Give me reason to buy VX-2100 instead of FX1?

johnmeyer wrote on 9/29/2005, 8:01 PM

I just spent the last half hour searching old posts in this forum about the Sony VX DV camcorders vs. the FX1 and Z1. I think I understand most of the obvious trade-offs. The clear decision seems to be to buy the FX1. Before I pull the trigger, however, I thought I'd ask if anyone has any practical, hands-on experience of subtle things that are better about the VX-2100 compared to the FX1?

The VX-2100 is cheaper and has 2x better light performance. Those seem to be the only things in its favor. If that is all there is, then I'm going to buy the FX1.

I appreciate any other comments.

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Comments

Spot|DSE wrote on 10/1/2005, 5:51 PM

Jeff,
Shooting in HDV and downconverting to SD/DV is a great thing to do, but even better is shooting HDV and rendering that to a standard def MPEG file. You avoid colorspace shift in doing so.
You can deliver in a few HD formats right now, today. You'll be able to deliver in SD today and tomorrow. Soon, you'll be delivering HD just like you currently deliver SD. Acquiring in high resolution and downconverting is a MUCH better image than anything any SD camcorder in even a remotely comparable price range can offer.
Personally, unless you have a project that simply demands SD right now, I can't imagine very many reasons at all for buying a DV camera any longer.
This article might help you a little.

Whether the monitor is HD or SD, it will playback either image, although it might be, and likely is, scaling the image. SD on an HD monitor looks pretty sketchy, but HD on an HD monitor or HD downconverted to SD usually looks pretty good, albeit sometimes too sharp.