Since my last little slow motion test I’ve had plenty of quality time with my HVR-V1P, and while I wish it had a slightly more memorable model name - or even that it was printed somewhere on the unit, so I can tell people what it is when asked - I’m having a great time with this camera, enjoying the capabilities HD resolution gives me, and still loving Sony’s Smooth Slow Record feature.

With the last batch of slow-mo clips I had some requests to further slow down the motion in post-processing. I don’t currently have any 3rd party retiming plugins, but it turns out that the 200FPS (240 for NTSC regions) is shot interlaced, so my previous tests were only displaying 100FPS progressive. To get the full motion from 200FPS on a progressive monitor I needed to slow the footage to 50% speed and de-interlace, a trivial task in any editor.

Butterfly Slow-Motion 200FPS

Even this low-tech retiming gives you an idea of how powerful 200FPS can be. I actually had an ND filter in place to keep the shutter speed relatively low and keep a bit of a dreamy look for this shoot (the minimum allowed, of course, being faster than 1/200). With full sunlight you’d have no trouble getting up past 1/1000, which would result in very little motion blur and allow very accurate motion tracking, and some exciting retiming opportunities.

200 frames per second: that’s the “smooth slow motion capture” speed of Sony’s rather affordable HVR-V1P HDV camera. It really makes slow-motion capture accessible to the rest of us. Jaymis has been testing this mode on his new camera. Here are some early results (all the more impressive if you watch through to the full-motion versions at the end):

Sony Smooth Slow Motion test from Jaymis and Vimeo.

Of course, I’m ready to go even slower, and see what happens if you edit the footage in Final Cut Studio 2 using the new slow motion options. Starting with 200 frames should help.

More on the HVR-V1P soon; consider this a teaser.

Previously: First Impressions: Sony HVR-V1P HDV Camera

After asking CDMo readers for advice and promising various parties that I’d never buy another Sony product, I walked into my local VideoPro with a definite plan of attack: Compare and contrast the Canon XH-A1 and Panasonic HVX-200, and then buy one of them.

What followed is still a little hazy in my mind, but it seems there was a sales guy who actually knew his stuff, listened to my requirements and was able to suggest an alternative which was not only better suited to my needs, but also considerably cheaper. That this alternative was a Sony - a brand I’d sworn never to purchase again - just adds to the confusion. I’m still trying to figure out what happened.

The XH-A1 and HVX-200 are both great cameras, they look good, feel good, and by most accounts shoot exceptional video, generally on par with each other’s performance. Why, then, did I walk out of there with an HVR-V1P?:

• Physically smaller and lighter
• 200FPS “Smooth Slow Record” slow motion mode
• Uncompressed HDMI output
• Good quality Sony shotgun mic included
• External battery bay (as opposed to the XH-A1’s internal one) which is compatible with Sony’s NP-F range, including the batteries I still have from my 10 year old DCR-TRV9.
• AU$1500-3000 cheaper than the Canon and Panasonic offerings

I haven’t had the time to really get to know this camera, but initial impressions are very positive.

Hello Internets! I’ve returned from gallivanting around the country and have a couple of weeks while we refuel and plan the next leg of the tour. One of the first tasks I’ve set myself is to get a better video camera, and was all set to pick up a Canon XH-A1 when I found out that it doesn’t have S-Video in or out. That cuts down my options a little for live visuals, as I wouldn’t be able to mix in this camera’s output without an expensive scan converter or going via Firewire, which introduces latency and creates cabling issues.

So now I’m in a quandry, and with that seed of doubt sewn, I’ve opened up to many possibilities: Sony’s HDR-FX1, Panasonic’s HVX series, or perhaps something compact and tapeless, like JVC’s Everio series.

I had a chat to Peter, who suggested that I ask you, dear reader. What are you using for your video capturing needs? Have you gone HD? Compact? Cheap? Expensive? Tapeless? What are you liking and disliking in today’s video cameras?