HD Costs beyond the Camera?
 

Okay I can afford one of the new HDV cameras by Sony or Canon. But I have 4 questions that I haven't been able to find the answer to.
1. Do I have to purchase an HD monitor or will the DV monitor work?
2. What is the cheapest way to capture HDV tape to my PC NLE?
3. Is it easy or possible to mix DV and HDV footage together?
4. Finally because of the war raging between HD players can I export HD video to the current crop of blank DVD's and will it play on current DVD players?

1)probably. some cameras have a down convert built in, so you can use your SD monitor but I wouldn"t trust it for anything but framing. (i.e. not focus and not color or brightness.)
2)no idea, I thin premier does it, vegas? I know FCP just started working for my canon.
3)it is possible to mix HD footage with SD but it will be far more noticable if your final output is HD, and far less noticable if your final output is SD.
4) The current crop of DVD players are (for the most part SD so unless you downconvert your HD footage it won't play in those DVD players, on the other hand if you do down convert it should play fine on most DVD players.

Greg,

HD means High Debt.

Just Kidding (not really), I've chosen to downconvert from to SD from HDV for the time being. I've still got HDV masters, and smooth edits with good results.

Until HD-DVD or Blu-ray is more universal, I'm not worried about falling behind. In the meantime, let the NLE hardware catch up.

Just my .02

1. Do I have to purchase an HD monitor or will the DV monitor work?

My JVC hd100 has composite out that i hook up to a 20 inch sony tv. It works, but like the others say it's only useful for 1) framing and 2)watching video as it's fast forwarding or rewinding since my NLE (FCP 5) only displays every 16 frames because of the compression, so it's extremely choppy.

2. What is the cheapest way to capture HDV tape to my PC NLE?

Cheapest is just to hook up your camera to your computer via firewire and do a capture. Easiest is having a hard drive attached and doing no capturing :)

4. Finally because of the war raging between HD players can I export HD video to the current crop of blank DVD's and will it play on current DVD players?

JVC has a proprietary unit out that can play HD on DVD's. However, you have to have that JVC DVD player to do it, so it's only really useful for kiosks or to show off your footage to friends.