Yes. Almost all prosumer SD cameras shoot with less sensor pixels than the SD standard (espcially with widescreen), thus the image is slightly sub-standard. All HDV cams shoot with full HDV resolution and then downconvert to SD in-cam. This results in maximum SD resolution (at the cost of low light sensetivity).

From my experience yes, the SD video looks better. As noted above, the sensor has better resolution, so SD looks better. I shot SD test footage in an HC1 and played it back in an SD cam, it looked noticeably sharper and better - I was surprised, but it was pretty obvious.

The question is WHY shoot in SD in the first place? Downres on capture from the cam, or better yet in final rendering.

Again, think of it this way - higher res sensor, higher res video, preserve it as far as possible in the chain and you'll get the best results.

Unless you have a very specific reason to shoot SD (like client demands?), not sure why you'd do it... but if you do you'll see sharper results!

The iPod Touch is 16:9 widescreen, isn't it?

Yes, and so is the iPhone.

The reason is that my PC is not that up to date to handle the HDV yet, but it handles the SD quite well.

Stelios

Gotcha -
HDV can be a horsepower hog - shoot HDV, downconvert as you download is your best workflow - then when you upgrade the computer, HDV footage of anything important is available.

ALSO, you might look at software updates - vegas 6 for instance was pretty sluggish with HDV, 7 mucho improved, 8 looks even faster and smoother... seems as though it's taken a while for the software code to catch up with the new format.

Nope, it is not. iPod Touch appears to have screen with 1.5 AR. Apple's video presentation says: "tap the screen to see video in theatrical presentation". The screen grab below shows 2.35 AR in 'scope format. I suppose that if theatrical presentation were 1.78 AR, it would be shown properly too. In either case, it will be letterboxed because the display has 1.5 AR. Seems that Apple decided to borrow this stupid idea from Brits, who use 14:9 AR as a transitional format.

At least one good thing about Touch is that it CAN properly display widescreen content though in letterboxed format. Also seems that by default it does center cut. I bet that 95% of users won't even notice that something is wrong, but Apple lost me as a prospective client. Archos seems like a better choice.

Your images are actually very big... about 1200 pixels wide.

And the forum always creates thumbnails.

Oops... fixed.

Recently my wife using HV20 and I using XM2 (GL2) shot exactly the same sequence from steady tripods of a take-off, 2 landings & a 2 take-offs by griffon vultures at 70 yards both of us using about x 10 zoom. Lasting about 25 seconds the clips have to be seen to be believed; so I brought them to a TV store and viewed them repeatedly on 26" Walker screen via HDMI for HV20 & round 5-pin for XM2. The image sharpness from HV20 was IMO perfectly true all the time whether the birds were in flight or otherwise; from XM2 the background cliffs were sharp but whenever a bird moved the edges of the moving image showed the slightest bubbling for most of the sequence.

I am now in the market for an XLH1 or a lighter equivalent.

Here is some more handwriting on the wall about the future of video production and tv:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=105882

Yup, SUPPOSED to be going digital in two years. But not necessarily HD. A lot of consumers are confused by that. Then again, I've seen people with HD wide screen sets watching 4:3 stretched out, and claiming it looks 'fantastic'! Go figure.

My brother in law came home one day with a 52 inch Sony Bravia. He had previously hooked up cable with HD content, so he hooked up his new TV. For a couple of days didn't hear much, so I called him. He sounded dissapointed. I went to visit, and he showed me the TV, and the HD channels. He was depressed, it looked not as good as he expected, for all the money spent.

I said, that can't be HD, and we turned channel to over air broadcast to show him. I told him to call cable provider. He did, and twenty minutes later, the gave him directions on how to set the Cable box for his new HD TV. Beautiful at that point.

Right, but all new TVs are widescreen, so who would want to watch 4:3 on a widescreen set? While future TV programming will not necessarily be in HD, it will definitely be in digital widescreen.

