[robisconfusedd]

i've been looking at HD cameras for a while and they are pretty expensive compared to just regular digital video cameras.. but i was wandering if someone could point me in the direction of a really cheap HD digital camera??

it might be a little overkill though for video taping football games from the sidelines but i would just love to have the extra quality and being able to see the sweat drip down the player's arms you know??

[barang]

Sony has a new HDV camera that's compatible with iMovie and Final Cut. It's probably the cheapest HD camera so far, priced around 1999$. It's called the HDR-HC1. I haven't read a review or anything about it, so I really don't know. Anybody have a link to post about it?

[travisimo]

I must interject and state that that camera:

1. Isn't real HD, it's HDV or MINIDV with HD resolution. the compression is still on a minidv tape
2. Horrible quality
and
3. Horrible color

Panasonic will have a true HD camera available for prosumer by the end of this year called the HVX-200. 1080p 60p 24p DVCPRO50HD, also can write directly to portable self powered HDD's like an ipod. So no dumping.

ciao

[sonicularulus]

travosimo. what the heck are you talking about. the HDR-HC1 does true hd. the point of hd is to get high quality video without paying the price of film. That is what the HDR-HC1 and other minidv based hd cams do. Yes it is true that panasonic will be releasing a hd cam which can be considered a true hd cam just because it does 1080p. 720p, and all of the other hd standards, however the recording standard is HDV and as long as the hd cam does do HDV, then it is a high definition cacmcorder.
and the hvx200 will not record on to self powered hard drives. that is just stupid because hard drives are not reliable. they tend to fail and you dont want that to happen if your a pro (you should be a pro if you are considering to buy a $6000 high definition camcorder..lol)...the HVX200 can record onto special Panasonic memory cards called P2 cards. currently, they are at very low memory standards for high def-i believe its 8gb so far. they are expected to the triple digits range ( i think 120) in a couple of years. however, these cards are extremely expensive and extremely fragile. one 8gb card would cost about $1500. This is mainly because of its fast transfer rates and high reliability.

and the color reproduction on the HDR-hc1 isnt bad either. PCmagazine has done a review which can be read here:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1860695,00.asp
i am considering buying the hdr-hc1 because of the fact that it is the cheapest high definition camera PLUS THERE IS NO MEANS OF DISTRIBUTING HD MATERIAL ON DVD. Instead, i would like to capture in hd edit in hd, then downgrade the image to sd. I would get a sharper picture in an sd image. NASA has some demo picttures of its shuttle. They had two camers. An sd and hd and compared it to each other. They zoomed up on the same frame for each camera and they got a higher quality image on a downgraded-to-sd high def frame compared to a native sd frame.

so my point is why spend more than $2000 on an hd cam when you cant even distribute a final image on DVD or other cheaper/common media format. For more dedicated high definition talks, go to www.highdefforum.com I have been there and i have learned a lot about hd.

[dlefebvre]

There is many formats for SD and HD out there.

Standard Definition:
DV or DVCPRO is 720x480 @ 25Mbs/sec
DVCPRO-50 is 720x480 @ 50 Mbs/sec
Sony Digital Betacam is 720x486 @ 90 Mbs/sec
Uncompressed Standard Definition video is 720x486 @ 270Mbs/sec

High Definition:
HDV is 1440x1080 Long GOP MPEG-2 @ 25Mbs/sec
Panasonic DVCPRO-HD is 1920x1080 @ 100Mbs/sec
Sony HDCAM is 1920x1080 @ 140Mbs/sec
Panasonic D5 is 1920x1080 @ 235Mbs/sec
Sony HDCAM SR is 1920x1080 @ 440Mbs/sec
Uncompressed High Definition video is 1920x1080 @ 1.4Gbs/sec

Panasonic HVX 200 is very nice but expensive at this time. You'll pay $6000 for the camera. It has a built in DV deck to record DV and if you want to record DVCPRO-50 or DVCPRO-HD, you'll have to use solid state memory card (called P2 by Panasonic). The camera has 2 P2 slots, so far you can get one 8Gb P2 card for around $2000. At 8GB you can record 16 minutes of DVCPRO-50 or 8 minutes of DVCPRO-HD. They sell package including the camera and 2 8Gb P2 cards for around $9000. When the cards reach 32Gb in a about 2 years, it will be interesting.

HDV is cheaper and you will get cheaper results. It still impressive but the format has much less latitude than a real HD format. The fact that it is MPEG-2 versus any other frame based compression makes it a headache for post-production. Why did they chose an MPEG-3 compression scheme? It was the best compromise to get increased resolution with a minimal bandwidth. It's what you could call consumer HD.

We did test at work with a Sony HDV camera. It doesn't compare to a real pro HD camera but if you shoot in HDV and capture in standard definition DV format, it beats the hell out of any standard def DV camera out there.

[sonicularulus]

Well my point is why get a professional HD camera if you cant even make HD-DVDs or blu-ray? So in my point of view the Panasonic HVX-200 doesnt make sense (yet), especially that i know that 8gb only can store 8 minutes of high definition video! As a video editor using final cut pro, i would want to use a high definition camcorder to be able to use the motion controls in final cut pro to scale at much higher levels compared to an SD cam. With sd, i can only scale up to 110% with minimal distortion. With HD, i am hoping for more without a loss of too much quality.

[dlefebvre]

With video, like anything else, it's garbage in, garbage out. You can't expect to make chicken soup with chicken $h!t.

The better your source, the better the result. Even in standard definition, pro digital betacam cameras have 700 lines of resolution even if the end result is the standard 525 lines of NTSC. That't why you get more details than with a VHS camera, that also might explain the $40,000 diference.

If you shoot in HD, edit in HD and output in Standard Definition, you'll end up with a better looking product than if you had shot in SD.

