Home Video Asylum

TVs, VCRs, DVD players, Home Theater systems and more.

Digital vs analog video

152.3.0.86

>Do the newer digital video camcorders infact provide a higher
>quality video image when 1-viewed on a standard TV , 2-viewed on a
>hdtv ,3-provide a higher quality image when converted to a dvd.

digital camcorders generally provide a higher quality image in most cases; however, they also introduce issues of their own. it also depends highly on the camera and what optics are being used. the original sony vx1000 got a lot of great press for convenience and quality, but they were very limited in what lenses could be used. the canon xl1, on the other hand, has a pretty decent assortment of lenses that can be easily interchanged for quality or shot.

there is only one consumer HD camcorder to my knowledge that is on the market and that is the JVC GR-HD1. i can't say specifically how standard camcorders will perform on HD screens, but suffice to say if it looks good on your PC monitor (assuming your editing non-lin on a PC or Mac), it will look about the same on HD.

finally, DVD have a native resolution of 720x480 with some adjustments if it's anamporphic, what have you. that said, DVDs are NOT designed for HDTV and do not take full advantage of the improved resolution. again, compare performance on your PC. if it looks good at 640x480, it'll look great on most consumer TVs and HD at lower resolutions.

personally i'm not a huge fan of digital cameras. they strike me as a lot of hype overall. they've worked fine in my experience, but i still think Hi8 (not regular 8) is the landmark format... the quality of Hi8 just about equalled BetaSP when it came out at perhaps 1/50th the cost. digital is only slighty better than Hi8 to my eyes and provides a smoother picture in many cases.

>Lastly do any of the digital video camcorders give sufficiently high
>resolution so a reasonable still frame picture could be printed.

to my knowledge, no. they all look pretty decent on video screens, but they won't give you the resolution you need for printing. get a separate still digital camera for that.


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