Take a look here:

http://www.whatsnewatnab.com/search/code.php?code=031

Admin's note: Jan did not actually start this thread -- she was responding to another post elsewhere on this forum, and I felt it was important enough to split into its own dedicated topic. The "it's official" title is my doing, not hers. Just so we're all clear...

CH

Okay, I'm assuming that since you posted that Jan, that it's no joke? Wow, there's a camera to satisfy all your different HD desires. NAB cannot get here quick enough.

jan i have to say i hope that bag is removable, because i can see running into all types of issues when using this camcorder...other then that, the specs look fine... thanks for the heads up and see you at NAB

DVX form factor, as promised! Betcha that's a Leica lens on that thing.

Yowza! Does this make you happy?

The AG-HVX200 records on a P2 card in 1080 in 60i, 30p and 24p; in720 in 60p, 30p and 24p; in 480 in 60i, 30p, and 24p either in DVCPRO50 and DVCPRO.

1080/24p, how about that?

w00t!

Haha!

Wow.

3 different resolutions.
4 different frame rates.
DVCPro100, 50, and 25

This thing is actually more than I had hoped for, and my expectations were already pretty high.

I had just taken it as a given that 720 would be the only HD mode available. 1080 comes as a huge surprise.

The ability to shoot 60P in 720 mode is also just as nice.
2.3 times faster than 24P give us real usable slow motion for the first time (in a camera I could feasibly afford that is).

Very nice.
Very very nice.

CHRIS, Since it's official. Is this forum now going to get a home.

Yeah, but it's going to have to wait just a bit longer... there's a major reorg that will happen here before NAB... can't say much more than that right now though.

It looks like it might have enough room for tape. There was some talk it might be able to use tape also. For some of use tape would be nice to aleast get the camera and then buy the P2 cards later.

I seriously doubt you will see tape on this camera.
Jan has all but said it will not record to tape, the price point also points to no tape transport, and even if it did have a tape option it would only be useful for the DVCPro codec.

Also, if tape were an option it probably would have been mentioned in the released info.

All signs point to 'no tape' I think. And personally I think that's a good move.

"there's a major reorg that will happen here before NAB... can't say much more than that right now though."

Wow, suspense is building everywhere right before NAB.
And I thought the only suprises we were in store for were affordable HD cameras.

Can't wait to see what's on the horizon, Chris.

3 different resolutions

What are the CCDs?

Without knowing the native resolution of the source image, I'm not going to get too excited.

There's also the downside of the camera having too many features... each setting is another excuse to increase the price - even if I'd only ever really want to use one of 'em.

Well it has been said that the camera will be competitive with the Z1. That to me would suggest a price not too much different (and what a better deal!).

I suspect 1/3" CCDs. Anything more than that and this camera would dig deep into their SDX900 sales I'm guessing. Heck even with 1/3" chips...

Or maybe they went the route of one large CMOS sensor? Hmmm..
I'm guessing it will be 960 horizontal pixels - like the Sony. In which case it would use pixel shift to get 1440 -> 1920. In fact I'm pretty sure. Too many more and dynamic range suffers.

THERE IS NO MENTION OF TAPE. IT's P2 only. Tape dead, Memoery Media good and very alive. I am shocked at the feature list on formats. The fact that it has 1080 and 720 and all frame rates needed and one that blew me away ( 60P ) Ala , It's a MINI SHOWSCAN CAMERA now. At this point no one can compete with these specs.


<<<-- Originally posted by Luis Caffesse : I seriously doubt you will see tape on this camera.
Jan has all but said it will not record to tape, the price point also points to no tape transport, and even if it did have a tape option it would only be useful for the DVCPro codec.

Also, if tape were an option it probably would have been mentioned in the released info.

All signs point to 'no tape' I think. And personally I think that's a good move.

"there's a major reorg that will happen here before NAB... can't say much more than that right now though."

Wow, suspense is building everywhere right before NAB.
And I thought the only suprises we were in store for were affordable HD cameras.

Can't wait to see what's on the horizon, Chris. -->>>

"each setting is another excuse to increase the price - even if I'd only ever really want to use one of 'em."

