I don't have cable these days, and even when I did, it was mostly Cartoon Network and Comedy Central programs. The closest to TV I get is watching Conan on youtube and catching up on Doctor Who via blu-rays from a friend (started with the 9th Doctor, currently mid-11th I believe). I might be watching more TV with my dad in the coming month+, and if so, it's likely to be history/documentaries, if not just movies.


I got a 3D TV because it was literally the exact same TV I was looking to get anyway (minus 3D) for cheaper (Black Friday sale that was marked early). I didn't have a blu-ray or surround sound at the time, so I got one of those as well that played 3D movies. Then I normally just get the 3D copy from the 3D/blu-ray/blah blah blah bundle of a given movie my dad gets. Predator is surprisingly neat in 3D, which I didn't expect. Still not singing praises with 3D in general, and certainly not what seems to be the BR player's need to update seemingly every time I have a new movie (admittedly I don't get new movies too often).


A friend got a 4k as an extra monitor, and I believe some select few games and maybe random videos available online which support for it. Otherwise, what you all already said.

Only all other things the same. Streaming services will look better, but only because they get a higher bit-rate for the 4K content. 1080p Blu-Ray will generally be much higher bit rate than streaming content.

No disrespect, Gold, but the videography aspect of 4K is an entirely different matter than the home entertainment aspect. Generally more is better with a sorts of cameras although if all things are equal I think it is sketchy to make hard arguments that anything downsampled results in something better than media at it's native resolution. I'm not taking issue with your claim, just understanding that both sides are going to make valid arguments.

I remember fairly well our discussion similar to this topic some years back which was along the lines of SD to HD. I posted something I have always regretted about HD (or Bluray) content would need to come from digitally filmed media. I know what I was thinking about but I didn't word that right at all. I also remember Jon`C posting some Die Hard screen caps and that I wasn't able to make my point clear then but it is essentially the same point I can make now. Of course 4K content with the greater pixels will look fantastic but 1080P doesn't start to look bad until you get into the stupid large screens so the average consumer really won't see any benefit unless they plan on having a stupid large screen. As a tangent, isn't it amazing that the average consumer is buying large screen TVs and the average screen size would probably have been considered stupid large thirty years ago?

I'm also opposed to 4K optical disc media. Few things are as frustrating as getting a bluray disc in the mail from Netflix then having to make several attempts to clean and buff the disc before deciding if you want to just miss the segment entirely or send it back for a new disc with no guarantee that one will be any better. Other than the fact that some shows and movies are absent from streaming, I haven't regretted dropping the physical disc in the mail. I don't care what they say about scratch resistance and raised edges, bluray discs are delicate enough that I sometimes have problems with my own movies. I imagine 4K optical discs will be four times as bad. Now, new technology, solid state, holoemitters, maybe.

Earlier the topic of early adopter screw jobs were at hand. Yeah, a good reason to be a late adopter. When I finally upgraded to HD ten years ago I managed to future proof good enough. I got 50" 1080i and a DVI port that was HDCP compliant. The unit did have a really nice picture, served well up until last year. Now it's in a landfill replaced with a 55" $500 screen with three HDMI ports and 120 HZ refresh rate. After I adjusted the picture I am quite happy with it. The sound doesn't compare to the speakers in the old TV and I'm not interested in setting up the old AV unit in the living room anymore. When I can justify the expense and maybe after some more tech advances I will look for projection or flat panel and a sound system for the basement. I basically want the movie experience at home. I'm hoping to do it by the time all of the Extended Edition Hobbit films are bundled together. We'll see.

And finally, that brings me to patience in two regards. First, late adopting. So much more tech for the money. Second, I wonder how many others here don't even bother to watch shows while they're still airing and instead just fire them up via streaming when you can watch the entire run. I didn't even pay any attention to Breaking Bad while it was on, but then watched the whole thing and it was very fun. Haven't bothered with the Hobbit movies even though I really like Jackson's Tolkein films. Always planned on getting them on bluray. Skipped Thor 2 and still haven't seen it since they want so much for it on bluray and it doesn't stream "free". Alternative searching didn't yield anything of quality. chillingeffects.org and all. I guess it doesn't hurt that going to the cinema is so expensive and generally unpleasant now.

My phone can shoot 4k video.

Obviously it looks better than broadcast quality 1080p.

