HDV:What You NEED to Know

The Sony HVR-A1U is the fourth offering in the 1080i HDV format.

Bringing their fourth HDV camera to market, Sony is about to start shipping the second in their professional offerings for the HDV shooter. The HVR-A1U is the latest addition to the HDV market, and is a dynamite camcorder both for DV shooters and HDV shooters. Good things come in small packages.

Palm-sized, the HVR-A1U doesn't look like what it is; a power-packed camcorder with professional features. Although this camcorder is on the same body frame as the consumer-oriented HDR-C1, the similarities end there. Although the HDR-C1 camera is a very impressive camcorder for the price, by the time you add a Studio Devices or Beachtek device, an external mic, better hood, you'll be at the same cost as the A1U, and that's without the other special features found on this camcorder.

Now Hear This!
The first feature you'll likely notice with the A1U, is the prominent audio module sitting on the top of the camcorder. The audio module provides balanced inputs (2),  phantom power to external microphones, low frequency roll-off, attenuated/padded input, and record channel selection. The audio module also offers a shock-mount for the included ECM-NV-1 microphone. The microphone can be removed, and any microphone put in its place. I recommend buyers consider a different microphone, as the included mic is acceptable, but not nearly as good as Sony's other higher end microphone offerings such as the ECM 670. The shock mount may also be easily removed, reducing the size and profile of the audio module. If you'll be using wireless devices or long cable runs, removing the shockmount will also provide room for the wireless receiver to fit into the shoe mount on top of the audio module.

The audio module connects to the proprietary AIS or "Active Interface Shoe" found on the top of the camera. This shoe may also be used for mounting a small light or microphone from Sony, provided that the mic or light has the AIS connector on it. When not in use, the AIS mount is nicely covered by a permanently attached cover. Sony clearly thought audio out very nicely on this camera, given that there are both balanced and unbalanced options, depending on user preference, and how the camera will be used in various shooting scenarios.

The Front End
From the front end of the camera, a solid, rubber lens hood is attached, complete with a mechanical lens cover that protects the lens. This cover, however, cannot be kept on the camera if thread-mounted filters such as a Sky 1A are placed on the front of the lens, as the hood has a bayonet that fits inside the front of the camera lens. The bayonet can be removed with a jewelers screwdriver, and then does allow the hood to be mounted over top of a Sky1A or other filter, but there is nothing that will lock the hood into perfect horizontal position, so the reasoning behind the bayonet makes perfect sense. I recommend leaving it on. (having it in an odd angle doesn't affect the quality of the frame no matter what) The soft rubber face on the lens hood also acts as a preventative and protection for the rest of the lens assembly, as it is wider than the lens ring.

Zooming may be accomplished with a manual adjustment of the zoom ring, or controlled by the zoom control found just over the right thumb area of the camera. Focus may also be manually adjusted using the same ring. There is a setting on the side of the camera that allows for manual zoom OR focus, but not both at the same time, as they both use the same ring. The ring has a nicely incised edge to it, making it easy to grip. With my particular style of working the lens, after a while these small indentations began to bother my fingers, so during part of my testing time, I put a wide rubber band over the zoom/focus control to make it more comfortable. This likely wouldn't bother most users.

Beneath the focus/zoom switch are three buttons; Tele-Macro, Expanded Focus, and Backlight. These are very useful, and in an easily accessible location for fast shooting. Expanded focus is extremely important, especially with the lack of a black/white viewfinder for assuring solid focus on any subject. A petty personal preference would be that the Expanded Focus button be put to the front or rear of the button lineup, rather than dead center, as this is a button I want to be able to find quickly. However, this is quite minor.

Exposure can be managed a couple different ways with this camcorder. First and foremost is the auto-exposure setting. This allows the camera to completely automate the exposure settings. This can be modified on the fly using the Exposure lever, found just below the three lens-related buttons on the left side of the camcorder. The exposure lever may also be programmed to be an auto-exposure shift lever, depending on user preference. One thing that lacks here, is the ability to see feedback on the actual aperture setting. On a side note, the ability to send the menu to an external monitor vs being seen on the pull out LCD panel is a nice feature.
While the camera doesn't provide aperture settings, or even gain indicators measured in dB, it's quite easy to see the level that the gain is set to in the display window, and using the Exposure lever, you can see how much gain you've added in relationship to the zero gain point.
One small improvement would be to provide standard aperture information.
See image below for an example of low-light capability.

