenade you dropped Shannon. You type one message about how excited you are about the new camera and it explodes. :-)

I think the credit goes the Canon, not the thread starter, LOL

Mind you; you perhaps should have refrained from further elaboration after such a true statement as: "it is what the mind's eye can do to express itself with the tools available."

I'll assume what you actually meant was "the tools that remain unavailable at this point - but promised enough that those that are currently available should be avoided".

It's reassuring that if you think something is affordable then everyone else should naturally find it so also.

As for your sports example - perhaps the example of the fine artist would be slightly more appropriate. While many a painter would dearly love the most expensive sable brushes, gold oxide based Madders and the finest French linen canvas, the simple fact is that owning them doesn't make the artist wielding them a genius - just as owning the same bike that Lance Armstrong rides won't make everyone a Tour de France winner.

And oh me oh my... Sacre Bleu!! I own some of those lesser HDV camcorders! I guess that means in your eyes I'm indifferent to the tools of my craft...