I was thinking more in terms of a very large >40" monitor instead of high dpi. Microsoft should have been tackling high DPI ten years ago, but they have no foresight at all. They might fix it in Window 10, but I'm not holding my breath.

But they are related, who do you think produces content for you?. If I can "cheat" at getting better full HD video, by buying a 4k camera that produces greater 1080p video than a higher priced full HD camera, then I can lower my production costs, and the costs of my services, while increasing the visual quality of my video (and be 4k ready), a win win situation for both parties. Obviously the visual quality of the video produced by a camera is far from being the sole determining factor of the quality of the end product, but a videographer should not overlook it, and in my opinion, if he/she can, should always be upgrading and improving. I currently own a T3i 600D, which does OK video (if you know what you're doing, took me a while to get the hang of shooting with DSLR), but I want to move onto my next camera, and it doesn't make sense to save 100 to 300 dollars by getting a prosumer FULL HD camera, when a proper prosumer 4k camera with a very marginal higher price produces video of roughly twice the quality, and is still higher quality than it's immediate higher priced competitors. Soon I'll have the money to invest, and gigs to justify it.

you do realize resolution is not equivalent to quality, right?

I'd rather watch video recorded on a professional 1080p camera than a ****ty 4k

HG Wells is the only one I consistently like

Asimov has a few nice stories as well

I just read Brave New World and was underwhelmed. That would have been a good book to read in high school

This is something people have been incapable of understanding since the invention of video. Optics are so much more important in terms of image quality than resolution, which is the point I was making by stating that my phone can take 4k video. Sure, it's high resolution, but the lens is garbage, so the video is gonna look like smashed ass in comparison to a cinema quality camera like the Red One. The camera Gold is talking about is somewhere in between the two... probably closer to my phone than the Red. I'm not saying it's going to look bad... I'm saying it's going to look like it was shot on a camera that cost 2 grand.

So, I assume we are witnessing the beginning trajectory of Gold's career in shooting porn?

I was gonna ask. Wasn't Gold a part time contract web designer like a couple of months ago? At a certain point you gotta pick something, son.

It's actually pretty amusing that you bring that up, because I can guarantee you that virtually all professional video work done with the AX100 will be porn. It's no different than the DVX-100, Z1U, XL1, etc... They're porn cameras. If you want an idea of how good the footage is going to look, just watch some HD porn, because that's exactly what your naturally lit footage is going to be.

People always lose their minds over the demo footage provided by the camera's manufacturer and the stuff they see on review sites, and think that everything they shoot is going to look that good. That demo footage is professionally lit (which makes almost as much difference as how good your optics are) and corrected in post. Additionally, if the camera actually does have legit prosumer features (which the AX-100 has most of the usual ones, minus XLR input because in porn your sound doesn't really matter), they'll all be perfectly configured by a veteran director of photography to make sure the footage looks perfect. Gold thinks he can drop two grand on a camera and it's going to just give him this massive leg up on the competition shooting weddings and so on, and it's just not the case. His footage is going to look like smashed ass just like every other person who shoots weddings for a living, because churches and receptions are always dimly lit, and the optics on prosumer cameras are garbage.

The only way you're going to get good footage in a natural lighting scenario with a prosumer camera is if you've got it zoomed all the way out and the iris is opened as far as possible, which, congratulations, now it looks like a skateboarding video because you're shooting at 29mm focal length, which is goddamn near wide-angle. You'll also have zero depth of field, because once again, your optics are garbage, so say goodbye to all that cinematic-looking footage you think you're going to get. Sure, you can get adapters to improve the DOF on a video camera, but you lose at least 1 stop when you use them, so now you have even less light to work with. Sure, you can crank up the gain to about 21dB and everything will be visible, but it's going to make your footage look like it's coming off of an old VHS tape.

Here's the final word: Prosumer cameras specifically target people who shoot tv shows that are entirely outdoors (think hunting and fishing shows) where the quality of the image isn't really tantamount to the viewership of the show, on location news reports, and porn. They are used for absolutely nothing else. The more or less sole example otherwise is that Danny Boyle shot 28 Days Later on a Cannon XL1, which is standard definition. Guess what. It looks great because: 1. There was a professional DP lighting and shooting it, and 2. The XL1 has interchangeable optics, and Cannon actually makes some really good lenses for it. Image resolution does not matter nearly as much as Gold thinks.