[travisimo]

HDV != HD kthx

[zerostar]

Originally Posted by travisimo

HDV != HD kthx

Define HD? There is no set standard, while you are correct in saying that HVD is heavily compressed and obviously has a loss in color it is still "true HD"

Is DV true broadcast Quality? Most would say no, but look at all that is on TV that is shot on MiniDV. Open water was shot on PD-170's hardly pro-grade gear yet it was a blockbuster.

Even broadcast stations are not sure what is considered HD, look at DirecTV, they advertise XXX amount of HD channels then compress is to hell and only broadcast at 1090 or less depending on the station and dumped to 4:2:0, yet this still looks worlds better then SD.

The point of this thread was to find a cheap HD camera, I think the Sony HDV would be just fine for personal use, but I think an important question to ask is what is the intent of the video, purely for him/herself or for another project?

We recently shot part of a project here for Discovery HD, we used a Z1U, (which I think can be had for around $5K) and was mixed with footage from a F900. while the difference is obvious in the box, once it is re-compressed and broadcast I couldn't tell a difference. Just ask the producers of Jag

http://production.digitalmedianet.co...jsp?id=32064-1

[sonicularulus]

"If you shoot in HD, edit in HD and output in Standard Definition, you'll end up with a better looking product than if you had shot in SD."

My point exactly. Since blu-ray and hd-dvd isnt out yet, that is what is going to happen, right? So why would you wait until the HVX-200 and pay $6000 when you cant even output you final product on to high def? TO me it just doesnt make sense....Yes, i would want a high quality image, but not until i can make 100% full use of high definition camcorders, i dont want to spend too much.
NOTE: i do not have a thing against panasonic. In fact, i am looking forward for the hvx200, but since money is a problem for me (and also a problem for a lot of other people), it just doesnt quite make sense. Wait atleast a year after the hvx200 comes out and i am pretty sure i would be working hard to earn the money to buy one. In the mean time, i want to get meself an fx1.

[stokestack]

The HVX200 and many other Panasonic cams can shoot 50-megabit DV at 4:2:2, which is way better than crappy DV25. The HVX200, aside from being a so-called HD camera, is a long LONG overdue SD 4:2:2 camera that is relatively affordable.

Sony is now, finally, eating crap for its failure to deliver value to the customer in the form of something better than DV. It's unbelievable: Sony hasn't offered us anything better than DV since DV was introduced in the '90s, unless you count $100,000 HDCam! They never answered Panasonic's DVCPro50 at all. Now they sign on to the HDV boondoggle? Have you ever shot with a Z1? Aside from being compressed to oblivion, the uncontrollable iris behavior of this camera alone renders it thoroughly unprofessional and unusable for any serious production.

On the other hand, with no DV50 codec for Windows from Panasonic, it remains to be seen how most computer users are going to use HVX200 footage anyway.

[stokestack]

These are not correct:

"HDV is 1440x1080 Long GOP MPEG-2 @ 25Mbs/sec
Panasonic DVCPRO-HD is 1920x1080 @ 100Mbs/sec
Sony HDCAM is 1920x1080 @ 140Mbs/sec

There are two flavors of HDV: 720P and 1080i. I think the 720P version is a true 1280x720. The 1440 figure for 1080i appears to be correct (it gets stretched to 1920 on playback).

So if you're talking about true resolution and not what the formats stretch it out to, here are the sad, fraud-revealing facts:

DVCProHD is 960x720.
HDCam is 1440x1080.

Pretty sad.

[sonicularulus]

so your saying there is no truely affordable HD cam that will come out in the near future...
i guess there is no need to mention the canon xl h1 hahah!

[loki74]

Originally Posted by stokestack

There are two flavors of HDV: 720P and 1080i. I think the 720P version is a true 1280x720. The 1440 figure for 1080i appears to be correct (it gets stretched to 1920 on playback).

I thought HVX200 could do 1080p?

[sonicularulus]

it does 1080p...however, it still does the 1440 vertical lines of resolution and stretches it to 1920 during playback on tv...

[travisimo]

You're wrong on that the HVX is DVCPROHD it films at a full 1920x1080 only the shitty and lame HDV cameras like the sony FX1 interpolate from 1440 to 1920

please read before you argue. http://www.dvxuser.com/articles/HVX200/

i would like to point out secion:

Recording format:
The Sony FX1 and Z1 use HDV at 1080i. The JVC uses ProHD at 720p. ProHD is basically HDV, except with an extension to allow 24p recording. The Panasonic uses DVCPRO-HD. HDV is a brand new format, whereas DVCPRO-HD has been around for at least four years. ProHD is even newer than HDV.

HDV is newer and sucks by comparison.

DVCPRO-HD DOES NOT INTERPOLATE PERIOD

[jlincoln]

I would suggest that you concern yourself with quality over specs. You wouldn't take a 400 horsepower Chevy Cavalier over a Lotus Elise, would you. Take a look at the image quality of a Canon XL2. Stunning. They grind thier own glass, you know. At the cosumer/prosumer level, stick to Canon or Panasonic. If you have to have an HD camera, hold off and wait for the rev B of XL H1. Why the didn't put 24p in that thing is unfathomable. If you really want to see a cool camera and have 60 grand to drop, check out this...http://www.kinetta.com/.

[stevesnj]

Panasonic HVX with the P2 cards are needed to shoot the true HD...it cannot shoot HD on tape since there are no HD dv tapes to handle the data.

[dlefebvre]

Originally Posted by stevesnj

Panasonic HVX with the P2 cards are needed to shoot the true HD...it cannot shoot HD on tape since there are no HD dv tapes to handle the data.

The P2 cards are also needed to record DVCPRO-50. The DV tape is limited to 25Mbps recording.