Saturday, December 09, 2006
Picking the HDV Camera
So I tossed P2 out the window. That leaves three manufacturers to choose from; Canon, JVC and Sony. Now I have never been a fan of Canon's cameras. Why? I can't really say except that I never really liked the image quality of their DV cameras and I really didn't like the way the cameras looked or felt on my shoulder. This might seem like a contradiction when you read on but let's just say that my body build didn't agree with the Canon HDV camera. My brain also didn't agree with the $9000 price. The other two brands I have experience with so I focused more on their qualities.
Before I go on with this stream of self-justification let me explain my equipment owning philosophy. I never own equipment that I can't reasonably expect to pay off in a year or so. I frequently use high-end equipment but that's where rental houses and other production facilities come in handy. Why have a $30,000 DigiBeta deck when I can take a job to my friendly DigiBeta house when I really need to use the deck and then come back to the office and edit away until I need to use the Digi-Beta again? A good friend is exactly the opposite, he buys the best camera he can afford and nothing else except a monitor for the office. He is considered an expert cameraperson and he knows little about the rest of the technology. Works for him.
Sony: Using Sony equipment for over 25 years, there's no denying the expertise and quality they bring to the production house. Sony consistently makes equipment that's usually in the top 40% but rarely in the top 10%. The first real pro camera I started with was the Ikegami HL-79 in the early 1980's and while the Sony was never a slouch in the professional camera department, Ikegami cameras just looked better slightly less "video". And that's seems to hold true now, Sony make great VIDEO cameras. Their PD-170 DV camera is absolutely remarkable. Pull it out of the bag and start filming, it self-adjusts accurately (most of the time) and the auto-focus really works well. While Panasonic decided to explore the "film-look" and indi-film potential of DV, Sony stayed rigidly with the classic video look. And that's the case with their HDV cameras, great HD video but a film-look seems to be an after-thought with little thought.
JVC: A company with a spotty track record but they have secured a place as the company that makes low priced professional equipment that work while not with the high specs of Sony or other companies. They made the cheapest 3-tube color camera and are a standard in low end studio set-ups. You can't get a cheaper yet good looking studio camera elsewhere. Their SVHS decks were the best around. When the DV revolution came about JVC sort of fell off the map. Their reasonably priced (but over $5000) shoulder mount GY-500 pro DV camera made sales to local news and community access studios but for some reason they couldn't make a decent equivalent to the PD-150 or Panasonic's DVX100. Somebody at JVC must have seen an opening for their HDV camera. What's the two main problems that the small three chip cameras have? Internal servo controlled lenses and a wrist based balancing system. The small cameras are great for run and shoot situations but for extended work they can be a big pain in the arm especially Panasonic's brick shaped cameras. Having complete manual control over the lens can be a real boon to your camera work. A HDV camera under $5000 with a real lens and a shoulder mount, a great idea. And I keep getting requests for film looking video.
Taking advantage of a couple of trade shows, I played with both cameras (at the time the Panasonic HVX-200 was always kept in a Plexiglas box) and once I played with the HD-100 lens and saw the image on the screen I was hooked on the camera. Now JVC has always had a reputation of selling a low grade lens with their shoulder mount cameras and this camera is no exception but the lens seemed good enough for most work.
After playing with the camera I watched some footage shot with the camera on another screen and the next issue became apparent. HDV is an MPEG based format which was developed for compressing video data for playback not for origination. Now it was being utilized for HD recording! How would this affect the excellent image the camera seemed to be capable of? Watching a plasma screen, the results seemed very good until a shot of a penguin floating on water came up. Nothing in the image was still and the MPEG compression became very apparent. This worried me until later when I found out that the booth was playing back HVD recordings that were transferred to DVHS for some reason. That was compression on compression I was seeing. Next was how was I going to work with the footage.
Final Cut is my system of choice and Apple was making it clear that HDV was going to supported very soon. Keeping an eye on the forums (a link to one is on the side) I took advantage of some intrepid individuals who did a lot of testing with all the cameras and I felt that my inclinations were right. After waiting for a client to finally pay up, I got the camera and after 9 months I don't regret the decision.