Oh right, there's a fourth demographic that prosumer cameras target: People who think a $2000 camera is going to deliver some just absolutely stunning point-and-shoot footage, and don't know any better.

Full disclosure: I used to operate a prosumer camera rig that I had about $11,000 invested in between the camera, SLR adapter, lenses for said SLR adapter, rail system, various mounts (shoulder, tripod, etc..), microphone, and all the cables and batteries and **** you need to actually effectively shoot video. Can you shoot good footage with a prosumer camera? Absolutely. Can you do it for less than the cost of an actual low-end professional camera? Absolutely not.

If Gold is actually serious about shooting professional quality video, he needs to take an assload of photography classes and buy something like this:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1059749-REG/sony_fs700rh_7qpac_nex_fs700rh_and_odyssey7q_production.html

Because otherwise, it ain't happening, son.

EDIT: Oh, and I hope you have one hell of a computer, Gold, because otherwise you are not rendering 4k footage any time this century. You'd better have at least 32GB of ram, a fairly high-end video card, and either a massive solid state drive or appropriate RAID setup to write it to, because otherwise your **** is going to be full of artifacts, the sound will not sync with the video, and your NLE software will probably just crash before it's rendered anyway.

Oh, and in case anyone's wondering about shooting outdoor footage in daylight, yes, it will deliver a pretty nice image, but you're going to end up with a ton of chromatic aberration and color shifting because the optics on prosumer cameras are garbage, which is yet another reason you have to shell out a few thousand dollars on adapters so the light can go through an actual good lens before it goes through the ****ty one on the camera. Sure, you can fix it in post, but you lose a considerable amount of image clarity, so say goodbye to all that super crisp high resolution you're so worried about, or deal with the fact that everything has a goddamn rainbow around it.

And any well-lit indoor area is bound to be lit by fluorescent bulbs, so now you have to deal with your white balance shifting constantly. Yes, you can set the camera to automatic white balance, and it will adjust itself accordingly, but it can't do it fast enough to keep up with the constant shifting between blue and red because it happens at intervals in the millisecond range, so you'll have scenarios where it will just flash between looking blue and red for 2-3 frames at a time depending on what kind of light is hitting the CMOS sensor at that specific moment. So basically there's no possible way you're getting good indoor footage unless it's professionally lit, because nowhere you shoot is going to be brightly lit unless it's under fluorescent bulbs.

Bonus: Fluorescent light pretty much annihilates any kind of value structure in your images, so you will not be able to effectively color correct anything, because you will have absolutely no lows at all. It will be almost entirely mids. So yeah, enjoy having really washed out looking bland footage that fluctuates between being red and blue.

It doesn't matter whether you shoot inside or outside, your image will look terrible because the optics are terrible.

tl;dr: There's a reason why absolutely no one is hiring you to professionally shoot video unless you have an MFA in photography. It's not ****ing easy.

Well, that's unfortunate to hear. I don't expect much thought went into the purchase, beyond "I'm upgrading my TV and this is apparently the new standard."

In any event, like I said, the TV's nice.

i'm using bicubic interpolation in my implementation of the perlin noise for terrain generation. i like it

but the movie will still make him money, because art

Hey, like I said before: Danny Boyle shot 28 Days Later on a Cannon XL1, which isn't even high definition.

Of course he also had an Academy Award winning director of photography. Gold can probably shoot equally good footage.

EDIT: Just looked it up, and they also used a SLR adapter. Hey, it's almost like I've mentioned how you need to do that to get cinematic-looking footage out of a prosumer camera.

Don't worry though, Gold. Your footage will look so much better than 28 Days Later because it's a higher resolution image.

The AX-100 will obviously deliver a better image than this rig:



I'm sure you could make a case to Danny Boyle that his movie would have looked much better if only the resolution were higher and the optics were terrible.

Or you could listen to literally anyone on the planet who knows about video production and consequently accept the idea that the resolution of the image is not tantamount to the quality of the image.

Wow, there´s been a lot of discussion on this thread since last I checked, I'´ll take my sweet time answering posts, might not be able to answer them all in one go.


If the source footage was good to begin with. What 4k video will and is doing is effectively lowering the production costs on all levels in producing quality 1080p video.



