"This is more pixels being scanned in one frame than ANY other HD camera in this price class, and even more than the Panasonic Varicam."

ie: The comparison was about how many pixels were being scanned by the CCD block, not how many pixels are recorded to tape.

"If somebody was giving me a Varicam I'd take it..."
Which just shows that pixel count on tape isn't everything.

Barry,

I stand corrected. The Varicam is 1280 x 720 at the CCD. What I was thinking of is the fact the even though the Varicam is 1280x720 at the CCD's, it records only 960 x 720 pixels on the tape.

By comparison, the JVC ProHD cameras have 1280 x 720 pixel CCD's and they record 1280 x 720 pixels to the tape.

Thanks, Carl

960x720 @ 4:2:2 vs 1280x720 @4:2:0 using two very different codecs at very different bit rates.

My point only being that fact DVCProHD is not recording those lines doesn't make it a better or worse approach in itself. Each pixel of DVCProHD is less compressed on average.

Having said that there is no need to go into it any further, we all know the pro's and cons of HDV vs DVCProHD, its been done to death.

All HD-100's are capable of SSE. If I hook up my HD100 to my TV, turn all the lights off in my apartment, boost the gain to 18db and point the camera at plain white wall, you will see the line down the center.

The reason for this phenomenon is that the 2 DSP engines need a certain amount of light in order to calibrate with each other properly. If there isn’t enough light, they can’t sync together.

If you are shooting a dark area for an event, use a camera light. If you need a night shot, drop the gain down and add some light.

What some people on these forums don’t seem to understand is that if you are stressing your camera to the point of showing SSE, you will have so much gain noise and murky color, SSE will be the least of your problems. You are not using the camera properly.

18dB is ridiculous, I've never pushed a camera that far and actually put it to tape. I won't even go above 6dB with 2/3" cameras that aren't even as susceptible to gain noise as 1/3" stuff like the HD100. Maybe 12dB if we're in a situation where I just have to get the shot no matter what, but I'll try to add more light first if possible. By the time I'm pushing 18dB I'm telling whoever I'm shooting for there's simply not enough light to shoot, or I'm pulling out my handycam which has a "Night Shot" mode. For some reason Green Vision just ends up looking more acceptable.

I've used +18 db gain on Betacam shooting a fly on the wall documentary with the police. It's best only used when content is important and you don't want to create a distraction using a light in volatile situation. It actually looks worse in the V/F than on tape because of the peaking.

However, that is rare and + 9db gain on a Betacam (when required) covers 99% of documentary work, including under street lights. For drama etc you want much lower gain settings (if any).

I suspect that the above sensitivity might be the same as using +12db gain on the JVC using Standard gamma.

It's a lot better to light than just to put in gain. All cameras have limitations and you have to select the right camera for the job you're doing.

Guy - Read this and see if 4:2:2 and 4:2:0 with DVCPROHD and JVC Flavor of HDVB is really that different.

http://www.bluesky-web.com/HDVHVX.htm