Not quite Hollywood

Rouxenator said:
What type of HD are we talking about here ? 720 or 1090 ?
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Consumer and most prosumer grade HD cameras don't shoot true HD.
They output HDV which at best is 1440by1080i. Its not full 1920by1080p.

Even cameras which boast 1920by1080p30 don't really record full HD,
because their censors don't have 2Mpix but under 1Mp and they use
pixel shifting too fill in the gaps. The result is 1080p30 video
but it's not what a $60K Panasonic Varicam HD outputs which
is DVC Pro HD 1080p30.

The cheapest full HD video camera out right now is the Sony PMW-EX1
XDCAM. It has 3 full HD (1920by1080) CMOS sensors and records XDCAM
HD video. This camera is certified by DiscoveryHD TV Channel and docus
recorded with it can be broadcast on that service.

This camera costs $6500 US. WantItAll have it for R90.000.
 
Wrong, the Canon SX1 is a 10megapixel camera that does 1920x1080 @ 30fps and it sure as hell aint gonna be more than R7k.
 
Rouxenator said:
Wrong, the Canon SX1 is a 10megapixel camera that does 1920x1080 @ 30fps and it sure as hell aint gonna be more than R7k.
Click to expand...

They don't say how many pixels the CMOS sensor uses to shoot the 1920by1080 video. They say '10Mp effective' - which is a gimmick term. I seriously doubt this, as this is a still camera with a gimmick function of video clips added on, and no video enthusiast uses this. Canon's own video cameras
shoot 1920by1080i at best and those are $8K models and up.

Also the AVCHD codec (at 17Mb/sec) is not a pro codec for video.

I haven't seen anything about this camera on the various DV forums so its been discounted as not shooting full HD(each pixel coming from a pixel on a sensor), whatever the marketing babble may be.
 
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Look, with most other brands I would remotely believe that they could BS a bit about the facts. But a Canon S range ? sorry, I don't believe you. If you look at the processing speed that these cameras have then it is not hard to believe they can handle 2 megapixel frames at a rate of 30 per second. Besides, Canon is well known for using Mjpeg for their videos, so effectively all the camera does is push out 30 2mp jpegs per second into a file.

I use a R3k Kodak Z1015 at this stage which does DivX compression on the fly for 1280x720p30 videos and it is really 1280x720 images that gets used. You can even "capture" a still from the video on the camera.

While I am not saying that you are talking nonsense I think you should reconsider your view on prosumer cameras.
 
Rouxenator said:
While I am not saying that you are talking nonsense I think you should reconsider your view on prosumer cameras.
Click to expand...

Well for one the camera has only one CMOS sensor. Prosumer video cams
have 3 - one for each primary colour. Secondly the camera has a very small sensor itself which won't capture much light. Thirdly the lens at that price would be inferior, look HD cam lenses are half the camera price. Fujinon
lenses for full HD cameras retail at R135.000.

Finally imagine shooting a movie in DSLR form factor. And the sound?

I think this is a gimmick and the video is 'effective' 2Mp. Otherwise Canon
would use this in their video cameras and they don't.

At a higher price, non-prosumer Canon HDV cams:
http://reviews.cnet.com/digital-camcorders/canon-vixia-hv30/4505-6500_7-32786397.html
Vixia HV30
This shoots HDV video ie 1440by1080i. It costs $999 MSRP.
 
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You know your stuff it seems :-)

Yes, they do not have the 3CCD setup you find on most high end video cameras, and even top brands like Canon are starting to look at CMOS these days as it takes care of a lot processing on the image sensor itself. Personally I do not believe one is better than the other (CCD / CMOS).

Small sensors are a relative concept. Sure, SLRs have much bigger sensors than your average cameras but with the continuing development in technology small sensors are getting better and better. My cheap Kodak has a very small sensor an it takes excellent videos and stills . In most cases you are going to watch the videos on an SD display so you can resize it to a lower resolution resulting in an even more crisp image.

Of course you do get pricer cameras and expensive lenses and all those goodies but in the end the difference in picture quality is marginal and most people are not going to even notice it. They will however notice the 10x to 20x prices difference and they will notice the fact that you then have to carry two devices with you.

These days you get phones with VGA 30fps video abilities in them and the picture quality is not that bad. Integration and advances in both the hardware and software that is used by these low to mid market solutions are making the expensive setups you are talking about look very unattractive.

PeterCH said:
Well for one the camera has only one CMOS sensor. Prosumer video cams
have 3 - one for each primary colour. Secondly the camera has a very small sensor itself which won't capture much light. Thirdly the lens at that price would be inferior, look HD cam lenses are half the camera price. Fujinon
lenses for full HD cameras retail at R135.000.

Finally imagine shooting a movie in DSLR form factor. And the sound?

I think this is a gimmick and the video is 'effective' 2Mp. Otherwise Canon
would use this in their video cameras and they don't.
Click to expand...
 
However its interesting. There was a heated debate on at dvinfo.com
about this camera, some people rating it badly, others comparing it to
a Panasonic Varicam.

It will be interesting to see what Canon does with the prosumer video
cameras in response. It will also be cool to see what Sony and Pansonic do.

Right now the best bang for the buck is the Sony XDCAM EX1, its a 3 CMOS
sensor setup, each sensor is 2Mp native. The lens is a high grade lens from Fujinon and the camera has variable frame rate recording, optical image stabilisation, a 1920by540 screen at 3 inches for previews and has Sony's
CineAlta logo. It has the usual specs otherwise, variable frame rate and format, filters, zebra, gamma etc. As mentioned it is rated by Discovery HD
(Silver rating).

Reviews have been excellent and I've been eyeing this camera for a while,
its on sale at Expandore. It uses expensive SxS Express memory cards though,
but its quick to transfer those to your HD for editing.

Of course shortly before that I was eyeing the Panasonic HVX200
which is a beautiful camera, with Leica lenses, it shoots 1920by1080p
video but its sensors are not native, it is CCD though.

My current camera is the Panasonic AGDVX100E which is an SD
camera with Leica lenses, progressive video, cinema gamma, optical
image stabiliser and
the usual features. This is the best SD rated camera for under $25.000,
beating out Sony and Canon.

Still, a DSLR which shoots 1920by1080 is pretty neat. The AVCHD video is very
compressed though and needs a fast CPU (Intel Quad core) to decode
and edit, unless one converts to something like Apple ProRes422.

I see the big brother of the Canon is the EOS5D MK II. That's a 21Mp
camera and will go for about $3,999.
 
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Bru, seems like you are in the production business if you fork out that much for video hardware :p

I will not try to compare what I use with what you use cause we are at opposite ends of the market. I absolutely love smaller and more integrated stuff, thats why my PC is a mATX setup and I use the onboard video, and I use my N82 for pretty much everything I can. The reason I have the Z1015 is because it is the cheapest camera that fits my needs for anything the N82 cannot do in terms of video and pictures.

If the Canon SX1 arrives here I will seriously consider buying one as the sound you get on Kodak cameras are very crap compared to Canon (16khz mono). My only problem with Canon is the Mjpeg thing - it is not kind in terms of space requirements. I have no problem with lossy compression as long as it is done properly.
 
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