DV Info Net - HDV - over-hyped at the moment?

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I use the Sony Z1 and find it's a great camera both SD and HD. Mind you, I'm now wondering why I shoot HD to downconvert to SD. This thread has got me thinking about HD and my work flow. I deliver everything in SD.
After testing both HD to SD and SD to SD I find that there really is not much of a difference on final output quality. By shooting SD from the Z1 focus is so much easier and editing is a breeze and to be honest the quality is great.
By shooting HD, focus is something you have to really watch and then editing in HD can become a pain to get full rate playback (for me anyway) in my NLE.
So i'm now thinking on my next shoot of shooting SD DVCAM instead.
The one thing I dont like about the Z1 in my opion is shooting HD and then downconverting from the camera, I think the image looks a bit soft after the convert and if your a bit soft on focus to start with (and it's very easy to do it ) the resulting SD footage looks very soft.

I think HD is great but right now all my work is to SD and to be honest SD from the Z1 is fine for final delivery.

Nick

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stuart Graham (Post 924660)

It doesn't mention the OIS in the Sony brochure for the V1 for some reason.

Look a little more closely on page 4 of the brochure :-)

http://ws.sel.sony.com/PIPWebService...nalpdf1-07.pdf

That's interesting Nick, because my impression is definitely the opposite. I get better results shooting HDV and down-converting to widescreen DV in-camera. I even tried some tests several years ago after first getting the camera and satisfied myself of this....

Quote:

Originally Posted by Boyd Ostroff (Post 924628)

I don't see the V1 manual online, and have only played around with one for a little while, but I know it's a little different. I believe it lacks the edge crop downconversion, not sure whether it can record 4:3 in DV mode.

While looking at the V1 brochure manual just now I found the following (see attachment). But I'm pretty sure *something* is different between the V1 and Z1 when it comes to 4:3 material, just can't remember exactly what!

Yeah Boyd,
You could be right about downconverting in camera. I had shot some footage in HD a while back and it looked great (componet out from the Z1) on the LCD screen at home, so I downconverted via the camera to SD and the footage came out soft and this was three 60 minute tapes, so ever since then I either shoot SD or HD. I have'nt gone back to downconverting via the camera as it takes to long only to find that the image has gone soft in my situation. I capture the whole tape and come back when it's done.

I might do some small tests again.

Nick