Some good, and some bad. Seems that they are cutting a lot to try to cut the price. See this:

http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/sony-dcr-hc1000-camcorder-announcement-trv950-05_10_04.htm

Expect the low light shots to be grainy and noisy.

For a bit more you can have the DVC 30 from Panasonic. No 4 channel sound but you DO have the option of XLR mic inputs with phantom power. You get LESS pixels in the CCDs with the Panasonic which is a GOOD thing. And it's a camera designed for cameramen not consummers.
Oh and it'll shoot 30p as well.

I don't get it now:
*less* pixels is a *good* thing?

Could you explain? there's something I don't understand. I always taught the more the better for definition (keeping in mind the relation between number of pixels, number of chips and size of this/these chip(s) )..?

Concerning the 4 channel sound, I wouldn't expect much about it. For example, what happens when you go from extreme zoom out to full zoom in? A "shotgun quadra mic" appears on top of the cam just like magic combined with hooked up wireless lavalliers on these 300 feet away subjects?

Don't expect effortless miracles from audio; you can "sweeten" things but not very much more...

the way I see it:
-A camera makes images.
-A mixer and assortment of mics make audio.

*Then* you get into editing room...

Sony makes good stuff, but this past weekend I worked with some sony cameras (brand new PD-150's). I own a DVX100a (my cheesy screen name, too) and the difference in just how cheaply made that Sony camera felt, in terms of construction, compared to the DVX, was night and day. The PD-150 was plastic-y and felt cheap. I would spend another couple hundred and get the Panasonic DVC-30. You can't beat the 30p feature and not having it might make you regret the close to $2000 you just spent when for another couple hundred you could have a better camera more catered to a prosumer than a consumer. Just a thought...Good luck.

To explain the "less is more" .
Each element in the CCD is a light sensitive device. The larger each one is then the more of the available light it receives. So the bigger each CCD element the more sensitive it'll be to light. So for a given overall size CCD the more pixels the less light sesntivie each one will be. But there's more!
These devices work by storing a charge (electrons), the photons in the light knock the charge off, so the remaining charge is the indication of how much light hit the thing. Smaller elements mean less charge to start with, so the latitude goes down, in other words you are less able to resolve from the brightest to darkest areas.
Thats why broadcast cameras typically have around 480K CCDs and they're about 1/2" or 2/3" in size and there's 3 off them.
So imagine what's happening when they're at 1/4" with 2 M Pixels and there's only one of them. Great for stills, lousy for video. Now why is that?
Well you can afford to wait one or two seconds for a still photo, cannot do that with video, you've got to pump out 25 or 30 every second.

And at the end of the day it ALL ends up at 720x576 or 720x480 pixels on the tape.

Certainly that's not to say you can drop the pixel count down to say 100K, then there's not enough but start going over say 600K on small CCDs and you're going backwards. Looks good to the marketing guys and sucks in the mugs, that's all.

Bob.

I'm no great expert on cameras, a lot is just somments I pickup from thise who've bought them but Sony seem to be winding back the quality of their consummer gear for the sake of more useless widgets. I know several people whove used and loved the TRV 900 and were disappointed badly with the TRV 950.
I think Sony are going in the wrong direction big time. Consummers today are much more savvy, most of these 'features' they can never get to work or don't need. I'd love to know how many consummers have ever used Bluetooth out of a camera, how many use the MiniDV camera as a web cam?

I mean I've bought a webcam for $30 that works as well as most, am I going to leave my $3K camera on all day perched on top of my monitor so some poor sod on the other side of the planet can view my ugly visage, I think not!

Bob.

PS, best use I've had out of the webcam was its motion detection, it'll trigger a pretty good 'dog bark' out of the PC when someone enters the room. It was worth the money just to catch the misses out with it!

The PD-150 was plastic-y and felt cheap.

Curious, I own a PD150 and have used a DVX100 on more than a few occasions and it has been my impression that the DVX100 was the one that felt "plastic-y and cheap." The PD150 has a die-cast magnesium body, the DVX100 is made from.... well... plastic. Are you sure you weren't using the consumer version of the PD150, the VX2000? Regarding the 30p feature, I wouldn't use it even if I had it, I prefer the extra temporal resolution to the extra spatial resolution. Plus, there is no better camera in its price range for low light situations than the PD150. The DVX100 works best under controlled lighting conditions.

Your mileage may (and obviously does) vary.