This goes without saying. Eventually a prosumer 4k camera (such as the PXW-X70, pending 4k firmware upgrade, the prosumer version of consumer AX100) will produce better 1080p video than most professional 1080p cameras, save but a few that are limited to studio productions. Then will come along an even higher quality 4k camera, still cheaper than a 1080p studio camera, that will produce equivalent video.



Good point, which is why there exists several levels of quality, and which is why I am buying a PXW-X70 that uses professional codecs, and superior optics. Still it won't be a RED One, but it will be closer to it at a lower cost than previous technologies.


Other way around, full time web dev contacter, part time social event videographer, or the ocassional low budget business commercial.


Forgetting social events? That's professional work too. As I keep mentioning there are several levels of professionalism in video production, budget adjusted.



I don't go by manufactuer's promotionals when choosing a camera, I go by what users produce with it. I will say it again, I'm not buying the AX100, I'm buying the PXW-X70. I know how to use manual controls and color correct, so I'll have no problem in those areas, and I certainly know how to shoot and compose a shot. The optics on the PXW-X70 are pretty good for a camcorder, and while f2.8 isn't that large of an aperture, it's not that bad either. Even on my crappy 18-55mm kit lens with my t3i, I can get a pretty shallow DOF at f5.6 at 55mm. DOF is not solely defined by aperture but also by sensor size, the above camcorders have a 1" back-illuminated sensor, which delivers pretty good low light performance, even though it stops down to f5.6, which again is a pretty good aperture for a lens that zooms into 35mm equiv of 300mm.

That's all I can say for now, but I'll get to the rest eventually.

Don't.

If it's a prosumer camera it has garbage optics, because cheap variable zoom lenses are garbage, and a good variable zoom lens costs as much as any prosumer camera.

You will quickly learn that getting good DOF using an SLR and getting good DOF using a video camera are two very different things. You absolutely will not get good DOF with any prosumer level camcorder unless you use an SLR adapter. End of story.

Additionally, saying that you're a professional because you shoot weddings and **** like that is like saying you're a professional football coach because you coach high school football.

Suggesting that the Sony X70 is closer to the Red One than previous cameras is like saying that a Toyota Camry is closer to a Mclaren P1 than a Toyota Prius is. Yeah, technically you're right, but you shouldn't even be comparing the two to begin with.

Gee, your t3i gets decent DOF at f5.6? I can't imagine why, surely it's not because the sensor size is nearly double that of the camcorder.

And related, the reason that lens is grabbing such a huge zoom range is yet again because the sensor size is so small.

The only reason many camcorders of this range will have working low light performance is because they will gladly crank the gain to hilarious levels to keep the framerate consistent. DSLRs, especially lower end models, will force you into a lower ISO and drop the shutter speed given the same lighting conditions.

(I'd also argue that the DOF out of an APS-C at f5.6 is hardly "decent" but that's a different story)

Cool Matty is going to think I sound like a broken ****ing record at this point, but you are so much better off shooting video on a DSLR and investing in some goddamn quality prime lenses than you will ever be shooting on some Sony that uses whatever half assed quality glass Zeiss doesn't want to use in lenses that cost as much as that goddamn camcorder.

Yes it has a Zeiss lens. The fact that the camera still costs a few thousand dollars is a great indication that the lens is ****ing terrible, which is going to result in assloads of chromatic aberration.

Don't waste your money on that bull****. Spend a third of that on some high quality prime lenses for your DSLR and the image quality of your video will be far superior.

You're completely ignoring the various levels of production quality in videography, and that there are different markets for different price ranges and quality. Of course the camera you linked is going to be far superior to the one I am talking about, but it is also intended for an entirely different level of production quality, and for an entirely different market. People operating more expensive equipment generally also charge higher fees, and the higher your fees the smaller the number of clients with that paying capacity, keep in mind I live in a country where I make far less for the same amount of work put into a task as someone from another less devalued economy. Obviously getting a PXW-X70 will make me raise my fees, and give me access to a higher market than the one I currently do work for. So I need to improve my production quality, while not skyrocketing my prices, or investing too much money; moving into 4k prosumer cameras that already deliver fantastic full HD video that can be used on a wide variety of applications (corporate videos, induction videos, social events, small to medium business commercials, interviews, recording seminars, conferences, nature, B-Roll, etc.) is a step up the ladder (or in my case, more than a few steps), without investing beyond my means for a production quality that I very well know I won't be paid accordingly for.




