I just purchased an old HDC27H with viewfinder on eBay for $1750.......seemed like a good deal to me! I currently shoot with an SPX800, with a Canon J22 and J9.2 lens set. I figured adding "HD" to my toolbox for $1750 couldn't hurt.

The things I will miss obviously are being able to plug in and offload my video from the camera to my PC and MacBook, and also the color LCD. I need a way to ingest the DVCPROHD out of the HDSDI into both FCP and PC's, so I am looking at the Atomos Samurai Blade and Blackmagic Hyperdeck Shuttle 2.

I like the idea of using the Hyperdeck Shuttle as a stand alone ingest tool, as my workflow almost always involves DNxHD. I just plug it into the camera, press record, then play-out. Then I just plug the HDD/SDD into a caddy and render/export it directly or copy it to the laptop drives.

So that's the simple plan, but after seeing the Samurai Blade, I was wondering how much of a capability increase this little $1300 object could have on a $1750 camera. Obviously it handles the ingest need, but it also provides solid state true 1280x720 60p ProRes or DNxHD, meaning one ingest drive/file can work on anything I use, own, or edit on. The 1280x720 monitor is also a huge thing. It's not just a monitor, it's actually capable of the native resolution of the 720p camera itself......plus with all those strange kelvin settings on the Varicam, white balance could be an issue.

So........how close to HPX2700 quality/usability does the old HDC27H come when equipped with 200Mbps 1280x720 4:2:2 file based? Off-hand I would miss the digital zoom.......does the HDC27H have slow speed shutter settings? f12@2000 24p 50% shutter = what exactly in real video camera specifications?

My camera will arrive soon, and since I have no way to get video off of it, I am in a rush to buy something shiny and new, please help me decide, and if you know of any ultra cheap HDSDI ingest options for PC/Mac laptops, please advise.

How about the Blackmagic Intensity products? Are you always going to capture directly to a computer?

If not any external recorder with HDSDI will work and you can off load the media to the computer using CF cards or an SSD.

Samurai and Hyperdeck shuttle are 2 of the least expensive ways to record HDSDI. Neither record in DVCPRO HD but that should not be a problem for the most part. Apple Prores or Avid DNXHD. Could be a good way to extend the use of a a nice picture. The HDSDI might actually only output 24P over 60i so you might need to worry about pulldown. Also the shutter question would be 24P half is 1/50th. Not quite a 2700 but not a very large investment really.

The HDC27H with an SDI Recorder and an HPX2700 recording external with a recorder will lot two different images. The HPX will still be the superior camera given the chipset is new and even internal on the HPX with AVCintra100 will give you better results. None the less, using the HDC27H with an external recorder is the best bet given its quality is much higher than tape.