hello and thanks in advance to everyone who replies.
I have 3 or 4 pilot concepts that i would like to try shooting to submit to the NY television festival; the problem is i've never done any "professional" filming before and don't know what my best options are for equipment. basically, i know how to hold a camera and have a good deal of experience with apple imovie editing; I'm a quick learner but like to keep things simple. thankfully, what i plan on filming does not require precise camera work or technical editing (documentary style concepts, think jackass where the content is far more important than the camerawork). What is important is the picture quality and the sound. I don't know a whole lot about high definition cameras other than the fact that the picture quality is supposed to be superior to normal cameras and a few yrs ago the technology was far more expensive than it is today. I just want the best footage I can get for a few thousand dollars and the best sound I can get, hopefully with affordable wireless mics.
anyone that has experience with the camera and understands what i'm trying to get out of it, i'd really appreciate your feedback.

The FX1 sounds like a good camera for your needs IF you're planning on showing your footage in HD. If you're not planning on using the full manual features of your camera you might want to look at the HC1/A1, for point and shoot purposes they're very close in quality except in low light, the small size makes a lot of things much easier and at that price difference you can have a 2 camera setup for the same price as 1 FX1.

I don't know what format they like to see things at that festival but I think for your purposes you're probably better off working in SD.

I'd also seriously think about getting Final Cut if I were you. You may find it takes a little while to get the hang of it after iMovie but after a week you'll look back and realize that iMovie is strictly for home video and such.

My 2 cents...

hey drachen, thanks for the reply. if you could possibly explain slightly more in depth what you've already said i'd really appreciate it. see, here's the thing....after reading all about HD video, I still don't really understand how it works. I understand that that the quality of what you shoot is really great, but then what happens in the next step? I mean, what tools/ equipment are necessary to view, to edit and to copy in high definition? is editing software like imovie and final cut the right thing to use when editing HD (does it retain the quality) and then can you simply burn on a dvd and play on any dvd player and if you have a HD TV you'll see the difference in quality or do you need a HD DVD player and a HD tv? i'm sure you can get a sense of where i'm coming from. everyone says that HD = better quality picture, but no one mentions what is needed/ necessary to get whats on the camera to the TV.....
and as far as SD, I don't even know what that is but I'd love it if you could explain it. I just assumed HD was the way to go because every article has said that the HDR-FX1 is the best quality, affordable camera for filmmakers/documentarians.

thanks

SD is standard definition.
Just like HD is high definition.
The difference between the two is resolution. There is 2-3 times more resolution in HD than SD.

In order to edit HD, you need a pretty powerful computer and editing software that will support it. Imovie HD and Final Cut will both work.

In order to view the HD video on a tv, you need an HDTV.
Unless you have a brand new HD-DVD player, the dvds you make will not be in HD. They will be in SD.

You can play back the HD video directly from your camcorder to the HDTV.

What is your budget here??

If you are going to spend $3000 on your camcorder, how much is left for lighting, mics, editing software, etc.??

I would seriously suggest a less expensive camera so you can purchase your other supplies. Audio is over 70% of a movie. Lighting is crucial.
You can shoot all you want in HD, but if you don't do it right, its going to be that much more obvious.

my budget is between $7000-$10000 which I was going to use to buy 2 of the cameras and a decent, affordable wireless mic setup (3-5mics). most of what i'll be shooting will be outside, possibly in congested areas where the convenience and practicality of wireless mics, i think, will be my best bet. i don't know which ones are the best to get but assume that they're not more than $100 or so each.
now, here's a big question that i hope you can answer: if the hdr-fx1 is supposed to be an independent filmmakers dream what exactly is the full process from start to finish to show the footage on a big screen in HD. basically what i'm asking is, once you have your footage and have edited it with imovie or final cut what do i then record onto to retain the HD quality so that it can be watched on a small screen or in a theatre. I guess I'm most confused with digital recording vs 8mm or whatever "real" movies use. I mean, you can't put a dvd into a projector and i assume you can't put footage that's on a computer onto a film reel, so how does this all work out. are theatres set up to play dvds? excuse my ignorance, but these are the questions i'm completely baffled about and don't know exactly where to look for answers.

I would do more research in other parts of the forums first.
If you want to spend $7-10k on camera equipment that's fine, you can get nice equipment for that.
If you plan to spend under $100 on audio equipment, good luck.
You can't just get a couple of "Prosumer" HD camcorders and get a "Hollywood" movie. You need lights, audio equipment (GOOD audio equipment), tripods, etc.
If I were you, I would start researching like crazy. Make a list of what you are going to need. Then find products that fit and how much they cost.
"Real" movies cost millions of dollars and have hundreds of people working on them. Look at the credits sometime.

