Hi--

I hope you don't mind me bothering you but could you advise me what is
the very highest resolution video camera available for the domestic
market? - I could go up to about US$7500 as a maximum but would prefer
to spend less, if possible. - Every high end camcorder I have seen gives
fairly low resolution, when projected on my Eiki Powerhouse LX1-a LCD
projector (I think it has a potential resolution of 1200x1000) .- When I
project to about 9ft wide, there is a lot of pixelation and jaggedness
to straight lines etc.
Are there any video camera coming out that will rival the resolution put
out by HDTV (which I believe is about 1000x800 resolution???).
Many thanks, in anticipation of your reply,
Kind regards,
Ian Rivlin
Queensland, Australia

D25 DV is absolutely limited to 720x480 NTSC (more vertical lines for
PAL),
so all you can do is approach that resolution limit with the best gear.
Gear also varies in how well it approaches that limit while suppressing
compression artifacts and other processing effects. In the consumer area
the Sony VX2000 does the best job I've seen, but there are still more
negative artifacts than in the best analogue gear (but with the DV
advantages, too...). Most claim that the Sony DSR300 is better than the
VX2000/PD150/DSR250, but in my brief encounter with it, I was not
impressed.
It gives even more control over picture characteristics, but that allows
different trade-offs within the same media limits, not basic
improvements.
D50 offers real improvement, but at MUCH higher cost. Best compromise at
this time appears to be the VX2000 and its more expensive variants, but
you
will see sometimes-annoying picture effects from this (but less than
from
most others, and with a sharper picture too [reducing picture resolution
can reduce irritating effects, but.......;-]). BTW, useless info, but if
you shoot the VX2000 and keep the movement slow or zero, the artifacts
generally disappear....;-) The VX2000 combined with a line-doubler could
be interesting - I have seen this big-screen, and it can look good...
Other options 169-ready cameras with the extra CCD area and pixels for
it, like the JVC700...