Above the lens is a dead shoe. This shoe is in place to mount the audio module, but can also be used for other purposes if you'll not be using the audio module. Keep in mind, this camera not only has the balanced audio inputs via the audio module, it also offers additional unbalanced audio inputs for use without the audio module.

Beneath the shoe on the right side of the lens are a button and a switch. The button may have several various features assigned to it, one at a time. The switch enables/disables the "nightshot" mode, which closely emulates the HyperGain function of this camcorder's bigger brother, the HVR-Z1U.

Built into the lens housing are two microphones, one for right, one for left, to be used in the event of the external audio module not being used. They actually do a reasonable job of audio, as good as any camera audio mic setup is going to be.

Let There Be Light!

The Backside
On the back of the A1U, you'll find the battery compartment, this camcorder uses standard Sony M series batteries, available in a variety of lengths. The standard battery that comes with the camera offers approximately 2 hours of record time, depending on whether the viewfinder is enabled or not, and how bright the LCD display is set. With the larger QM91D, the battery lasted well over five hours. The battery is released from the bottom of the camcorder, next to the eject switch for the tape mechanism.
Additionally, you'll find a LANC control on the back of the unit. I tested this with the Roland R4 device, and it was a terrific pairing, particularly for those that would prefer to use non-compressed audio in their recordings. You'll also find a charge light indicator, letting users know that the charger is doing its job,

Menus:
The A1U camcorder is virtually entirely driven by touchscreen menus. Setting up the camcorder is something you'll want and need to spend some time doing. The LCD screen and viewfinder may both be independently calibrated, and you'll want to calibrate these screens just as you'd calibrate any field monitor.  This is easy, and relatively fast, but necessary from my perspective. You can take an uncompressed output from the camera and feed it to an HD production monitor, but even in that event, to be sure of color and exposure, take time to set this up.
One thing you might find of use in using the touchscreen is a PDA pen with the nylon or ballistic tip. This helps keep the touch screen clean of fingerprints. Fingerprints on the touchscreen can make video look dull and slightly washed out, so you'll likely want to keep a package of wipes around.

Adjust ViewFinder and LCD displays in a menu, controlled by the touch screen	Choose various types of exposure from the menu and it's several submenus. Exposure also may be controlled via the Exposure level in the front lower left of the A1U.	You can choose between a broad general menu, or touching the Menu option provides for several submenus with more specific functionality.

Menu options also provide for assigning necessary functions to the Assign button. For instance, I found that I liked the idea of being able to white balance using a single button, rather than assigning the white balance by way of the menu options.  Because the camcorder is menu driven, there are few physical buttons on the camcorder itself. Thank heaven that Sony decided to make the buttons actual words, rather than icons like so many other manufacturers have used. With other camcorders, it seems like you need the manual around to decipher what the icons mean.
The buttons/levers found on the device are:

-Zoom lever



Additionally found in the menus are tools found in the bigger brother to this camcorder. (Sony HVR-Z1U) For example, Black Stretch, which is simply amazing in low-light situations, peaking, CineGamma™, CineFrame 24 and CineFrame 30 can be found, along with real-time histogram read-outs, programmable P-Menu, and SteadyShot. All Scan mode is quite useful as well. The camcorder can display 4:3 markers to let users know what their framing will be like in a standard 4:3 aspect ratio. Timecode offsets may also be entered in this camera, which is quite a surprise for the price.

Pretty Pictures
The HVR-A1U also offers abilities to capture stills, either while video is being shot, or separately. The stills are stored on a typical memory stick. One thing that stands out; this camera does not hesitate to take the still shot like so many video cameras do. Press the button, and the viewfinder immediately displays the still it's taken and a shutter-like graphic shift in the viewfinder that indicates the shot has been taken. The sampling space is different in still image mode than it is in video, as it uses the entire area available to the sensors rather than being an anamorphic image. The table below indicates the various resolutions of the camcorder mode, memory card mode, and display modes.
 

