[GCW]

I've been doing a few (tedious) films of bouldering recently, and I've been toying with the idea of upgrading to HD.
Any thoughts boys and girls?
Is there a significant improvement in quality, and is it DVD quality? ( I assume it's much better than standard).
Is now the time to buy, or will prices reduce and quality continue to improve?
Anyone recommed any top notch HD camcorders so I can continue to shower UKB with toss vids?  Price ranges negotiable.

If I do get HD, it will mean going back and repeating loads of cool problems at higher quality though 

[unclesomebody]

I don't have time to write a full response right now, but I wanted to say that hi-def is the way to move. It really is so much better. The current king of the crop in terms of HD video quality is probably the Canon HV20. They have released a newer model that records to a hard drive via the AVCHD codec but this still isn't the same quality as DV tape. AVCHD produces artifacts and you can see the difference if you look (especially at HD).

I will try to address your questions in more length tomorrow.

[GCW]

I will try to address your questions in more length tomorrow.

Thanks Unc, I look forward to it.

[Obi-Wan is lost...]

HD is very cool. We have a Sony V1 at work which is a joy to use however it may be a bit pricey.

Things to consider:
- 1080i HD is far higher quality than standard DVD and most TV's and some computer monitors. Have a look here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1080i#1080i_vs_1080p also to get an idea download a full HD clip from Apple http://www.apple.com/trailers/#section=justhd and play it 'actual size' on most screens it will be much larger than the screen.
- What are you going to do with the footage? Everything except putting it online in HD (massive download) or burning an HD/blueray disk will require a large drop in quality.
- You need A LOT of harddrive space to edit even a short HD film. Approx half a gig a minute.
- If you get into editing one of the advantages of using HD then outputting to standard definition is that you can crop shots without loosing quality.

The HV20 does look like a great camera but it is £850. A panasonic 3CCD camera is now £300.

[unclesomebody]

Full HD resolution is 1920*1080, which as you probably realise is greater than most people's monitor resolution (unless you are still using a gigantic CRT). I bought a 24" monitor after buying my HV20 so I could probably appreciate the HD footage. However, the HDV standard (which most camcorders conform to) has a resolution of 1440*1080 but with non square pixels. Each pixel has a horizontal:vertical aspect ration of 1.333... so it actually is giving you a 1920*1080 image. Worth pointing out as it is a question nearly every newcomer to HD asks.

If you followed Obi's good advice you will have downloaded a full 1080p clip and realised your computer can't play it smoothly or in it's native resolution. This highlights two common problems. 1. Your monitor is too small to watch full 1080p HD footage. 2. The computer power required to deal with HD is large. I would recommend at least a very fast Intel Dual Core, but better would be a quad core. Rendering times on anything except one of these would be VERY long. So, unless you have a powerful computer expect to factor in a PC upgrade. Also, as obi mentioned, is the space required to store/manipulate HD files. Although the DV standard is the same in a normal or high res cam, meaning that the tape stores data at a rate of 25MB/s, so a full hour of footage will only be 13GB regardless of if you're capturing from a SD or HD cam (another common misunderstanding). However, these files will be .m2t files and to begin editing you may need to convert them (which you will obviously want to do losslessly) and this will make you weep... expect 1 hour to be around 500gb if you use a good lossless codec like lagarith.

For transcoding to web etc I have been using 720p which is still way better than DVD quality but you have much more amenable file sizes. They are still large by old standards, but definitely workable with a fast internet connection. 720p combined with a good x264 codec will give you great results at usable file sizes.

The bottom line is can you be bothered to learn about a whole new way of working (because it really is very different from SD recording/editing). Do you want to have to upgrade many components in your production chain to deal with HD? Do you have the money? If you want to look into it further then check out www.camcorderinfo.com who did a shootout of HD camcorders a while ago. I own the Canon HV20 so obviously I think it is the best otherwise I would have bought a different one. The HV20 has the added feature of being able to shoot 24fps which no other consumer camcorder currently has. If you watch footage from this and other camcorders you will see the difference. You can go over to stage6 and search for HV20 and you will get plenty of examples. The other top contenders are the Sony and the Panasonic (HDD camcorder). Using DV tape may seem like a backwards move when moving forward into HD, but it is still the best in terms of quality. The AVCHD codec that the HDD camcorders use is still not at a level to be competitive with DV tape. Plus you then face other long term storage issues.

Hope you find some answers in your search. I love HD.

ps. I bought my HV20 for £430 delivered. 

[GCW]

Thanks Unc- have a point.
I've a bit of cash set aside, so this won't be too much of an issue (within reason).  The PC should be OK, but I'd be half tempted to get a decent PC and use it only for music and video work.
Hard drive space is something that can be easily (and fairly cheaply solved) anyway.
I'm using Adobe Premiere Pro 7.0 at the moment, and it says it's fully HD compatible.  I assume it will import from the camcorder directly, but I'll have to look into this more (unless anyone has experience of it?).

So the only barrier is time.  I never have enough of it anyway.
Thanks Unc, I'll look into it more.

[GCW]

- What are you going to do with the footage? 

Burn to DVD at the moment Obi.  At present, even on my modest TV my footage is a bit grainy and not as high quality as I might like.  I'm using a pretty decent camcorder, but I've always wanted better quality footage.  Maybe I'm aiming too high.

[GCW]

ps. I bought my HV20 for £430 delivered. 

Where from?!?  Cheapest I can see is £620.
Thanks again guys.  I may report back at a later date.

[Obi-Wan is lost...]

That was my question too. Thats a very good price. ebay previously had some go for around £420.  But most of the cheap ones are imported I believe. Not sure if they are NTSC/PAL switchable. So watch out before you order one from Hong Kong. I still don't fully understand the implications of shooting NTSC in the UK.

Personally with something like an expensive camcorder, none of which are brilliantly reliable, I recon it's pretty important to be able to return it easily, so at least a 1 year UK warranty is essential, even if you do have to pay more for the camera in the first place. Consequently I am pretty wary of grey importers on ebay and the like.

[Jim]

Uncle's was imported from Japan I believe. It has very good quality output

[GCW]

Obi, I too am cautious.  Even if I was just burning to standard DVD I assume using HD throughout would yield a significant improvement?  How close to pro quality could you get?

[GCW]

And also...
Is Intel Core 2 Quad better than AMD quad core or not?  I used to prefer AMD for single processors but I'm a bit behind with multi-core.  Unc?

[Jim]

I think Intel are the authority on cpu's these days

[GCW]

Right, after a fair bit of reading and investigation I've gone and done it.  Just ordered the HV20, £555.  Give me a year or two to get it to work and I'll let you know.Thanks again for the advice.

PS:  Someone will now bring out a better/ cheaper HD camcorder, or Asda will sell HV20s at 300 quid just before Christmas 

[Houdini]

BHAU Productions moves in with the big boys!


SHAMONE HD MoFo!

[GCW]

Cheers for that, mate!!  HD quality PowerBalls to you too.