HD For Indies

Sony finally took the wraps off of the HVR-Z1U, their pro version of the HDR-FX1 HDV camera. They also announced an HDV deck, which is critical, since the JVC HDV deck won't play the 1080i Sony format tapes.

The big news is the price - instead of about $7000 as rumored, the HVR-Z1U will be priced at $4900, and the deck will be $3700. Both should be available by February (slightly later than anticipated).

Press release on HVR-Z1U & deck.

Press release on tech specs & details of HVR-Z1U.

The tech specs release is very informative - for a long time the only difference I'd heard of between the FX1 and pro model was XLR inputs, this article details a LOT of differences between the two.

Key features:

-DVCAM support
-support for 60i, 50i, 24p, 25p, 30p all in the same camera
-proper SMPTE timecode with a variety of options (free run, etc.)
-lots of small, specific features necessary and applicable for professional production (read the press release)

Details on the deck were also announced. From the press release:

The HVR-M10U model is a lightweight, compact HDV 1080 VTR capable of record and play back of HDV 1080, DVCAM, and DV SP, as well as playback of video recorded in 720/30P. In addition to allowing backward compatibility to the standard definition DV world, the 1080 recorded image can also be down-converted to SD output mode directly from the VTR or camcorder in the digital or analog domain.

Again, this is great news for indies, although I hear that the 24p mode doesn't look so good (see sample footage links from recent posts). But the possibility of software conversion from 60i to 24p is still potentially viable.

Thanks to reader Martijn Shroevers for pointing these articles out.