My mistake, I had the dimensions in my mind wrong for APS-C, yes that is a big difference, with a larger crop factor than I had thought, and a significantly larger DOF. You can still get a shallow DOF with at f2.8 (zoomed all the way out of course) or f5.6, (using only optical zoom (> focal length has a greater flattening/blurring effect on that which is out of the DOF), and a good heavy duty fluid head tripod).

Not sure what you mean by saying gain and framerate are related though, maybe you mean gain is increased because of the higher shutter speed on camcorders? I always shoot at double or a multiple of the framerate anyways.

There are plenty of situations where you don't have time to switch glass everytime you need to (social events being one of them, i.e. "Wait! Don't kiss the bride yet, let me pull out my other lens."), and the codec off of Canon DSLRS (4:2:0 8bit h.264) is just **** to work with. It has to go through lots of post processing before you can start working with it and not have it fall apart in your NLE when color correcting.

I have to get back to work now, so that's it for now.

At the same time, keep in mind that optics and camera aren't everything. Yes, they're pretty damn important, but knowing how to use it all is even more important. I worked with a guy that sank 10,000$ into lenses and a camera and thought it made him a professional film maker. Meanwhile, I used a much cheaper camera that I got for around $2000. But because he lacked any kind of camera stabilizer, couldn't keep his hands off the zoom controls, and tried to compensate for everything in post, his footage looked like ass. Not to mention, his lack of ability to use his editing software lead to the final cut just looking like it was made in Windows Movie Maker.... complete with comic sans, if I remember correctly.

But Antony is right, optics are more important than resolution. If you have a higher pixel density, it kinda goes without saying that you need a good optical arrangement to make sure you get the image captured perfectly. Pretty much, aberrations, or any other kind of distortions, cancel out the resolution, quality-wise.

Kinda makes me think of the old vidicon and iconoscope electronic image capture tubes. There was a problem with a lot of them where bright white objects would have a dark halo around them. But that wasn't an optics thing... Just the nature of the capture technology. It was corrected later on, if I recall, but some liked it because it forced extra contrast into the images.

Gain and framerate are related like shutter speed and ISO are related. Aperture too, but we're keeping it simple here.

Gain on a camcorder is effectively ISO measured differently. In low light, you need higher gain to keep good exposure at a specific framerate. If you lock the gain and the framerate, you're going to be (often extremely) underexposed.

The irony is you can pick up a really fantastic video camera like the Canon 6D (a step down from the 5D mk3) and a decent lens for what you're buying there. To top it off, it's full frame, which means it's going to absolutely **** all over any DOF and low-light performance you think you have.



The Canon 6d at the very least pumps out ~90mbps video which is a lot better than most DSLRs, and whomps your camcorder. Yeah you won't get quite as much post processing room out of it, but the real answer is: don't screw up the shot.

Also, a good videographer/photographer is going to be able to predict when situations will require different glass. And if you're in a situation where you really do have to swap constantly (doubtful, just use your feet), get a second body. You'd want one as a backup anyway.

All of what Cool Matty said.

Prosumer camcorders have been rendered obsolete by gear like the 6d. And if you're doing significant amounts of color correction in your NLE software when you're editing video of live events, and not a dramatic narrative, then you done **** the bed, son.

Final note: Did you seriously just ***** about having to go through post processing right after saying how you want to shoot in ****ing 4k and downscale it to 1080?

I would make my final renders in 1080p, but edit in 4k. When working with canon h.264, I do noise cleanup and remove color banding in AE before exporting to a better codec, I do my CC in premiere.

The 6D is nice... but I don't like the video it produces. Everyone is using shallow DOF on every ****ing shot, and it looks like ****. Anything that is not in critical focus has horrible aliasing compression artifacts, plus, I'm not a fan of the soft focus look. I like my subject to be as sharp and detailed as possible, with all the imperfections or beauty clearly visible.

The whole filmic shallow DOF craze created by these DSLRs has people playing with focus and shallow DOF on every ****ing shot, even though it is completely unnecessary, and detracts from whatever crap story they are trying to tell. I like shallow DOF, when it is needed to draw the viewers attention to something (in combination with other techniques for greater effectiveness).

