HD Question.
 

How many of you guys are shooting in HD content?

Do you think it will become the standard in a few yrs?

i've been shooting HD for a little over 6 months now and i wish i started earlier. i had an HD camera for about 18 months but never offered HD because i thought it would kill me on bandwidth but it didn't. i modified my member's area so now i offer 3 quality versions of each video with the highest being 1280x720 and our members love it. i think it will be standard very soon. even if you don't offer HD videos, you should shoot in HD.

dgraves,

what is your HD cam of choice? and...

when you started offering HD content. did you see an increase in membership?

i prefer sony video cams but then again that's all i ever owned so i'm biased. i currently use an HDR-HC1 and i love it. it produces really nice looking video plus it's small and light weight.

i didn't see a drastic increase in sales but i think that's because most people are satisfied with SD. i'm not sure how many people join a site just because they offer HD. if it's crap, it doesn't matter what resolution it's offered in.

not all members want to wait the extra time to download the HD version. offering a "low" version is a good idea for dial-up users and because the high-speed users can view that quickly and determine if it's a "keeper" or not before they download the HD version.

alot of our members love HD. if you have good content, offering in HD is definately a bonus.

Canon cams have exceptional color and quality. Just watch the configuration of there cameras, some place the MIC in weird spots and other such flaws.

satyriasis...i've been shooting in HD for the last two years. it's light years in difference from my earlier content. your membership will appreciate the change.

Sony FX-1
 

Is the camera of choice btw.

don't know about hd yet, for my movies, when i'm encoding, i use only a fraction of the output settings, why make hd, when the average site isnt even offering half the quality you can get with standard film

that's true, sites don't have to offer HD to be successful.

i remember when 320x240 was the standard and now it's 640x480. so in a short period of time the video size doubled. so now if you have 320x480 on your site it's considered as somewhat sub-standard. surfers these days are savy and they expect to see 640x480 if you're charging $24.95 and up. it won't be long before HD is expected.

you can wait until you have to offer HD just to compete but then you're behind the curve. if you shoot in HD you'll at least have the content for future use.