Help on spending money (EX1R, XF305, XF105, Vixia HS 21)

[Mike_Ca]

I've researched the Sony Ex1R and Canon XF305 on the high end of the spectrum and the Vixia HF S21 on the cheaper side.

First, I'm not a pro. My main use will be for shooting talking heads against a green screen with an external mic for audio.

I was looking at the $6,000+ cam because they have the capability to output 4:2:2 which, according to my limited knowledge, makes green screen keying a heck of a lot easier. I'm more worried about the learning curve of the expensive cams than the cost.

For starting out, would I be better off with a top-end consumer model like the Vixia that will also let me indulge in manual settings? More importantly, is the HDMI output on the Vixia uncompressed and will it pass a 4:2:2 signal out that I can capture with a blackmagic card (or equivalent) ?

I also wanted to make sure that if I ended up with the EX1R that I could output 4:2:2 straight to a capture card as well. This would save me from having to buy a nanoflash until I needed to use the camera away from the computer.

If I captured straight off the HDMI (or HD-SDI) am I bypassing whatever codec (AVCHD, etc...) the camera is using and just recording raw footage to my drive?


There's also another issue of waiting -- The Canon XF105 should be out this month, and with the 2011 CES show in a few days, who knows what else is around the corner.

[edDV]

Difficult to answer if optimizing only for chroma key.

All the current "lower end" formats record to 4:2:0 or less. It isn't easy to find out if the HDMI or SDI outputs are simply upscaled from 4:2:0 (most likely) or matrixed separately for 4:2:2 HDMI output. That said, most people other than high end production houses seem happy with a 4:2:0 chroma key.

You will need to search for camera reviews specifically on chroma key performance. This gets complicated because few single sensor cameras are going to optimize the Bayer pattern for 4:2:2. 3x CCD cameras (like the JVC's* or Sony PMW's) will have more chroma resolution at the sensor level.

HD camcorder formats that do record 4:2:2 to tape or flash RAM are

DVCProHD (at reduced Y resolution)
AVC-Intra
HDCAM-SR

DSLR cameras matrix RGB internally but all video is encoded to 4:2:0 AVCHD. Again it is not clear how the HDMI output is matrixed. In most cases the sensor is subsampled for video.


* The best value in a 3x CCD camcorder is the $2795 JVC GY-HM100U.