Advice on Basic HD Setup

[alejandro_m1]

Well if you are thinking of going for HDV there are some semi pro offers out there better than the handycam you are looking at, I would recommend to go for at least the HDR-FX1, it´s a great camera with lots of functions that come in handy when doing a more professional job and also the Canon XL H1 is nice, great optics in this last one.

You can capture via a Firewire cable and have a Mac running Final Cut, but the best quality would come from an uncompressed SDI, so look for a Blackmagic Design Decklin HD Extreme, they aren´t expensive and give great results, just think that the Mac would have to be a recent G5 with pci-e so it can handle this card and also think of a lot of disk space.

[jamacsween]

Hi alejandro_m1,

Many thanks for your reply. Budget a bit tight as this is a contract "add on" so circa £2500 is out with our reach. Looking more at what we can do for sub £1000. Is there anything better than the handycam at this end of the market just now?

Thanks for your hardware advice. Much appreciated.

John

[alejandro_m1]

I would consider then the Sony HVRA1UD HDV camera, it´s a "light" version of the FX1 and works mostly the same, you could get it at $1700 dollars searching in Bizrate. If it´s still out of reach then you could go for the one you were looking for, it isn´t a bad camera, actually it´s quite good, it just feels (and mostly is) a home video camera, not a pro or semi pro like the other ones and there is difference, for example in the optics that it have just to name one.

I know that some of the time HD videos impress the client more than a better picture (HD is not equal to good picture, just more resolution), and I´m pretty sure that you have found that true with this client so advicing on a good SD camera probably wouldn´t be the better option.

The ones that I advice are the ones that I have played with, there could be other options from panasonic or jvc that could also meet your requierements, maybe someone here can give an advice on them.

[maop]

Well, it really would depend on what kind media is your project going to end in. If you are planning on transferring it to film, you'd be better off with a 24fps camera, as the panasonic one, which costs around 2k (us).

You might also want to consider on renting the new JVC HD pro camera, which shoots 720p at 24fps. You can also interchange lenses, which means that you'll be able to gain beautiful depth of field shots (with the right ones, of course).

Regards

Mauricio

[jamacsween]

alejandro_m1 and maop,

Thanks to you both for your advice. We have opted for the Sony HVR-A1E and are very pleased with the results.

Glad we went for the better camera and already have another project we intend to use it on.

Thanks again,

John

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