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First-hand HDV

May 1, 2006 12:00 PM, By D.W. Leitner

A year in the life of an HDV producer/DP.

Information Technology, a tempest borne of the times we live in, is tearing roofs off traditional production practices, rattling foundations of postproduction and distribution, and even threatening basic technical conventions — videotape, signal formats, display devices — which are crumbling like sand castles in the surf.

Into this fracas arrives the last Mohican, HDV, the final tape-based format (albeit hacked from DV).

I have now spent a year shooting long-form documentaries and dramas with low-cost HDV camcorders. Throughout the year, the Internet has been my guide. Namely, sites such as adamwilt.com, camcorderinfo.com, dv.com, abcdv.com, hdforindies.com, and hdvcafe.com — this is not a complete list — and user forums such as 2-pop, Creative Cow, and the Cinematography Mailing List. And not least, this magazine's website, digitalcontentproducer.com (formerly videosystems.com).

Think of these web resources as grid computing for the rest of us, a fabric of dynamic nodes that process and interpret the torrent of information we must all, as video- and filmmakers, keep up with these days. They've certainly kept me alive in an unfamiliar world. Vital issues such as how HDV works, how particular cameras succeed or fail, which NLEs play nice with HDV, which converters and plug-ins work best, and a host of other concerns are addressed at any moment somewhere in cyberspace.

Sure, cyberspace product announcements and freewheeling grassroots exchanges are also riddled with hearsay, naïveté, grandstanding, and flat-out error. You have to view this stuff with gimlet eyes, wearing your waders. But startling new camcorders and workflows erupt every April at NAB and throughout the year, and what better way is there to keep up? If HDV is the last Mohican of videotape, it is also the first new video format fully vetted on the Internet. What was once the realm of broadcast engineers is now the realm of enthusiasts, too.

In September 2004, two weeks after it was announced, I got my hands on a Sony HDR-FX1, the civilian version of the HVR-Z1U. A detailed article by yours truly about the FX1, the first three-chip HDV camcorder, appeared in the September 2004 issue of Millimeter (digitalcontentproducer.com/fieldprod/revfeat/video_hdv_bullet_train), one of the first reviews of the camcorder on the Net.

I wrote about the FX1's 4.5mm-54mm 12X Carl Zeiss zoom, 16:9 Super HAD 1/3in. CCDs with pixel shift, optical stabilization, 14-bit signal processing, MPEG-1 Layer II audio, and long-GOP MPEG-2 HDV. (The article holds up well, although I fudged the long-GOP of 15 frames, speculating it was 12.)

Two months later, the professionalized Z1 arrived. As always, I had to shoot a real film with the FX1/Z1 in order to appreciate what it actually could and couldn't do. Manufacturer's specifications told me little. Like statistics, brochure specs never lie — and they never tell the whole story, either.

The first project I shot in HDV, a documentary on iconic American minimalist painter Ellsworth Kelly, had begun in DV. Not much DV footage had been shot, however, and on instinct, I convinced the producer in March 2005 to switch the project's format to HDV. I felt strongly then, and still do, that films about fine art are obliged to capture texture with as much sensuous detail (read: definition) as possible.

To my delight, Sony's Z1 was a joy to use. After learning how to achieve full manual image control (trickier than it should have been — you had to engage four buttons to lock iris, gain, shutter speed, and white balance), I was off and running. Although the Z1 is slightly bulkier than the Sony DCR-VX1000-to-DSR-PD170 series, I admired its ergonomics, balance, and design. Build and finish were first-rate — no cheapness to the feel at all. I do a lot of handheld work, and these considerations are important to me.

The 16:9 viewfinder was especially noteworthy, with its large and comfortable eyecup (I wear glasses), wider exit optic than the PD150/170 series, and sharp color LCD (250,000 pixels). At first I thought the center-mounted LCD on the handle was weird, but soon came to view this as a brilliant innovation. (Most breakthrough design looks strange at first. Think of Apple's iMac series.) The Z1 is better balanced with its viewing screen residing in the handle, yet the versatile LCD is also viewable from the side. VCR and control buttons beneath the LCD are easier to view and access from above than from the camcorder's side. After using the Z1 for a while, side-mounted LCDs felt outmoded to me.

