XDCam HD and XH A1
 

I just bought an HX A1 for a backup camera, and begun to edit footage from both cameras side-by-side.

Frankly, I am stunned by how little difference I am seeing. Yes, there is some difference, but not thousands of dollars of difference. In some cases, I even like the images from the A1 better.

Anybody else had an experience like this?

An important concept that I try to impress upon people is that "image quality" is a non-issue. Almost all of the current crop of HD camcorders are pretty much equal in terms of the pictures they deliver. Their fundamental differences lie primarily in feature sets, ergonomics and workflow. Your post bears that out, so thanks for stating it.

XDCam and A1
 

The big bugaboo still comes from broadcast specs and engineering, saying no or very little HDV. Wonder if that rule will pass away, just as it did with the DV format.

The say the prob has to do with sending high compression over an already compressed broadcast signal. But what I don't get is is you post onto HDcam, or even on the XDCam, is't the image "burned" into those formats?

What they're in effect saying Bill, is that the HDV format is highly compressed and therefore the artifacts that might not be so bad on the first pass, can get ugly after a few trips through the editing/signal delivery process. This is how Discovery HD approves formats. But it's up to their engineers and what quality standards they want to maintain. Maybe the home viewer won't notice the difference, or, they might notice and just not understand what they're seeing.

To directly compare the XHA1 and the F330, you will have many scenarios where seeing the difference will be near impossible. Put lots of motion in the scene, or low light, and your F330 will give you the edge. As Chris said, it also comes down to image controls. For the money you paid, you also have every right to expect the F330 to have a higher overall build quality. That counts for a lot in terms of how service issues are handled.

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Another angle...
 

I friend of mine who posts on a different forum did a comparison of a borrowed F350 and his own XL H1 which, granted, is not the camera being compared here but which is of course Canon's top of the line offering.

He thought the F350 much better, citing increased latitude, s/n ratio and color accuracy. The resolution is the same, and that can cause some pictures to look equivalent.

I have the F350, the HVR-V1U and the Canon HV20, and all take beautiful pictures. I've cut the V1 and the F350 together successfully. The HV20 looks awesome if it gets enough light, but gets VERY noisy with less light. The V1 when viewed on a 42" 1080P monitor definitely doesn't hold up to the F350 at 1080P. But all are great cameras.

Clearly we are in a market where a camera that costs much more is only incrementally better and in ideal circumstances, even to the trained eye, the difference can be almost imperceptible.

But like Greg said, in real world shooting with complex and/or high motion scenes, lower light, demands for greater latitude and so forth, the extra money can seem very well spent.

Tip

Bill, Can you tell me the settings you used for your XH-A1? I have a shoot coming up that I am using a XDCAM and a XH-A1.
Thanks,
MG

I just watched my latest storm chasing feature projected onto a 15m screen with a Sony 4K projector. Most of the program was shot using XDCAM HD but there is also some upscaled SD and some HDV material in it (Z1 and canon H1). On a 37 inch LCD it is very difficult to spot the HDV material from the XDCAM HD material. However on the 10m screen the HDV material just didn't have the clarity or sharpness of the XDCAM material. You could also see artifacts in some of the HDV material while the XDCAM footage looked clean. I think my XDCAM HD material stood up just as well as the HDCAM material on the big screen.