what are you guys using for video?

[jnorman]

i have done a few video projects now, and am ready to upgrade my video capability. i have used a regular SD camcorder, which was pretty lousy. then i started using my little panasonic FX100 (a P&S camera) with 848x480 resolution - better than the SD camcorder, but still pretty lousy. i bought a nice canon HD camcorder, but had so much trouble trying to deal with the AVCHD video files that i gave up and sold it (the computer i work on does not have a dedicated video card, and the only software that can handle AVCHD requires dedicated video card).

now i need to find a good compromise. some of the new DSLRs do 720p and 1080p video, but they all seem limited to 10 minutes at a time. i dont need to zoom or do anything fancy - just good quality.

so, what are you guys using, and what do you recommend? thanks.

[7+1]

cannon 5D markll

Super! thumbsup

[Ozpeter]

Panasonic GH1 (the GH2 is about to hit the shops). No running time limit (for non-EU models) and therefore ideal for concerts.

[See and Hear]

My recomendation is get a camera op and camera.
Jvc Gy dv camera's
Sony DSR1.
Directly to hard drive.

[d_fu]

I recently got myself the Panasonic HDC-SD707 (german Panasonic website).
HD camcorder reviews/tests and comparison of Panasonic HDC-SD707 (HDC-SD707EG) sorted by score

Have only used it one project so far, but that worked out quite well. I only used the HD capability to "zoom in" during editing, there were varying stage setups, and I had just left the camera in one position. I then extracted DVD resolution sections. and manually synced audio and video...

The picture quality is quite good, and I like the 35 mm wide angle. You can connect an external microphone and even set the recording level manually, but with a slightly cumbersome menu...

Next week, I might try to combine it with my SD Canon (XM1), leaving the Panasonic in one position and taking some close-ups with the other. Hope that picture quality and colour will match.

Originally Posted by Ozpeter

Panasonic GH1 (the GH2 is about to hit the shops). No running time limit (for non-EU models) and therefore ideal for concerts.

Why only for non-EU models...?
Got links?

Daniel

[Audiop]

Final Cut handles AVCHD and you can also use the free software MPEG Streamclip to transcode AVCHD files into intermediate formats.

I play some with a Canon DSLR (550D but looking on a 5Dmk2 now) but have used Sony EX1/EX1R/EX3 for the latest concerts. I shoot with three cams in HD which gives me good options in post.

Great news about non EU GH2 shooting video without time limits. I must see if those can be an alternative to real videocams for concerts.

For shorts and music videos Canon and Nikon DSLR's are great.


/Peter

[huub]

;-)

[hbphotoav]

I'm a old-school tape guy. Until SD card storage gets down to $2.05/hr for HDV, I'm sticking with my Sony Z1 HDV cams... HDV acquisition, imported as 48kHz Anamorphic DV for edit, then exported to SD DVDs have garnered no requests (yet) for true HD output amongst my client base... largely because the upscaling on most decent LCD and Plasma TVs is so good, and because there is so little HD projection in the smaller AV gigs for which I produce content.

When clients begin demanding Blu-Ray, I'll have to make a move. But I will still loathe the transition from tape... a cheap and highly reliable medium for acquisition and storage. I'll be happy to hear about the reliability of HD, DVD-R and SD storage 10-15 years out... which is how far I am this year from my initial DVCAM stuff from '96.

It's the same discussion as audio acquisition and archiving... but with 10 times the data per minute.

Interesting times. I'll stay with what works for my clients until I find something that works better.

HB

[Audiop]

Sounds wise Harry.

Me being new to this love high resolution and tapeless recording though.

I also only produce for DVD but hopefully I can get some extra cash for the hi rez version soon..


/Peter

[fifthcircle]

If you don't want to deal with AVCHD, don't shoot Hi-def. If you're using it for archival and audition tape use, you probably don't need HD footage anyways.

I'm using a Sony HXR-NX5U for video right now and it is great- then again, for my HD work, I've got a Win7-64 based beast of a computer running Premiere CS5. It is fantastic, but the computer ran about 75% of what the camera cost.

For your uses, any camera that allows you to do point and shoot work at non-HD resolutions should be fine. The Non-HD stuff is usually MPEG-2 compression (like a DVD) and should work on just about any modern computer.

Get a good machine and then worry about hi-def.

--Ben

[jnorman]

for the time being, would a flip HD video cam, or one of the newer P&S cameras from panasonic, sony, canon, or nikon, give good enough quality? i was looking at some DSLRs, which seem to have nice video quality, but they all seem limited to 10 minute clips, which would be awkward in many situations where it is not convenient to jump and down every few minutes to stop and start the video.

