The Videoddgrapher

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.