Pictures can be recalled via USB 2 plug on the side of the camcorder, or the memory stick may be removed from the camcorder and inserted to a card reader.

Output
The A1U camcorder offers four outputs; an iLink/1394 output, a USB output, an RGB component output, and an auxiliary output for composite video and video. Note to the right of the Auxiliary output, is the DC input. This is where you charge the battery. Following the trend of lower cost camcorders, there is no charging base that accompanies the camcorder. The battery is charged on the camera itself. There are third party battery charge bases available if you need to charge multiple batteries. This is a feature that may be viewed as a shortcoming of the camcorder; professionals generally will need more than one battery for their productions. This camcorder can downsample the HDV to DV on the output, or send a 1080i stream directly to hardware if that's what you'd prefer to do in the recording stage. Imagine being able to take a low-cost HDV camcorder like the HVR-A1U and connect it to an HD/SDI converting system, recording HD/SDI straight into a computer or deck! Of course, like all its predecessors, the A1U also is capable of shooting DV. Just like it's bigger and slightly older brother, the A1U can also acquire in DVCAM, making this even more accessible to professional shooters.

There are a few shortcomings with this camcorder from my view. The bottom-load tape mechanism is challenging for those who would use this camcorder with a tripod. There are stand-off devices, but this could have been better thought out. This same issue applies with the battery release switch. Additionally, it seems that Sony could have provided a better microphone that comes as an external mic. In my tests, I removed the Sony mic and replaced it with a more appropriate hypercardioid, and that made a tremendous difference in the quality of sound I was able to achieve. It was tough to ascertain the audio quality of the balanced inputs and overall audio tools using the shotgun that comes in the box. However, I'm happy to say that with the hypercardioid in place, the audio features definitely passed muster.

All things considered, this camcorder is a great value, and no different than any of the other offerings from Sony's HDV team in terms of bang-for-the-buck. The few things that I'd wish were part of the package are minor in nature, excepting the bottom load for tape. I see this as a major challenge for pros that want to mount this camcorder to a tripod, jib, camera stabilizer, or other device.  Aside from that small annoyance, for use as a helmet or crash cam, or for use as a second camera in an already-existing HDV production rig, this camcorder is choice. As an entry-level HDV camcorder, this also is a great option. The quality of image is not quite up to par with that of the bigger, more expensive HVR-Z1U, while the HDV quality beats any DV camera by a fair amount. With a little color correction, it's not difficult to marry images captured with the A1U to images captured with the Z1U. Monitoring shots from both professional cameras via Serious Magic DV Rack with HD PowerPak, the scopes show exactly where these two cameras differ, and while they are indeed different, they aren't so far apart that color correction won't bring them together quickly.
The small size also proves to be challenging for less experienced camera operators, and getting the shot held smoothly can be difficult, due entirely to the small size. However, this is one of the most interesting aspects of the camera; it's small size.
More noteworthy is that by removing the audio unit from the top of the A1U and by removing the lens hood, the A1U could easily pass as a sneak-cam, or high definition nanny-cam. It's not intimidating at all, and could easily be carried into museums, sporting events, or other locations where a more professional camera might stick out or be refused entirely.

Good things can come in small packages, and this newest offering from Sony's professional division is no different. This is the sort of camcorder that can be handed to television reporters to take home for those late-night calls and a camera crew might be taking a while to get to the scene, or perhaps used for corporate production.

With a street price of around US$2700.00, this isn't the cheapest camcorder on the block, but it's to date the least expensive HDV camcorder available, and best of all, it's coming in at 1080i, which suggests Sony is very future-looking to the time when all television is 1080. The small package will pack well, and it's small size makes it perfect for mounting on the front of a car, motorcycle, or parachute helmet. The low cost makes it perfect as a crash-cam or high-risk camera where a more expensive camera might be too risky to place.

What's hot?  CineGamma, Black Stretch, small size, great audio package for the price of a lower-end DV camcorder. Dual viewfinder and LCD screen are nice as well.

What's not? Bottom load tape mechanism plus small size make it less than tripod friendly.

Happy shooting,

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