[jnorman]

or, is anyone using a camera-based location recording setup? ie, are you using the video camera to record your audio instead of a dedicated audio recorder? the higher end video cams have XLR inputs with phantom power, but i think many are limited to 16-bit (?). many entry level video cams have 1/8" stereo mic inputs, which you could couple with an outboard preamp and mics - anyone know what kind of audio quality you could expect from these types of video cams?

[birddogstudios]

The sony xr550v is an amazing camera for the money. I prefer it over many professional hd cameras. I don't like or trust the onboard audio of any camera so I'm generally using a separate audio recorder.

As for the flip cams. They are alright as long as the camera is on a tripod and not moving. If you start moving a flip cam, it just blurs' all day long.

There's also the sony xr500v found on ebay for around $600, the 550v is about 1k new.

-J

[Arthur Stone]

Originally Posted by jnorman

for the time being, would a flip HD video cam, or one of the newer P&S cameras from panasonic, sony, canon, or nikon, give good enough quality? i was looking at some DSLRs, which seem to have nice video quality, but they all seem limited to 10 minute clips, which would be awkward in many situations where it is not convenient to jump and down every few minutes to stop and start the video.

I've just started using a Canon 550D: great stills camera and great HQ video. I'm just shooting for fun and friends but aspiring to a professional quality. With HD capture, issues such as lighting and mounting become important...extras cost, e.g. lenses, tripod/mount, viewfinder, protection/bags, spares, etc...then add in NLE software/FX and conversion software...but IMO it's worth it.

Re: time limitations on file size...in case I need longer than 10 mins I will use/borrow/hire a second video camera (for cutaways, etc.).
Re: audio - this is suprisingly good but not in any usable sense...just a guide for sync. I use a Sound Devices 702 for audio.
So, in honesty, it's quite expensive to acquire basic video capability and, as a newbie, I'm having quite a steep learning curve...in some circumstances it may be easier (and cheaper) to hire in a pro (or a talented friend) - but ultimately it is very rewarding and interesting. With your own kit you can experiment and enjoy the process with fewer time constraints. Good luck

[Fran Guidry]

Originally Posted by jnorman

or, is anyone using a camera-based location recording setup? ie, are you using the video camera to record your audio instead of a dedicated audio recorder? the higher end video cams have XLR inputs with phantom power, but i think many are limited to 16-bit (?). many entry level video cams have 1/8" stereo mic inputs, which you could couple with an outboard preamp and mics - anyone know what kind of audio quality you could expect from these types of video cams?

Every audio subsystem I know about that takes input on 1/8" stereo is garbage. Run-and-gun shooters have adopted various bizarre strategies (feeding supersonic tones into the mix to defeat the AGC) with external accessories and get quality that compares poorly with a Zoom H4n. The H4n seems to be the defacto audio subsystem for the HDSLRs as well.

And all the cams you're talking about are still AVCHD.

One cam that might bring _decent_ audio to the low end is the new Zoom Q3HD. It has the mics (and hopefully preamps) from the H4n, but the audio input is stereo line in. If we're lucky there will be no processing on that input and we'll have decent audio at a sub-$2000 price point. I just ordered mine.

Fran

[hbphotoav]

I've done the past four International Church Music Festivals on my Z1s, feeding line level audio from (on different years) my Mackie 1220 (onboard mic amps... also tracking to HDD through the built-in ADC and Tracktion, main analog out); Apogee Ensemble (onboard mic amps, tracking to HDD via Logic and FW400, main analog out); and the Mackie 1220 with a DAV BG8 mic amp (tracking to HDD via Logic and FW400, main analog out). Analog out feeds XLR in on the master Z1, with the menu set to Line. Digital video and audio is fed from the camera through a 4-4 FireWire 400 connection to a Sony HVR-M15 to allow use of 184 minute tapes (providing 4.5 hours of capture in DV/HDV mode)... a true benefit for long programmes.

I have no experience with AVCHD capture... but my reading leads me to believe it sucketh compared to DV and HDV audio capture.

I have had no complaints (moreover, folks have noticed the cleaner captures through each iteration). The HDD tracks provide CDs of the performances, the ability to experiment with various blends/mixes of the mics used, and serve as a backup to the direct capture through the Z1 (which backup has never been needed). The 48kHz/16bit DV bump-up from 384kbit/s, MPEG-1 Layer 2 HDV audio has been completely acceptable, to audiences made up of choir directors, music industry folks, soloists and instrumentalists.

YMMV...

HB

[NorseHorse]

Originally Posted by hbphotoav

I'm a old-school tape guy. Until SD card storage gets down to $2.05/hr for HDV, I'm sticking with my Sony Z1 HDV cams...