Has it been problem free? Nope. The HD-100 was afflicted with a problem with the processing chips that caused a split screen effect to appear in some models. It happened to me twice (not during any shoot!) and never returned. The camera also needed to be sent back for a free firmware upgrade by JVC. And (I'm writing while I think) a couple of CCD pixels died but the camera has a menu that knocks those pixels out and duplicates the pixels next to it in it's place.
The final quality of the camera? DuArt here in New York City graciously projected some of my test footage for a short film project and it looks great. If a film analogy is needed I'd say the camera has a Super16mm feel to it. The producer of the film said the same thing. And my biggest fear of MPEG artifacts were unfounded as they were mostly invisible even in a hand-held shot of a freighter a half-mile away from overhead on a sun speckled river (I was on a bridge).
That's enough for now, next... Support equipment and then shooting situations I've encountered with the camera including how it fared.
Before I go on with this stream of self-justification let me explain my equipment owning philosophy. I never own equipment that I can't reasonably expect to pay off in a year or so. I frequently use high-end equipment but that's where rental houses and other production facilities come in handy. Why have a $30,000 DigiBeta deck when I can take a job to my friendly DigiBeta house when I really need to use the deck and then come back to the office and edit away until I need to use the Digi-Beta again? A good friend is exactly the opposite, he buys the best camera he can afford and nothing else except a monitor for the office. He is considered an expert cameraperson and he knows little about the rest of the technology. Works for him.
Sony: Using Sony equipment for over 25 years, there's no denying the expertise and quality they bring to the production house. Sony consistently makes equipment that's usually in the top 40% but rarely in the top 10%. The first real pro camera I started with was the Ikegami HL-79 in the early 1980's and while the Sony was never a slouch in the professional camera department, Ikegami cameras just looked better slightly less "video". And that's seems to hold true now, Sony make great VIDEO cameras. Their PD-170 DV camera is absolutely remarkable. Pull it out of the bag and start filming, it self-adjusts accurately (most of the time) and the auto-focus really works well. While Panasonic decided to explore the "film-look" and indi-film potential of DV, Sony stayed rigidly with the classic video look. And that's the case with their HDV cameras, great HD video but a film-look seems to be an after-thought with little thought.
JVC: A company with a spotty track record but they have secured a place as the company that makes low priced professional equipment that work while not with the high specs of Sony or other companies. They made the cheapest 3-tube color camera and are a standard in low end studio set-ups. You can't get a cheaper yet good looking studio camera elsewhere. Their SVHS decks were the best around. When the DV revolution came about JVC sort of fell off the map. Their reasonably priced (but over $5000) shoulder mount GY-500 pro DV camera made sales to local news and community access studios but for some reason they couldn't make a decent equivalent to the PD-150 or Panasonic's DVX100. Somebody at JVC must have seen an opening for their HDV camera. What's the two main problems that the small three chip cameras have? Internal servo controlled lenses and a wrist based balancing system. The small cameras are great for run and shoot situations but for extended work they can be a big pain in the arm especially Panasonic's brick shaped cameras. Having complete manual control over the lens can be a real boon to your camera work. A HDV camera under $5000 with a real lens and a shoulder mount, a great idea. And I keep getting requests for film looking video.
Taking advantage of a couple of trade shows, I played with both cameras (at the time the Panasonic HVX-200 was always kept in a Plexiglas box) and once I played with the HD-100 lens and saw the image on the screen I was hooked on the camera. Now JVC has always had a reputation of selling a low grade lens with their shoulder mount cameras and this camera is no exception but the lens seemed good enough for most work.
After playing with the camera I watched some footage shot with the camera on another screen and the next issue became apparent. HDV is an MPEG based format which was developed for compressing video data for playback not for origination. Now it was being utilized for HD recording! How would this affect the excellent image the camera seemed to be capable of? Watching a plasma screen, the results seemed very good until a shot of a penguin floating on water came up. Nothing in the image was still and the MPEG compression became very apparent. This worried me until later when I found out that the booth was playing back HVD recordings that were transferred to DVHS for some reason. That was compression on compression I was seeing. Next was how was I going to work with the footage.
