a new 3CCD camera

I just got a GS-65 and love it so far. I did a lot of research and my only suggestion is to make sure the 250 or 400 have a MIC IN and a HEADPHONE plug. You'll want them. Good luck.

I've got one.. don't recall the exact model at the moment though.. but I'm happy with the quality of it. and it's got a mic in jack.. it's also got a headphone jack, but they're shared, so you can either use the mic-in or headphones, but not both at the same time.. kinda lame.

ribac said:

I want to buy a new 3CCd camera.I'm not proff..I was looking at Panasonic PV GS250 and GS400.
I need to buy PAL system here in US.
GS250 costs $180 less than GS400 so no much difference.
Is there any other camera compared to GS400 or GS250??
Is GS400 to bulky??
In GS250 I read there is no true 16:9 widescreen.

Couls you help me decide??

Click to expand...

Only an HD camera is true 16:9 if im not mistaken otherwise its matted.

But the 400 is alot closer then the 100 or 250 model. I own the 100 and its very small. The 400 is bulky? Its like 1/3 the size of a AGV100a. its tiney. its only about 30 percent larger then my 100 model but has a much better picture and lens. I believe the 400 model has a 1/4th in CCDx3 while mine is 1/6th.

Another question is, why do you need PAL in the US? its not an american format. are you planning on running a short in Europe? You dont need a camera to record in PAL, just use vegas or premier to render it in PAL format. if you need to pull down or convert into 24p, you can do that as well.

I think Vegas is like 500 bucks. a 400 model now is around 1000 bucks, I have seen them drop in price. Go to Frys Electronics if you have one near you or go to their website at outpost.com

King Goldfish said:

Only an HD camera is true 16:9 if im not mistaken otherwise its matted.

Click to expand...

Suprisingly not. The sony pdx10 had true 16:9 imaging because of its high pixel count (something like 600,000 pixels per ccd compared to the usual 300,000 or so). I think it is a one of a kind though.

my point was, HD is formated in true 16:9


Though the sony pdx10 has alot of pixelation it still has to use a matte box and crop off. When you go to import it into premeir or vegas or whatever you use, you then have to crop off the mattebox in oder to have a true 16:9 ratio during rendering. isnt the pdx10 a 4:3 camera? It only simulates 16:9, doesnt it?

Unless it shoots 720x380 or 405 instead of 480.

Actually, cameras like the XL2 capture a full 16:9 image and then anamorphically squeeze it into the DV frame. When you open up this footage in a normal timeline it looks "squished"; which of course can be fixed by moving to a 16:9 timeline . Very few SD cameras have this feature though.

King Goldfish said:

isnt the pdx10 a 4:3 camera? It only simulates 16:9, doesnt it?

Click to expand...

The chip is oversampled in both 4x3 and 16x9 mode so the 16:9 quality is just as good as 4:3.

id actually steer clear of the gs250 as multiple sources have told me its colors are more washy than its younger siblings, the gs65 and gs150.

I've got the GS150, it's NTSC and i don't know anything about it being offered in PAL, but if it is I can recommend. I payed only 530 US dollars online for it (new, retail from www.newegg.com) and I'm nothing but pleased with it. The GS400 is supposed to have the best color representation of all the GS's, but it has the old menu system before it was redone into the anlog joystick. The joystick system is amazing, almost everything can be done with the right hand thumb. Manual controls are decent (white balance, focus, etc.) but I really wish it had a manual focus ring like the GS250. A zoom ring of course would be phenomenal, but you can't expect that in the price range. The quality is very good, noticably better than my friends ~300 dollar JVC MiniDV camera, and much better than my old RCA VHS-C. Reviews say the lowlight performance is subpar, but for any real scripted filming you need lights anyway, so it's not an issue unless you're taping a concert or something. I could post some uncompressed DV caps of my cam if you'd like, just tell me how big of a file you'd be willing to download and I'll try to host it in a reasonable time frame.