My Upgrade to HVR-A1E - Picture is worse than my consumer HDR-CX350E..

[stacks]

Hi people im looking for some help / advice..

I've been shooting video's for websites for some time, last year i got my first HD cam which is the HDR-CX350E, cost me £700 at the time i bought it as it was High Def, small, nice looking & had a hot shoe on top.. its avched, im not to keen on that.. besides that from that its not a broadcast quality camera

Few months ago i sealed a deal with a TV company and shot a series with use of an Canon XH A1 i borrowed from a friend.

After this it was time for me to buy my own broadcast quality video camera, without much research i decided to go for the Sony HVR-A1E because of its compact size.. i got what i thought was a great deal on e bay £950 like new with lots of exsessories..

Ive shot with the HVR-A1E twice now and im very disappointed with the picture quality, im wondering if there is something wrong with the camera.. picture looks very grainy or noisy.. gets much worse in low light

I've now read that the camera is not good in low light.. i usually shoot indoors with daylight or with daylight temperature lights..

Basicly my HDR-CX350E looks crystal clear compared to the HVR-A1E, the HVR-A1E does not look like its producing an acceptable standard picture, im not sure if its the settings, a faulty camera or if it can only work in perfect light..

Any help and advice apreciated, i guess i may need to sort a sample from the cam, i'll look at doing that now

Thanks

[aedipuss]

the xh a1 is a better cam but the picture quality from the sony a1e should be excellent and always better than what the cx350e produces. get your money back the cam's defective.

[stacks]

Thanks for the reply aedipuss,

Its a little late for that ive left feedback allready..

I'll take it to a shop and see what they say..

Thanks

[stacks]

im unsure about this and appreciate any more opinions..

i called sony and explained this.. they said to restore it to default settings.. once i had then i thought there was a noticable difference..

so with it on auto i hold it side by side my cheeper sony.. the pictures on viewfinder look different.. the HDR-CX350E looks very bright.. the HVR-A1E it clear.. it seems to focus on subjects automaticly then there's a depth of field behind the focused subject.. where as the HDR-CX350E whole picture seems crisp and clear..

so i though the HVR-A1E was ok after this.. but then i import it to fcpx and view it on the larger screen. i outputed a couple test files.. also .. im looking at it thinking is it ok or isnt it ok.. it deffinitly does not impress me.. maybe the HDR-CX350E is just fantastic but not broadcast safe.. and no XLR mic socket ovcourse..

parts of the shots are not in focus go kinda fuzzy, obviously.. anything with not enough light goes noisy / grainy.. and when i then look at the a video shot in the same room with same light by the much cheeper HDR-CX350E it looks cristal clear..

Any opinions apreciated

Thanks

[drissa]

Hi Stacks. I'm always surprised when I see the A1E still listed for well over £2K. I've used it at work for a few years and, despite the 'pro' features (some manual controls, audio connections, etc), the image quality doesn't seem great by today's standard.

I've recently bought a couple of 'consumer' Panasonic camcorders for about £700 and these produce better images.

I understand BBC 'broadcast quality' to be a minimum of 50MB p/sec. The A1E is half that. And I always thought the interlaced artifacts were especially nasty. I'm sure it can still be pressed into service, but there are now so many 1080p options around for less money, I'm surprised Sony still push them.

To be more encouraging, have you checked there isn't an issue during import/sequence settings that might be degrading the footage? If you continue to shoot stuff for the web, maybe stick with your old camera, re-eBay the A1E and hire in something for broadcast jobs?

[edDV]

The Sony HVR-A1E was a first generation HDV camcorder based on Sony's HC-1 consumer model but with more exposure/audio controls. As such the camera section used first generation CMOS chips. Performance improved after that. For example Canon's HV-20/30/40 with similar sized CMOS chip performed much better than the A1E. The 3x CCD Canon XH-A1 performed much better than single chip CMOS camcorders.