Final Cut is my system of choice and Apple was making it clear that HDV was going to supported very soon. Keeping an eye on the forums (a link to one is on the side) I took advantage of some intrepid individuals who did a lot of testing with all the cameras and I felt that my inclinations were right. After waiting for a client to finally pay up, I got the camera and after 9 months I don't regret the decision.
Has it been problem free? Nope. The HD-100 was afflicted with a problem with the processing chips that caused a split screen effect to appear in some models. It happened to me twice (not during any shoot!) and never returned. The camera also needed to be sent back for a free firmware upgrade by JVC. And (I'm writing while I think) a couple of CCD pixels died but the camera has a menu that knocks those pixels out and duplicates the pixels next to it in it's place.
The final quality of the camera? DuArt here in New York City graciously projected some of my test footage for a short film project and it looks great. If a film analogy is needed I'd say the camera has a Super16mm feel to it. The producer of the film said the same thing. And my biggest fear of MPEG artifacts were unfounded as they were mostly invisible even in a hand-held shot of a freighter a half-mile away from overhead on a sun speckled river (I was on a bridge).
That's enough for now, next... Support equipment and then shooting situations I've encountered with the camera including how it fared.
# posted by The Videoddgrapher @ 10:53 AM
Sunday, December 03, 2006
Step 1: Hi-Def - Picking a new format
The first step I took before getting into the HD world was to investigate the available options. Now I could never personally afford any of the high quality HD recording formats so the options were limited to HDV tape and DVCProHD via P2 solid state cards. Here are the plusses and minuses as I see them:
HDV:
Plus: Full HDTV resolution. Compact, economic recording format. uses less bandwidth then DV therefore saves drive space modestly and can use existing comptuer configurations. Several camera manufacturers utilize the format.
Minus: MPEG2 compression can create artifacts in complex visual scenes. Tape dropout a problem. Rendering effects will create image degradation.
DVCProHD via P2 cards:
Plus: Robust codec can stand the rigors of rendering during edits. Accepted professional format.
Minus: Really expensive recording medium. Requires alternate storage device to transfer full cards to during long shoots. Only one budget camera to choose from. Comptuer edit system needs to be upgraded to deal with the wide bandwidth of DVCProHD.
Let's see....One option requires the purchase of a new camera of some minor supprt equipment, the other requires the purchase of a new camera, a computer upgrade and expensive P2 cards and major support equipment (not counting additional crew).
I'm cheap, HDV it is.
Next... cameras and recording styles.
HDV:
Plus: Full HDTV resolution. Compact, economic recording format. uses less bandwidth then DV therefore saves drive space modestly and can use existing comptuer configurations. Several camera manufacturers utilize the format.
Minus: MPEG2 compression can create artifacts in complex visual scenes. Tape dropout a problem. Rendering effects will create image degradation.
DVCProHD via P2 cards:
Plus: Robust codec can stand the rigors of rendering during edits. Accepted professional format.
Minus: Really expensive recording medium. Requires alternate storage device to transfer full cards to during long shoots. Only one budget camera to choose from. Comptuer edit system needs to be upgraded to deal with the wide bandwidth of DVCProHD.
Let's see....One option requires the purchase of a new camera of some minor supprt equipment, the other requires the purchase of a new camera, a computer upgrade and expensive P2 cards and major support equipment (not counting additional crew).
I'm cheap, HDV it is.
Next... cameras and recording styles.
# posted by The Videoddgrapher @ 12:08 AM
Hey this Blogging is hard!
Well, I thought I would have gotten to this sooner but time isn't always on my side. And if I could actually write I wouldn't be working in video. The next post is something approximating what I said I would do... ah, is anyone reading this?
# posted by The Videoddgrapher @ 12:02 AM