It should be mentioned that the true cost of a medium is much more complex. If you shoot an 8-hour conference and need to import the 8-hours of tape in real time at a cost of $50 an hour (or whatever you feel like you are worth), the cost-per-hour of tape jumps dramatically. Perhaps you have a second computer for capture while you multitask on another one. That also factors into the costs ($$).

Let's say you can fit six hours of footage onto a 16GB SDHC card recording at 5mbps. You can fit about 60 6-hr projects on a 1TB hard drive which you bought for $150. That's 360 hrs. Don't forget your back-up. So now you've spent $300 on hard-drives to hold 360 hours of video, at a cost of $0.83 per hour of footage, and you also saved yourself over 300 hours in time spent importing tapes (over $15K!).

YMMV. For instance, if you shoot at 25mbps instead of 5mpbs.

[jnorman]

christian - that was all rather depressing, and not at all in the spirit of a true gearslut...i dont like to think about money. thank gob i am independently poverty sticken.

[fifthcircle]

Originally Posted by hbphotoav

I have no experience with AVCHD capture... but my reading leads me to believe it sucketh compared to DV and HDV audio capture.

AVCHD has a lot going for it- the problem however is that it requires a beast of a machine to work with it. There are still also issues with a number of the leading editors when dealing with it as well. Transcoding to a better format is what seems to work for most folks.

I'm using Premiere CS5 for my editing and it can handle AVCHD quite well- multiple streams even. However, I have a i7 980x extreme processor based system with 12 GB of RAM and 4 TB of drives. When things get bigger, transcoding will definitely help the process.

Audio-wise, my camera (the Sony NX5U) is recording AVCHD for HD capture but the audio is PCM uncompressed. Sound is more than acceptable, although I usually replace it with the mastered or mixed audio from my DAW.

I think in the end, it comes down to codecs. DV video is pretty easy to work with and still looks pretty good on most TV sets. HDV is great, but you start running into codec issues- where was it recorded, what format are the files, etc... I just had an issue with files from Final Cut Express which use the Apple Intermediate Codec and that codec does not work on a PC. Using MPEG Streamclip helped a lot, but at the expense of hours of recoding.

Just a couple thoughts...

--Ben

[Arthur Stone]

Originally Posted by hbphotoav

...I have no experience with AVCHD capture... but my reading leads me to believe it sucketh compared to DV and HDV audio capture...

I do have experience with AVCHD capture - IMO it's one of the best capture formats (prosumer level)...plays straight into the Windows player...super high-quality! For editing I convert to AVI format using Neoscene (bigger files again!). The workflow is smooth and fast on my machine.

[hbphotoav]

Ahhh... different strokes...

HB

[mixedupsteve]

I've been doing more and more video work recently like most of us. I use Vegas Movie Studio Platinum and it will import AVCHD. Since I too am poverty stricken I still use this $100.00 program. (plus it's awsome for what I do right now and it will use all the VST plugins I already have on the audio tracks)
I recently built a dedicated audio video editing machine with a mainboard based on an Intel chipset with a Core 2 Duo processor. It's not a real beast but a render of a 1 hour project to DVD disc quality went down from aprox 3 hours to about 1 hour. This is fine with me. I don't have an HD camera right now so when I start working with HD this will go up so we'll see then.

[Mats H]

I've done some concert recordings with an AVCHD camera from Canon called HF200. It gives a very crisp image, even in so-so lightning. Editing is a pain on my Q6600 quad core computer.. then again the computer is 3 years old. Newer i7s shouldn't have any problems with editing.

I recently bought a Canon EOS 550D to get good stills and complement my HD HF200 and tried it out on a recent concert recording with a third HF200. I got pretty decent results but the image of the 550D is far from as sharp as what I get from the HF200. At 720p end result it doesn't matter but it's really obvious at 1080p. Colors are great, as is the dynamic range.

There are some quibbles with the EOS 550D. It's very hard to get the focus spot-on, even though the screen is very good. The autofocus is almost useless when shooting video. The screen doesn't flip up, which means you have to hold the camera head height to focus. It also has a 14 minute limit (2 GB file limit). So you'll have to stop after a while and start a new recording. The camera also overheats after 45-50 minutes or so, so you'll have to turn it off every now and then and blow cool air to cool it down. The battery last for something like 80 minutes when shooting video.

Shooting video on a DSLR works well when doing production work but I believe there are better options when doing live work where you've only got one shot at it.

Mats Helgesson
LIVING SOUND

[Petrus]

We (I) use two Canon XH-A1 cameras, which is a miniDV based HDV camera, and a good one. Even the audio is decent, over 90 dB S/N ratio when fed from SD203 field mixer. Having "only" 16 bit audio is not a problem, what do you think the old superprofessional Nagras got in the seventies when big movies were made? (12 bits worth...). Tape is really nice, cheap, instant safety copy...

