JVC HD100 and mini35 .. nice!

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farss wrote on 8/18/2005, 2:58 PM
Well yes and no.
Big network (ABC) is using Z1s for a lot of there OS journos very happily, just in Sydney there'd be well over 20 Z1s available for hire and there's been many weekends when there's not one available from any rental company. Clients are reporting loosing jobs to young upstarts with Z1s. Certainly one thing driving this is corporate video, those big plasma and projection systems that are used at trade shows need HD content and that's creating a lot of demand for HD, even the VJs have caught onto HD it seems.
Big issue isn't so much HD, it's 16:9 and it just so happens the Z1/FX1 is the first affordable camera (apart from the XL2) that does 16:9. Very few of our Z1 clients are shooting for HD delivery now, what they need is 16:9 SD. We do have the odd brave soul who'se going for film out and there are a few planning on delivering on HDCAM. We're seeing a demand for HDV to HD SDI gear to go from HDV to HDCAM and then edit from HDCAM tapes on Smoke.
Things HD are moving pretty quickly in every part of the world it seems except the USA.
Bob.
filmy wrote on 8/18/2005, 10:30 PM
>>Big issue isn't so much HD, it's 16:9 and it just so happens the Z1/FX1 is the first affordable camera (apart from the XL2) that does 16:9.<<

Define a few things here - you say it isn't so much HD but the 16:9 and if that is the case there are more than the XL-2 that shoot 16:9. And I am not talking about "squeeze" mode. I have a PV-GS400 that shoot 16:9. There are some fairly cheap (Compared to the HDV stuff very cheap) cannon cameras that shoot 16:9.

But aside from that - what I was saying was that if, tossing out overly simple numbers here, is that if I was doing work at 500.00 a day in SD and some, as you worded it, "young upstart" with an HDV camera came along and undercut me cost wise they woudl probably get good business. So i was basing part of what I said on the idea that if there was no "young upstart" and I went out and spent the 5 grand on the HD100 it wouldn't mean I could go out and raise my rates accordingly if there wasn't a high demand for the material...HD that is. And if you figure in that, yes, there will be people who will go out and get this camera, or the less expensive Sony ones, and will charge less money than we go to what you were saying as well *combined* with what I was trying to say.

I agree that the whole quality vs. quantity thing seems to have always been a bit more "ahead" in other parts of the world video/tv wise. I had said in anothe rthread that there ar emore and more people who have HD sets and monitors because they are down around the 300 - 400 dollar price point. HD Large screens are hoverign around the 1,500.00 price point as well...so on the one hand HD is very much out and about. But the downside is there is not a lot of HD material out there, certianly no HD DVD players on the mass market. The first mass hyped "HD" DVD was actually T-2 that had a special version encoded in WMV that was pretty much unplayable at the time, and certianly not in real HD to most , if any, consumers.

And I guess really this is all saying I agree with you.
Marco. wrote on 8/19/2005, 3:09 AM
To my knowledge the first affordable camera which does 16:9 was the JVC PD1, long before others came out (I think it's available for more than two years now). PD1 outputs 1024x576 as .m2t stream.

Marco
farss wrote on 8/19/2005, 5:09 AM
Filmy,
you are right, you don't get more money for shooting HD, you just ensure you keep getting the same money! Those young upstarts are charging the same price, if not less and maybe the client gets exactly the same result except in 16:9 but never underestimate the values of bragging rights. I'd organised a large shoot with footage from all over the place including Nevada USA, all footage outside Australia was shot on Z1s, down here it was a mix of DB and HDV. I picked up a bit more for my trouble, client suddenly needed stills from the German footage, half an hour with Vegas and he had stills good enough for a magazine from the HDV footage.
But Australia is a very different market to the USA at the moment, hope I don't offend my Yanky mates saying this but as far as broadcast goes the USA is fast slipping behind many 3rd world countries. We've just sold off a SP camera in excellent condition with 2 good lenses, you could have bought the camera AND a near new UVW 1800 for less than a Z1. On top of that the uptake of DVB is gaining a lot of momentum, not as much as it needs to, but anyone who'se buying a DVB decoder is buying a HD one.
Problem in this game is it's very easy to get lulled into a false sense of security. You've got enough clients and things look OK, and then in the space of a week or two they can all go. Waiting for them to ask you for HD would seem to be a fatal mistake, ringing them up after they've been suckered in elsewhere to say you can do the same thing doesn't work either, you've got to stay ahead of what the client wants.
I've been sort of back in the media business after loosing my job in process control due to a massive downturn in the companies business, that happened for exactly the same reason. Our systems were still better, faster, easier to use, more reliable and cheaper than what the upstarts had to offer but boy their GUI looked a LOT flashier to the CEOs and that's what sealed the deals that killed us. Ah, should mention it was an American based company!
Bob.