I have shot subjects that were in critical focus on canon dslrs, only to find myself applying and fooling around with unsharp mask to bring out detail back into the shot. This is because you have to shoot flat on a canon dslr, or you'll get hideous moire, crushed highlights and shadows, or oversaturation.
Other problems when shooting with DSLR are overheating; record time limits because the camera hit 4gb, or its too hot or you hit the time limit. Sometimes I have to shoot a continuos 30 minute sequence, and stopping and restarting recording (or even auto restart) is a piss poor workaround to actually being able to do the shot non stop. I also hate the optical / image stabilization of these things, it's pure ****. The misleading relatively low investment in the body, compared to the amount invested in glass and accessories (field monitors, batteries, microphones, chargers, brackets, rigs, matteboxes, pull-focus, external recorders, etc) ends up costing you maybe up to 5 times the cost of the body.
That being said... I think DSLRs are great for filmmaking, or anything where you are working in a 100% controlled environment, and can take your time, or when you want that soft focus / filmic look.

You could have just said you were bad at shooting to begin with.

Wait... you are complaining that it would take too long to do post processing on footage shot with a DSLR, and you're going to down convert from 4k to 1080. THAT SHOULDN'T TAKE ANY TIME AT ALL!

And if you're altering your footage in AE and you're not doing your color correction while it's there... I just don't even know what the **** to tell you at this point. Jesus.



I DON'T LIKE THE WAY OTHER PEOPLE USE THIS CAMERA ON NARRATIVE WORK SO IT IS BAD BECAUSE I DON'T UNDERSTAND CINEMATOGRAPHY.



Oh man. Someone needs to tell Robert Richardson and Roger Deakins that they've been doing it wrong this whole time. If you're ****ing around with focus and depth of field on every shot, you're clearly a noob. Also, your assertion that shallow DOF is somehow a fad created by DSLRs is ****ing hilarious. Yeah, dude, it's a fad that has existed since people began emulsifying images. Please tell me about the other techniques you use for greater effectiveness, too.



I'm sorry that you have not learned to configure the camera properly. It takes time and practice.



Use an external power source, external monitor, and capture to external media. These are things you should be doing whether you're using a DSLR or a camcorder. If you're planning on telling me that you intend to perfectly focus something that shoots at 4k resolution by looking a screen smaller than most cellular phones, please just jump off a ****ing bridge.



Please tell me what circumstances force you to shoot 30 minutes without stopping. Are you covering a news event? What 30 minute continuous shot are you going to have in your final edit?



Image stabilization is terrible no matter what you shoot with. It's a noob feature that is used to attract people that don't know what the hell they're talking about, and won't dish out money for actual hardware to get steady handheld footage.



Now is when I sound like a broken record again, because YOU NEED ALL OF THAT **** NO MATTER WHAT YOU'RE SHOOTING WITH!

When are you going to realize that video production isn't something you can just up and start doing because you spent a few thousand dollars on a ****ty prosumer camcorder and pirated copies of After Effects and Premiere? It's a massive financial investment to be able to do it on even a remotely competent professional level. The little screen that comes on that camcorder is garbage. The mic that comes on that camcorder is garbage. The lens that comes on that camcorder is garbage. The hilarious "hey this looks kinda like a matte box" lens shade on that camcorder is garbage. The battery that comes with that camcorder is garbage. If you want to make that camcorder actually worth using, you're going to end up spending as much as you would on an actual nice camcorder. But as usual, this is some kind of scheme you cooked up to make easy money with minimal effort and investment after you perused a handful of forums about shooting professional video.



Once again, I'm sorry that you don't understand how to set up the camera, and that you think that the point-and-shoot alternative presented by your ****ty camcorder is going to be superior to actually learning how to use a camera to capture actual great footage.

The punchline here is that you think the 6D (or any other DSLR for that matter) can't do wide DOF as well. It's called aperture.





A good lens is going to be way sharper even with a shallow DOF than your camcorder is going to grab. If you're seeing your subject is blurry, that's your fault as a videographer, not the camera. Or you bought a really awful lens. But probably just you.

Also, implying that Canon doesn't have a good standard profile outside of flat, CC-intended profiles is pretty lulzy.


The Canon 6D has neither of those problems.

Antony already hit the rest of this post hard enough.

So, on the topic of televisions, I find myself in the market. Any recommendations? Brands to avoid?

don't buy a polaroid television

I thought that was a joke because of all of the camera talk and perhaps it was. Or you were serious. It works either way.

