I need better quality
 

I have recently gotten back into wedding and special event video. I use Vegas for editiing. I have been using for over a year and I like it. I bought a TRV38 cam last year and I know it won't cut it for doing wedding videos and special event taping. I was looking at the VX2100 but its too expensive. Is there any other cameras that are better suited for semi pro taping? I wouls like to do commericals in the future as well.

Any 3-CCD camcorder would be a step in the right direction for better image quality, or a 1-CCD camcorder that has an RGB color filter (such as a Canon Optura and some better Sonys).

Have a look at Panasonic GS400 (not too good in low light though) or maybe you can find a used Sony VX2000 or Canon GL1 in good condition from Ebay.

Thanks for the response. Are these cameras good for doing commercials?

I'll side with Georg and tell you to hunt down a used VX2000, or better yet a PD150. Why the latter? Simply because sound is such a very important aspect of a wedding video, and the XLR connectivity allows you long cable runs and a huge choice in quality mics. Those two Sonys are heaven made for wedding photography simply because their low-light performance is way above the second best.

The VX will also happily tackle commercials, but it's not at its best in the 16:9 mode. Fot this you might consider a PDX10, or go straight to the A1 HDV model.

tom.

I think for my price range $800 - $1000, the GL1 is within my budget. i'll try ebay. I hope i can make the money back by doing more wedding videos. i definiately need to raise my prices from $175 to $400. I charge low prices due to the TRV38s quality.

Is that per hour or per wedding? <grin>

My first cam was a TRV38. Then I bought a DVX100a and have been in video heaven ever since. While a Sony vx/pd may be better at low-light, and a canon better at 16x9, the DVX gives you more control over color gamma and other film-important issues. The DVX is wonderful in a commercial / studio environment, and i think it's handheld run & gun is great too. I love the bigger LCD. But I do have issues in low light, probably due to my own inexperience. I bought it as much for the learning as for the capabilities. I don't use the 24p, but lots of people love it. DVX also has the best reputation IMO for audio. Also DVX's hold their value better than other cams, so that tells me something about the people who use them.

And get your wedding rates up!! $500 is way too low, just gets you PITA customers and makes you work too hard. Go to $1000 or more right away and do half as many. Use the extra to buy the right cam and other equipment, instead of another halfway choice. If you can't buy the right equipment, what is the point of being in business?

And rasing one's rates doesn't necessarily mean fewer clients. I had an acquaintance in the LA area that was a database application developer. He had too many client demands at $150 an hour so he figured he'd raise his rates and reduce the demands on his time. He went to $250 per hour and guess what happened --- his business load went UP!

Michael, you could likely get "free" quality by applying some color correction to your footage.

One example:
http://www.glennchan.info/Proofs/dvi...comparison.mov
Caveat: You will probably spend less time than I did than in that example, but it shows you that you can get a jump in quality. It does eat up your time and take rendering though.

One really simple thing you could do to make your footage pop is to apply color curves to increase contrast.
see http://www.glennchan.info/Proofs/dvi...lor-curves.veg and grab the last color curves preset from there. (Sorry not formatted in the Vegas preset manager form).

You can use the secondary color corrector to put saturation into the highlights (because the s-shaped color curves removes it).
You can also use the secondary color corrector again to boost overall saturation. I prefer to add saturation to everything except for flesh tone, which makes the image pop more without making the flesh tones look unnatural.

You can use the quick blur (amount = 0.500) or unsharp mask to take the "halos" off the high-contrast edges in your footage. Unsharp mask: Use amount = -0.5, radius 0.003, threshold=~0.060. Unsharp mask is really slow though, so it may not be worth it.

2- This doesn't do the same thing as buying a better camera.
i.e. cameras like the VX2000 will have less noise low light.

3- Audio and storytelling/ideas are important too. Ideas are "free", while bad audio will distract the audience from the content. You could probably be doing better work than someone with a 3CCD camera if your content is better. You could check out the wedding forum here for examples of nice work.