chris

There is a way to invest in pro HD equipment and be able to resell it later with minimum loss. What you need to do is cleverly play the manufacturers against each other. Add some big name to your project. There are other tricks. You should be able to get a discount that is below dealer cost. Buy equipment that will hold value the most. Sell within a few months, if you can. Try not to damage the boxes. The camera that will hold up its value most is HVR-Z1, but it costs only $4,900. You can preorder these cameras and Sony wide angle adapters for this camera. Thse cost about $500 ea. Sony HDV deck M10U is $3,700 and is also likely to hold its value. These items are unlikely to ship until February 2005. This is the latest state of the art HDV gear that is likely to sell quicker than Sony will be able to make it. The problem is that it costs too little. I would not recomment Varicam or F900. Both of these cameras are to become obsolete with the next generator HD gear to be introduced starting in 2005. It will be particularly Sony HD XDCAM, JVC HDV and Pro HDV, which will record up to 1080/90p at 50 Mbps. Panasonic too is planning blue laser MPEG compressed products. The latest HD gear that is likely to depreciate the least is the Sony CineAlta SR equipment. That includes the F950 camera, SRW-1 field recorder, MPEG4 processor, and studio recorder. You should be aware though that Sony is likely to come out next year with F950 based camcorder, which will diminish the value of F950 and SRW-1 field recorder with the processor. Thomson Viper is also a good camera, competing with F950; it has an advantage of a mode with Cinemascope aspect ratio. Regarding postproduction, this stuff is losing value like crazy. The one that is hot right now is the XBOX with CineForm Prospect HD software. Also hot are new Sony X300 FOV box cameras. The following gear is also likely to keep its value, if you select carefully: lighting, audio, support systems. I don't have any price lists in front of me, so excuse inaccuracies; here is how much you could spend on state of the art high end production equipment, in thousands of dollars: 220 two Sony F950 CineAlta SR Cameras 050 two Sony X300 cameras w/Canon zoom lenses and remote control 011 two Sony Z1 HDV camerras with W/A adapters 007 two Sony M10U HDV recorders 250 two Thomson Viper cameras w/viewfinders 030 two Sony #750 viewfinders for F950's 005 Sony #750 remote control for F950's 165 two Sony #5000 studio SR recorders 140 two Sony SRW-1 field recorders and MPEG4 processors 030 batteries 080 field monitors 100 lighting 050 audio gear 200 support systems 200 lenses 150 NLE w/monitors and software 030 offline gear 100 generator 050 truck 100 home theater (8K Sony projector, screen, surround system) 200 misc. ___________ 2,188 K less 20% discount 1,750 K I have no idea what you want you gear to do. Here is a general top quality digital cinema setup that could be used for film, TV, and video production.

http://www.digitalvideoediting.com/article...le.jsp?id=29230 Cine Frame 24 mode footage was shown on a 62' screen at Sony headquarters on Madison Ave and the footage looked sharp and without any artifacts. Sony HDV interlaced footage was later shown during SMPTE meeting in New York. It was first projected with Sanyo SD projector, which was progressive and it looked terrible. Later the same footage was shown with Sony Qualia HD projector on a large screen and the quality was very impressive; again no compression artifacts were seen. Sony is supposedly planning some kind of a surprise at Sundance.

Thank you. How does DVCPROHD look like when projected to a big theater screen? Is it close to 16 mm, S16, 35 mm? I mean, if I acquired in one of these formats, which would the HD format be clesest to?

thank you

Thank you. So I guess the #730 is out of the picture.

I have a project coming up that has a large shooting ratio and limited budget, so HD is the obvious choice. I have an access to Sony 1080i #730 HD camera, which I can have for almost nothing. The other choices are F900 and Varicam. We need a decent quality so it looks acceptable on a big theater screen. Film is naturally the best choice but it is absolutely out of the questoin. If we can get quality similar to Once Upon A Time In Mexico, it would be ideal. Could someone describe for me please how does Varicam project look like if it is projected to a large theater screen? Once Upon, because of the lack of grain, would beat 35 mm sharpnesswise, naturally not resolutionwise. That's what I thought. How good would Varicam look like? Would the lower resolution make it look more like S16? I know that the colors are better than on F900. This is not my main concern. It is how good will it look on a very big screen. As to the HDCAM 730, which is interlaced, how would it look like after deinterlacing and conversion to 24p? Does anyone know? All answers will be appreciated.

Phil, Thank you. There were also reports that the E version, which records 50i, can be deinterlaced by DVfilm software and the image would be OK for filmout and would look OK on a theater screen. Is that true? What is moire? I know it when I see it. I would just like to have a precise definition. I see significant color fringing. I would like to know your opinion. Is the color fringing a lot worse than on pro HD? If the image was deinterlaced properly, judging from the resolution chart, how would the footage look on a theater screen resolution-wise compared to Canon XL2 and Panasonic Varicam? Looking at the chart, what resolution numbers do you read? Is it really 850Vx640H? Is there any site with posted resolution charts of SD and HD cameras?

Could someone comment on the resolution of the camera please. It is resolution of a recorded image. Also I learned that the GOP is 15 and the I frame varies in size from 150 to 500 MB. Large I frames are in scenes with lot of detail and min. motion. The footage always looks excellent but when viewed frame by frame, footage with a lot of motion, with the small I frame, does not look as well as the large I frame footage, but when the footage is viewed at normal speed, no picture degradation can be seen. The I frame compression varies from 4.7:1 to 15.7:1. Are there posted resolution charts of other cameras anywhere? I mean charts of recorded charts, not straight from the camera. What do you think of color fringing on the chart? I read the resolution as about 850 lines vertical and about 640 horizontal. When viewed on high end HD monitors, there is supposedly little difference between 1080i HDCAM and this camera.

http://www.sonyhdvinfo.com/images/upload/f...lutionchart.zip The chart does not fill the whole screen; add 10% to the resolution figures, to compensate for this fact.