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Written by JD Johannes
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Wednesday, 21 February 2007 |
VCF world HQ in Salina, Kansas is looking like a small TV station these days with all my gear arriving and spread out on the floor for packing in my production box.
There are two Canon XL-H1 HDV cameras, tow Canon XL-2 DV cameras, microphones, tripods, camera mountable monitors, and the assorted cables.
A lap top stripped down to the operating system and a few adobe programs, 120 HDV tapes, batteries, chargers and porta-brace accessories.
A lot of the gear is associated with moving from Standard Definition Mini-DV to HDV.
Yes, HDV is considered a bastard format by HD purists. And quite frankly, it is, but no one in their right mind is going to drag a full HD set up to Iraq and then run around outside the wire with it.
The capitalization to take that risk just isn't there.
I've done a few test shoots with the XL-H1 cameras and totally dig them.
The video quality is far superior to the XL-2.
Still not 100% true HD, but I'm betting the codecs will improve as more producers use HDV and the data on the tape will be able to be uncompressed to a higher level.
Looking at all the gear I have now underscores how amatuerish my first two trips were. Only the grace of God kept it all together in 2005.
But I didn't have the cash flow to buy $30k in gear back then.
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