John

The DVX's body is cast magnesium.

And to back up what farss says: megapixels = compromised video quality. More is better to a point -- you want basically enough pixels to cover the frame, but you want those pixels to be as big as possible. Not enough pixels = Canon XL1, 250,000 CCD pixels to make a 350,000-pixel frame; result was "soft video". Broadcast cameras typically have about 410,000 pixels, which is just enough to cover the full frame. You'll never see 1-megapixel or 2-megapixel CCD's in a professional broadcast camera.

John-

I do know the PD-150 works better in low-lit situations than the DVX. I only used the PD once and I guess I just expected it to "feel" more expensive. What does that mean? I don't know, maybe a wider lens, a different user interface than their consumer level cameras. I've used $600 Sony camcorders before and the PD didn't blow me away for something that costs close to $3,000.00. I know lots and lots of people are still very loyal to their PD's, which I respect. When I budgeted the $3,500 for a camera the PD-150 was an option, along with the VX2000, and the JVC HD camera with only ONE CCD (lol) but it's hard to pass up the DVX-100a with the 24p, the XLR's, 3.5" LCD screen, whatever. (The body is, BTW, made of solid magnesium). Plus, I'll be shooting a short indie film in December using three DVX's and I wanted the cine-gamma the DVX offers. There's a reason that the film that won Best Cinematography at Sundance this year used a DVXa, albeit with a Hollywood level DP behind the camera, which I'm sure helped. I'll be interested to see when Sony enters the 24p game. I know they'll offer some tough competition.

John,
FYI the 100 is built on a magnesium chassis, it's certainly not as flexible as the 150, no argument there, but when it somes to serious shooting why would you need the low light aspect?
You may not like the loss of temporal resolution at 30p but do you realise you're loosing vertical resolution at 60i?

For what it's worth I spent a few days walking the boards at IBC last year. Lost of companies selling bolt on bits for DV cameras, they were showing off their wares almost exclusively on DVX100s, the odd XL1s, cannot say I say a single PD150/170. I'm not tlaking trinkets here, I'm talking serious kit, much of it costing more than the camera. That alone told me which camera was the world beater, you just don't poor a fortune into R&D making 3rd party bits for a dead beat camera.
So we eventually found our way to the Sony stand and the Japanese Sony engineer proudly hands me the new PD170, great I say, the 150 was a very good camera, what have you improve, "We've changed the color of the body" ! Now what I was thinking I will not repeat in polite company and it took me a few breaths to manage a response.

And then a few months later Panasonic revised the DVX 100 to the A model. We'll yes they too changed the color of the body, but it wasn't on the top of their feature list.They'd mostly listened to what the users had asked for and delivered most of it, kind of like the Vegas developers do.

None of this takes anything away from the 170 or the 2000, they are both excellent cameras, well built and rugged. If you don't need or don't have the time to put into learning how to use the features that the DVX 100A has to offer, stay away from it, go with the 170 or the 2000. There simply is no one "best" camera. The 100 CAN take better pictures than the 170, without care it can take much worse picture far more easily.

Just one thing about low light. I've transferred some footage shot on a 150 in low light, award winning stuff. The camera takes great video in low light. The autofocus doesn't work so well though, if you're in low light, switch to manual. Drove me nuts watching shot after shot with the focus hunting.

I don't know for sure, but I suspect if it's capable of recording 4-channel audio on miniDV tape then the audio mode has to be 12-bit rather than 16-bit and the sampling rate is also reduced. The theoretical difference is that 16-bit can have a noise floor of about -96db, while 12-bit has a floor of -72db. While a purist may scoff at "only" -72db, in the real world that's probably good enough for most tasks (audio engineers would die to have those noise levels back before digital audio). The reduced sample rate means your audio will roll off at about 14KHz rather than 20KHz, which probably won't be noticed in most cases either.

I think 4-channel surround audio will become much more common now that millions of people watch DVDs on surrround audio entertainment systems.

but when it somes to serious shooting why would you need the low light aspect? You may not like the loss of temporal resolution at 30p but do you realise you're loosing vertical resolution at 60i?

I shoot a fair amount of documentary style stuff and I am often forced to use available light. A lot of it also involves fast motion and the "stutter" at 24p or 30p is unacceptable for my purposes. The DVX100A is better suited for film-style dramatic work under controlled conditions, the PD150 is better suited to shooting "in the wild." Different cameras for different purposes.