The price has been said to be 'below $10,000'

Also, we aren't talking about 'settings' here like detail coring or gamma curve control. We're talking about features that before seemed mutually exclusive. This camera is obviously made for the person who needs versatility.

Shooting DV one day, HD the next, and DVCPro50 the week later.

I was just explaining to Chris earlier today that this is exactly what has stopped me from purchasing a camera for a long time. I do a lot of DV shooting, but also shoot DVCPro50, and every now and again HD. I don't shoot any one of the them consistently enough to justify buying a camera that is married to only one format (and an SDX is out of my league). This seems to be a great compromise for people who do a lot of various types of shoots.

Esentially, 3 cameras in one.

Obviously the proof is in the pudding...and we'll hopefully see that at NAB. But, from the sounds of it, the price will not be out of line (in my opinion) with what the camera is capable of delivering.

"At this point no one can compete with these specs."

I wholeheartedly agree!

I'd hope they don't use any pixelshift tomfoolery. I'd guess 1280x1080 chips, no pixel shift, but that's just a guess based upon the DVCProHD codec.

Graeme

1080 24p at 8bit 4:2:2 and still comes in at 100mb. Cool.

I did talk to a Panasonic rep two weeks ago and he said there was talk about tape. But he wasn't for sure (or couldn't say) what was going to happen.

I think tape would be a good thing to have on this camera. For you people with unlimited budgets no tape will be ok. But for myself and others 4 minutes of HD on a P2 card for $1,700 is not going to help.

But if you can record on tape and the camera was around $4,999 more people will be able to afford it. The people with plenty of cash can buy the P2 cards.

Maybe there is more to this story,,bundle cards, cheap cards. I guess we will find out more in a few days.

Say Graeme, surely you're aware that Pixel Shift is a very real technology and not some marketing gimmick... Panasonic invented it quite awhile back; Canon resurrected it for their XL and GL series camcorders and now even Sony is using it. Personally I don't see anything wrong with Pixel Shift. Looking forward to seeing you at NAB!

"For you people with unlimited budgets no tape will be ok. But for myself and others 4 minutes of HD on a P2 card for $1,700 is not going to help."

Bob, if the cost of P2 cards is the issue, then adding a tape transport probably wouldn't help anyhow.

As Jan has mentioned, a DVCProHD tape transport requires 16 record heads. These things aren't cheap.

If this camera were to have an HD tape transport, it would increase greatly in size and in price.

From what I understand, tapeless is the only answer to keep the price down while keeping the versatility of the camera.

Keep in mind that pricing has not been announced on either the camera or the cost of P2 cards.

we aren't talking about 'settings' here

Well, other than the temporal sampling - which is a legitimate change in how the image is sampled - we are talking about "soft" hardware. I.e., hardware that takes whatever the image is, and changes it to these different specs.

For example, with an appropriate scaler, it is easy to take 1080p (60) or 1080i (60) to 720 (60p) or vice versa, 1080p (30) to 720p (30) and the same with 24... Doing it all in hardware to the various formats is indeed great... as it assists workflow dramatically.

If it really IS a 1080p camcorder with 1080p chips... then BOOYAH! My inner engineer screams with joy, and all the conversion software will be just to take it to lesser formats and data rates.

My primary concern is that its a 720p camcorder with circuitry to upsample it to the 1080 formats. If this is the case than the 1080 business is just in there as a competitive marketing feature, and that all sensible uses of the camera would be in the 720 mode.

anything wrong with Pixel Shift

I view it as a conditional increase in resolution that doesn't dramatically decrease the signal-to-noise and detector sensitivity. Not necessarily a bad thing... and the sensitivity issue will probably keep it around for a long time to come.

Pixelsshift is real, but I'm hard pressed to see any benefit from it. Any type of sampling, which is what a CCD is doing to the image, relies on mathematical sampling theory, and according to that, you can't represent a signal with more frequency than half the sample rate. I'm at quite a loss to see how PixelShift gets around this requirement or creating aliassing problems.

