Just a word of advice,
they are a pretty aweful camera. With a lot of work you can get something useful out of them. We'd almost bet the farm on them until we had a good play with them. Before you invest the money not just in the camera but also all the other things you'll need to make it all happen have a good play with them, take a good look at the image quality on a decent monitor. JVC seem to be aimimg this thing at the consummer market and hoping they will not know any better.

If you want to shoot to produce good looking video I can think of many better cameras in the same price range that are ideal for DVD production. Remember more pixels doesn't necessarily mean better images.

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2002/jan02/01-09SonicSolutionsPR.asp

farss,

what kinds of problems? i'd like to know more about your experience with the cameras.

--nate

This camera uses a high pixel count CCD and a not overly big one at that. In summary this leads to a lot of problems, lack of latitude being one of them, smear being another. This isn't helped by a poor auto-iris mechanism in the camera. Also the lens isn't really up to the task either.
Under controlled circumstances and with a lot of fiddling around you can get good pictures for sure. Main thing you need are a good set of ND filters and good even lighting. I'd mention that a set of HD grade ND filters will cost as much as the camera once you buy a matte box to hold them.

The one I had a good play with had a real HD camera next to it fed into the same model monitor. Believe me I'm no whiz on evaluating images but the difference was staggering. The HD10 just didn't look natural, I know I'm comparing a $25K camera with a $3K one BUT a $3K DV camera looked better than the HD10. The HD10 has more pixels for sure but they've sacrificed so much in the process. As soon as you got a light in shot on the HD10 there was really bad flare, move the carea slightly and you could see compression artifacts in the flare as well. That's a pretty harsh test I know. I'd also add that no one from the pro side of JVC seemed interested in selling the camera.

Look at it another way, the price of the camera will barely give you the downpayment on a lens that'll do justice to a real HD camera. Without a matching set of glass everything else is a joke. Factor in the cost of a couple of HD monitors so you see what you're doing with the cameras and you've added at least another "0" onto the budget and you've still got a camera with lots of problems.

If you're really sold on the idea of shooting HD on a budget wait to see what Cannon do with the format.
If you want to shoot for DVD production go with the DVX-100 from Panasonic, shoot 24pA and author your DVDs in 24p. At least then you'll have a camera that you don't have to fight with, you'll still need to learn how to get the best out of it but there's a big difference between learning to use good tools and trying to overcome the shortcomings of poor ones.

Thanks for the info, farss. We haven't been able to get our hands on a JVC yet to try it out, so we're eager to hear experiences from others that have. We're hoping to be able to give it a solid workout at NAB in April, where there should be other cameras available, too, to compare with.

You do mention an interesting alternative; one that I have thought of myself and suggested to my business parter: instead of getting a cheap HD camera, get a very nice DV camera that shoots *true* 16:9 (not the electronically stretched crap) in 24p. My feeling is that the quality of such footage will still look relatively good, even on a HD monitor or plasma display. Plus, that is a format the both Vegas and DVDA can handle right now.

Chances are we're still going to at least look into the JVC HD camera. But I'll make sure my partner sees your post, and I'll make another post once we have a chance to see the camera for ourselves to let you know what we think.

Sincerely,

Nate

If 16:9 is a major concern, then the Panasonic DVX100 would not be for you, according to a review at :

http://users.bigpond.net.au/awa/2003-02-Scope.pdf

which says "The lack of native 16:9 image capture is a big disappointment for me."

The 16:9 native capture issue is an interesting one for any camera.
There is only one camera at an affordable pricepoint for most of us that has native 16:9 and that is the Sony DX10. Unfortunately its CCDs are so tiny as to render it a bit limited. The DVX100A now has a 16:9 native mode but like all but the DX10 it's a letterbox 16:9 causing loss of resolution. You could get around this by shooting PAL and end up with no loss compared to shooting 4:3 NTSC but....

The other alternative is an anamorphic adaptor. This is the way most film is shot, the exception being Super 35 which is then optically compressed. The general consensus in the world of 35mm is that shooting anamorphic is a better way to go than Super 35 with spherical lenses and compressing opticaly. Panasonic make a reasonable 16:9 lens and Century Optics have one in the works. With either of these on the camera it does shoot VERY wide, a matte box is pretty essential as well.

In my opininion anamorphic lenses are the way to go. Simply because a 16:9 shot should be wider than a 4:3. This is apart from all the issues of loss of resolution, I'm taliking just about the way the shot should look.

On top of this are some reall issues that you need to consider when shooting 16:9. Things that weren't so crtitcal in 4:3 become bigger issues.

I have a friend with a Sony DSR 500 that offers true 16:9. It has the wider field of view without the need for an anamorphic adapter, and the CCD actually records an effective 980x49416:9 image without electronic stretching. It's widescreen footage looks fantastic.

The downsides to the camera are that it is still rather pricey and also that it is 3 chip. Ok, I guess 3 chip is actually a good thing for many purposes. But for documentaries and field shooting it tends not to be ideal because it needs much more light to get a good image. Fantastic shooting opportunities do not always wait until the lighting conditions are just right, especially in documentary work.

