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Production
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The little things
Small Sony A1 provides big HDV results
Dec 21, 2005
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by Chuck Gloman
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Just when HDV is gaining momentum in the industry, Sony is thinking small. Really small. Thankfully, its small idea offers big results for cost-conscious video professionals.
Sony's new HVR-A1U records HD at 1080/60i, as well as DVCAM and DV, and records it all on a mini-DV cassette. Sony does recommend that you use its DigitalMaster videotape. This is Sony's highest-quality mini-DV videotape; it's more expensive, but it's formulated to meet the demands of MPEG-2 compression used in HD applications.
Looking at the A1 for the first time reminds me of Sony's DSR-PDX10, a great digital camcorder that fits in the palm of your hand and rivaled its big brother, the DSR-PD170 (at least outdoors). The A1 is small, black, and the add-on XLR adapter with shotgun microphone is almost as big as the entire camera.
The little lens shade on the front has a slide toggle that works as a lens cap without an annoying dangling string. The 10x optical F1.8 Zeiss lens is a great advancement over the DSR-PD170 and shoots down to only 7 lux. It also offers a Night Shot mode that accepts 0 lux, but it puts you in a black-and-white world.
The A1U has a real focus ring behind the lens shade and is easy to operate. A two-inch mesh band behind the focus ring is a left and right microphone if you choose not to use the shotgun (I wouldn't advise it). Filling out the lens are an auto/manual focus switch, an expand focus (which blows up your image for better determining critical focus), and a tele-macro for recording objects as close as 19 inches.
My New Menu
The most amazing feature in the front of the camera is its CMOS imager. That's right -- just one. When I first received the camera I did not believe that one CMOS could possibly look anywhere as good as three CCDs. But when that 1/3-inch CMOS chip has 2,968,000 pixels (most other SD 3-CCD cameras are in the 400,000-600,000 range), you have the potential for great looking images.
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| Sony's new digital A1 is packed with features and small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. |
The exposure controls are typical Sony, and two spring-covered doors hide the external connections. Behind the first door is the iLink (FireWire) connection, which is the only input/output. The rest of the connectors are output only. A USB jack is included for downloading images from your Memory Stick.
The next compartment has two more outputs: component out and AV out (with the usual S-Video and RCA video/audio connections). Camcorders seem to be moving away from the standard RCA to RCA cable and favoring a multi-pin to RCA connection. You can have more with these multi-plugs, but they are more expensive to replace when someone on your set uses one as a necklace.
Most unusual is the 16:9 LCD flip-out screen. It looks like your typical screen, but it's also a touch screen. In order to access anything in the menu, you must use the touch screen.
I turned off the annoying beeps that you hear each time you access something (through a menu option, of course) and realized that you are going to chew up battery time every time you work with the menu. It's a clever idea, but I don't like it because I have a sinking suspicion that it's going to break after 50 students start pushing options like the LCD screen is a video game controller. All kidding aside, the image does look good in 1080/60i or SD on the LCD screen, but more on that later.
Another interesting feature on the LCD monitor is the zoom and record touch-sensitive buttons on the side. Since you access your menu from the LCD screen, why not record and zoom from there, too?
The color viewfinder displays what's on the LCD screen, but please don't try to use it as a touch screen.
An on/off switch lets you toggle between camera, Memory Stick, or tape easily. The cassette loads from the bottom, which is bothersome when the camcorder is seated on a tripod. But Sony finally has a feather-touch zoom control so I may achieve my ever-so-slow creep zooms.
Rounding out the microphone situation is the XLR adapter, which no one should go without. You can still use the mini-jack next to the headphone jack on the camcorder body, but low impedance XLRs are the only way to go.
The back of the camera has a new type Lithium Ion battery (the NP-FM50), which must be recharged with the battery on the camera and plugged into an AC supply. With my PD150 and PD170, as well as the other Sony HDV camera I reviewed, the HVR-Z1U (see Government Video, April 2005), I could use the included external charger to re-energize the battery. Now I have to buy a battery charger if I want to charge a dead battery, if I happen to want to use the camera at the same time.
Do The Downconvert
Shooting in 1080/60i HD, and recording that to tape, I also had the FireWire plugged into my Dell Pentium 4 laptop with Serious Magic's DV Rack. The 1080i 16:9 image on my LCD screen was automatically downconverted to DVCAM letterbox as it entered the hard drive on my laptop. This is a great feature.
Through the menu you select your downconversion option (if you want it downconverted) and the end result on your hard drive is letterbox, squeeze, or edge crop (I chose letterbox). If I didn't use DV Rack, I could have played the tape into my NLE and downconverted that way.
I love shooting in 24p, and Sony is getting close to it with its CineFrame 24. I did get the "film look;" it's not as nice as using the 24p option on Panasonic's 100A (but the Panasonic camcorder only shoots in SD). When shooting in SD in the DVCAM mode, the images look no better than any other camcorder. However, the footage shot in 1080i using the A1 is fabulous. My students and I compared it with our best SD camera -- the Sony's HD image was sharper and had better colors.
If I were to use this camera on a daily basis, I would shoot everything in 1080i and downconvert it to SD if required. It really makes no sense to shoot anything in SD with the A1, especially when the downconversion is so perfect and immediate.
One of my students asked why would we want one HDV camera when everything else we have is SD? My explanation is the same as why a store purchased DVD looks better than something you burned yourself -- if you start with better original footage, the end result will look better.
The A1 has a ton of other features that Sony has in all of its models, but the A1U does have the same malady of its HDV older brothers: If you pan too quickly, you get digital "jaggies" where the picture tears slightly. This only happens on extreme movements, but they do occur.
A few other nit-picks: The focus is slightly soft under low light conditions when shooting in the HD mode. This is one of the few times that I encourage dialing the sharpness to its highest point -- on the A1 it does not look artificially enhanced. Also, with handheld shots, it's too easy to accidentally move the zoom lever when you don't want to, because it's close to the back of the camera and extremely sensitive.
Minor complaints aside, if you want to enter the world of high definition, Sony's A1 makes it easy and affordable ($3,100 suggested list price). For close to the same price as a PD170, you have the same features in a lighter camera that also shoots HDV. In my book, that's a bargain.
Chuck Gloman is an awarding-winning producer/director of photography with more than 800 commercials to his credit, and is a member of the faculty of DeSales University. Contact him at chuck.gloman@desales.edu.
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