The Z1's Shot Transition feature frankly astonished me. It's robotic motion control for zooming. Using three dedicated buttons under the front handle, it's a cinch for the Z1 to memorize focus, iris, and focal length for two zoom positions, allowing you to, say, start on a macro close-up of a raindrop dangling from a green leaf, and then slowly, elegantly, zoom into a sculpture park in the background, arriving at a perfectly in-focus long shot of a carved stone monolith. Automatically, at the press of a button. That's an actual shot I did at Ellworth's studio in upstate New York. It was my choice whether to feather the zoom's start and stop or adjust the zoom's duration, and the result was endlessly, perfectly repeatable.

Here's the best part: With small zoom rocker switches typical of camcorders that use DV tape, it's impossible to guarantee smooth, super-slow zooms. Shot Transition removed this obstacle. Furthermore, Shot Transition eliminated image shake caused by touching or operating a small camcorder in close-up macro or telephoto. Take your hands off the Z1, press Shot Transition's “EXEC” button, and Shot Transition executes your programmed move flawlessly. I wish all HDV camcorders had this feature.

To the degree I had eagerly anticipated filming (permit me this anachronism) in HDV with the Z1, I was not disappointed. The Z1 matched my expectations and then some. For me, Sony's Z1 not only set the bar high for HDV camcorders to follow, but established my basic appreciation of both HDV and HDV camcorders in general. I found that I enjoyed shooting HDV, liked the enhanced image detail, didn't mind the focusing challenges, and experienced no long-GOP tape dropouts or noticeable dropouts of any sort. (Editing and postproduction are a different story. I'll leave woefully slow HDV rendering and output to a future discussion.)

I also quickly discovered that, in terms of image quality, HDV camcorders make better DV camcorders than DV camcorders do. (With larger pixels, DV camcorders do retain superior low-light sensitivity.) All HDV camcorders optionally downconvert HD to SD and record DV directly to a MiniDV tape. (Panasonic's AG-HVX200 can do this, too, but it uses the DVCPRO HD format, not HDV — beyond the purview of this article.) There are real advantages to capturing and signal-processing a 1080i image with 4.5 times more detail before downconverting to 480i SD. Though the end result is SD, you sense better image definition. Stair-step aliasing characteristic of DV camcorders, which can make a power line against a sky appear as a slope of horizontal dashes, vanishes. It also goes without saying that lenses associated with HDV camcorders are better than those found on DV camcorders.

After my maiden-voyage Ellsworth Kelly shoot, I was so impressed by the superior performance of the Z1 that I completed an already-begun DV documentary about another veteran modern artist, Anna Campbell Bliss, with the Z1 in DV-record mode only. I could make this call because I was also director/producer.

Now a confession: When it comes to selecting a small camcorder, few factors affect handheld shooting more than form factor. When starting a new project and determining its style, this is one of my primary considerations. Handycam-type camcorders like the classic Sony VX1000 permit a different handheld freedom than shoulder-mount camcorders, which provide stability at the expense of anchoring point-of-view to the operator's shoulder height. Although my right shoulder can boast years of hoisting Betacams, Aatons, and Arris, I naturally prefer Handycam-type camcorders like the Z1. Many of my most esteemed colleagues adamantly disagree, preferring shoulder-mount cameras.

Nonetheless, I had my eye on JVC's GY-HD100U from the moment I learned of its features — particularly its progressive-scan CCDs. Several years ago, I produced (and photographed) a 35mm Sundance feature called The Technical Writer, which was shot in Sony's MPEG-2 IMX format using a PAL version of its MSW-900 progressive-scan camcorder. (Notably, the first feature ever to be shot entirely with DigiPrimes.) I know the magic of true progressive scanning.

In fact, had the HD100 arrived earlier (closer to NAB 2005), I might have shot several projects with it that were instead shot (satisfactorily) with the Z1. To date, I've shot segments of two ongoing documentary projects with the HD100, under studio and field conditions. So far, I have used only the stock 16X Fujinon lens — adequate if uninspiring — with a maximum wide angle at 5.5mm, narrower than the other HDV camcorders offer.