P.S. Following up recent talk about iPods, I just bought Archos 504 that has 4.3" 16:9 screen. Beautiful thing, Apple has nothing similar to offer.

Interesting discussion. Besides teaching an Emmy award winning high school broadcast class, I have a video business on the side specializing in event video. I sell thousands of dollars of SD DVD's every year. When the first Sony HDV cam came out I was told by many people that I needed to jump in or I would lose business. Here I am all this time later and I have yet to get a request for 16x9 or HD. But I do still get requests for VHS tapes! For me, and I suspect many others, HD is not yet a necessity. I'm glad I didn't jump in at the beginning. I would have an aging camera that would have served me no better than my SD cams and that offered my business no economic advantage. When HD does become a requirement (and I suspect for me that's still at least 2-3 years off) I will have the advantage of the latest technology at a lower price than I would have gotten had I jumped in at the beginning. And, meanwhile, I've made tons of money from my seven year old VX2000 and nearly four year old PD170. And they're not done yet! I do a lot of low light events and the cheaper HD cams won't touch my SD Sonys for low-light capabilities.
The bottom line is to determine what YOUR market demands and invest accordingly. It's never good business to invest in what you don't need, unless it's just a hobby and you have cash to burn.

Oh, and one last thing, in spite of the fact that more and more widescreen HD tv's are being sold, there are millions of 4x3 TV's still being viewed in millions of homes.

Future TV programming will be widescreen, but the decades of content made previously that will be rebroadcast for years to come is by and large 4:3. The "Age of Pillar Boxing" has just begun. ;)


-A

thank you for all the replies

You haven't got requests for 16x9/HD, or you asked your customers specifically whether they wanted 16x9 or HD and they told you "definetely, we do not need that"?
They will be either thrown away or sold for $50 to poor students or will be used as a second/third/fourth set. "Do you have a TV?" - "Yes, we have two." - "Two? You must be rich!" - "He is joking, no one has two TVs".

This January I had trouble selling a 27" CRT TV, I bought it three years ago for $360, it still looked like new. Sold it for $120 after it was offered for sale for two weeks. The electronics section on Craigslist is full of ads that read "CRT TV for sale, mint; upgrading to HD".

This is a question every BUSINESS must decide for itself. Is it the time for me NOW? Am I making money NOW with the gear I have NOW? If I upgrade NOW will I be using those features to make money NOW? HOW LONG will I make money with the gear I have NOW?

Is RENTAL a viable option to achieve a particular booking on a particular project?

In terms of the future... HOW FAR do you look? One year? Two? Five? What will be the 'new technology' in 12 months? Tapeless? Some NEW form of card acquisition? A new codec? Who knows.

Each business has it's own cash flow problems. Will an upgrade pay for itself IMMEDIATELY? Or will I have to wait two years to use those features? In the meantime, what NEW technologies will arise in those two years, that will make my 'upgrade' obsolete by the time I thought I'd need it? OR allow me to purchase the same 'upgrade' I am considering now, for half price later when I need it?

As I said before, it's a tough decision, hence the thread. There is no simple answer for everyone.

A real life example on the advantages to waiting -

I am negotiating a doc shoot to take place in April of next year in Ireland. I MIGHT need to shoot in HD, it's not clear at this point. IF I do, it will probably be an XLH-1 because I've already got money invested in my XL2 gear... so that choice for me, would be most cost effective. IF I had been convinced at THE BEGINNING OF THIS THREAD to upgrade at the time the UPGRADE NOW arguments were being posted, I would have missed the wonderful deal Cannon is now offering, of the FREE FIRESTORE WITH XLH-1 purchase! See, waiting to buy untill I know I need it, is already (potentially) paying off for me.

Just one example of how each person has their own business needs, and concerns that will influence the WHEN decision.

For me (and the company I shoot for) the desicion was easy: XH-A1 is a killer camera HD or no HD. Most shoots are done 16:9 SD, best quality for the price I think. For chroma key work HDV. And for personal travell stuff HDV naturally.

