Why Shoot High Definition?

HD vs. SD

SD is what you see on an old television and with home movie cameras. HD is the beautiful and crisp images you might see on a plasma or LCD screen while watching a broadcast specifically shown in high definition. Once you see HD, it's hard to go back to SD.

The Blu-ray/HD-DVD war

There was a format war going on between Blu-ray and HD-DVD. These formats are meant to replace your first-generation DVD players by displaying High Definition images. Blu-ray is now the winner and HD-DVDs and HD-DVD players will soon be extinct. However, until prices come down the general public is holding off on buying blu-ray players. 

How does Charles River Media Group shoot HD?

So how do we shoot HD? in November of 2007, we acquired the Panasonic HPX500 2/3" 3-CCD 16:9 P2 shoulder mounted HD Camera. This camera can shoot 1080i and 720p (as well as over 30 HD and SD formats) and can record at variable frame rates. It hold 4 P2 cards (re-usable and removable flash cards) and eliminates the countless problems the video world faced over the years with tape malfunctions. This is a camera that is amazing in low light, provides an extremely fast post-production workflow, includes a Chromatic Aberration Compensation function, has four independent audio inputs, and much more!

High Definition Sounds Great But How Do We Show It?

Good question. The format war may scare you off, but don't run away. First and foremost, no matter how you display HD footage (whether on an old TV, compressed for web video, or on a big screen), it will still look better than standard definition footage. The image clarity is still far superior. Some of you may want to burn it on an HD-DVD discs. We can do that. Others may want to bump their project to film or another format. We can take care of that as well. For many of our clients we provide a hard-drive with the raw and edited footage for future use. And future use is something to seriously consider. Keep reading....

Why Start Now? Re-Purpose!

Why shoot video at one quality for web video, another video for a conference or training session, and another for a commercial, TV broadcast, or "sizzle video?" You may decide to do a company profile, commercial, or another work that incorporates elements from all these various events and projects. We strongly believe in re-purposing your video. What does this mean? Don't put yourself in the position where the video shot with an inferior camera for one project can't be later incorporated into another project later. Give what we shoot for you a life in multiple incarnations. It will save you time and money.

HD is also excellent in low-light situations such as this one.