Moving into the TV arena...

Most TV adverts are filmed on Super16 with a cross over now taking place to HD720p. Ads are normally shot in native 16:9 and not 4:3, making the Sony PD370 unsuitable for the task. The PD 170 have been used to good effect but would require an anamorphic front end and would be unlikely used as a main cam. If going for output to TV then the finished edit would be dumped down to DigiBeta. For cinema ads the super16 print would be enlarged to 35mm.
Most ads are made with multi camera and usually involve a large crew.
Hope this helps.

Usually 16:9 DigiBeta will be required for television Neil.

You might be able to film on HDV, as I was reading that it produces better/comparable results. Personally, I wouldn't know as I've still to use an HD set-up, but would imagine this to be very possible.

There are a lot of caveats to that, and I don't think it's true in this instance. Where it may be true is in a closed circuit situation, camera, edit, and straight onto a high definition display. In the above scenario the product will almost certainly end up on DigiBeta for transmission at standard definition, and then I'd expect the end result to be better if it was originally produced in SD, with high grade lenses and expensive signal processing.

HDV is a definition of the recording medium (like DigiBeta for that matter) and as such says nothing about the quality of the camera, lens etc. You would expect it to be higher definition, but that's not a simple matter, books have been written about MTF etc, and quantifying the differences cannot be done easily.

And "sharpness" is only one aspect of what makes one cameras picture better than another. Highlight handling, depth of field control, and sensitivity for starters, and that's before we even start thinking about the usability/controllability of one camera v another. I've been very impressed by some pictures I've seen off the first batch of HDV camcorders, but in some aspects (eg highlight handling) they don't come near to the same standards as more expensive offerings. You get what you pay for.

Nothing has been said about the other aspects of the production - actors, costumes, special effects ? If these are likely to be a substantial cost then using a PD170 or an HDV camera as opposed to hiring is unlikely to save much money percentage wise. Indeed, their lower sensitivity versus 2/3" chips could mean a bigger lighting bill, and ultimately mean their use costs money!

Seems like quite a thorough answer there Neil, and very well justified Infocus.

Out of curiousity, what would happen if it was shot on say the Z1 in HDV, then converted to SD. What sort of results could you expect?

I'm staying clear of moving up from my XL1s cameras until I know what I'm spending my money on. I like the idea of HD, but would rather buy cranes, steadicams, etc. That is until I've got a firm understanding of the pros & cons of such equipment.

I also believe that the best is still to come from HD, but that's another story............

:)

I think the answer has to be "depends what you're comparing it with". The trouble with a lot of this is it gets like comparing apples with pears - how can you compare two dissimilar things?

I'm prepared to say that comparing a HDCAM to a DigiBeta on a HD monitor, I know which I'd expect to look better. Do the same with a Z1 and a PD170 and I know which I'd expect to win. But a Z1 v DigiBeta? That gets more difficult. HD aside, the processing in the DigiBeta is superior, and it should handle highlights better, it will be more sensitive to light (2/3" chips), and the pro lenses are likely to have advantages other than sharpness - better wide angle coverage, and true precise manual control. Now broadcast it SD, as opposed to viewing on a HD display, and I suspect the good points of the DigiBeta will stand up more than those of the Z1 - quite a lot may depend on the scene being filmed.

Returning to the original scenario, if budgets are REALLY tight then maybe using small cameras is the best way, and similarly if circumstances indicate a small camera to be more appropiate. Alternatively, maybe it may be better to only have ten rather than fifteen extras in scene 31, and pay for the cost of a better camera that way? Or reduce the SFX budget such that the monster only bites one head off in Scene 56? Every case is different.

I'll agree with your last sentence, new and better products are coming out all the time, and HD/HDV is only the latest instalment of that story. What I would feel is that if a new camera had to be bought now, it seems foolish not to buy an HD capable one, given the degree of backwards compatability. And I think that advice is true right across the industry.

