Comments

Eugenia wrote on 4/11/2009, 4:00 PM
Slow. Any of these h.264 cameras (including the new Canon ones) are slow to edit without proxy files, and are prone to crashing. If you want fast editing and no crashes, go with a Panasonic 720p digital camera, that is able to do MJPEG instead of h.264.

Most Panasonic cameras do 30 fps, but the FX150 model does 24 fps, which is closer to your 25 fps need for PAL (you can re-time the footage to be 25 fps without resampling, I have a tutorial about that on my blog).

The FX150 is $220 refurbished right now in the USA, not sure about Europe. I got one last week btw.
Ivan Lietaert wrote on 4/11/2009, 10:42 PM
In Europe we don't often have a chance to buy 'refurbished' products, but anyhow, the price of the new fx150 is acceptable.

Motion jpeg is a stable yet 'old' format, they say, that uses lots of memory compared to avchd. Perhaps, if I postpone even longer, Vegas version 10 will come updated and finally allow better (normal) avchd workflow.

I read your article about the still image capabilities of my old time favourite hv20/30, and that; of course, is also something to consider. The hv20/30 series is so attractive in many ways: great lens, cmos sensor, out of the box shallow FOD, hdv on minidv (great for archiving - after my recent hard drive failure, I find this even more important). Right now the hv30 is attractively priced, compared to the hv40, which has very few worthwhile updates, imo.
Eugenia wrote on 4/12/2009, 1:07 AM
If you are thinking of getting the HV30, then just go for it, don't even think twice, compared to these digicams.

As for MJPEG, Panasonic's 720p MJPEG is 25 mbps, which is the same as both HDV, DV, and the upper bitrate of AVCHD. So you are not using "more" than these standards, but obviously if that was h.264 instead of MJPEG it wouldn't need to use more than 15 mbps.

But yeah, if you have your eyes on the HV30, just go for it.
Eugenia wrote on 4/12/2009, 1:09 AM
BTW, I also posted this article on OSNews the other day, linking to some of the best HV20/30 videos out there.
http://www.osnews.com/story/21256/Samples_by_the_New_Wave_of_Videographers_Part_II
ctrl-alt-del wrote on 5/16/2009, 12:12 PM
I purchased a ZX1 for quick and easy video for my wife. However, I can't get Movie Studio to play sound.