Anyone using the panasonic AG-hpg20 with a sony ex-3 ? Must be stunning quality or not?

Greets !

I don't think there'll be many when the Nanoflash is around. The HPG20 is huge and uses massively expensive P2 cards and has ONLY 100 mb/sec codec compared to 280 mb/s or whatever is the top for the Nano now.
Did we come to the conclusion that the EX cameras put out a 10 bit signal via HDSDI? If so I suppose that would make the HPG20 worthwhile for some people as AVC Intra is 10 bit.
Steve

10 bit is of limited benefit with an EX (and the majority of other lower cost HD cameras) as the noise level is higher than the sample size so all you end up with is a load of extra "bits" filled up with noise, wasting data. It's one of the reasons why the EBU say that 8 bit is good enough for the majority of TV production and that 10 bit brings little advantage for acquisition with most cameras. It's only when you use ultra low noise cameras that 10 bit really counts.

In post it's a different matter. 10 bit can have some real advantages in post where if you take an 8 bit signal and adjust it and then re-record using 8 bits, you will loose quality. By recording the adjusted signal to 10 bits the loss is minimised.