Posted by mmaker on 09/09/05 14:05

doc wrote:
> anyone out there have any experience with the Sony FX1 or Z1U?

Yes, I have a Z1.

> i am thinking of buying one or two of them and need to know what kind of
> picture quality they/either produces

Good. Not as good as the footage I've seen from $100k HDCAMs, but
vastly superior to DV. Even when downconverted to DVD, it looks better
than any semi-pro DV camera I've ever used, and not much worse than the
footage I've edited from Digibeta cameras.

> AND how well they interface with
> firewire inputs AND their HDV quality.

The one problem with Firewire so far is that if I downconvert to DV,
Avid can't capture from a PAL camera (it seems to think it's reading
NTSC timecode). Hopefully that will work fine once they release the
upgrade for HDV support.

Either way, I'd say it's a bigger step up from cameras like the PD170
than the VX1000 was from Hi8.

Mark

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