DVCPRO50 vs. 3CCD MiniDV

kosstheory wrote on 8/6/2002, 11:28 AM
I have been looking over the new DV format camera offerings. Panasonic's DVCPRO50 cameras look to be the best for picture quality on paper, but they are very pricey as well. If you had to make a "real world" comparison between the high end 3 CCD MiniDV camcorders like Sony's and Canon's, and the Panasonic DVCPRO50 cameras, just based on the quality of the picture, what would you conclude. Furthermore, why is there no IEEE 1394 interface on the DVCPRO50 camcorders? If the DV signal is essentially the same, shouldn't they have included something so simple. Is it because of the dual dv chips? Do they produce twice as much data as the MiniDV cameras single DV chips? Is the data stream greater than the 400 mbps available in IEEE 1394?

What do you think of the sony DCR TRV950 MiniDV?

Thanks

Comments

db wrote on 8/6/2002, 1:04 PM
IMO forget about best quality on PAPER .... you may not like the image on the screen/monitor

DVCpro50 is NOT the same signal as DV ... as you stated dv is 4:1:1 color spacing -pro50 is 4:2:2 ... i think panasonic has stated they will be offering the pro50 with 1394 1st of next year ? ... i think the 1394 can handle the data stream but programs need to be able to know that it is NOT a DV (25)signal. i don't believe most programs can see dvcpro (25) unless something has been written for it ( dvcpro puts a different header in the data ) ? ...

depending on what you consider to be a "high end" mini dv camcorders - i take you are referring to hand size mini dv camera's not shoulder size ( jvc 500/700 ,pana 200)?
IMO the camera heads on 4:2:2 cameras are far superior to hand size types.
apple and oranges here ... hand size camera's IMO give you the most BANG for the $$ so perhaps the question should be is a DVCPRO50 image worth $X thousands more then a pd150 image ? if you need to justify your purchase of a pd150 over spending 8K-15K then it will look as good as a 12-18K camera .... if you are objective IMO the 8-30K will always look better ... if you only have 3K then the hand size type is excellentand you got yourself a DEAL /if you have 35K then the 3K camera will always look inferior and you did buy the better camera ... IMO you don't get 10X a better image on a 30K camera BUT IMO you always get a better image ..
bottom line if you have the $$$$$$$ it's worth it ! if not -then it isn't.
but then i have the $$ and i don't think it's worth it !!!!
jboy wrote on 8/6/2002, 1:10 PM
I dont believe the DV signal is essentially the same. The DV50 standard pumps out 50mb per sec, whereas the mini DV format you're talking about puts out 3.9 mb/sec, owing to its compression scheme-e.g.the info it leaves out. I've seen examples of both cameras on broadcast TV, and although the 3ccd mini dv format looks awfully good, the pro cameras have a noticeable edge in sharpness and the fidelity of color.
John_Cline wrote on 8/6/2002, 6:06 PM
jboy, you have confused megabits and megabytes. DVCPRO50 has a data rate of 50 megaBITS/second, DVC25 has a data rate of 25 megaBITS/sec.

John
jboy wrote on 8/6/2002, 11:32 PM
Thanks for the correction John. Its not the first time I've made that mistake..