dvpro
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Dec 23, 2006, 10:50 PM
Post #4 of 4
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Re: [Don R.] VX2100 Better Than Sony HC3?
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Michael,
I shoot underwater video and am currently using the Sony PDX10's and am considering upgrading to improve quality. The HC3 has been touted by a couple of the underwater housing manufacturers but there seem to be so many degradations from the time the image enters the lens in the high definition cameras right on down to burning the DVD's that at the end using a side-by-side comparison, there may be little difference between the SD VX2100's and the HC3's.
Seems like from the opening moment, everything is done to high definition to dumb it down. Example is the immediate compression to MPEG-2 and further manipulation from there on.
If the VX2100's provide similar end use results, there would be no reason for me to dump my camcorders, underwater housing, and the editing/burning equipment. Just pickup a VX2100 and a used housing and I'd save a lot of money and hair pulling necessary to jump to high definition.
Thank you very much for your considered opinion.
Don R.
Hi Don,
Have you ever wondered why a Hollywood DVD looks SO much better than any DVD you can make with your DV source material? It's because they start with a high-resolution (film) source. Though the end result is NTSC DVD, it still looks much better because the high-end cameras and film capture more detail and better color rendition, and much of that is retained going down to DVD.
The same is true for HDV video going to DVD. Sony HDV cameras offer downconverted NTSC video-out from HDV tape, and it looks far superior to any footage shot natively with my VX-2000. Totally different look, much much greater detail and texture to everything.
Also, you mention that HDV is compressed, but so is DV with DV compression.
DV has 345,600 pixels of resolution (720x480) vs. HDV with 1,555,200 pixels (1440x1080), which is going from .3 to 1.5 megapixels. Yes, there is compression, but it is still a much more detailed image than DV even when converted down to NTSC. HDV has 4.5 times the pixels of DV.
HDV also uses 4:2:0 color vs. the 4:1:1 of DV. It's just better all around.
Consider this - you can shoot HDV now and continue burning DVDs for the time being, but when HD takes over, you will have the library of HDV footage at your disposal to hopefully make additional money with.
Now it is true that the VX series offers better low light than HDV. I don't know your business, so whether you'd see any financial benefit from going to HDV now is a determination only you can make
Good luck
Jeff Pulera
Digital Vision
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