I agree - lots of people will find this 750mm useful, and to be able to get it without using a 1.7x or 2.0x telephoto convertor lens & their associated image degradation/softening/distortion is absolutely a good thing.

Obviously caveat being the user really needs to use a good quality tripod or other support of course.

As i said earlier (or was it another thread - not sure) I think Sony likely have a plan to make another 3CMOS machine that will use 1/3rdin. CMOS sensors and so to make THAT new machine (if/when it appears) a viable and saleable commodity with a USP (Unique Selling Point), they needed the FX7/VX1 to have smaller sensors to 'make room'. - Just my theory on that.

ps. Heath - I just enjoyed reading that SkyeFalling interview. Interesting stuff and useful practical advice.

The DV look is over rated. The truth is it is a limited compared to the human eye, cut down, that looks sensationalised. Film is different because it has more latitude/sensitivity, is better, not perfect, as it is only closer to the human eye. Modern technologies, has driven a performance closer to the human eye, and cmos seems closer to film

With higher performance, and greater bit depth, you can tune your look post to be a number of things, even DV. Maybe it is better to start this way?

Did I understand this correctly? The sensors in the new HVR-V1U camera are 4:3 and not 16:9???

Does that mean the following...?

HDR-HC1 - 4:3 sensors
HVR-A1U - 4:3 sensors
HDR-HC3 - ??? sensors
HDR-FX1 - 16:9 sensors
HDR-FX7 - 4:3 sensors
HVR-Z1U - 16:9 sensors
HVR-V1U - 4:3 sensors

Cause that would be a serious dissapointment. I was holding out for a Sony camera that would finally have 24P/XLR/16:9 sensors... I thought I was definately going to get that in the V1U but now... no?

Also if I am incorrect on any of the above information could you help me correct it? I'm trying to keep a database of that before I make my purchase.

Thank you!!

what if they could make a 4:3 sensor on a V1 look better than a 16:9 sensor on a FX1?

Hmm. I suppose that would be okay.
I really don't know though.

What are the advantages and disadvantages? I always assumed that if the camera only had 4:3 sensors and you were creating a 16:9 image that it would need to interpolate/process/etc/etc to achieve that aspect ratio, thus a substantial decrease in resolution.

But I really don't know much about how signals are processed. I leave that to the tech-ies here ;)

same here. I hope they come out with something good "soon" "anytime now"

Hopefully it's not a "is that what we were waiting for?"

I don't think that's true at all. Why should you even care what shape the CCD is? What's significant is the size and resolution of the area which is being used. The XL2 has a 4:3 sensor and so does the PDX-10. Both cameras shoot native 16:9 at full resolution. They just don't use the space above and below the 16:9 frame. But the area inside the frame has enough pixels to produce a full quality image.

Okay :)

I'm really not trying to dispute things, I was just giving my own naive impression of it all and trying to piece things together. I really don't even have an opinion.... that's how naive I am about these sorts of details.

From what I thought I read though, I thought it was basically dropping pixel information that your CCD is capturing thus throwing away resolution. I'm not saying the result would be BAD either, it could be perfectly great. It was just my understanding of how the sensors work.

I thought that was also the reason why everyone said that the 16:9 mode in cheap 4:3 handycams were so terrible, because it was essentially just covering up the image it was capturing with black borders and decreasing resolution. I figured this was kind of the same thing. Is there a difference?

Still though, there must be advantages to having 16:9 sensor, no?

All that matters is how it looks to your eye and not anything else.

And why would the sensor aspect ratio make any difference to you?

Do you care what shape the LSI MPEG-2 encoder chip is?

The concept is the same, but the difference is the total pixel count on the chip. On the VX-2100 for example there are only 720x480 pixels. So to get a 16:9 image you have to sample a 720x360 area on the chip. That leads to quality problems, because on playback you need to stretch it back to 854x480 (a bit of an oversimplification, but good enough to this discussion).

However on the PDX-10 you're starting with a 4:3 chip that has 1152x864 pixels so it uses about 1152x648 of them when sampling a 16:9 image. This gives you more than enough data to create the final 854x480 end result. Now these are both standard definition cameras, but the same principles apply with high definition.

I don't know that there's any inherent advantage to using chips that are physically shaped in the 16:9 ratio, other than the fact that it's a little more elegant design I suppose. As I said above, all you should care about is the size of the target area and how many pixels it contains. Anything above or below that area is irrelevant.

No one is after a "DV look." In fact, given the number of "looks" from DV camcorders, there is no single DV look -- unless you mean the look of inexpensive SD.

IMHO the much of "film look" drive was to get away from the look of SD. Now there is a new look -- HD. Unfortunately, many if not most of those who wanted/want a "film look" had/have never seen good HD. Even those who now shoot HDV are still not watching it on a huge screen so they still don't get it.

There is a Sony look however as there are Canon and Panasonic looks. This is true in HD as it was in SD.

Obviously you haven't seen Soderbergh's "Full Frontal"

;-)

Not interested in indie films so of course I didn't see it. Why waste time seeing indie or Hollywood c**p when I can see great films from 1970 to 1990 in HD. As well as the best films from the last 75 years on TCM or AMC. IMHO there hasn't been a great film made in the last decade.

Didn't Canon and Apple sponsor "Full Frontal?" :)

The reason why the V1/FX7 and the previous HC1/A1, HC3 sport a 4:3 sensor instead of a 16:9 has to do with their ability to shoot high resolution still images and is not a indication of inferior quality. If you see on your list the 16:9 camcorders are the only ones who don't have still picture taking capability.