If anyone has any links to any nice mathematical papers on the subject of pixel shift, I'd be very happy to read them.

Graeme

I don't want as much as a single video head in this camera. No fast moving parts, no helical scanning. None, nothing. Tapeless is wonderful! Good work Panasonic.


Michael Pappas
http://www.Pbase.com/ARRFILMS


<<<-- Originally posted by Bob Zimmerman : I did talk to a Panasonic rep two weeks ago and he said there was talk about tape. But he wasn't for sure (or couldn't say) what was going to happen.

I think tape would be a good thing to have on this camera. For you people with unlimited budgets no tape will be ok. But for myself and others 4 minutes of HD on a P2 card for $1,700 is not going to help.

But if you can record on tape and the camera was around $4,999 more people will be able to afford it. The people with plenty of cash can buy the P2 cards.

Maybe there is more to this story,,bundle cards, cheap cards. I guess we will find out more in a few days. -->>>

No tape will be great,,,,,it's just the cost that might keep me from getting the HVX...we shall see in a few days.

The way I see it, if it can record to hard drives there won't be ANY problems for me at least :D

I agree whole heartedly with the no tape idea.

OMG 1080p/24??????

this has GOT to be a hoax!

Heh... it's for real, baby!

Am I the only one that was hoping this would be a shoulder mount camera? I LOVE all these new cameras, but I still love the XL2 because to the client it looks more substantial and professional.

That said, this looks like a sweet new addition...

By the way, am I being paranoid and nitpicky here?
(stop me if I am)

We all sort of went on the assumption that this thing would probably hold 2 P2 cards...but the specs released today say it will "record on a P2 card"

Does that mean only 1 slot?

Or am I just being too literal?


"I still love the XL2 because to the client it looks more substantial and professional."

Well, it's always been a problem at this level, but I think that is changing a little bit. I used to have serious problems with the DVX, until my clients saw the footage.

It's just a matter of setting up expectations.
As long as their reminded of what they're getting in the end, hopefully most can get past the size issue.

Now from an operator issue, it's a tough call for me.
There are times I appreciate the bulk and size of a shoulder mount, and times I hate it.

That's why JVC's new design kind of intrigues me, they seem to have split the difference. I'm curious to see how that feels.

But, in the end....if it shoots 1080/24P, I could care less how small it is.
:)

It has two P2 slots!

Michael Pappas
http://www.pbase.com/ARRFILMS


<<<-- Originally posted by Luis Caffesse : By the way, am I being paranoid and nitpicky here?
(stop me if I am)

We all sort of went on the assumption that this thing would probably hold 2 P2 cards...but the specs released today say it will "record on a P2 card"

Does that mean only 1 slot?

Or am I just being too literal? -->>>

Michael, do you have a source for the two P2 slots? I mean, I would hope so but I just haven't seen anything official yet.

I read ( and reread ) a post by Jan , I think at dvxusers , that was definitely worded vaguely so as to allow for a tape mechanism - she said something to the effect that what she has released as info is confirmed but what hasn't been specifically touched upon by her is still in the undenied realm of possiblty. I think in terms of tape mechanisms , we have to wait. It would seem a big risk by panasonic to have it p2 only esp. at todays prices for media. Most people interested in buying this camera would tend to wait a year or 2 for p2 cards to drop- if enough people were waiting instead of buying , they wouldn't drop. Also - no one's mentioned , even with the hide and seek photo , how ugly this camera is. Doesn't look near as attractive as a dvx- looks like a cross between a gl2 and dvx- with the gl2 winning. I know basing opinions on looks is a trivial point-- at least that was the excuse I used w/my exwife--but some things can't be helped ! Kurth

Maybe it will come with a couple of 20 gig cards!!!

Well, for the amount of money a DVCPro HD tape transport costs, that would be a significant percentage of the overall pricetag. I'm hoping they chose to spend their per-unit costs on other things, so as far as I'm concerned I hope it doesn't have a tape transport.

Of course there's another possibility which I think nobody has mentioned yet... what if there was a standard DV25 tape transport onboard? You couldn't use it for HD or DVCPro 50, but it would be handy for standard plain vanilla stuff.

