VX2100 Vs FX1E?

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Vamp
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VX2100 Vs FX1E?

Post by Vamp »

I'm getting either camera next week and I'm torn about which to choose.

I'm starting a videography business specializing in live and narrative music videos in order to raise the funds needed to shoot short movies. The Live music video stuff will not have the luxury of professional lighting, so I'd need a camera that handles well in low-light (VX2100) but then I might expand into other stuff like wedding videos, where the lighting there will be better. I have niehter an HDTV monitor on my editing PC or a television, and not many people in this country do.

Quite a few questions:

1.) Do you think there's the possibility of Sony discontinuing production and support of the VX shortly?

2) when actually working with HD becomes viable, will I have any problems with editing the footage? (I use Premiere 2.0)
What should HDV footage get exported as? Does Premiere have an option to render back to HDV? In the Export settings, from an HDV project, its set to DV-AVI by default and I can't see HDV as a preset.

I've seen reviewers make mention of having to use external software in order to capture the HDV footage, like cineform connect.

When I do shoot and have the means of using HD, is capturing HDV as easy in Premiere Pro 2 as capturing normal DV? Would I still be able to watch the m2t HDV files if I captured in HDV on a standard monitor? If so, I assume I wouldn't notice any quality difference.

For instance, if a client wanted their video to be in HDV, could I edit HDV on my PC, even though I cant see the actual difference, or is HDV editing on a SD monitor not possible?

3) Either camera doesn't have a frame mode or Cine-Gamma (Like the DVX100) feature, or does it?

4) All in all, besides the low-lighting differences, is the FX1 (shooting in DV or downconverting) only an improvment over the VX2100? ie, will I encounter no problems with this camera that I also wouldn't with the VX?

5) In Premiere what project settings would I use if I were downconverting and I'd shot in 4:3? The normal DV settings or HDV 1080 25 (PAL)? (which is set to 16:9, so when I do capture HDV footage shot in 4:3, what do I do then?)

6) Does the VX2100 shoot in true 16:9, that makes the angle wider or does it just put black bars at the top and bottom of the frame? If I were to shoot in 16:9 on the VX and watch it on a widescreen TV, would those black bars be gone as with watching widescreen stuff shot on the FX1, or are they a part of the picture?

7) But I guess the bottom line is that I wont be editing on HDV for at least two years, and by that time I might be upgrading, so if I got this camera, it would be used exclusively for Mini-DV so the parent question (And the last one...I promise :D) which really makes all the difference concerns how much of an image quality difference there is between the FX1 shooting in SD, Mini-DV mode and the VX2100...

Thanks a lot in advance.
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Raptor
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RE: VX2100 Vs FX1E?

Post by Raptor »

While I can't answer a lot of the HD capture questions....
I would say go with the VX2100 for what you want to shoot. When shooting videos, make sure the band and their light man understand that you need a certain level of minimum light, and that must be maitained. Also you can't work with all back lighting. The good thing is the VX is capable of shooting in minimal light with very little noise. You'll also need the low light for weddings - trust me. Particularly for the reception. The VX shoots 16:9 'squeezed' on a wide screen monitor, it will display normally, on an SD monitor it will be somewhat distorted. In a well lit situation, I would think the FX1 downconverted would give you a better quality image, but based on reviews, it tends to get noisy as the light levels drop. The VX2100 gives good clean video down to a bare minimum of light. I just picked up an Panny AG DVC60 as a second camera. It's specs put it pretty close to FX1 for light ratings ( 4 lux at +18db gain) and it is nowhere near as good as the VX in low light situations. The VX while not having a cine gama curve, does have custom presets you can set up to get a somewhat film like color rendition, and drop the image sharpness a bit to get closer to a film look, but it is still 30 fps Interlaced ( or 25 pal) with true progressive shooting only at 15 fps. Also, HDV delivery on DVD is still a kind of up in the air thing. Unless you are going back to tape, or to broadcast, how are you going to deliver an HDV product to the customer. HDV is definitely taking hold, but for the most part, DV has quite a while to go before it is anywhere near obsolete.....
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Epsilon
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RE: VX2100 Vs FX1E?

Post by Epsilon »

I can get a pretty good low light response on the FX1, even after the film correction. It does get grainy once you start boosting the gain, however. At that point, you have too little light to effectively walk around anyway. The big thing I really about the FX1 is the 72mm lens width. I don't know why it is, but the picture just looks that little bit more wholesome.
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