So I picked up Scott Billups book "Digital Moviemaking." Excellent book by the way. In it he writes that they were tapping out of the HD cameras and recording to a D5 deck on the side. From what I've heard so far-- and I could be wrong-- is that the FX-1 camera has a higher bandwidth output, but that it's the recording mechanism (and the MPEG2 encoding) are where the trouble lies. Why not take an output from the camera to a higher quality recording deck?

Maybe the problem would be that using the camera would be a cost saving measure, and would be for people (like myself) that couldn't afford the D5 deck?

More questions than answers...

Jeff Patnaude

I disagree--I've seen great stuff with the DVX100A, a camera I use almost daily with my students.

Panasonic, from what I saw, is not part of the four making HDV. Canon, Sony, JVC and Sharp.

heath

I was there and the Macaw shot was very pretty and HDish, but you could see the compression. Overall I'd rate it a very poor demonstration. Is HDV a practical application for HD or is it just a gimmick? I still don't have an answer. What they should have done is shot something in front of us, assembled it in Final Cut Pro or AVID, outputed to an HD format, like HDCAM, and displayed the footage on a true HD monitor.

The only good thing was I got to hook up with Chris Hurd.

Great to see you again, Chris! Next time it'll have to be dinner. I saw a lot of friends at this SMPTE presentation and that was definitely the best part about the whole evening. Except that D.S.E. didn't make it (but at least we were able to get together at Sony earlier that morning for the press conference).