Which prosumer camera Panasonic DVX100B or Sony HVR-V1U?

Question

Okay first off let me say, HD could possibly be very important to me however only if it's TRUE HD. I honestly don't know what true HD is though and am very confused by these cheap HD model cameras, I look at the prices and I know something isn't right when they are the same price as the older standard cameras like the XL2 and the DVX100B. I was very close to ordering the DVX100B I know people have used it for years its a great camera if you don't need HD.

But if i'm going to spend $2600, why not spend $500 more and get an HD model camera?

Are these HD cameras in the $3000-$4000 range true 24p? Or is the footage interlaced? We do a lot of greenscreen footage and interlaced is not an option.

I just don't see how HD could possibly be this cheap so can someone explain what i'm missing.

Thank you! Both the Sony V1U and A1U are looking tempting heh

Answer 1

Ok, here's the deal... the additional cost of HD vs. SD is just not all that much. When you look at a consumer camcoder, sure.. you'll pay $650 for HD and $350 for a similar model in SD. But going to a pro/prosumer model, most of the expense is simply not there... sure, your imagers may be a bit more expensive, but a 1/4" HD CMOS sensor isn't necessarily more expensive these days and a 1/4" SD CCD, and well, the encoder chip is the same one used on the consumer product... there's just not that much extra cost.

And much of the story of pro/prosumer camcorder pricing and features is based on what the market will support, and what you need to deliver to sell this year's model, yet stil have some tricks in the bag for next year. I mean, supporting 24p wasn't a huge technical problem, and it's all over the place in the consumer HD market, yet it's nearly absent from the prosumer HD market (the V1U is pretty much it for under $4-grand... most of them, like the Canons, my Sony HVR-A1, etc. offer a "fake" 24p hack of some sort).

Ok, so here's the thing about 24p on DV... the DV/HDV... some camcorders fake it, but even if the camera does real 24p, as the HVR-V1U and DVX100B both do, they have to record to tape in something that's in the normal 60i frame/field rate. So the camcorder does a 3:2 pulldown, and your editing software, if it's 24p savvy, does the inverse telecine when it detects this format. This is one edge you get with tapeless.. the data rates are flexible.

I think part of the issue of real vs. fake 24p was CCD sensors. CCDs are serial devices, analog chips, and kind of dicey to make well. So it's all that more expensive to make a chip that can do both interlaced and progressive video. Once you go to CMOS, you can integrate complex digital stuff on the same chip, you can have per line or even per sensor A/D converters, and they're faster. So there are many different ways to get interlacing, including just shooting at 60p and extracting the field you need.

True HD is a bit more dicey, because there are several points of failure. Some HDV camcorders record only in 720/30p.. that's the 1280x720 format, 30 frames progressive. Most record in 1080i, but it's actually 1440x1080/60i, rather than the 1920x1080/60i you'll get on a "Full HD" television. Most tapeless camcorders do a full 1080i or 1080/24p.. unfortunately, most of those are advanced consumer models, or you're into much higher price point with pro(ish) models using P1 or SxS memory cards. Not that 1440x1080 is a big problem.. it's a supported Blu-Ray resolution, it looks spectacular on the BDs I create, etc.

The next issue is the sensor... quite a few of the HD camcorders on the market don't actually have HD resolution sensors... in fact, I believe the HVR-V1U was the first with a full 1920x1080 resolution.. and that's even achieved by sensor offset (eg, the R and B sensors are interleaved with the G, at least that's usually how they do it). This isn't really a price issue, either.. when you shrink pixels, you shrink light sensitivity. So three 1MPixel sensors with offset probably give you a better overall picture than three 2Mpixel sensors with full RBG... particuarly considering the fact you're recording 4:2:0 color on tape (not essentially different than DV, though of course, NTSC DV is 4:1:1 rather than 4:2:0).

Of the two, I'd personally jump to the HVR-V1U. Nothing against the Panny, but I have yet to see any HD camcorder that didn't produce better SD video than the very best SD camcorders I could never afford (well, at least in bright light... in darkness, I'd still have a VX-2100 in my spare bag for just such an emergency). I've been building my HD toolchain for the last three years, and just finished this Spring, with my first few Blu-Ray discs now working...

Answer 2

While both of those cameras are good cameras, you should consider looking at the HV20/HV30. They are consumer cameras, and the HV20 costs only around $400 on eBay, but don't be fooled by their appearance. The HV20 is capable of shooting *true* 24p at 1080x1440 resolution, and the HV30 is capable of shooting 24p and 30p. But not just that, these cameras actually have larger sensors than the DVX or V1U with a 1/2.7" CMOS sensor as opposed to the DVX's 1/3" CCDs or V1U's 1/4" CMOS's. Granted, the HV20/HV30 only have one sensor, but I've used GL2s, XL2s, and DVXs and footage from my HV20 is as good as if not better than what was shot using those cameras.

I do want to make a couple things clear though. When you say true HD, all cameras that shoot HDV on tape (which makes editing a whole lot easier) shoot 1440x1080i which is then stretched to a 16:9 aspect ratio (nothing is distorted however, since the image is squeezed on tape so the stretching makes it normal again). There are a few AVCHD cameras that shoot full 1920x1080 resolution, but these are more difficult to edit. However, the HV20 and HV30 have a true HD (1920x1080) sensor to start with, so even though you have less horizontal resolution, it still looks amazing. Also, while the HV20, HV30, DVX, and V1U offer true 24p, it is embedded in a 60i video stream via 3:2 pulldown (the same way 24fps movies are put on DVD). So with either one you would have to remove pulldown before being to edit in a true 24fps (or in this case, 23.976) timeline.

But here's the thing, if you get the HV20 or HV30, you're saving a few thousand dollars. With that money you can get a decent 35mm adapter and a set of nice lenses, like this person:

http://www.cinevate.com/images/hv20b.jpg

And believe it or not, this is footage from a consumer camera:

http://www.vimeo.com/1206155

Check out the forums at HV20.com for more info (I'm on there as lotrfan). The HV20 is an amazing camera and if you know what you are doing it is way better than any prosumer camera, in my humble opinion. Anyways, hope this helps!