The other cams are a bunch of Canon EOS-5Dmk2. The picture quality is terrific, but there are serious limitations like short takes, no real audio, needs external monitors for focusing, need a follow focus systems, no long zooms. In many cases I use both cams; tape cam for fast action and DSLR for "stills" and details. Actually it is not all that easy to tell which clips are EOS-5D and which are only HDV, even when using HD monitor.

For multi-camera gigs when working alone I have used an operated HDV-cam with audio fed from SD302/Sanken/Pearl system and 2 "cold" DSLRs providing cutaways. Just have to remember to keep turning them off/on every 12 minutes.

The editor is FCP and EOS-5D material is converted to ProRes422 HQ first. The real problem is disk space, we should keep all raw material but the cost is prohibitive. Secure server space costs 0.50€/GB/month and we would need several TB even now and we have only just started. Getting cheap USB drives is really not an option, as they would have to be copied in triplicate and all disks spinned every now and then. Really no solution found yet. And compressing the 25MB/s material into something like 5MB/s is out of question. By the way, even though we have good network, it is faster to copy materials to an external disk and use sneakernet to transfer in-house. One 30-60 second clip easily comes from 120 GB of raw ProRes422 video, and copying this back and forth to/from server might take 10 hours, disk copy "only" a few... Also the conversion takes about 3 hours per one hour of raw material, so EOS-5Dmk2 is NOT a fast production tool for us.

Some samples if you are interested, look for HD version when available:

YouTube - Suomen Kuvalehti iPadissa Shot with EOS-5Dmk2, iPad promotional video

YouTube - Kuopion Asuntomessut - Jorma Uotinen Shot with XH-A1, audio also. Interior decoration thing (the end 1/3 is the best part)

Master Golf Shot with XH-A1, golf course promotion.

Ajettua: Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Shot with XH-A1 and EOS-5D, Mercedes SLS-AMG acceleration & handling test (too long, but they wanted it that way). HD link below the viewer, 137 MB.

Funny (?) story: we made a company promotion video with fully equipped EOS-5Dmk2 (follow focus, two monitors, 30 kg battery to power the monitors, light crew, dollys, 9-10 people involved for 3 shooting days). The idea was to show it with HD projection on a 20 foot screen during a company get-together party last May. Well, the place was really light and could not be darkened, scrap the HD projector, could not see anything. Bring in six emergency HD monitors. They could not be connected properly for HD. So, a fast emergency DVD was burned and the spot run from that. Argh!

And nobody in the audience complained...

[Audiop]

Originally Posted by Petrus

The other cams are a bunch of Canon EOS-5Dmk2. The picture quality is terrific, but there are serious limitations like short takes, no real audio, needs external monitors for focusing, need a follow focus systems, no long zooms.

EF 70-200mm f/2.8 with 2x extender?

For multi-camera gigs when working alone I have used an operated HDV-cam with audio fed from SD302/Sanken/Pearl system and 2 "cold" DSLRs providing cutaways. Just have to remember to keep turning them off/on every 12 minutes.

One thing I miss big time is the possibility to use a wired remote starting and stoping video. One guy could set up a bunch of DSLR's and use them for concerts without running around in the hall operating the cameras.


/Peter

[Petrus]

Originally Posted by Audiop

EF 70-200mm f/2.8 with 2x extender?

/Peter

No thanks, 2x extender is a no-no for me. 1.4x is fine. For longer reach I have 300 f2.8 and f4, and 400 f4. By long zoom I mean big zoom factor, like the 20X zoom on the XH-A1, which makes things easy when following a speeding car of a boat, for example. Not being able to follow a vehicle from wide close-up to the horizon in one take rules out all DSLR solutions for me, for that use. A real video camera can not be beat by a DSLR 75% of the time.

[Audiop]

Ok, thanks for clarification.


/Peter

[timothyclee]

I think there is a misconception of avchd. The files are hard to work with raw, but the idea is to import them into your computer in an uncompressed format. Then they are very easy to work with. If you are doing live concert footage the format works out really well. There typically is not a lot of extreme movement on stage that any "blurring" effect won't happen. I also find that it is easier to sync the avchd footage to audio recorded on another format than say dv tape footage which to me tends to drift time wise.

Tim

[Ozpeter]

I think Moore's Law has caused current PCs to catch up with AVCHD's demands.

[Fran Guidry]

I can edit one layer of 720p AVCHD on my Core2Duo, and guys with i7 processors are reporting several layers of 1080. This is using Edius in the last couple of versions. The latest Adobe CS5 will apparently pull some AVCHD as well, if the required video card is in place.

Fran