I am also down to the Z5 - NX5U will be ordering this week sometime, One of the factors for AVCHD is the extreme long record times, I like that also tape does degrade overtime so for archiving is it really safer than an HDD, yes HDD will fail but you can and should move the backups around every once in a while, but tape does last along time for sure.

I also like the 20x zoom lens most of the time I am in the back of the room, one other thing I like about tapeless is less moving parts so less maintainance.

Either camera would be such a vast improvement over what I am currently using.

My thoughts look forward to hearing others.

Paul B

I have an NX5 and myfilming buddy has the Z5 - both great cameras! You need a powerful computer to edit the AVCHD but the results are stunning, the downside is when you're producing a DVD in SD you'll have all sorts of problems getting the look that's acceptable as has been talked about elswhere in thi forum. HDV is certainly easier to edit - particularly if you're making a DVD in SD which alot of people are still doing, you can down convert from the camera with very good results! Battery time on the NX5 just goes on and on as there's no mechanics to power as such. AVCHD is full 1920x1080 and the HDV 1440x1080 so a slight difference to your HD there. I'm glad that I went for the NX5, I carry spare SD cards in my wallet! My chum swears by the Z5! It's all down to personal choice!

" It's all down to personal choice!"

Pretty much sums it up in my view. I would also mention that you can add Sony's external CF recorder to the Z5 and record to tape and flash memory at the same time so you have the best of both worlds.

Bob.

I own the Sony HDR-AX2000 basically the same as the NX5. I love the camcorder and like shooting on SD cards for the following reasons.

#1 With two 32gb cards installed I'm good 6 hours of continues recording time at the highest picture quality of 1080 X 1920 60i 24mbps.

#2 No moving parts. No head clogs, no dropouts to worry about.

#3 No need to worry about mixing different brand of tapes in your camcorder any more.

#4 Once the shoot is completed I move the files from the SD card onto my hard drive and we are ready to edit. It's much faster then moving footage from tape and no playback deck needed.

#5 If you worry about your hard drive crashing buy a backup drive. A 2tb external hard drive today is cheap. If you fill up a 32gb SD card per job, that's 3 hours of footage you could archive 62 jobs on one 2tb hard drive. A 2tb external hard drive cost about $120 dollars. That works out to $1.94 per job or .65 cents per hour of recording.

#6 Archiving 62 jobs on one 2tb hard drive compared to 186 tapes it looks like you would save alot of fiscal storage space .

#7 I live in New Jersey and I shoot for a guy in Florida. When I was shooting with tape I needed to FedEx the tapes to him. Now I mail him the SD cards and make a backup before mailing them out. By the way he supplies the SD cards.

#8 Shooting on SD cards might not be for every one but if you read the reviews on pro camcorders at B&H mostly everyone comments on how happy they are getting away from tape.

Jerry K

i'm doing as bob pointed out - z5 with cf recorder. best of both worlds as far as i'm concerned.

as an aside though - i shoot for a national broadcaster, a large corporation, and a couple of major clients ALL of whom demand tape.

also, when shooting other projects to cf, i always shoot to tape as well - instant archiving!

as far as pic quality goes, by the time it's on dvd or hq mp4 (if shot / posted correctly) i don't think it matters one jot what it was shot on.

btw. with ref to jerry above:

3# i, nor any pro i know, mixes tape.

6# i back up all my projects to hd - but i'd never dream of backing up more than one project per hd!

I have the HVR Z7 (which is basically the same as the Z5 and the CF card unit except that it has a removable 10x lens). I love the camera and would get the Z5 over the NX5. The HDV mpeg2 footage previews wonderfully on my lowly Core2Duo laptop even off cheap USB2 drives. It smart-renders into .mxf really quickly. The. mxf renders are compact and look great even on the parts that don't smart-render. They look stunning whith the free Sony XDcam player (perfectly deinterlaced and sRGB to cRGB corrected) and convert into. h264 format Youtube (or Vimeo) uploadable format with Handbrake painlessly.

With the NX5 I would have to use a much more powerful computer to get the same performance I am getting now with the native footage. That or I could use an intermediate like Neo Scene. The problem is that the files would be about 5 times bigger with an intermediate. That would mean that I would need that much more storage space and hard drive throughput.

Usually I shoot everything to memory card but there are times when shooting to tape is invaluable. I came back from a documentary shoot back in September with about 60 tapes. We shot long hours every day and transferring footage every night and then backing up those transfers would have taken time and electricity that I simply didn't have.

