On Mon, 15 Jan 2001 03:04:47 GMT, nujuko@utu.AvoidTheSpam.fi (Nuutti Koskinen) wrote:
>On Sun, 14 Jan 2001 15:19:30 GMT, d_ruether@hotmail.com (Neuman - Ruether)
>wrote:

>>By VHS/8mm and most Hi-8/SVHS standards, it is - but if you
>>critically compare the GL-1 picture with others (VX-1000
>>and VX-2000 especially, but also with the TRV-900 and
>>EZ30U), it is less sharp, has more "artifacting" (white
>>"oversharpening" halos on contrasty edges, vertical-line
>>"stair-stepping", and Moire patterns) than the competition,
>>and it also has a strong overall orange color cast (that
[...]

> Hi, I wonder what level of sharpness setting on the GL-1 you have
>used in your comparison.

"Normal", which produces a strong white halo on contrasty
edges that was so bad that even maxing out a VX-1000 for
sharpness setting would not produce similarly-bad
results - and with both set to "normal", the VX-1000 is
noticeably sharper, and the VX-2000 sharper yet...

>In my opinion all camcorders produce a bit
>too oversharpened image, some more, some less (That, along with
>limited contrast range, is what "video look" is mostly about). With
>GL-1/XM-1 you can turn the artificial sharpening down or off. I
>suppose this would produce more smooth, natural/filmlike images (like
>those of the Beta SP you also featured) - at the expense of apparent
>sharpness of course but that might be negotiable. The TRV900 does not
>allow to adjust the sharpness at all if I'm correct.

No, it doesn't, but its image is also sharper, with only
very moderate "haloing". I associate sharpness with film,
and a really soft-edged video image is not "film-like" to
me...

> I'm looking for a prosumer 3CCD camcorder and have ruled out the
>TRV900 for it's lack of total manual control (I want to operate my
>camera in FULL MANUAL most of the time!)

??? It has about as much manual control as any of the
"handycam"-sized Mini-DV camcorders. You would need to go
to the JVC DV500 to get more control...
I prefer to operate these in aperture-priority mode, with
AE-bias control set to taste - but in this or any other
mode, you can still press an exposure lock, and adjust
exposure from there (Sony handycams). Depending on the
model, I will use AF some, or nearly all, the time
(the VX-2000 on the last - its AF is REALLY good!).

>and inferior optics at wide
>apertures.

Yes, though adequate for most tasks - but you are right,
one should avoid shooting wide-open with some samples
of the TRV-900, if possible - they seem to vary, but
the GL-1, VX-1000, and VX-2000 lenses appear sharper
than some samples of the TRV-900 at the widest stops...

>The VX2000 seems to outperform GL/XM-1 in almost every
>respect except it's poorer zoom range (which I don't mind) and lack of
>usable progressive scan mode (Which is BAD since I would REALLY want
>that 25FPS frame mode XM-1 has - yes it's not true proscan and gives
>only 75% of full vertical resolution but it's still much better than
>interpolating fields in post!).

I guess I don't understand the appeal of doing this - video
is currently an interlaced medium, with only disadvantage in
shooting PS-mode for TV-use. For stills, the VX-2000 does
very well (for a video camera, for web-use only...) in
still-mode. For motion-video, the VX-2000 PS-mode is
unuseable. For film-transfer, well, I've heard arguements
both ways, but PS for film transfer is a minor use for most
users. For web use, it would seem to me that you would wind
up throwing out alternate scan lines anyway for the low-res.
images, so what's the point? I think WAY too much is made
of PS-mode video shooting. These are VIDEO cameras, not
still cameras, web cameras, or film cameras. I would rather
see video performance optimized, and forget the other
stuff...

> Also here in Europe the price difference between XM-1 and VX2000
>seems to be much larger than in US. You can get the XM-1 for about
>4400DEM but the VX2000 costs over 7000DEM!

YIKES!!! That's absurd! My sympathies...
Oh, I guess if you are PAL, so PS DOES make more sense,
since the frame-rate and resolution are better suited
to film transfer than they are here in NTSC land...
BTW, have you considered direct-import of a PAL camcorder
from a US or other dealer? (I think BHphotovideo.com and
others can handle this.) Dunno if the finished price is
worth it, though...

>That's a huge difference
>(You could buy loads of filters, a tripod, a wide angle adapter and
>lots of HD space with the money you save by buying XM-1) and so far I
>have figured the difference between the cams is not quite worth it.
>But still, I'd like to see a side-to-side comparison between these two
>cams with stills taken in varying lightning conditions, with different
>aperture and sharpness settings...

The VX-2000 would wipe it out, in both image quality and
sound quality. I suppose you can interpolate a bit using
my reviews and frame grabs by comparing the XM-1 to
various cameras that are also compared with the VX-2000
in the seperate VX-2000 review. (These are at:
www.David-Ruether-Photography.com/camcorder-comparison.htm ).
I would not budge the XM-1 sharpness setting, since in
"normal" mode the sharpness is already less than the
others (except, maybe, in the medium-low-light room
shots), and the "halo" effect is already really excessive
(leaving no real choices but even less sharpness or even
more white halo effect and pronounced stairstepping, etc.).
Try a TRV-900, and maybe select samples for best wide-stop
lens performance...;-)