Not close to the same. DV 50 has a lower compression rate than DV, and has a higher color sample rate. Bigger datarate, but it's worth the extra. On the other side of things...it's not *that* much better than 4:2:2 HDV if you convert the HDV correctly.

"On the other side of things...it's not *that* much better than 4:2:2 HDV if you convert the HDV correctly."

How do you mean? Converting from the 4:2:0 of the HDV format to 4:2:2 with chroma smoothing?

Well that's good to know then. I am glad to know that my DV will not be able to properly compete. (sort of kidding)

How much more is a DV50 System (ie. Camera lense (do they make a camcorder size DV50 camera?, I don't think I've seen anything like it)? Does vegas handle it well?

I'm also interested in how it will look "not that much better than 4:2:2 HDV" when the Z1 captures at 4:2:0 (does HDV still compress 5:1? or is it compressed even further due to the fact that there's so much more info?) - still learning here (always learning here) :)

THe compression on HDV is very much different to that on DV50, you cannot truly compare as HDV introduces a new set of factors into the equation.
No, as far as I know no small DV50 cameras, the tape is that mcuh bigger (less compression means more data to write means bigger tapes and bigger batteries). As arough figure you're probably looking at 10x cost increase, if not more. Not only are the camera and lenses more expensive, the batteries cost more, the edit systems cost more, tape costs more and you might as well throw in decent video monitors.

And can I add, not much point having beautifull pictures if the audio is garbage. In fact of you want a LOT of bang for only a few dollars I'd spend as much as you can on good audio gear. To be honest I'd rather watch VHS quality pictures with pro audio than the other way around.

Look I've seen some real junk shot on DV25 but what made it junk wasn't DV25, it was simple things like leaving the camera in autofocus so it was hunting the whole time between the subject and their chair, YUCK. Yet the damn video one major awards! Why, topical subject.

So the message is, shoot something worthwhile on DV25, the money for high end gear will be thrown at you, look at Saw. And I know another group of Oz guys who shot a pilot on DV25 and then had Discovery offer funding to shoot on HDCAM.
Bob.

As a guy who is so far sighted that I end up using autofocus most of the time I have this bit of advice for close in chair interviews: freeze the focus on the guy in the chair before he starts talking and using those hand motions that confuse the hell out of the camera's autofocus.

DV25 gives a very slight horizontal color smearing, though the emphasis needs to be on the word "slight." For chroma keying on green, it's surprisingly good.

See here for some photos of the effect of reduced horizontal sampling.

I spend a lot of my day grabbing stills from DV25 video and cutting things out for the web. I can tell you that there are times when I just have to make my best guess as to where the edge of an object is because of color smearing. This isn't a problem when there's a luma difference.

Unfortunately, I'm also the guy lighting most of these shots so I can only complain to the shooter so much.

I have some doubts about whether green is really such a magic color for keys. We say that green is sampled for every pixel because it's part of the luma sample but, really, green is derived from the luma mathmatically against the red and blue samples. Seems to me that green can only be calculated when there are color samples to calculate it with. No?

In spite of that, you can pull a pretty good key in DV if you light it well and if your keyed objects aren't really thin (like just a few pixels thin).

It seems to me that you can originate your footage as DV25 and finish in a higher rez format. In that case you need to decide what your final output format will be and beef up your system to suit. The best Vegas can do is 8 bit uncompressed in an HD format. To print that to tape you'd need a lot of storage throughput and a card that can output HD over SDI. I don't think it's worth spending money on this unless you've got a gig that will pay for the hardware. But it's good to have an idea of what it would take so you can bid the job and buy or rent the gear.

Anyway, the point is that you might be better off putting money into an edit system that can handle high throughput footage and then output it to tape over SDI. You can still originate on DV25, if you like.

Rob Mack

Exactly. This is some of what Cineform does, but also remember that DV is ITU 601 while HDV is ITU 709, so the range is greater, and actually maps better to YV12. Cineform is a 4:2:2 compression format with 2GOP.
BTW, for those comparing/using Huffyuv or VDub to do the M2T conversions, remember that those are 601 tools, not 709 capable tools.