HD Video Cameras

[Mikey Gribble]

I was looking at getting a new video camera for next season. I was looking at the Sony HDR-FX1, but I was wondering if it was really worth the extra money. You can get the lower end Sony HD video cameras for around a grand. Do you really get much more performance wise by going with the FX1? I currently have a VX-2100. I don't know hardly anything about cameras, so the technical stuff goes right over my head. Before my VX-2100 I had a regular Sony handicam and to be honest with you I wish I wouldn't have upgraded to the VX-2100. I just don't think it was worth the money. The low light performance was much better with the VX-2100 and you pick up more background color and definition with the VX2100, but not two grand worth of performance IMO. Any advice on the topic would be appreciated. I'm also clueless on the editing and producing videos with HD, so I'll have to look into that too. I don't want to buy new editing software too. Here is the link to the camera.
http://www.abesofmaine.com/item.do?...60543&GSESID=vwjfbc3kzrfpnme45emolzm2&GSCID=4

 

[scott r currens]

You should also take a look at the FX7. It is basicly smaller version of the FX1. I have an FX1 and love it but it is a very big camcorder.

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

I'd stay away from the lower end HD cams. I've learned to hate my HC1, which was $1400 when I got it in 2006. It's worthless in lower light(bad bad bad...10 times as bad as my old $400 new trv19 minidv cam). I wouldn't trust Sony's newer lux ratings either. All the sudden every new camera they put out recieved these magical super low lux ratings...yet when reading about them they didn't sound that great. I seem to remember comparing the HC5 with mine on camcorderinfo.com and it was worse...yet had a better lux rating. Slow shutter doesn't seem to help much either. The worst part is that HDV uses MPEG encoding, which isn't a bad thing, unless the brightness changes really quick(lightning at night). It makes night video from a crappy low light camera that much worse.

The contrast on mine was never thrilling either. You want black blacks and white whites, well I seem to have neither...just a rather low contrast scene between those. The other thing to watch for are scenes with slow gradients. Since it is compressing things and only has so much data allowed to explain the image with, you can get some obvious abrupt changes for your gradient. Think of a dark base going to a little lighter area. It decides to assign a portion of one shade this set of pixel shading, then another part of the gradient its next available shade. Most scenes just don't need a ton of levels(shades) to show with. Storms though do, and I've just noticed some of my storms do this ****iness. Most probably wouldn't even notice it though I guess, but you really can see it.

As for editing, I had premiere pro 1.5. Once I got this camera I just downloaded the free HDV upgrade for it. It requires a more robust computer to capture that stuff, even if it is a similar data rate as mini-dv. I am pretty sure HDV works by distorting/pinching the image. It records it as 1080x1440 I think. Then when you capture it, the computer stretches it to 1080x1920. Since it was pinched when it was captured, this opening of it makes it look normal. Crazy that's how they do things and it works. I can capture minidv on and on with no dropped frames. As soon as I stop, it's ready to go again. This is not the case with HDV. I think it screws up after 3 minutes or so. I don't seem to remember it dropping frames, but when I'd play the video it would start screwing up after that amount of time. So I always make sure to stop before 3 minutes of capturing. Once you stop, you get to sit there for about that same length of time while you computer catches up. It has to sit there and "unstretch" every single frame to 1080x1920.

That's as far as I've gone with HD. I then edit it and save it has an DV AVI in standard definition. You'll obviously be in need of an HD burner and more software if you want to actually create an HD dvd now. I figure screw it, why bother now when HD and Blueray players being so pricey yet. It will be nice to have stuff in HD now though.

If I was getting a new video camera(I've been thinking I need one because of this pos) I'd get the FX1 or nothing. Maybe the FX7 is an option, but I'd sure research it a bit on sites like camcorder info.com and don't trust their new lux ratings.