Going HD..maybe

[Anonymous]

I’ve been in the video shooting profession on an amateur level for a few years now. I’ve shot local sporting events, dances, taletn shows, amateur wrestling, etc. I’d like to finally make the move into a more professional level so thus I am in the market for a new pair of cameras. This is not a “what camera I should buy” topic..not directly at least.

The question is, if I’m looking to drop $3000 – $5000 on 2 cameras, should the move be made to HD?

I’ve been reading that HD when down converted to SD looks awful. Any truth to this? Also I don’t have the income (yet) to go with a good set of 3CCD cameras if in 2 years, HD is the new standards. Seem like a fair assumption?

Thanks, Ted

[Rob]

HD downconverted to SD doesn’t look awful at all. The people who say it is are theAMATEURSwho are editing without an external monitor. Therefore they are only looking at their computer monitor, which doesn’t display videoaccurately.

What do you need 2 cameras for though? If you’ve got 5000 and really only need one, i’d look into getting the HPX170 or HVX200A.

[birdcat]

I’ve been shooting in HD for about a year now and all my non-web video is downconverted to SD and they look great.

[Anonymous]

I need two cameras because I tend to shoot most of my events from two angles, generally a wide shot and then a closer handheld one.

Something I haven’t taken into account was, it needs to be 3CCD right? I just assumed the higher end HD cameras were, but it seems that perhaps that is not the case? Looking at B&H the cost of a 3CCD dramatically increased the price of HD cameras, ouch. Maybe I’m missing something.

[Rob]

3CCD and 3CMOS sensors will be better than 1, although I heard the cameras that have only 1 CMOS sensor are not that bad. But then again, CMOS sensors produce some crappy artifacting due to the rolling shutter

[BrianFisher]

We have seen many projects for SD DVDs that have been downconverted, and from my experience, downconverting from HD to SD then distributing on DVD is a quality enhancement over shooting in SD and Going to DVD. The picture quality is definately better from a HD souce. However, to fully realize the HD, you would need to put that on a Blu-ray disc, which as things stand right now, is very expensive compared to DVD and requires a fairly closed audience, due to the limited presence of Blu-ray Disc players in the market place.

If you need more info on HD to SD then to DVD, check us our here at Video Conversion for DVDs and Blu-ray Disc.

Brian Fisher

[Author]

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