Posted by mmaker on 09/18/05 18:26

doc wrote:
> which do you have? and if your sound is better please tell me
> more or if you have a sample posted somewhere would love to see/listen.

Z1. With a good mike (we were using a Senheisser MKH60) and listening
with decent headphones it was totally hiss-free and with no obvious
compression artifacts. The only reason I'm reluctant to say you're
wrong is that I've never tried recording singing on the camera, so it's
possible that might not compress as well.

> also, we're going to produce in 4:3 and thus will want to record in 4:3 and
> when i talked to sony they said that it wasn't an option but only 16:9

I'm almost certain that the Z1 can record in 4:3 on DV, but don't have
the manual handy... certainly it can downconvert from 16:9 HDV to 4:3
DV on output, by cropping the edges. While you wouldn't want to convert
from 16:9 DV to 4:3 DV (you'll throw away 1/3 of the pixels), HD has
plenty enough pixels left even after you crop off 1/3 of them.

To be honest, if you're happy with 4:3 DV then you probably are better
off with the DVX100 or PD170, but so far I've found nothing really
wrong with the Z1. The only real issue I have is that faces look a
little soft to me when I play the video at full resolution on a PC
screen, but I'm not sure whether that's down to the limitations of the
'pixel-shift' shooting or my focussing :).

Mark

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