Sony's HDR-FX1000 and HVR-Z5J HD camcorders head stateside

by Darren Murph posted Sep 14th 2008 at 2:41PM

Tired of messing around with those HD novice-cams? Ready for the real-deal? Sure, neither of Sony's newest HDV units are up there at the professional level, but both the HDR-FX1000 and HVR-Z5J HD help to strike a happy balance with 24p scanning, tapeless recording capability through an optional CompactFlash adapter, advanced color settings, XLR inputs, timecode and a trio of Sony's ClearVid 1/3-inch CMOS sensor chips. Both units capture full 1,920 x 1,080 resolution, though it is squashed down to 1,440 x 1,080 when recorded to miniDV. Anywho, those envious of folks in Japan can finally smile -- the pair is headed to America this November for $3,200 and $5,000, respectively.

Filed under: Other hardware, Sony

Tags: camcorder, hd camcorder, HdCamcorder, HDR-FX1000, HVR-Z5J, now shipping, NowShipping, PROFESSIONAL VIDEO, ProfessionalVideo, ship, ships, sony, us, usa

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Low Ranked

David Hildreth @ Sep 14th 2008 4:08PM

Don't kid yourself HDV is hardly "the real deal"

Highest Ranked

Brian k @ Sep 14th 2008 6:01PM

Dude - you need to go find a "date" or a vice or something! - There are lots of options for different types of productions - I, for one, am having the time of my life with gear like this and no Red One "groupie" is gonna change that.And why the hell are you even on a sony page? Shouldn't you be selling your first born to finance another "Red" branded, over-priced, hard to transport piece of gear!

Btw - HDV is broadcast on the HD channels for 30% of an entire show!

And some of these cameras output 10-bit to HDMI or SDI, which can capture the whole show!

any other "wise" statements about HDV or HD? LMAO!

Neutral

Taylor @ Sep 14th 2008 7:29PM

HDV is broadcast? I'm pretty sure HDV is a recording format, not a broadcast format. If you're just talking about resolution and frame rate, standard HDV is the same as broadcast. But the actual HDV format is not broadcasted.

And what 'show' are you talking about? Why would only part of a show be one format and then broadcasted in a different format the rest of the time.

Neutral

Brian K @ Sep 14th 2008 8:17PM

no, HDV is not actually broadcast, but - when you ingest it into your timeline for editing a sequence - it is added to higher bit rate HD footage (usually huge shoulder or crane-mounted cams) and it is exported and encoded as to the preference you choose (480i,720p,1080i 60 or 1080 24p(Blu-ray) and is sent in an MPEG2 stream

Specifically - Dicovery HD (for example purposes) has standards like every other channel as to "grade" of camera footage- which are as follows for HD programming:

Use od HDV footage:

No more than 1 minute contiuous footage
or
No more than 30% of total program length

If you watch some of the shows and suddenly notice the picture lose a bit of color - it's because they just switched to the (B) camera (usually HDV) you can tell dramatically with the first generation of cameras, well because they were the first!

The latest batch using c-mos (complimentary metal oxide semiconductors) are so close to the big $25,000 cameras that you almost have to ask yourself "why lug around such a huge camera?" I did and have been very successful with commercials, documentaries and HD Digital Signage. That's why a camera like this can make you alot of money - I just bid a job that I could shoot in two days for $2000 - which would almost pay for one of these cameras.
Plus, I would get an all expense paid trip to Mexico, too - and I could use some time on the beach! Anyway - I gotta go on a date right now - hope this helps!

much love to all my friends having fun with HD!

Neutral

Charles @ Sep 15th 2008 12:07AM

If you get the optional CF adapter, can either unit record to a card at 1920x1080 resolution?

Neutral

Brian K @ Sep 15th 2008 1:28AM

There are 2 options
If the job is under $10,000

Depends on your application: For most this is the best method:
In HDV:
If you use a Cineform Prospect for Premiere Pro (Highly recommended) on this unit. exports as 1920x1080 10-bit
storage HDV 100 GB = 9.5 hours

or

If you plan to charge in excess of $10,000 for the images, and want post- production you might look into:

In HD
If you get one with a HDMI or SDI output you can have RAW uncompressed 1080x1920 10-Bit 4:2:2 color space, but file sizes are ten times as big as HDV, but for post production - there is more color to work with. But this requires a computer for capture because it bypasses the cameras computer - also a RAID array and a HDMI capture card.
Storage. 1 TB = 2 hours
This is not HDV

These are 2 options I am lookin into
I plan to use both

Neutral

LloydChiro @ Dec 4th 2008 6:58PM

I've been drooling at this camera and other prosumer cameras for a while. I don't know what I would use it for, but I want it.

And, Amazon finally has it:
http://tinyurl.com/6rq7ky

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