Quote: (Originally Posted by bubblefree)
Sony's version of the HDV format uses 1080i which means that it captures 1080 pixels vertically and the image is interlaced. There is not enough room here to go into interlaced vs progressive in detail but progressive gives you a much better quality with a doubling of the information that has to be processed. Two of the top HD formats are 1080i and 720p (yes you guessed it 720 lines of vertical resolution and progressive scan).
Andy, I agree that the FX-1 is big, haven't seen the size of any of the housing yet.....
Good heavens, I thought we had seen the last of interlaced video. To be honest TV is not my field, though CCD's are. Should have checked really. My main concern with the HC1 is the use of CMOS, but this also applies to the PC1000. Given the choice I would go for the Panasonic 3CCD miniDV but there is no UW housing worth having for it.
The 3CCD cameras do offer better resolution but this is in the inter-colour resolution, most single CCD's use a 2G R B mask, though sony use a G, GB, R, B mask, this means you have to strip the resolution interpolate the colour and reapply the resolution. Though the pixel to pixel resolution remains the colour resoution is much reduced. This is obviously not the case with the 3CCD systems. I personally think the biggest advantage for 3CCD systems for UW work is the much better control over colour balance, particually in the UK where we have very "green" water and it is very hard to find the best correction filter to use for long shots.
Andrew