Sony HVR-Z1U

[Jared Isham]

Has anyone seen anything for the new Sony HDV camera? There is a consumer version that, to me, seems overly priced for its capabilities compared to the JVC HDV camera. Anyway, the new camera by sony that is going to be released in February 2005 seems to be an awesome new tool. I have been rather anti HDV on this site and in general, making the statement that DV is not going to go away for quite some time - I still think that is true - But for all of my complaints on the JVC HDV camera if have found through the few articles I have read that the Sony proffesional model of their HDV camera, HVR-Z1U, seems to fix everything that I hated about the other camera.

The one thing that did impress me about the HDV format is the picture - it looks pretty darn good, the camera functions is what made me hate it. Well with the dawn of new editing support, possibly we will see HDV native support in future releases of Final Cut Pro, Avid Xpress Pro, Adobe Premiere Pro and Sony Vegas Video - I have read mentionings of the support in future releases.

With all that said, what are peoples thoughts on this camera's release and how it will compare to the XL2 and the DVX100A - this one shoots in both NTSC and PAL (on the same camera - 60i, 50i, 30p, 25p and 24p - in all shooting modes). It has the option of shooting in either HDV, DVCAM or DV. Zoom features are similar to that of the DVX100A with distance markings, the 16x9 chip is like the XL2s 16x9 chip. It also has CineGamma settings - this might be the one feature that does not compare to the XL2 and the DVX100A as well.

Curious to hear your thoughts. I have read two different prices on this camera and tend to guess it will fall more towards the later: $4,900 or $7,950.

Let's discuss away.

 

[Nexus]

Just out of curiousity, what are the features that make you dislike the Sony HD cameras?

 

[MarkG]

There is a consumer version that, to me, seems overly priced for its capabilities compared to the JVC HDV camera

You don't think that 1080i vs 720p, and 3 CCDs vs 1 CCD is worth a few bucks extra?

As to FX1 vs XL2, there are a couple of interesting threads here from people who've had a chance to try out the FX1:

http://www.dvdoctor.net/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=8;t=003176
http://www.dvdoctor.net/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=8;t=003188

If I remember correctly 'Alan Roberts' was a video engineer at the BBC for many years, so he should know what he's talking about.

There's also a thread here by a guy who's been posting gigabytes of raw MPEG-2 footage from the camera:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=33865

So far the only downside I've seen is a rumor that a dropout on the tape will lose you half a second of video footage (i.e. one whole MPEG-2 sequence), which would be horrid if true.

I'll probably buy one next summer if that turns out to be false and nothing better comes along... the image quality of the captured footage looks very good for a camera of that price. There just doesn't seem to be any reason to buy a DV camera anymore unless there's some dark secret about the HDV that no-one has discovered yet.

 

[DannyG]

Could you explain the half a second of dropped footage and what that means exactly.

 

[MarkG]

Well, on DV if you get a dropout reading the tape, you only lose a block of 8x8 pixels (or one frame of audio). Some people were claiming a few days ago that on their HDV cameras they'd lose a whole half a second of video if that happened, but others were claiming they were talking out of their backsides . I'm not sure how that discussion was resolved.

Basically HDV splits up the footage into half-second chunks and then applies MPEG-2 compression to each chunk... so it would make a certain amount of sense if an error in a chunk of the video would result in the decompressor throwing away a whole half a second (though I'm sure they could do better at handling errors if they wanted to, and I'll be surprised if it's true).

 

[Jared Isham]

In response to the questions about what I said. I like Sony HD cameras the only thing that didn't turn me on about the FX1 is the Cineframe feature where it drops every 5th frame to equal and 24fps feature, this is resolved in the Z1U.

As far as the 3 chips verses the 1 chip and the resolution. Those are great - the only thing that I was saying about the price was in hopes and wishes that the proffesional model would be a little cheaper so I could buy one sooner. Basically, I just see potential in the format now that it seems as though someone has made a camera that shoots in the format properly - I didn't like the JVC model because of exposure issues and what seemed to be proccessor lag in fast pans or movements.

All in all, if I had the 8 grand in February when the camera is released I'd go to the local camera shop and buy one. But alas, us poor artists don't always have that luxury.

Anybody feel like donating to the Jared filmmaking cause .

 

[MarkG]

Sony's official price for the 'Pro' camera is $4,900, not $7,950, at least according to their press release.

http://news.sel.sony.com/pressrelease/5327

"The HVR-Z1U and the HVR-M10U are planned to be available in February, for about $4,900 and $3,700, respectively."

 

[Jared Isham]

awesome, I knew I read that somewhere - I just couldn't remember which article it was. $4,900 - is an incredible price - considering what this camera seems capable of - I know JVC is releasing an ENG style HDV camera at some point that has the option of C-Mount lenses - that one is going for $20,000 from what I read - but may have the possibility of varibale frame rates beyond the normal 24p, 30p and 60i.

I think that this camera is exciting - when I shot a short on the JVC, I was extremely impressed with the picture clarity - I just hated the control I had over the image - the sony seems to have fixed that.

 

[MarkG]

Yeah, I'm hoping it will be good enough to last me five years, like my TRV900 did...

 

[DannyG]

So this dropout could happen at any time for multiple times throughout the duration of the footage?

 

[MarkG]

There's a thread about half-second HDV dropouts here:

http://www.sonyhdvinfo.com/showthread.php?t=567

Looks like their existence still hasn't been entirely confirmed or refuted.

 

[Nexus]

That dropout sounds bad, but then again, if it is fixed in the Z1U, I will enjoy it much more I'm sure.