I usually edit my own stuff. but I also contract out. It is really nice to finish a shoot and just hand off the tapes.

3# i, nor any pro i know, mixes tape.

I know as a pro your not supposed to mix tape brand in your recorder or playback decks but some times it's not possible to avoid.

If I have three camera man out shooting and one guy is shooting with a Panasonic camcorder with Panasonic tape, the next guy is shooting with a Sony camcorder with Sony tape and the next guy has a Canon camcorder with Maxell tape at the end of the day I wind up with all these different tapes what choice do I have?

My point is with SD cards I do not have this problem.

6# i back up all my projects to hd - but i'd never dream of backing up more than one project per hd!

If you are shooting on tape you already have a second backup. If you are shooting with SD cards and re-use the cards then you might want a second backup on a second hard drive just incase one drive goes down.

JK

Laurence,

free Sony XDcam player

Do you mean the XDCAM browser or is there a separate XDCAM player. I'd be interested in taking a look at it.

Thx,
Tom

quite right jerry - hadn't thought about that (all the shooters i use use sony tape).

and again, if i was tapeless i'd more than likely backup to two (or more) hd's like yourelf - however i'd still limit it to one per project - ex 360gb (smallest around!) hd is $60au. maybe not necessary, but i'd sleep easier at might ;-)

If you use the CF card recorder does it capture in Full HD 1920x1080 or is it still limited by the HDV's 1440x1080 restrictions.

The Z5 (or my Z7) will capture on the CF card unit at 1440 x 1080i or 1080p just like the HDV spec allows. The three CMOS sensors on the Z7 are actually 960x1080. These are offset in such a way as to provide 1440 x1080 actual resolution. Interlaced resolution is 1440x540 times two fields. Progressive resolution is 1440x1080. I have a couple of movie preshow ads running at a local theater and I will tell you this: that in spite of having 1440x1080p resolution rather than true 1920x1080 resolution, the ads I shot look very sharp across a full sized movie theater screen. I agonized a little over the specs when I was shopping for a camera, but now that I have it, I must say that I am thrilled with the image on my Z7.

Hi Laurence,

Would you mind talking me thru "smart-renders into .mxf" please. I have just downloaded the Sony XDcam browser ver 1.1, is this the same player you refer too??? I would like to use my mpeg2 files from my Canon XLH1S in this mode.

Many thanks,

Anthony

I was turned on to the fact that you can smart-render HDV into XDCAM formats in http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=745771this thread[/link].

Actually, Alan (Gaiterbait) was talking about smart-rendering into XDCAM .mp4 format. It turns out that in that case, XDCAM .mp4 isn't mpeg4 at all, but actually mpeg2 in a .mp4 container.

The linked thread is worth checking out, but I'll summarize it here:

HDV .m2t format is mpeg2 video and compressed audio in a .m2t (or "mpeg transport stream") container. XDCAM .mp4 is mpeg2 video and uncompressed audio in a .mp4 container. XDCAM .mxf is mpeg2 video and uncompressed audio in a .mxf (or "materials exchange format") container. There are certain instances where you can smart-render the video between these formats.

What I have found is that if you match the mpeg2 bitrate of the XDCAM format with the mpeg2 bitrate of the .m2t footage, you can smart-render your HDV footage into one of the XDCAM formats,

This has two advantages over the native HDV m2t format: One is that now the audio isn't compressed anymore and you aren't degrading the audio with each successive generation, The second advantage is that the portions of mpeg2 video that aren't smart-rendered seem to retain much more of their original quality. I don't know why this is but it is startling and quite easy to see in your renders.

I have found the following limitations.

1/ Bitrate and video specifications must match between the HDV and XDCAM formats.
2/ Progressive footage must be flagged as interlaced in order for it to smart-render in Vegas at all. (on my Z7 I must choose 30p out of the interlaced options so that it is actually 60i where the even and odd fields make up a progressive frame).
3/ My Z7 will only smart-render into .mxf. My older HVR-A1 will smart-render into either XDCAM .mp4 or .mxf containers. I have no idea why this is the case.
4/ XDCAM .mp4 will smart-render into XDCAM .mxf but not the other way around. XDCAM .mxf will not smart-render into XDCAM .mp4.
5/ XDCAM .mp4 renders are incredibly quick on the smart-rendering parts whereas XDCAM .mxf renders plod along at the same slow rate on both the smart-rendering and non-smart-rendering parts). The difference is stunning. XDCAM spart-renders are disk copy fast! Just incredible,
6/ XDCAM .mp4 renders play back very smoothly from VLC. Efficient enough that I can use a smart-deinterlace on VLC at full resolution HD and have smooth playback.
7/ XDCAM .mxf renders play back beautifully with the free https://www.servicesplus.sel.sony.com/sony-software-model-PDZVX10.aspxSony PDZVX10 software[/link]. This software has several advantages. It sRGB to cRGB color corrects on the fly, deinterlaces on the fly, shuttles, and lets you flexibly listen to the audio parts during playback (which is good if you are using just audio 1 on a mic when you are recording, or if you have a wireless mic on one channel and the camera mic on the other).

