Thursday, June 12, 2008

The upcoming HD revolution

Tracking the cost of HD cameras has been a sideline as of late. I am finally in the market, and prices continue to plummet. As I mentioned in my other blog, there is the $200.00 Aiptek A-HD, which with all it's flaws, does indeed shoot HD video.

I think about this because I feel a sense of deja vu. "It's not professional" I heard someone pronounce the other day about a consumer HD camera. Professional Videographers avoided YouTube until it became apparent that they would be edged out by the great, unwashed masses.

I am quite excited by this trend. Watch this music video, which was shot entirely with a Sanyo HD1000.

There are problems to be sure -- chromakeying is more difficult with the type of encoding that is done on these cameras. There may be problems with using software based image stabilization, particularly at 30fps. I can say, despite popular wisdom, that I have managed to get acceptable chromakeys with DV footage. Sure -- I would love to shoot on more expensive formats that have a better colorspace. But it indeed possible. I can even mimic the color look of particular film stock with a $200 piece of software and a little elbow grease.

This stuff puts "close to film" in the sub-$1k region. Let others get excited by the upcoming RED Scarlet. I think the revolution is happening right now.

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