Vid....have you switched yer cameras to HD yet?

I\'ve been wanting to get an HD prosumer camera. Then I saw the price I really want one because I want to start making productions like movies and documentaries and a nice HD camera would be perfect. I may try to research older SD prosumer cameras. My professors always recommend Sony, Canon and Panasonic the most.

Look into the Canon HV20 (or HV30 is the newest I guess). Should be about $700. And for the price it shoots awesome images, but of course a Sony EX1 for like ten times the price would be even better. It\'s all about prioritizing though.

Look into the Canon HV20 (or HV30 is the newest I guess). Should be about $700. And for the price it shoots awesome images, but of course a Sony EX1 for like ten times the price would be even better. It\'s all about prioritizing though.

Check http://www.woot.com NOW for a refurbished Canon HV20.

$549.99 + $5 shipping.  It might be sold out by dawn, so buy now if you care about this.

[videoholic]

Well there\'s HD and then there\'s everything else.  The EX1 is about the cheapest camera right now with a real chip.  Even the panasonic hvx200 uses SD chips and pixel offset.

Low budget cameras have so much grain in them from using such small chips.

[GmanJoe]

Prosumer you can\'t beat the Sony EX right now.

Cool. Gonna have to check that out.

Well there\'s HD and then there\'s everything else.  The EX1 is about the cheapest camera right now with a real chip.  Even the panasonic hvx200 uses SD chips and pixel offset.

"Real chip"? The HV20 has a 1920x1080 1/2.7" CMOS sensor. And for Titan\'s needs I doubt the EX1 is ten times better.

Didn\'t he do the design for a home in Cyprus or something?

Yeah. That picture was taken from Cyprus too.

[videoholic]

"Real chip"? The HV20 has a 1920x1080 1/2.7" CMOS sensor. And for Titan\'s needs I doubt the EX1 is ten times better.

It\'s got 1 chip..

It\'s a very small chip...

It\'s HDV..

That is not true HD.  That is a joke.  They print 1 or 2 frames a second or something ridiculous like that at about 19 MBits/sec.  That is extremely low.  That\'s how they are able to shoot an "HD" image on mini dv tapestock.  

It\'s a horrible compression that you can\'t shoot anything with any type of somewhat fast motion without it totally looking like crap.

BUT, for a cheap camera I\'m sure it\'s fine.  As long as you aren\'t expecting anything to look very good.

The EX1 is more like 20Xs better.

[Paul2]

Regarding the HV20 and HV30, the chip isn\'t small...1/2.7" is quite a decent size for HD.  It\'s true that it\'s only a single chip though.

I believe the HDV record at 25 mbps just like miniDv, except at HD resolution which means higher compression ratio.  So, the compression artifacts would be quite noticeable on HD filming or recording...

What bitrate and how many chips and what\'s the size of chip of this EX1 that you speak of?  how much does it cost btw?

It\'s got 1 chip..

It\'s a very small chip...

It\'s HDV..

That is not true HD.  That is a joke.  They print 1 or 2 frames a second or something ridiculous like that at about 19 MBits/sec.  That is extremely low.  That\'s how they are able to shoot an "HD" image on mini dv tapestock.  

It\'s a horrible compression that you can\'t shoot anything with any type of somewhat fast motion without it totally looking like crap.

BUT, for a cheap camera I\'m sure it\'s fine.  As long as you aren\'t expecting anything to look very good.

The EX1 is more like 20Xs better.

It\'s CMOS, it\'s not a CCD chip so you can\'t really compare it to 1 CCD chip cams.

I know the HV20 doesn\'t isn\'t pro gear, but it\'s very, very good for the price. You can even do uncompressed out of the HDMI port... The \'not pro\' part isn\'t so much picture quality though, but more about functionality.

[videoholic]

the ex1 is a 1080i camera that is more prosumer than consumer.  It\'s a 6k camera.  they really shouldn\'t be compared, but Gman didn\'t have price constraints.  I know that we use a little sony camera that is a single chip ccd that records HDV on tape and I use it as a gimmick cam on some features I shoot for FLW Outdoors.  It looks pretty good when you don\'t compare it to something else, but when I put it up to even the SD cameras we use it looks like poop.  There is a reason why some cameras cost 30-50k and some cost 300-500.

The best thing about it is it shoots at 35megabits rather than HDV.  It\'s still no where near as good as the AVC Intra codec, but we are only talking about a 6,000 dollar camera.  Here is a picture of it and a review.

http://www.dv.com/reviews/reviews_item.php?articleId=196603837

And Samwise, a lot of cameras output uncompressed.  But you\'d need to hook it into a firestore or some sort of recording device to be able to take advantage of it.  What you are doing is taking the complete limitations of the camera (HDV) out of the equation.  A firestore is a good way to do it too since you can record into DVCPro pretty much any HD source iwth a firewire out.  The chip is not the problem with the camera as much as the whole HDV compression.

True that HDV sucks.

How do you handle/edit AVC footage? Use a codec like Cineform?