By the way, the FX1 is not the "independent filmmakers dream", it doesn't even shoot in 24fps.

i thank you for your recent reply. as far as your concerns go, i already have access to a good deal of professional equipment which i wouldn't need to buy so didn't include in my cost outline (tripods, lighting, etc). as far as wireless mics go, from what everyone on here has said for $100 or a few hundred dollards PER mic you can get a very good setup. I'm just taking their word for this so don't quote me on this.
the biggest point that i need to express is this: I'm not trying to make a "real" movie by any means. I understand the manpower and costs necessary to do so. All I want is to do some fun, exciting filming of real people as i travel across the country. the only things that are really important are picture qaulity and sound so these are the two issues i'm most feverishly trying to address. when I'm done I want to be able to have my footage shown on local cable access and there's even a strong possibility that it can be shown at the local theatre. this brings me back to the last question i asked in my last post, where i'm most lost:
"now, here's a big question that i hope you can answer: if the hdr-fx1 is supposed to be an independent filmmakers dream what exactly is the full process from start to finish to show the footage on a big screen in HD. basically what i'm asking is, once you have your footage and have edited it with imovie or final cut what do i then record onto to retain the HD quality so that it can be watched on a small screen or in a theatre. I guess I'm most confused with digital recording vs 8mm or whatever "real" movies use. I mean, you can't put a dvd into a projector and i assume you can't put footage that's on a computer onto a film reel, so how does this all work out. are theatres set up to play dvds? excuse my ignorance, but these are the questions i'm completely baffled about and don't know exactly where to look for answers."
If you could give me any insight to this i'd really truly appreciate it like you'll never imagine.
Jeremiah

I don't know what movie theaters use to tell you the truth.
There are a great number of projecters that can project video from a dvd.
Now, the problem with HD.
HD-DVD players are just barely coming out.
You have no way to burn an HD-DVD.
The only option is the play back from the camcorder itself or an HD tape player which is well over $1000.
Is the cable access station going to show it in HD??
Why don't you go to the local theater and ask what they use to show movies??

I'm not at all suggesting that the FX1 is a bad camera for your movie, I just wonder if you need HD and think you should realize the extra problems that brings to your project.

Thought I'd jump in with a reply. I own and have used the FX1 for the past year and a half. I really like it. I produce a weekly TV show shown on satellite, it's massively compressed so any high quality resolution is long gone by the time the viewer sees it - sigh...

I have shot in both SD and HD with the camera. But I have never actually played anything back on an HD TV, so I really don't know how good it looks. The HD I've shot I've ended up downconverting to SD. I use Premiere Pro to edit and it has a free plug in to allow HD capture and edit. But HD consumes tons of disk space and, since I end up back in SD mode it's really more of a nusiance. The editing program runs much slower when working in HD also.

But if you're going to project your final production in a theater with an HD projection system, obviously you should shoot in HD. There is a way with most editing systems to capture all your footage in some low resolution, do all your editing, then go back and tell the editor to capture only the footage you used in HD, apply the transitions, etc. then output everything in HD back to your camera, from which you'll output your final production. As drhiberd said, there isn't yet a DVD burner (that normal people can afford) that will burn HD DVDs. There isn't even yet an agreed standard between competing "HDVD" and "blue-ray". That means your camera will be the playback deck. The FX1 has component outputs for HD, and certainly a HD projector will have component inputs. Again, repeating what drhiberd said, you should talk with the theater and cable operator and find out what they need to project/air HD.

But back to what I know, the FX1 is really nice once you get used to it. If you want something more pro with XLR audio imputs, lots of other manual controls, DVCAM recording mode, you could look at the Z1U. You pay about $1500 more for the "pro" features and many folks think it's worth it. I've never used it so I don't know. I don't do "film" style shooting so I really didn't need the extra control. Any extra feature such as crushing the blacks or fine tuning the gamma curves I would just have to fake via the editing program or After Effects.