We've recently made a decision to go down the 16:9 path, even though it's stil emerging technology. In our local fish pond, this really sets us apart from competition, and we are already getting requests and demands from customers for projects in this format. I think the reason is that widescreen TVs are finally starting to become reasonably priced and ubiquitous. Especially for corporate and goverment agencies looking to sell or promote something, the format provides an extra dramatic impact and it's not too expensive anymore to set up a nice widescreen viewing experience in a board or lobby room.

In fact, these same customers not only want widescreen footage, but are asking if we can actually create HD content for them.

--nate

But for documentaries and field shooting it tends not to be ideal because it needs much more light to get a good image. Fantastic shooting opportunities do not always wait until the lighting conditions are just right, especially in documentary work.
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I don't have any idea what could have led you to the conclusion that single CCD cameras are better for low light! The biggest single advantage of going to 3 CCDs is better low light performance.

If you mean consummer single CCD cameras will wind the gain up higher than pro cameras then you could be right. There's a very good reason for that: noise. No pro camerman is going to turn in footage with excessive noise in it. The people who design pro cameras know that no one is going to use a camera with "toy" features on it.

If you like the images from the DSR 500 but think it's expensive then you have no grasp of what HiDef is going to cost. Just for a camera add at least another 0 to the price of the 500. Then think about what a HiDef VCR is going to cost to say nothing of an edit system.

If you were doing it mainly for corporate clients you could fake it, right down to the 16:9 aspect using stills, graphics and CK. You still face the problem of how to deliver the content. About the only practical way at the moment is to encode to WMP 9 and play back off HD on a pretty fast PC. From that you can got to plasma or LCD screens.

As you'll most likely therefore being using a high level of compression to deliver your content the last thing you want is noise in your footage so forget about single CCD cameras.

farss,

Typically, a 3 CCD camera has smaller CCDs than a single CCD camera. Plus, the 3 CCD cameras require more mirrors and splitters in the optical train. All of this means that the 3 CCD cameras are not as good at collecting in low-light conditions as a single CCD camera (and that is with gain set to 0db for both types of cameras).

I do, unfortunately, have a "grasp" of what HD can cost. But that is in the world of overpriced broadcast equipment. HD DVD and VCRs already exist in the sub $500 range, and I believe the new JVC prosumer HD camera is the first of what will be a new generation of low-cost HD cameras. The only thing from preventing me from doing an HD DVD today is that DVDA does not support HD DVD.

I know that Sony and Panasonic want people like you and me to beleive that in order to do good HD we need to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a "pro" camera, deck and all the accessories. But I don't believe that is true, or at least that its about to change in the next year or two.

Technology is the great equalizer, and its finally catching up to the old-school style of thought that I need hundreds of thousands of dollars and a TV studio to do anything in high def. I suspect companies like Sony and Panasonic are going to fight this idea, kicking and screaming. But the "high def" revolution never really happened for the simple reason that consumers couldn't shoot high-def footage of thier dog and family and watch it in thier own living room.

So the "high-def revolution" will only happen once it is brought to the masses, and in that sense I think the new JVC HD camera is a sign of things to come, even if, as you suggest, it isn't the highest-quality. But most consumers won't care about those kind of nitpicky things, as they're already used to crappy images from cheap VHS and DV equipment.

But for someone like me, I'd be happy with it, even if it wasn't perfect. My experience with prosumer cameras is that if I can learn their weaknesses, I can generally compensate and learn how to shoot footage in a way that doesn't exaserbate the problems. So I'm not suprised that, at under $4,000, the JVC doesn't shoot perfect HD footage. But as long as there are ways to workaround the weak spots, it seems a small price to pay to be able to shoot HD.

--Nate

Nate,
I agress with everything you are saying except you're almost contradicting yourself. If the consummers mostly don't care why go down the consummer HD path with all the attendant pain?

DVDA doesn't do HD DVD because at this stage there isn't such a thing period! Sony have BluRay in the pipeline but it's going to be very expensive and WMP9 seems to achieve much the same results at a much lower pricepoint and HiDef DVD plaeyrs that support the medium are in the pipeline.

You also need to be aware that HiDef is not just about pixel count, its about color resolution, thats the main reason why real HiDef is so expensive. Vegas only works in 8 bit, semi pro HiDef is 10 bit, the full spec calls for 12 bit. That's 16 times the data storage and 16 times the data rate to be handled.

BTW the word I heard yesterday is that the Cannon version of the HD10U will be released early 2005.

farss,

What I meant about the consumer not being nitpicky is that they will not tend to notice the more subtle effects of the cheaper HD cameras, like the difference of shooting through a glass vs plastic lens or the color response of the pixels, etc. These are things that a trained eye, such as yourself, see when comparing the JCV HD footage on a monitor next to a footage shot on a $50,000 HD camera. But compared to the low pixel and 4:1:1 color resolutions of DV, it will be a huge difference.

But HD DVD does already exist! Samsung has a blue-laser HD DVD player that only costs $255! You can order them online! And I can buy HD DVD programming at the local Discovery store! =)

I suspected that Cannon would be soon to follow JVC. It's going to be a fun year at NAB. Lots of new toys to look at.

-nate