Indie Filmmaker here, always looking out for a better camera!

The Sony HDV series is an astonishing technology

Don't let people tell you that the footage is "too compressed" ---- technically, it is, but once it gets on screen, it looks stunning!

I haven't done much filming with this camera ---- but I have seen its footage and edited its footage

Both on television and the computer monitor, I was impressed with its 'look' ---- very detailed and extremely clear

Editing was a BREEEEEZE with this footage! I edited on Final Cut Pro and could composite 5 layers all above each other, each with a different opacity, and FCP's real time engine kept up without having to render! Thus, the compressed footage makes editing EASY - but Sony has managed to make a beautiful picture out of this stuff too

For the Indie Filmmakers out there ---- test one out before purchasing..... I find the Sony HDV to be the most clear look out there --- emulating a beautifully shot NFL game on HD..... but for cinematic looks, I still may stick with the Panasonic DVX100, as there is a more cinema feel to that one

hope that helps

HAPPY BUYING!!!!

The HVR-Z1U seems too good to be true. And it is.

It promises a camera with full HD resolution and outstanding features for a reasonable price. In many ways, it delivers. The video quality is superior to the JVC HDV camera. Unlike the JVC, the camera offers full manual control and is a pleasure to shoot with professionally.

Alas - for someone who expects and needs full HD resolution, the Sony is a disappointment. Pointing the camera at a resolution chart while viewing the output on a high resolution monitor (or on a computer after rendering to 1080i or 1080p) quickly reveals that the horizontal resolution is about 1200 lines, and vertical resolution is a little over 500.

The pixel count is thus about twice that of standard video, not four times, as we perhaps hoped. The 1200 lines of horizontal resolution is pretty good - just about the same as 720p. But the vertical resolution is not very good at all.

To make matters distinctly worse, the Sony lacks a lens with optical motion correction. The default mode of the camera uses an electronic motion correction that reduces the output resolution to about that of DV. If you use a tripod you can switch this "feature" off.

A little math tells the story. Sony advertizes 1.1M pixels for each sensor, and 1440 lines horizontal. 1.1M/1440 gives a maximum of 770 lines vertical, not 1080 as promised. The measured vertical resolution is distinctly lower.

If you examine carefully the image of a resolution chart which includes a series of horizontal light and dark bars at 700 lines per frame, you clearly see an alias. The frequency of the alias is consistent with a sampling frequency of 540 horizontal lines.

Apparently Sony has made the sensor with 1990 vertical lines and 540 horizontal lines - this comes out to 1.1M pixels per chip. When you set the camera to 1080i 30 fps, the hardware actually shoots 1990x540 at 60 fps, and then renders the result in MPEG as 1440x1080i 30 fps. This leaves open the rather exciting possibility of re-rendering the Sony output as 1440x540 60 fps - which is what the camera actually shoots.

(For this reason the video looks a lot better with a 1/60th of a second shutter speed. 1/30th is too slow for 60fps. Yes, low light performance can be problematic at 1/60th.)

The result would be (or could be) pretty good - but there is another problem. The frequency response of the video circuitry is not very flat. The images have soft focus in the horizontal - possibly to hide the lack of resolution in the vertical. This problem can be partially solved with one or two unsharp mask plug-ins when the video is rendered - but the result is not as nice as it really should be. There is a substantial peak in 500 vertical line region. Current Vegas plug-ins seem optimum for DV, not HDV. I hope someone will write a Vegas plug-in that correctly sharpens the video of this camera. It could be done easily.

Interleaving two low resolution images and calling it a high resolution image is becoming pretty common, both in cameras and in projection equipment. Unfortunately, the degradation is quite noticable if your project includes scenes with large numbers of people - which is my usual application. I wish marketing would keep out of engineering specs!

Bottom line - this camera produces video that is MUCH better than standard video, and significantly better than DV. But it would be awfully nice to have a camera that delivered the advertized resolution, and did it with a flat video frequency response.

I've chosen this camera for my short film after viewing some rough footage at a local studio. The colors that this camera can capture in DV mode are jaw-dropping! It comes with all of the manual controls you could hope for and they're very intuitive. I highly recommend this to independent filmmakers if you're able to rent them in your area. It does not offer the 'truest' cinematic feel but if you do some research on the web you'll find resources for things you can do in pre & post production to get the feel you're looking for regardless of the camera you use.

For more filmmaking resources & sample footage of the z1, visit my website and click 'resources'.

And for more updates on using this camera for my short film, visit my website and click 'films'.

I own the HDR FX1 camcorder, which is remarkable at 1080i 30fps. The main problem is the "i". Interlaced video just plain sucks. Since there are two fields, motion blur is severe at 30fps shutter speed, and no amount of post processing (which can eliminate field lines and mitigate their artifacts) can alleviate the motion blur problem--short of removing one field completely with obvious loss of clarity. This camcorder's specifications, the HVR Z1U, describe the scanning system as 1080/60i, 1080/50i (switchable). There is no mention of a progressive SCAN, only 720p VIDEO. One can infer from their description that "analog down converting" means the 1080 interlaced scanning system is downconverted to 720 progressive, using an analog system. This isn't really progressive-scan video. It's progressive-record video. There's a HUGE difference. If it's truly progressive scan, then this camera is a major advance over the HDR FX1, at least in the scanning system. I've rated this camera 3 stars--sight unseen--because I suspect it isn't really progressive scan. I'll be checking other reviews for an answer, and I hope the question ultimately helps others in making their--and my--decision to buy the HVR-Z1U.

I've used my Sony HVR-Z1U HDV camcorder in some very extreme conditions, and it it comes through on a regular basis. I shot Hurricane Katrina video footage during the storm (for StormStock) in driving 100 mph rain. At that time, I had purchased and was using a rain coat for the camera. It never failed. Previously, in Hurricane Dennis, the unit failed in the rain, without the coat. The screen went black. I dried it off with a hand dryer and it came back to life to be called back into action with Katrina.

My HVR-Z1U has shot hurricane video, tornadoes, lightning, and other storm footage, often in the rain and dust. And, it keeps on going.

The unit prefers mid-range lighting. It can shoot good footage if you give it that.

Sony can improve this unit by adding SDI to output to HDCAM. I'd also like to see true 24P added and maybe variable frame rates.

This camera is just a couple options away from being a professional system.

Martin Lisius
Prairie Pictures, Inc.