Compared to classic Betacams, the HD100 is considerably miniaturized. Although it sits on the shoulder, its light mass makes it difficult to stabilize. You have to get used to it, which I did eventually. But — and this could be an important consideration to some — because the HD100 features mechanical lenses, no optical image stabilization is possible. If your handheld shooting skills are derived from optically stabilized MiniDV camcorders, you're in for an unpleasant surprise. (This is where a wide-angle zoom would prove especially helpful.)

Under the hood, the HD100 is a full broadcast camera, with more settings than you can shake a stick at. JVC deserves our thanks for incorporating such sophistication in a $6,000 camcorder. On the outside, buttons and switches for basic operations are located where they are in pro camcorders. Like driving a car anywhere in the world (because the steering wheel and gas and brake pedals are standardized), anyone with professional camcorder experience can pick up an HD100 and start shooting immediately. Audio controls are at the front, easy to reach for a one-man band, and the provision of two headphone jacks is thoughtful.

In May 2005, Sony unexpectedly introduced a second prosumer 1080i HDV camcorder, the tiny 1.5lb. HVR-A1. One-third the size of a Z1, it managed to retain virtually every feature of the Z1, including DVCAM and DV formats and Shot Transition. One feature left behind was the Z1's prism optics, since the A1 introduced a radically new single-CMOS imaging system with true 1920×1080 resolution.

In November I spent several weeks in northern Pakistan with an A1. For many reasons, I didn't want to draw attention to my presence there, and the A1 easily passes as a tourist camera. Before I made a final decision to take the A1, I lit and shot a tripod interview in New York with an A1. It looked a little ridiculous, the tripod head being bigger than the camcorder. Minor hassles included having to access many controls from the touchscreen LCD (with its animated Mac OS X-like color icons) and removing the camcorder from the tripod to change tapes, since it loads from the bottom. But the image was outstanding.

The A1 proved to be ideal for shooting interviews in cramped, compact Suzuki vehicles popular in that part of the world, since I could hold it in one hand against whatever window I was pinned against. One night, holding the A1 in one hand and a cell phone LED light in the other, I shot a half-hour interview with the driver of a moving car. It looks amazing. I also developed a technique of placing the A1 on a micro tripod for interviews (see photo on opposite page). I would place the A1 to my side on a table in front of me, frame up the subject, start the camcorder, then interview. That's it. Because I was free to concentrate on the interview instead of operating the camcorder, remarkable depth of conversation was achieved.

I fell in love with this little camera. Perhaps my enthusiasm was contagious. When my friend Andy Young, filmmaker and VP of Special Projects at DuArt Film and Video in New York, decided to build a three-camera rig to shoot panoramic backgrounds for a series of short media installations he's producing for the Bronx Zoo, he chose the A1. Or perhaps it chose him.

“It was the only HD camera small enough that I could mount three of them together in a reasonably small amount of space and put them on a single jib arm and hike it up the side of a mountain,” he says. A mountain, incidentally, deep in one of the most remote rain forests of Madagascar. The balance of the project was shot with a JVC HD100, which Young famously restored to life by roasting over an open fire after it was dunked in whitewater. (“Madagascar!” opens at the Bronx Zoo in Spring 2007.)

What I've learned in my year of living HDV is to collect as much information as possible from the self-appointed experts, then go ahead and experiment anyway. I shot an interview with a Canon XL H1, half on- and half off-tripod, and was unexpectedly impressed by its graceful balance, viewfinder comfort and clarity, and image quality. (Everyone had warned me it was front-heavy.) I'm currently producing a feature, Memories of Overdevelopment, the follow-up to Tomás Gutiérrez Alea's 1968 classic Cuban film, which is being shot with a Z1. It's filled with matte and greenscreen shots, and we intend to blow it up to film — all supposedly ill-suited to 1080i/60 and HDV compression.

I've found that none of these camcorders is a slam dunk. All have Achilles' heels. But it's all good, I say. The Z1 allowed me to shoot 50i for a UK project. The HD100's manual focus reawakened the 16mm cameraman in me. The A1 obtained access to situations I would not have achieved otherwise. The XL H1's 20X zoom lens charmed me with sumptuous telephoto silhouettes.

My second year of HDV has begun, with several shoots as DP already underway. There's nary an SD project in sight. That says it all.

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