Finally, again repeating what drhiberd said, audio is huge and, I think, frequently overlooked in the chase after "film look". I finally invested in a boom mic setup and just this past weekend I shot with it for the first time. I had always used lavs because they were "fool proof". You know, just clip it on and it's always good audio. WRONG! It's always "fair" audio. It's consistent, but consistently mediocre. I recorded my lav on the left channel and the boom on the right. What a difference! Yes, the boom is a pain because you need to hire and/or train an operator, it's one more thing to screw up a take (either it's not held close enough, not aimed right, or drops into the shot when the boom operator gets tired!), but when it's good, it's REALLY good! I couldn't believe how much more my video "felt" like film with the natural sounding audio as opposed to the TV sounding lav mic. So, my new rule of thumb - if they're looking at the camera (i.e. hosting your show) then the lav is fine, it's what everybody expects. If they're not looking at the camera, you're using a shallow depth of field, a little background music, then by all means use a boom mic.

Hope this helps.

Mike

drhiberd and mmetzger,
i thank you for being so helpful. after all you have said it sounds like HD may not be the way to go for me. so, i would like to ask, what sd camera would you reccomend?
jeremiah

Now that's a tough question.

First, do you want to shoot in 16:9?? If so, that would pretty much rule out the VX2100, Canon GL2, and the Panasonic AG-DVC30.
You could get a 16:9 lens adapter for them, but those are a good $700.

I really wouldn't recommend anything in the under $1500 range. They're just not nearly as good.

Do you plan to transfer to film?? If so, you may want to look at the Panasonic DVX100B, it does 24fps, but you'd have to get a conversion lens if you want to do 16:9. The Canon XL2 does both 16:9 and 24fps.

Once your back in that price range, if you want 16:9, but not 24fps, the FX1 comes back on the list.

If you don't need 16:9 or 24fps, I would go with the VX2100, it's an awesome cam. I would rate the GL2 second, then the DVC30. (Of course, that's my opinion)

I think you misunderstood me. From my previous post:

"if you're going to project your final production in a theater with an HD projection system, obviously you should shoot in HD."

The main reason I bought the FX1 was to "future proof" my investment. I knew HD was on the way and it wouldn't be long before SD was really on its way out. The FX1 was really the first consumer-priced HD camera out. I also liked the fact that it uses miniDV tapes for which I already had a player. And, even though 99% of my shooting is in SD, I know when the world moves into HD, I won't have to throw away my camera and all the accessories, as well as the time I've taken to learn to use it.

As a bonus, I really like the camera's features and especially the beautiful footage I get from it. There have been lots of posts on this topic, but my "gut feel" is that the optics designed for use on HD naturally would have to be a higher standard than those designed only for SD. So, even though you end up throwing away probably half the resolution when you shoot in SD, I can be sure nothing was lost or distorted getting the image from my subject through the CCDs and video processing front end.

Hope this helps.

Editing HDV files is easy as long as you computer has at least 1 gig of Ram and a 128 MB video card and my computer has only 512 MB of Ram and I can still edit HDV.
If all you need to do is cut scenes without any transitions then the standard M2T files are good enough but if you really need to do transitions then most reliable editing programs allows you to capture it into the computer using an intermediate codec which can take up a lot more space in your hard drive.

Drachen is right about getting Final Cut because it allows you to transfer you edited footage back to tape with color bars, countdown, title, credits etc... as well as other features that would take awhile mentioning.

As for which camera to get the Sony Z1U is an excellent choice because of the XLR inputs and yes you can have an adapter on the FX1 to allow XLR cables but it will not sound as good and not to mention you would have to carry extra stuff with you.

If you decided to buy only one camera than you should consider the HVX200 because it records on the HD-DVCPRO (DVCPRO-100) format and since it’s already in AVI, you don’t need to edit with a different codec to do transitions. It’s also a lot more fluid than HDV. The major problems with this is that it takes up about 4 times as much space as HDV-2 files and the HD signal is transferred to a couple of 8 gig cards that you would have to purchase separately. You’re basically talking 5,500 hundred for the camera and 1400 hundred for each 8 gig card. Also the camera allows DVCPRO-50 recordings that give you the best possible picture when converting to a standard DVD or non HD broadcast.

Just like me and a lot of people are mentioning you should wait until the end of this week and decide once you weigh in on any camcorder that might be showing at NAB.

what is the cheapest editing software for pc? thx

I just read an article in rolling stone about rocketboom.com and how they shoot daily with a sony high def camera. i had never been to the site so i decided to have a look and holy cow, the qaulity of their video online is so far superior than anything you see anywhere else i could hardly believe it.
which brings me to my next question, say i am only shooting for the computer (as rocketboom is), if i shoot in high definition, go through all the editing and then put on site x will it be HD quality (and as good as the video quality on that site)? if you haven't checked it out do so now; it looks great!