John

John,
"serious" was probably a bad choice of words! I think what I meant was "serious" drama. It's a great piece of gear but to realise it's potential with all the bolt on goodies you need tape measures, decent lighting and avoid hand held. Did I mention a good focus puller as well?

I'd be pretty nervous about using the DVX 100 for front line stuff although I know one guy who does, as well as a PD150 and cuts live between them, yipes!
I agree with you about loss of temporal resolution. What I'd love to see is a video system that runs at 60 p or over the whole way through, now that we're free of the tyranny of film (or at least the cost) apart from the technical issues there's no reason not to up the frames rate.

Bob.

There's a reason that the film that won Best Cinematography at Sundance this year used a DVXa...

The same DP with a comparable camera under the same conditions would have come up with the same results in the end.

Jay

Just an aside,
When I was considering the differences between a VX2000 and a PD150, the plastic vs metal question was rampant.

I bought the VX2000. Don't know is it is plastic or metal and am not going to drill holes in it to find out.

If I put the VX2000 in Demo Mode, it goes through a long infomercial and tells me that it has a magnesium body.

I don't know why everyone is down on plastic. Engineering grade plastics are way more expensive than metal and they don't corrode. Metal chassis with a plastic shell is good engineering. Have a look at a camera that's been in constant use for a few years and notice the corrosion around the screws that go into the metal bits.

Did anyone notice? The question asked, and the information needed, was about

Sony's new DCR-HC1000 camcorder.....

Camcorderinfo just had ther first impression review posted. They weren't thrilled by this new Sony. I, for one, am picking up the Panasonic GS400 as soon as it hits the shelves.

Jay --

"The same DP with a comparable camera under the same conditions would have come up with the same results in the end."

I couldn't agree with you more about the DP using any camera and getting the same result. I read an interview with her. She's worked on major pictures for quite some time, but her goal was to shoot a movie in DV to be submitted to Sundance. She said she explored many cameras but chose the DVX-100a because of the incredible depth of manual settings and, obviously, the 24p feature. I'm sure her budget was way bigger than anything I will ever see, along with her crew, but it's cool to see it being used by people-in-the-know.

I would love to know Sony's target audience for this camera? I could see maybe wedding photographers using it, but no John Q. Public consumer will think twice about a camera priced at $1700.00 even with 3 CCD's AND I can't see legitimate indie/doc filmmakers getting on the bandwagon. Sony better step it up, stop riding the fence, or they're going to lose a lot of loyal customers.

Some of the first impression comments about the GS400 would cause me to wait until full testing, as well. Sony is shooting for the bottom of the barrel, but I can't quite tell what the GS400 is.

I really am disappointed with ALL the 3 chippers when it comes to even moderate to low light situations. And just forget honest to goodness low light unless you plan to buy a VX2100 or a PD170. Those are great camcorders, but WAY too big for the ordinary non-professional. Some call those two "Pro-sumer," but the SIZE of them says "Professional Weight lifter" to most hobbiest, even if they were priced $500 to $1000 less. They just are not in the running.

And then with more megapixels, the worse the video performance is. There is a sound mathmatical and "physics" reason for this, but there are ways to overcome it (See Sharp). So, why don't they do it?

I just wish they would offer PD170 quality, even with PD170 price, in a HC1000 or GS400 body. I'd buy it in a second. Probably two of them. YEA, I know. for "Professional" work they are too light and prone to jiggling. Well, I don't want them for PROFESSIONAL work, I just want the quality, so when I put them on my nice VERY sturdy tripod I can get really good PD170 quality at VERY low light all the way to very high light levels.

YO, Sony, Pana, are you listening? I for one, will pay the price for a QUALITY small camcorder!!!!! No more cra* I stopped even looking when you put the touch controls on the LCD screens and BlueTooth on them.

I want OPTICS, etc. to match the PD170 in a small body. 12:1 Optical Zoom, that sort of stuff, No toys. Take the toys out and you cut the price down, then put the quality in and raise the price back up. I for one would be happy.

Oh, one other thing. The old eyes ain't what they used to be. The LCD should be a minimum of 3.5 inches. I'd even like a 4 inch. Can't see like I used to. Especially since I shoot small children a lot from waist height (their eye level), I hardly ever use the eyepiece, the larger LCD would be VERY nice. It doesn't look so big when held at arm's length while running.