I don't want to go searching for the post, but I'm almost sure Jan has said NO TAPE. Although I wouldn't mind a MiniDV transport.

Now we just have to wait on Firestore :)

I think Jan said there would be no tape for HD. That wouldn't be worth it at this price point. I'm not sure if that was meant to extend to SD as well though.

Chris - that was exactly my thoughts - tape for the lower data rates - those mechanisms are relatively cheap- also at HDfor indies , I just read of recording dvcprohd onto an ipod ! Hey does this camera have firewire ? Maybe this is the big announcement at NAB , another agreement between apple and panasonic perhaps ? Now that would be interesting - Ipods to 60gigs , right ?

Wow. The trump card has been played, and it's a doozy.


I am praying for 1280 by 720 chips as used in the JVC. Please not the 980 by 720's used in the Canon.

1080/24p. Well, let's see.. 2007 Sundance entries just climbed to 5 million :-)

No need for tape! Why...Well for one reason, DVCHDpro on tape isn't going to work on that camera. MiniDV tape technical issues for one reason. I for one don't want to bother with all the issues that can rise up with tape anyway. I have wanted tape for a while to die off. Ever since I saw the Avid cutter demo and then I saw Firestore years later and I thought this has to become the future. It was just a matter of time.

The only reason Panasonic would have had minidv on the AG-HVX200 was for DV.

The HVX-200 is an HD camera first, and second it does regular dv. But if you need dv then they still have the DVX100A for those that need that. If you need a Mini Varicam, then you go AG-HVX200/P2.

They are not going to stop selling the DVX100a because they know that a market still wants tape and needs miniDV.

For those including us who want HD now Panasonic offers the AG-HVX200 ( mini varicam ) and the lack of tape is a great major advancement...

Jan Crittenden does the above sound kinda right????




Remember if you need MiniDv, on a 4 gig P2 if the numbers are correct you get around 13 minutes of HDpro at 24p and if you do that at 25mbs this will give you around 52 minutes of video at DV res. This is a guess until concrete numbers are posted.



Michael Pappas
http://www.pbase.com/ARRFILMS


<<<-- Originally posted by Kurth Bousman : I read ( and reread ) a post by Jan , I think at dvxusers , that was definitely worded vaguely so as to allow for a tape mechanism - she said something to the effect that what she has released as info is confirmed but what hasn't been specifically touched upon by her is still in the undenied realm of possiblty. I think in terms of tape mechanisms , we have to wait. It would seem a big risk by panasonic to have it p2 only esp. at todays prices for media. Most people interested in buying this camera would tend to wait a year or 2 for p2 cards to drop- if enough people were waiting instead of buying , they wouldn't drop. Also - no one's mentioned , even with the hide and seek photo , how ugly this camera is. Doesn't look near as attractive as a dvx- looks like a cross between a gl2 and dvx- with the gl2 winning. I know basing opinions on looks is a trivial point-- at least that was the excuse I used w/my exwife--but some things can't be helped ! Kurth -->>>

1080@24p- I'll have to see it to believe it ! I remember when panasonic was releasing the gs400 - they kept alive misleading info about frame mode on the camera - calling frame mode , progressive , when they obviously knew it wasn't progressive . I can't believe they will give us 1080/24p. Now I DO have to wait. Let's hope this isn't ad room hype.

In a P2 thread over at www.pana3ccduser.com there are some stills taken of 128GB P2 cards (from Germany I think). Could this be for real or are they mock ups?? Certainly beats 4GB

http://www.pana3ccduser.com/showthread.php?t=1828&page=1&pp=10

Would that be a P2 RAID of some of those mini-hard drives? If that's true, and not totally unaffordable, I'll have difficulty getting near the Panasonic NAB booth.

Graeme

Kurth............

The PV-GS400 is a consumer camera made, designed and marketed by the consumer development devision at Panasonic.

The AG-HDX200 comes form the professional development and manufacturing that makes professional gear and marketed from their professional devision.

