HDV Rules at DV Expo 2005

By David Em, Alex Pournelle

December 20, 2004

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Each year we attend two video technology shows. The big one is the annual National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) convention in Vegas. NAB is huge, with over a hundred thousand attendees and the latest in everything from $250,000 cameras to satellite transmitters. The other event is DV Expo West, a more modest show that took place this year December 7-10 at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

DV Expo is oriented towards small video shops. This market segment includes independent filmmakers and editors, wedding and event videographers, documentarians, corporate video producers, and a growing legion of serious enthusiasts.

The gap between the NAB and DV Expo communities narrowed about ten years ago when DV was introduced. DV is much cheaper to shoot and edit than other video formats, and it was quickly adopted for many professional applications, especially Electronic News Gathering (ENG). This year's DV Expo raised the curtain on the next big video revolution: HDV, or High-Definition video (HD) at DV prices.

High Def for the Masses

Rugged ENG-class DV cameras cost ten to twenty times more than consumer DV cameras, but the image quality on both is nearly identical. High Def, which produces images that rival theatrical film, is another kettle of fish. HD cameras and lenses are very expensive to purchase and rent, as are HD editing decks, displays, and post-production tools. A decent HD production setup can run hundreds of thousands of dollars.

HDV turns that situation on its head, delivering champagne-quality moving pictures at beer-budget prices. At the moment there are only two players in the HDV game, JVC and Sony. JVC was first out the gate last January at the 2003 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) show with its JY-HD10U camera, which we found for $1,600 on the web.

Sony announced it was in the game at last April's NAB, and at DV Expo it wowed attendees with two HDV cameras: the $3,500 HDR-FX1 (available now) and the $5,000 HVR-Z1 (scheduled to ship in February).

Frames vs Fields

The HDV spec comes in two flavors, 720p and 1080i.

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