I've worked with both. If you put aside the format question, the Panasonic is light years beyond the Sony in every other respect. It's an incredible camera.The Sony model is basically a hacked consumer HDV that adds a semi-pro mic interface. The image quality is inferior to that of the Canon HV20 which costs less than half as much, but you do get the mic interface, a focus ring instead of a focus dial, and a more professional looking camera than the HV20 if that matters. On the minus side, you also get the horrible Sony touch-screen interface.
For my money, the DVX100 is the only SD camera on the market still worth considering, and if I had to choose between these two cameras for a shoot I'd pick the Panasonic unless HD was absolutely required as a delivery format - and even then, I might opt for the panasonic in 24P if the budget for a really high quality upconversion was available - though that budget could just as well be applied to a higher end XDCam of DVCProHD rig. I think that for HDV, once you get below the $5000 price range, the HV20 is the only one worth the money unless you are doing paid work that REQUIRES hdv and don't have the budget for Sony EX1 or the Panasonic HVX200. Brook On Wed, Mar 26, 2008 at 9:35 AM, Brian Richardson - WhatTheCast? < [EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I've used the Panasonic as a rental camera before, and it's quite nice. > It has a lot of manual control for audio & video settings, a nice lens > and good on-board mic performance. > > > On Wed, 26 Mar 2008 12:09 pm, Heath wrote: > > I was wondering if anyone had any experience with the below models > > > > Panasonic Pro AG-DVX100B > > Sony HVR-A1U CMOS High Definition Camcorder > -- > Brian Richardson > - http://whatthecast.com > - http://siliconchef.com > - http://dragoncontv.com > - http://www.3chip.com > > > -- _______________________________________________________ Brook Hinton film/video/audio art www.brookhinton.com studio vlog/blog: www.brookhinton.com/temporalab [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