In order to use the PDZVX10 XDCAM player, go to this link:

https://www.servicesplus.sel.sony.com/sony-software-model-PDZVX10.aspx

Install it, then go into the tools/options and check the tab to use the alternate renderer. This will make the program use the GPU and give you the higher quality playback that this utility is capable of.

I smart-render into XDCAM .mxf rather than XDCAM .mp4 because the XDCAM .mp4 smart-rendering only works with my backup camera (the HVR-A1). Plus, I really like the look of .mxf played back with the PDZVX10 player. It would be worth somebody with a Z5 checking to see if you have better luck with the .m2t to XDCAM .mp4 smart-render than I do with my Z7. They are probably the same, but who knows for sure until somebody tries it? I don't bother transcoding all my raw footage from .m2t to .mxf because I don't really see any advantage to that. However, any time I would have in the past smart-rendered .m2t to .m2t, I now do the same thing into .mxf instead.

I just wanted to add how happy I am with my Z7 workflow. I basically do the following:

1/ Shoot with either the 60i or 30p from the interlaced options.
2/ I am really careful as I shoot (white balance, exposure, etc.) with the idea in mind that I want it to look right out of the camera so that I don't have to correct and can smart-render later.
3/ I use a PP (picture profile) with settings I got from the excellent http://www.filmtools.com/vortex-media-mastering-sony-hvr-z7u-dvd.htmlVortex "Mastering the Sony HVR-Z7U" training DVD[/link]. This gives a little more pop right out of the camera without having to add it from Vegas later.
4/ Since I do documentary style mostly, i usually end up editing down interviews and B-Roll into manageable chunks with embedded markers used as footage notes. I use these pre-rendered sections to edit the finished product. Smart-rendering works well for this work flow.
5. I smart-render into 25 Mbps XDCAM .mxf for the final render if I was successful in avoiding needing to use much color correction or film looks. If not I render into the Avid codec. Either way, I make my h264 Youtube (and Vimeo) uploadable renders from Handbrake because I like the look better than doing it directly from Vegas.

As I go through this process, everything flies, even on my lowly core2duo laptop. I have 8GB or RAM and two internal 750GB 7200 RPM hard drives, but none-the-less, it is still just a core2duo. Many times I am working with native footage in either m2t or mxf format on one of those small, not particularly fast bus powered USB2 mini drives. With .m2t or .mxf those drives work fine. The 25Mbps xdcam footage previews beautifully though and the smart-renders are really quick. At the end, what people see on Vimeo looks very good blown up to full screen (given that they have a fast Internet connection). I couldn't be happier.

If I was to use an AVCHD camera, I would need to upgrade my computer. To get the same performance I am getting now I would need to have a pretty amazingly fast i5 or i7. A screaming system like that would still be ahead with mpeg2 footage in that it could do more in terms of color correction and effects with mpeg2 than it could with AVCHD. The other option would be to use Cineform or the Avid codec. Then you would be looking at about a five fold increase in file size though, and preclude the use of internal notebook and small bus powered drives. Then I would have the re-encode time and the backing up of both raw and transcoded files.

I know that the future of video editing is AVCHD and some little tweak of the video coding could change all this tomorrow, but for now at least, I'll stick with HDV as my working format.

Hi Laurence

Thank you so much for your time and trouble in providing that extremely well documented reply. I really appreciate it.

I understand exactly what you mean, and your workflow procedure is one that I intend to adopt. I am using an HP Z400 which so far is handling everything well, but your procedure certainly has everything going for it. My work is similar in style to yours in that B-roll plays an important part.

Thank you for the links too, I cannot wait to get into the office tomorrow and make a start. Sadly, I am sure I will have more questions!!!!!

I have tossed around the thought of buying the Nanoflash to record HD-SDI when I am not in the studio, as I get paranoid at not delivering 1920x1080!!!! However, an expensive option.

Thank you again,

Anthony