hey...been out of the video loop for a while, now starting to look at it again and noticed that most of the $1,500 HD camcorders (HC7 etc) coming out now are still using a single chip, but have added the HD feature...(bad explanation i know) and the 3CCD HD cameras are around the $3,500+ mark (FX1)...

just wondering if reverting back to using a single chip HD camera is going to give me an advantage (picture quality/sharpness etc) over a 3CCD SD camera...?

-i was looking at the sony HC series (1&7) vs the VX2100-


thanks for any thoughts.

mark.

I did a side-by-side picture quality comparison of the single CMOS and 3 CCD Sony HDV cameras last year.
Practically speaking there was no meaningful difference in picture quality. I freely intercut footage from both cameras.

Differences observed were:

- minor chromatic aberration on the 3 CCD FX-1, a minor flaw completely absent in the CMOS camera
- better image stabilisation in the CMOS camera
- CMOS default sharpening was too high and made the pictures too 'crunchy' but this is user controllable. I turn it as low as the slider will allow.
- a substantial advantage in the CMOS camera in $$ and size.

CS

Hi,


I have both a VX2000 and a Sony A1 (prosumer version of HC1) and the main differences that I have found are that the single CMOS sensor cannot cope with fast or even moderately fast moving subjects without causing smear, the single CMOS is also not even close to the VX2K in low light.

Don't get me wrong, I really like my A1 as it captures stunning images if I have it tripod mounted, light levels are good and the subject isn't moving too fast. If I want to make sure I am capturing high quality footage, it is the VX2k everytime.

I would expect the FX1 to be every bit as good as the VX2k except for maybe not quite as good in very low light but it apparently makes up for it by upping the gain without introducing too much noise.

Basically, what I am trying to say is, if size/portability is a major factor for you then a HC1/3/7 etc.. would be a good choice but, if you really want to be sure of excellent quality, go for the FX1/7 etc.... Be aware though, if you have to down convert to SD to burn/view your footage, you will loose a bit of the image quality and cetainly don't use a HDV camera to record SD as it is a poor second best to normal SD footage.

Cheers John

Mark,
You ask a good question and one that I too have been wondering about. I have a basic SD camera and have been considering whether a move to HDV or 3CCD would make the most sense within that price point.

I was recently at a major electronics store and they had a demonstration running in a loop on an LCD monitor comparing HDV with SD. The intent was to show the superiority of HDV and I suspect the SD was not from a 3CCD camera. In any case, while there was a discernible difference, it was not all that dramatic. The SD was still decent and had it been from a 3CCD camera would have been even better. If I recall correctly, the demo was supplied by Sony and I don't recall them offering a 3 CCD camera in the consumer or prosumer space.

The other thing about HDV is its unwieldy nature with all but recent hardware assistance. SD can be readily edited on single core CPUs from several years back. Supposedly, this is niot so for HDV. In addition to sheer size, HDV uses an interframe compression that is more intensive to decode than SD's intraframe compression. While more editing software is able to work with HDV, this may be a limitation if you edit with a non-HDV compliant editor.

Visually, HDV is better than SD, as expected. However, a 3 CCD camcorder such as those offered by Panasonic (and available relatively inexpensively) may not be a bad interim purchase until 3 CCD HDV (or AVCHD) reaches a more tenable price point. The SD format remains readily editable and manageable on older hardware and there remains something of value to 3 CCD video.

Over the past couple of months I have been receiving, finally, a number of Blu-Ray discs, documentaries (BBC's Planet Earth, watch it at 1080 and be wowed) and movies and watched them on a large, 70" 1080 screen. All I can say is, Gents, SD, no matter how well it has been executed, is relegated to history. Unfortunately, it seems that a lot (majority?) of the LCD and plasma screens currently on sale are not 1080 but 720. Presumably the difference between HD on a 720 and SD is not as remarkable. That might explain some comments on store demos. But the public will learn soon enough. I note that our Oman TV salesmen have latched onto 1 megapixel (720) and 2-megapixel (1080) nomenclature for the new TVs. They have realised that the public knows that 2 megapixels must be better... Last week I received a Canon HV20. The PAL version cost me $1250, and when I played with it and looked at the results on the large screen, all I can say is that for around $1000 for the NTSC version, this is a major, major breakthrough in prosumer video. Reminds me of the first consumer DSLR, the D30. It killed film within 3 years. My strong advice is simply, if you can possibly avoid it, do not invest any significant sum in the acquisition of new SD camera gear, 3 CCD or whatever. Play for a few minutes in a store with that toy-sized HV20, look at the images on a large 1080 screen, and you will be ready to bear the vagaries of editing HD. Larger screens are well on the way, and the larger the screen, the more strongly you will be convinced. Well executed SD may well be very satisfactory on a 36" screen but beyond 50" the differences become apparent. It's still early days and our own personal standards/perceptions are still evolving, but I would, at this juncture, say that that HV20 will still be quite satisfactory on a 100" screen. Not so for SD in a couple of years when the general public will also have raised expectations.