One thing that's good practice is not to try to blame the equipment for everything. I'm a believer that a good videos could be made with even a cell phone or VHS camera. They key is knowledge and accessories. Get a camera with a camera stabilizer/steadicam, some microphones, an external monitor and power supply, and decent optical setup. Many things can be done diy for pretty cheap, such as microphone booms, lens adapters, and steadicams. Don't use image stabilization, don't use auto-anything, learn the equipment and figure out what works, what doesn't, and how you can get around any limitations. Most importantly, other than for editing together the final cut, post is best for fine tuning your footage; don't use it to try to do major adjustments, since it just won't look right.

Even after all of this, a lot of footage will look terrible at the beginning. Don't let that discourage you. Gaining better abilities will improve the quality as you go. The camera is just a tool. Make sure you know how the tool works, and that you have enough tools to get the job done. Don't think that a really nice house can be built if only you had a bigger hammer. You need to know how to use a hammer effectively, no matter the size, and have screwdrivers, wrenches, cutters, saws, and whatever else you might need. Also, you would need the knowledge and abilities.


I would recommend avoiding BenQ and Westinghouse. They tend to have extremely cheap components in their power supplies, thus have high failure rates (unless they've improved recently). I really like Vizio, personally.


I honestly didn't know Polaroid made televisions until now. That's hilarious and sad how terrible they appear to be.

I didn't either. When I googled Polaroid television I was hoping for some bizarre 50s prototype.

Rendering time isn't the issue, it's transcoding your video before editing because h.264 is a **** codec.



Because I prefer doing my color correction last? So that I can see the entire timeline of the end product and make sure that the visual style is consistent from shot to shot?




I understand cinematography just fine, and I know that a"film look" to footage does not make a film. I see people use shallow DOF just because they can, instead of focusing on proper lighting and framing, and most important of all, storytelling. You're not helping a story move along by randomly shifting your subject in and out of focus during a static conversation shot.





Look around, there are lots of professionals who are like minded on several professional video communities.



I can run my camera just fine, my pictures shot in full manual, using the same exposure, focus and pp as in video are exactly what I want. The problem with several canon dslrs (unsure which ones don't have the following issues) is that it doesn't derive video from a full sensor readout, but rather does it by doing line skipping, that and also include a 4:2:0 chroma subsampling, an 8 bit consumer **** codec, and voila, you lost most of the fine detail your camera is capable of delivering, if only it had more processing power to actually process a full sensor readout and use a 10bit codec.




And now all of the sudden you're carrying maybe up to $10,000.00 on your shoulder, for an up to 12 hour shoot that will pay you maybe up to $200.00. If you trip and drop your rig, or get assaulted, or any other of the million things that can go wrong while filming a social event, then great, you're short of $10k and your portable film unit is shattered.




Dance sequences in weddings can be very long, and in the particular case I was referring to, it was over 30 minutes, where every family member danced with the bride and groom. There were over 500 people in attendance (and every 20-30 seconds someone else was called to dance with the bride or groom). I also record conferences, seminars (which are non stop talking and questions in blocks of 1 -2 hours over a total of 8 hours), the occasional interview (not really a problem there, unless the guy won't shut up, and the guy interviewing doesn't have enough sense to interrupt him).





I disagree, I've seen awesome results with 5 point axis stabilization. Throw a decent monopod on, and in the right hands you'll get pretty damn good results. I know a guy who does just this and all his footage is steady, regardless of the terrain he's traversing. I will add he is also pretty successful, doing 4 gigs a week in the hightime, or atleast 2 in the low time. He too is also investing in the PXW-X70, and he also owns several DSLRs (which he only uses for controlled shooting).





I've been at this solo for a year with moderate success (I only work saturdays, or the occasional editing project during the week). Never had a client who complained (the exception being once when an SD card failed shortly after purchasing it, and it was a sandisk extreme pro 95MBps 64gb). I've invested more money and time into this than anything I've ever done before, and no I don't do this for money, I do it because I have a long term plan to slowly climb the ladder and establish a studio some day and just make it grow as much as possible.




I already answered this above.

I'm glad you set up the camera properly and your footage is exactly what you want, yet you still have to color correct on your editing timeline. It sounds like your footage is extremely consistent.