Surely it depends on what the client wants and what they are prepared to pay for. Most production companies do not own their own kit, they simply draw up the budget with the client and hire the kit required and buy in the expertise for shooting and post including SFX and CGI if required. For the camera operator/producer, you may own a PD-150 or a Canon XL2S, but if it is not suitable for your production, you can still hire a Panasonic Variocam from Optex, for recording in 720p HD which will give much better results than DigiBeta recording on SD. Hire rates run at about £600 per day, dry, with lens, dollies etc on top. Whilst it is true that broadcast will still most likely be delivered on DigiBeta SD, if the advert is originated on a higher format such as 720pHD or Super16 celluloid the advert is going to be more future proof and also more suitable for transfer to a 35mm print if the advert were ever required for cinema advertising. In addition the higher quality of the Panasonic Variocam as against DigiBeta, which afterall is a very old format, is going to produce much better results. Several leading motion pictures have been made in 720p, Star Wars amongst them, which speaks for the quality of the acquisition platform.

It will be interesting to see how well the new JVC 1/2" HD camera works with 720p 24fps. This has 1/2" chips but can take 2/3" lens and primes. If it does what it is claimed to do, then it could be a godsend in low budget productions requiring top quality acquisition. It should produce better results than DigiBeta SD but that remains to be seen.

If you do record in HD then you will need a large SCSI RAID array of at least 1.3 terrabytes on your NLE as SATA drives are just not up to the job. If you edit in Final Cut Pro then FCP5 is set up for HD and can handle both 720p and 1080i. Alternatively you may prefer to contract out the editing to a post house who will be set up to handle HD and would also be able to offer telecine to 35mm if required.

Surely Star Wars was HDCAM and 1080? Not that it changes the point you're making.

The HD100 has 1/3" chips and will take 1/2" lenses. The narrowing of angle of view effect of doing this limits it's usefulness, especially since the 1/2" lenses are likely to be SD, and only using part of it's field will further reduce definition. As regards comparisons with Digibeta, the recording format says nothing about the front end. Apart from improved signal processing the Digibeta is likely to have a 2/3" front end, with all the aesthetic advantages that has for depth of field etc, to say nothing of sensitivity.

To set the record straight, Star Wars II was shot using Sony HDW900 as the camera, modified to accept Panavision 35mm movie lenses (called "Panavised"). All studio recording was done onto hard-drives, uncompressed 4:2:2 (i.e. 1920x1080p/24, with chroma at 960x1080p/24). The back plates, where real, were mostly shot using the HDCAM recorder (1440x1080p/24, with chroma at 480x1080p/24, 4.3:1 compressed intra-frame). That was the best HD capture process available at the time, we can do better now by using HDCAM-SR (4:4:4, no subsampling and 2.1:1 MPEG compression, virtually lossless).

In post, the 16:9 1080-line pictures were cropped to 2.35:1 810-line. That's what was distributed digitally and printed to film. Again, we can now do better, there are 4:3 anamorphs that will fit a 2.35:1 image onto a 16:9 sensor, so you'd get the full 1080-line resolution..

Don't know if it's of any help, but according to a guy on the Avid site, this music video was shot on a Z1:

http://www.clipland.com/Summary/701009083/Fettes-Brot-Emanuela.html

You can see it's not film if you watch the shadows and highlights, but it still looks pretty good, particularly on TV rather than a crappy realvideo stream (it was on MTV a few times while I was on holiday in Germany).

Looks pretty impressive, and if it's good enough to get air time on MTV it must have been decent quality.

I am suprised they compressed it as much for the web.

Hi
It depends on which stream you are looking at - the QuickTime stream 4 is 70KBytes/sec Sorenson Video 3, at 25fps 480x258 (+ 13.6KBytes/sec for the mp3 32K audio), and that runs perfectly well full-screen on my video monitor, with only the slight softening of quarter-screen scaling up. (Or full-screen on the 23" LCD computer screen).

Much better! :)