That's like comparing the professional devision that makes and markets the Canon 1Ds SLR to the consumer devision in Canon that makes the A60 2 mega pixel camera.

Or the Sony professional devision that designs, builds and markets the DSR570WSL to the Consumer devision that the makes and markets the TRV1000.


The two don't even swim in the same water or drink the same wine.



Michael Pappas
http://www.pbase.Com/ARRFILMS



<<<-- Originally posted by Kurth Bousman : 1080@24p- I'll have to see it to believe it ! I remember when panasonic was releasing the gs400 - they kept alive misleading info about frame mode on the camera - calling frame mode , progressive , when they obviously knew it wasn't progressive . I can't believe they will give us 1080/24p. Now I DO have to wait. Let's hope this isn't ad room hype. -->>>

If it's P2, then it's flash memory, not hard drives.

128GB in Flash memory - that's quite a fantastic feat of engineering. I can still remember how big we though the 16k RAM Pack was for the ZX81.

Graeme

What if Panasonic plans on coming out with a seperate device for recording to tape for DV? It would kind of be like the old days when we had to use two piece equipment. Except now maybe the seperate tape device could piggy back on this new camera. It would kind of be a firestore but a tape drive instead of a hard drive. Of course if this is the case why not just use a hard drive then?

I still like the idea of somebody making a hard drive with a P2 interface built onto it. It would be kind of like those USB key storage devices but much bigger.

About the pixel shift thing. I hate it. I agree with Graeme. It might look good to the naked eye but in the end you are not getting true pixels. In the visual effects industry perfect pixels mean a lot. Maybe we are just pixel freaks but to me I can tell.

The interesting thing about pixel shift is that it only ups the luma resolution. The chroma resolution stays the same. Even though this happens before encoding this means even if you had a camera with true raw analog outputs your chroma is cut in half compared to the luma. Well the chroma isn't cut in half but it stays the same while the luma gets enhanced.

If you start with a 4:4:4 image and use pixel shift you will end up with an image at 4:2:2 no matter how it is encoded.


Finally about the HD tape device on the camera. Even if Panasonic invented a mini version of the HD tape device it would still be huge. I don't even think it would be possible with a mini tape. 16 heads take up a lot of space. The tape unit would have to be larger than the camera itself. If there was a tape device on the camera I think it would have to be a full size tape.

Now it could have just a DV tape unit but really how many of us would use it? If we had the option of shooting high quality video on P2 or ok video on DV wouldn't we end up choosing P2 even if it costs us more in the end? Maybe for the first few months you would use it but after that you wouldn't look at the tape unit ever again.

ONe question - is that 1080P from 1080P chips? or ?

do you guys know that 3ccd 1080p resolution is as good as 35mm film?!?! yap that's right it's 6 megapixels!! just like your PROFESSIONAL DSLR cameras!!!

and BTW the Arri D20 ...but it's 3 chips at 2 megapixels instead of 1 at 6

Wow, sounds sweet. Guess it's hard to now get excited, but we now have to wait for the one piece of information that will put it all in perspectice....Price. Will this really compete with the Sony, seeing as we need P2 cards as well for it. If it does, this is my new camera.

I'm in the position where I don't have a deck and haven't really needed one. With a P2 cam, I won't need one either.

Can't wait to see what the Viewfinder and LCD capabilities are too.

Aaron

Michael- I'm not comparing the camera quality or manufacturing capabilities of consumer vs. pro divisions - I'm talking about the kind of hype a company uses to outlay it's products. Simply put , I can't 100% believe we're getting a dvcpro50 1080/24p camera until I hear from people at NAB outside of the Panasonic team. I don't care what medium we'd have to use, that would threaten varicam sales - unless we're seeing an even bigger than DV/HDV revolution. Sorry , I just can't imagine they would make that big of a leap forward. I remember wanting, too much, a true progressive 16:9 3 chip minidv camera for less than 1500 bucks . then the true facts slowly slipped out of the panasonic spec people - you could see they were almost ashamed to admit it. By the way , was this the tidbit Jan promised or is there more info coming the 4th ? Kurth