HDV vs DV 24p

I vote for the DVX-100a. The compression it uses is far less than the compression HDV uses.

#34 - HDV ≠ HD

Shane's Stock Answer #34:

Many many people buy HDV cameras thinking that they are getting an HD camera. This is not the case, for HDV is not HD. It has the same dimensions of HD, 1440x1080i, but it is HIGHLY compressed MPEG-2, and suffers from bad artifacts when fast action is being filmed.

Is HDV an improvement over miniDV? No. It increases resolution and at the same time, increases compression, so, pixel for pixel you have worse quality, but you do have a lot more pixels. Resolution in itself does not = picture quality. You could blow up VHS to HD resolution, but the quality would be terrible, even though it has a high resolution.

HDV is NOT considered a pro format and is at best a high end home movie camera.

This is my opinion...it differs from many. Please hear the other arguements before you make up your mind.

Shane

Shane has a good point, although I do believe the HDV footage I've seen from the JVC HD100 are better quality in appearance than DV even when downsampled. I believe the quality of this HDV format is much better than DV if you don't have too much motion or action in the footage. The colors will be better in my opinion. I believe 4:2:0 Colorspace is superior to DV's 4:1:1 for most types of footage. The compression is more efficient in HDV and therefore streams at a slightly lower data rate than DV but the subjective quality is better in my opinion. To achieve better color than HDV, you will have to step up to a DVCPro50 format camera.

The DVX100b or Canon XL2 would be the simplest options from an editing standpoint.

Also, HD footage will allow you to crop in on certain shots during editing without much quality loss (when sent out SD). I've done this many times and appreciate the freedom to do so if necessary.

Regardless, if you plan on editing in 24P, your HDV options will currently be very limited. Most HDV cameras don't do 24P for real. Only the HD100 does this natively, yet FCP can't yet easily support the 24P format the camera creates. Rumors have suggested this support may come in the next revision of FCP, however, so don't let that stop you if you can wait a month or two. FYI, the Panasonic HVX200 is not HDV format, but it could also work for you, but the media is very expensive and would be very hard to manage on a low budget movie set.

The real differentiator should be the functionality of the camera.

Do you need to use prime lens? Do you need a follow focus unit? Do you prefer "over the shoulder" ergonomics? Need extended battery life?

These camera usabililty issues far outweigh the editing issues in my opinion.

For these reasons, I still recommend the JVC HD100 because of the camera's usability and it does record into DV format if you wish to do so with spectacular perforance. The JVC's native 16x9 CCD-squeezing results in exceptionally sharp DV foootage and about 2 stops better low light performance than the camera has in HD mode. The lense is very fast at f1.4 throughout the zoom range. It also accepts all kinds of pro adapters and batteries. I love the focus assist system and manual lens.

Hope this helps.