CCD 3 and HDV?

Question

I am looking for a good camcorder and I dont know what. Is CCD 3 and HDV have big differences? I am looking to do chromakey so I don't know which will be better.

Answer 1

ccd = charge coupled device

In plain speak, the camcorders eye.  the lens brings the light to the ccd and the ccd converts it into a signal that can be recorded and then later played back on a tv.

The CCD is actually made up of hundreds of thousands of little eyes that correspond with the dots on your tv.

When a camera has 3 ccd's it dedicates one eye to each of the primary colours, red green and blue.  Camcorders with one ccd  record all colour with one eye, and it uses a mesh of colour filters over the ccd called a bayer pattern to try and guess what colour each PICture ELement (Pixel) is.

3 CCD cameras tend to have a far better colour reproduction than single ccd cameras as there is less guess work.

Certainly for chroma key a 3ccd camera is preferable.

HDV is high definition video, initially based on the miniDV cassette system, HDV also extends to memeory card and hard disk camcorders.

HDV will give you higher resolution, standard definition is 720 pixels wide by 576 high, there is one HDV format that is 1024 wide by 720 high, and another which is 1920 wide by 1080 high.

The 1920x1080 system is approx 4 times the resolution of standard definition, and so it can be played on a tv screen of a much greater size.   Curved lines and edges become more detailed, which again, will help with chroma key.

The good news is that these technologies are not mutually exclusive, there are single ccd cameras that record HDV and there are 3 ccd cameras that record only standard definition, however there are also many cameras that record both with 3 CCDs and HDV.

Look at the sony HC models for miniDV based camcorders.

There is a format called AVCHD, which for the time being I would avoid.  There are some computer problems with this very new format, stick to the tried and tested miniDV HDV route.  

Also, use green chroma, as this is the most sampled of the three primary colours, thus giving the computer the most information to key with.