Notice the Xbox 360 lurking in the corner;)

I wouldn't call those comments 'fanboy comments'. They may not be Apple specific. But they're certainly relevant to the media player concept. IMO, the AppleTV is quite overpriced, for what it offers. And I'm a few days away from owning a MacbookPro. So don't give me any of that 'MS fanboy' junk... Not everything Leonardo Davinci, I mean, Steve Jobs, gives us is the icon he'd like to expect.

The companies will do whatever they can to save money. If they don't think you'll notice/complain, they'll try to get away with it. Point is, there are standards to HD. Obviously, they aren't going to feed you 4:4:4 HDSDI. But they should be stating, in their literature, how much compression and what type they are using. In lieu of that, I'm sure most will offer some type of evaluation period... Still, I'd prefer a decent 720p downconvert to a 50:1 1080P picture.

Plenty of manufacturers are rolling out 1080p plasmas. I saw a 73"? LG display in the store the other day. I believe there are some 50" -or so- models also available.

Wireless headset and printer?

I wish we'd see wireless a/v interconnect, instead of printer and headphones. No more wires, between components, would be ideal. I guess, I should say 'will' be, whenever that day arrives.

Listened to it the other day, in the sonystyle store. It's, by far, the best sounding dock for the ipod I've heard. In a store that size, the tiny sub was able to fill the area around me. Funny though, stick your finger in the tiny port and all that sound goes away -please don't be the idget that explains to me why. The main drivers had nice, full sound. Again, the best I've heard. And I've demoed all the docks in the Apple store...

X,

Most every prosumer video camera will have manual white balance. To call a camera 'prosumer' and not have this feature would be a sin:) If you point your browser to filmtools.com, you'll find a nice kit that I use on every HD job. It provides laminated cards that have white on one side of every card and a variety of shades of blue on the others. I can't tell you how much this has come in handy. Just about every DP that I work with loves the blue cards -when you white balance to them, it gives the image a nice, warm look. They go nuts for these.

Best...

Gary,

It depends on the looks that you're going for. To be able to shoot at true 24fps -the Z model does a gimmicky version that is not true- gives you the kinetic look of a film camera. But your results will depend on a variety of conditions. For the wedding videos, you'll most likely be shooting in available light only. This means that you won't be able to purposefully light the alter, bride and groom, and etc. Most churches do provide for very flat light though. And depending on the deal that you strike up, you may be able to work a couple of 650 watt lights that are placed behind and to the sides of the couple. Mind you that they should be far out of the way, so as not to distract anyone. With nice, flat lighting and a decent backlight, your clients should be very happy w/ the look you've achieved. However, it should be stressed that 24fps will not make your project look like it was shot cinematically. Case in point, take an 35mm movie camera and stick it in your living room on Christmas day to shoot the kids and it won't look much better than Hi8. It'll have 4000 lines of resolution. And it will have all of the abilities and characteristics of film. But the picture won't jump. And in the end, you'll be scratching your head and wondering why you spent $2000 to rent the body, lenses, etc for one day, $1000 per 11 minutes of footage, and all the costs associated w/ processing, transfer, DI, and a laser print out:) So lighting, not the camera, is what should be stressed.

Either camera would probably do fine. I would go w/ this model, over the Z. Low light situations will be a factor for you. So take that into consideration. But video tends to do pretty well in low light. So I wouldn't fret too much over it. If you plan on shooting some shorts or commercials, later on, I would highly recommend this one.

Cheers!

Kevin,

Cinema quality has little to do w/ the camera. This camera will provide the kinetic feel of a film camera. But that's where the similarities end... If you want a real 'film look', focus on your choice of lens selection and lighting, to start. Since this camera has a zoom lens, you've got the entire lens selection gamut covered. You can go wide to cover the entire action. Then you can go long, to get the closeups/reactions and emotions on the kids faces. If you had two of these cameras, you'd be in hog's heaven. You could cover both the wide shots and long shots, in one pass. Then you could cut them together seamlessly. THAT would be quite impactful. For the lighting, it's strange. When we light a movie set -I work as an assistant cameraman-, we light the scene in a way that appears unnatural to the eye. However, when it's capture on film or digital, it appears life-like and almost 3D. We try to avoid flat lighting and instead backlight our subjects, to make them stand out from the background. Typical home movies aren't shot like this. They're shot in available light only -light from the ceiling fan, etc. So they lack that 'cimena quality' that you were talking about. There are some great books out there that cover 3 point lighting techniques. It's a great place to get started.

Hope this helps...

-M

PS. One way to make your videos not look so 'video' is to try to shoot on a long lens w/ the iris wide open. The Sony has 2 neutral density filters built-in, to compensate for the increased light. Shooting like this will allow the camera, or you, to focus the lens only on your subject, while the rest of the image goes into soft focus. This directs your audiences attention to what you want. The soft background will make your subject stand out and help to achieve that 3D look that I was talking about.

There was once a guy that shot a movie in 65/70mm IMAX at 60fps. He intended for it to be this kind of 'ultimate format' experience. In short, everyone that viewed it said that it looked too much like reality. This was long before reality tv. But maybe it sparked a thought in one of those viewers:) 60 fips is good for slo-mo, provided that it's played back at 24 or 30...

To my knowledge, there is no format that PLAYS BACK at 60 frames per second...

I think that, unfortunately, a lot of companies are twisting the 'fps' acronym in the consumer and even prosumer market. I've seen some marketing that is very misleading, in this regard. Clearly, they want you to believe that you're getting 'frames per second', while the hardware is only capable of providing 60 fields per second. The HVX, Varicam, D20, etc. are the exceptions -w/ the first one only really affordable for most of us. They will record a true 60, progressive frames every second. Sony's lit states that this model shoots at 60i, not progressive. And to those who not in the know, there is a difference.

Anyway, all of this is tech garble. And are we doomed to become 'pixel fairies'? Getting over the hurdles, one can know that this model will shoot at 24 and 30 progressive frames per second at 1920x1080 resolution. It will shoot 60 1920x540 resolution interlaced fields per second. It's got a terrific lens. If it has the same build quality as my old PD-150, you can bounce it off a wall. And IT'S A SONY. I wonder if they still put those stickers on their products! December may be time for a nice, new tax write off:)

Cheers...

The HVX shoots at an upsampled 1080p. It's native resolution is 1280x720...