what the heck is HDV quality on HDTV?
 

I have not seen HDV played back on an HDTV so far. Can somebody give me a clue by comparing that to Discover HD Theater? I know Discover uses high end HD equipment for their productions, but when broadcasting, it must be highly compressed like HDV, so maybe there is some way to compare.

It really depend on the footage, if you have Canon A1 HDV footage with perfect control light, then it is almost as good compared to their best stuff, on a scale of 1 to 10 I would say that it is 8 to their 10, now sometime they have pretty crappy stuff, combine with heavy compression down to 18mbps, more than HDV then sometime I see my best HDV stuff is alot better than their crappy stuff.

That's a good question given that many HD broadcasts are delivered to viewers in a format which is technically similar to HDV. But keep in mind that footage from expensive HD cameras run through high-end broadcast encoders will probably look better than average-quality HDV, especially depending which HDV camera you're talking about and how that was used. So while good HDV footage played directly on a decent HDTV looks noticeably better than SD footage, don't expect it to measure up to work produced with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of HD broadcast gear.

On the other hand, a lot of Discovery HD shows use at least some HDV footage: you can catch glimpses of the cameras in scenes from many of these shows. (Typically the Sony Z1U.)

I think it is most fair to say that the broadcast HD format is inferior to HDV but the acquisition equipment is superior. I think what is most important is content, so other things balancing out would lead me to believe that a good script or unique footage is more important than the camera.

The best HD footage I've seen so far is a couple of the shots from my V1. The clarity of good footage from the V1 is stunning on a big screen with a direct connection. Some HD cable content also looks excellent, but I always notice compression flaws here and there. I know there are flaws with HDV compression, but I don't notice them unless I look carefully. I guess that's the difference between HDV at 25mbps and broadcast 19mbps - the flaws aren't intrusive with HDV.

Also, let's not forget the quality of the tuner and monitor high definition video is watched on. Just make a trip to an electronics store and watch the different sets lined up - most stores would play the same signal on all of the sets so the client can see the difference. The results will be enlightening, and common sense at the same time... you can't expect a low end "el cheapo" high def set to play the same good video as a high end unit that costs 5 times the price of the inexpensive one.

Simply put, you get what you pay for...

Yeah, nothing about HDV leads me to believe there are inherent problems with the type of compression it uses. In reality, better equipment (bigger CCD's, better lenses, etc) are going to be make a much larger impact overall. I've seen some of my HDV footage coming out of my HDR-FX1 camera and I'm often still blown away at how good it looks.

Jon