Have you ever bought a sony product before? Everything they produce is garbage. If there is one company to avoid, it is them.

The camera doesnt create pro-quality footage, the film crew does.

And for everything camcorder

camcorderinfo.com

Let me revise my question. I was reading a book about filmmaking. It had a chart with a few different cameras what their final product ability. Some could create and image resolution that could be used for a large projector like a movie theater, some could produce video that could be put on televsion "broadcast quality" etc.

Is it safe to say a camera with a resolution of 1080 can produce something that can be shown on tv?

Poof, my experience with Sony has been the exact opposite. I worked for a company owned by Sony so I got a discount, so naturally my house is filled with Sony stuff. Two Sony tvs, 2 vcr's, a dvd player. A decade later everything is working as if they are new (except the vcrs, got rid of them long ago). The only Sony product I ever had trouble with was the Viao laptop and that was Windows fault, not Sony.

I don't know about their camcorders but the are their electronics are top notch as far as I can tell.

RJSchwarz
San Diego, CA

Ditto. The mikes on my TRV900 stopped working 3-4 years back and the Firewire port has been erratic for a couple of years, but otherwise it's done for over a decade as a camera and editing deck with no real problems... the heads are now finally wearing out, but I hate to think how many hours I've put on them. Similarly, my Sony Hi8 camcorder lasted fifteen years and I only gave it away in the end because I hadn't used it for a while and the heads were clogged up.

That's not to say that other manufacturers might be as good or better (and the dead mikes on the TRV900 were a manufacturing fault) but my experience with Sony -- at least in their semi-pro range -- has been good.

quote:

---

Is it safe to say a camera with a resolution of 1080 can produce something that can be shown on tv?

---

Yes. But so can Pixelvision if the subject of the video is important enough.

I think a lot comes down to what you're going to be shooting and why; if it's a 'gritty' subject you can probably shoot something on a cheap camera and get away with it, but if you're aiming for a high-end documentary or drama you'll need the camera to go with it. I've read, for example, that some high-end TV stations won't accept shows with more than a few percent of HDV footage even though it's 1440x1080 (but I've also met people who shot most or all of their broadcast HD documentary on HDV because it was the only way to get the footage).

David Lynch shot "Inland Empire" on the Sony PD 150. I've seen several interviews with him
and have spoken to him personally about that camera. He loves it.

"Open Water" which made $52,000,000 world wide was shot with the Sony PD 150.

Both were released in theaters and both have been broadcast on TV.

So there are a few professionals who also disagree with poof's statement that "Everything
they produce is garbage." I've used the PD 170 at Universal Studios for three years now.
While I wouldn't own one, that camera is far from "garbage". It's used daily, by different
operators in less than optimal environments and continues to deliver.

Create - if you shoot a compelling, interesting, well made movie with that camera, when the opportunity comes up to be broadcast on television, you should be just fine.

=============================================
The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but progress.
Joseph Joubert, essayist (1754-1824)