I responded to this thread but wasn't logged in so it disappeared! Basically I've been stalled using my A1 for HDV as the edit is where the bottleneck is. I use Final Cut Pro not Vegas.
I just picked up an XL2 and I'm anxious to do comparisons. I like the quazi full size feel and buttons on the XL2. The A1's button are way too hard to find in the dark.
I also suspect that we may find ourselves holding an outdated HD format as the mpeg4 codec's continue to be developed.
any other form of HD (DVC Pro HD or XDCAM) is way out of the league of DV even for the camera purchase, let alone the horsepower needed for the editing system.
for the time being, I'll stick with 16 x 9 SD. this is a complete system that I can rely on from tape to edit to DVD

What specific problems with the A1? I run FCP on a PC machine and loved working with A1 footage in real time.

I have been using the Sony PD170 in SD 4.3 rendered out to DVD, looks great on SD TV. My clients all have Widescreen TV and to them it still looks great,So I have been using the Sony Z1, they cant really tell the change apart from things look a bit stretched on the Sony PD170.

I know HD Widescreen is the best looking thing at the moment. But to the average person that has no knowledge on formats at all, everything looks the same. I think content has everything to do with how good it looks. No content, looks crap,content looks great.
SD is still kicking around even SD stretched is still looking good.
But to me SD 16.9 is the one we all need to get... HD is here and will take off as soon as price drops for the average house hold.

Now lets get out there and shoot content.
Cheers
Simon

Downrez HDV? OK but, unless your going to wearout your camera drive, you have to buy a deck. There's another 3K. for what?

Internet Myth #1. In reality, you're *not* going to wear out your camera drive by using it as a deck.

Huh? With all the concern about total hours on the heads and camera wear I woulda thunk it otherwise. Hours is hours, regardless of whether they're recording or playback hours since the wear under concern is caused by the physical friction of the heads and tape moving against each other. Are you saying this because such concerns over head wear are over-rated?

Bingo. For all the hand-wringing over using the camcorder for playback, I can't recall a single instance of someone reporting that they actually "wore out the heads." Gummed up from mixing tape brands, sure, but the transports are fairly robust these days and a camcorder will be obsolete long before its heads ever wear out. Of course, if you're capturing video eight hours per day, every day, then obviously you need a deck, because as I've said before, the primary reason not to use your your camera as a deck is because doing so takes the camera out of production -- and if it's not shooting, it's not making money. I strongly recommend a deck for *that* reason, not because of any perceived "damage" from playing tapes. If tape playback was bad for a camcorder, then it wouldn't have a VCR mode.

I certainly believe so as I shoot everything in HD.

I have just recently found out that the image (I believe) is more superior when I capture, edit and render to HD then I render the HD video to SD video.

Also, if you use FCS, you can already offer HD DVD's to clients, if they say "Do you offer HD?" Personally, I would NOT want to say "Well, you know, I just haven't spent the money on an HD Camera, because I wanted to buy a better tripod.

Maybe if you want your camera to have a useful life for only the next year and a half, you can get an SD camera.

I have already had clients asking me about giving them HD DVD's for distribution. And THANK GOD I can say "Of course I can. Nearsighted Productions wants to give our clients the BEST of quality at a more than affordable price to the general public."

I PERSONALLY like to give that choice to the client.


So in all that, SD maybe? HD definitely!

What is the point of getting a 3k$ deck when you can buy a good HDV cam for 1k$ and use that as a deck AND B-roll cam?

Besides, heads last for THOUSANDS of hours, replacing them costs few hundred $$, there is NO reason not to use the cam as a deck, or getting a cheap HDV cam for that purpose.

MPEG4 is currently more relevant for HD delivery than acquisition, but even if future cameras do use MPEG4 recording that won't make current HD cameras less useful.

As far as editing horsepower is concerned, you can do basic HD editing for most recording formats on a good laptop if you set things up right. And with today's desktop computers you can do more with HD than we used to do with DV without pre-rendering, so life is good.