Content shooters.. question
 

What video camera would you recommend? Would you go with an HD cam or stick with a good 3ccd DV camera? I appreciate any responses :thumbsup

HD, because HD content is the latest money maker currently.

Sony HDR FX1 os the best investment for a wannabe content shooter :pimp

HD cam...

Sony HDR FX1 if you are trying to get into the content market, but if it's only for your own site(s), then any 3ccd will do just fine..

3 ccd .. The expense of HD and HD editing over ways the benefits

A good 3ccd for sure

HD is still too new, there will be better ones every few months. Furthermore, you need some serious processing power to handle the footage.

HD is nice

until you gotta edit it, make sure you spend not only a few k on the HD cam but also like twice as much on processing equipment

We use the HVRZ1, because it can record in HD (obviously) and both PAL and NTSC. Our cameramen hate it for some reason, they say it's like a handycam, so unless we have orders for HD or NTSC we use the DSR-300 which is truly awesome, but pretty pricy. If you're planning to shoot and sell, I wouldn't recommend anything below the FX1.

I use 2 Sony FX1 cameras every time i shot,it works just perfect for me:)

These HDV cams do not get a better picture. They just have highier definition so you only really notice a difference when watched on a large TV.

These guys braggin about HD content on their websites are just mostly full of shit.

HDV is a consumer format anyway.

I agree, HDV is way overrated. We can produce much nicer stuff using the DSR-300, but then again, HD is a must for some people. Whatever floats your boat, I say. :)

Any decent "prosumer" quality 3 ccd camera will be great to start .. personaly I love the interchangablity of Sony and their PD camera's .. 150 and 170 .. Canon Xl 1 and 2 are both great .. .. like mentioned about .. HD is really the thing to start thinking about if your not already shooting in HD and at very least keeping your masters in HD format ... this is 2006 and by 2008 I am sure everyone will be watching and recording almost everything in 1080...

Now thats a funny statement, I am sure based on your lack of knowledge in this field.

This is screenshoot from HD video.
http://www.ivanafukalot.com/srebel/h3.jpg
Click on it and let me know if you still have a vision problem.

Like thinx said, the key is to have the proper equipment for editing and spend some time for learning how to. It took us few good weeks till we learned it well.First HD video I shoot was 18 months ago and since then we shoot it only this way and if we had few problems in first weeks and I remember I was really anxious about the upgrade in the start, since then we didnt get any compalin but tons of emails cheering up this move.The difference is huge.


But if your budget is low and girls are nice you can start with regular format and then upgrade later. Nice looking models are always a win :) HDV needs some budget freedom, because you may need to take some course too or maybe hire someone for editing for a start.Its all depend on your current skills.

That screen shot looks really good but you can get that quality from SD mini DV.

:thumbsup

I also find that Pana's 100 has high contrast and resolution, Looks awesome in 16:9 and would easily fool any surfer or Webmaster when viewing it online ...

Please show me :)
We get it from already edited and ready web file movie. No way mini DV gets close to it.

Its like saying you dont see the difference in printing between 35mm photo shot and 6x6 shot. The difference is huge. You see clear detailed picture with great color balance,yet with right encoding the file size stays the same or even smaller. Thats the key in encoding of HDV keep it on lower file size then mini DV with way better picture.

Do you think your caps look better than perfect gonzo?
http://www.primecups.com/x475565b/index.html

Sure, it is airbrushed but so is yours.

And you are taking screencaps from a mpeg or wmv file? Not the best way to get good quality. Much better to extract screencaps directly from the timeline.

Shhhhh .. don't tell everyone .. i want everyone to go buy HDV cams and let them clog up their bandwidth with 200 MG 8min downloadable clips .. and I'll still be running the fullscreen 16:9 @ 1/4 the cost ...and twice the retention ...

Ahhh, but you are comparing the mini DV cams most guys shoot on to the HDV cams. If you don't use the same low quality dv cams most of these guys use then your argument does not stand up.

Strange how many people is able to recommend this cam.I also had 1 but switched to something else once I saw the results - even an average user who is able to make a test of focusing can't recommend this piece of shit.This Sony cam has production software error and is not able to focuse right

8 min HD video we make in less then 70 mb with this quality I showed here.
And I dont need to fool webmaster nor customer :)

no offense man but you have no clue what you are talking about here
there is absolutely no difference between miniDV and HD for final internet user.
Of course you can see the difference but only in HD reader - till then you offer just converted and resized video....with the same amount of pixels

thread bookmarked.

All true but the quality of the clips is uncomparable on the same bit rate/size of file

DV got a limit of 720x576 while on HDV you can increase it and with right encoding it wont affect the file size at all.

For example..
With growing amount of higher resolution screen usage than before, closer you get to it ,better the quality is. With DV you stuck on 600x800 even less .. 720x576, with HDV you can get up to 1440x1080.
On regular TV screen you cant see the difference, its also stucked on 720x576.
Computer screen is sort of HDready screen due to the high resolution capability.

Thats how I see it.

You are absolutely right !

But as always with every new technology there will always be people pushing forward and some others pulling back. LOL.

Some arguments in favor of HD

a) The vast majority of Plasma, LCD's, etc. sets sold in the market are HD.
b) Most TV Channels at least in the US are shooting almost all their premium programs in HD.
c) The future like it or not, is moving to High Definition, that's were we
are going to be sooner or later.
d) This is is the same type of discussion there was back in the early days
of DVD and the early days of video on the net. Remember how many "experts" were telling us that video over the net was a "pipe dream" ? Exactly ! LOL.

In my case, my customers really appreciate being able to have already a whole bunch of scenes of my content in HD. Ready for release in BlueRay, HD DVD or even High Def TV. While still being able to use them presently for Internet and SD DVD's. :thumbsup

I appreciate all the responses.. great debate :thumbsup

This is also true :)

HD for the web is stupid and useless. a nice 3CCD will do you just fine.