Thinking about H1 instead of HVX now

Just talked to one of the DVinfo.Net sponsors and I'm thinking about giving up on waiting for the HVX. I don't have a schedule that I'm trying to keep or anything like that, I'm just tired of not knowing anything at all. I think Panasonic's dropped the ball when it comes to keeping people (dealers and customers) informed. They have the resources, they are just choosing not to use them.

I'm also a little bit worried about where I'm going to keep all the footage I shoot with the HVX. I just finished capturing about 8 hours of footage and have 8 nice little DV's with that footage that I can now go stick in a closet. If anything ever happens to the footage I've captured, I can go get those 8 tapes and re-capture the stuff I need.

My only 3 hesitations with the Canon H1 are:
1) importing HDV shot in 24F into Final Cut Pro
2) from everything that I've seen in this forum and dvxuser.com, the colors of the HVX just look so much more vibrant and rich. This is not a "knock" to Canon in any way at all, I think I'm a pretty fair person over all, just a true concern from the footage I've seen that seems to be flat.
3) I would prefer to shoot 720p

I'm not a "fan" of any particular brand, but I have owned a Canon XL2 and still own a Canon GL2 and think Canon makes a good product.

Anyone have any comments they would like to share?

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

Can't you go out to one of the sponsors and try both out?
Maybe that could help you decide... When so money is involved I could see why someone would want to test both.
(I could also understand why someone wouldn't feel that's necessary)

I could, maybe. As far as I know, there is no dealer in the DFW area that has both. And even if a dealer did, I've got a new "big hesitation" about P2. I LOVE the thought of no longer having to "capture." It's a huge time saver. BUT, at least if I'm shooting HDV onto tape I have the option of deciding what I want to capture and what I don't. With the HVX and P2, I'll have to capture and store everything on to some sort of hard disk solution (which can get really expensive REALLY fast) otherwise it's gone forever. With recording HDV on the H1 I can just capture what I want and put the tapes away. If I change my mind about footage I need in the future, I can just go get the tape and capture it. I could not do that with the HVX - I would have to capture EVERYTHING with it that I want before I clear the P2 card to use it again.

[Shannon Rawls]

Yea, but Derek. If you love 720p and you love Final Cut Pro.....then why the rush? Don't let the business practices of Panasonic dictate their equipment. The HVX200 is a sweet camera and it seems to fit your bill. Especially if you like the image quality.
Look D, forget what you see on the internet. Go to a store and check them out side by side with your own two eyeballs. That's the only sure-fire way of seeing if it produces the images you like it. If it does....don't settle for an XL-H1...get the HVX200. I have a feeling that 50,000 HVX200's are on an ocean liner sailing here as we speak! And panasonic is gonna drop truckloads of them to the dealers. It's a strategical thing, I think. And storage?? Ahhh man, 250gb hard drives are 99 bucks on ebay all day. You can buy a hard drive as a back up to a hard drive, they are so cheap! *SMILE*

Look....$9,000 ain't change layin' around in the seat of your sofa. Be smart and think of your favorite workflow and what IMAGE you like the best, then, make your decision. And finally, if you have nothing coming up in the next 30 days...then I DEFINITELY recommend you don't buy a thing. You'll have an XL-H1 sitting around doing nothing and that's just sad. Especially if within that time the HVX200 starts shipping like crazy.*smile*

- ShannonRawls.com

Thanks Shannon - good points.

Originally Posted by Shannon Rawls

Go to a store and check them out side by side with your own two eyeballs. That's the only sure-fire way of seeing if it produces the images you like it. If it does....don't settle for an XL-H1...get the HVX200.

It would not be settling at all. The H1 is a nice camera and it has some well thought out features as you've pointed out in some of your intial posts when you got your FIRST one. Plus, I was VERY happy with my XL2 and my GL2 continues to amaze me everyday with its reliability and ease of use. I just can't ignore the fact that you've seen them all in action and you also "put your money where you mouth is" by recently purchasing a second one! I have to admit, while I don't agree with everything you say, I do respect your opinion and the fact that you use this gear to make a living. So thanks again Shannon for your input.

Originally Posted by Derek West

I would prefer to shoot 720p

Why? 1080 is not better resolution? And to be progressive is not reachable at post or with 24p shooting or even at Canon's 24F?

[Jonas Nystrom]

I cant really see the point with the expensive on camera hard drives. My workflow (as always, the best ;-): Log all your clips (batch) to a 500GB G-raid hard drive. Then after logging all of your tapes, get rid of the clips you don't like. You have to have a FAST hard drive (not the 99 bucks USB2 drives). And you have to get rid of the not good takes anyway. Tapes are small and lightweight, Always work - I should never never only record to a hard drive in any cases! //J

[Bob Grant]

The whole thing comes down to workflow and usability.

Certainly the XL H1 wins hands down. Being able to genlock cameras on a multicamera shoot is not a bad thing to have. Being able to feed HD SDI to whatever is also a bit of a plus, probably neither of those mean much to most now but from my experience it's amazing how the need arises when you have a capability. I've bought many bits of gear on some odd whim and shortly thereafter work has found the gear.

I was at the initial P2 launch a few years ago and it sure seemed like a good idea at the time despite having to sign a NDA to find out what the cards cost. To be honest I was pretty excited by the idea but my 'boss' who's had years of experience in broadcast thought it was lame. It should have been a giant killer for broadcast, particularly ENG but it hasn't. Sony's XDCAM which is another tapless acquisition system is taking off big time. Why, broadcasters like to keep the media, sure not all of it forever but they've got the option that P2 doesn't offer them with XDCAM.

Now anyone doing serious ENG can afford enough P2 cards to hold a days worth of footage and once they get back to base it can be downloaded very quickly. Now that's a luxury most HVX owners don't have and yes there is a way around that, download it onto a laptop and maybe you'll need an extra drive to fit it all on.

Sounds simple except, stay with me on this one. No serious shooter buys a camera without a few extra batteries and a battery charger, some even buy a charger that'll charge more than one battery overnight. Lets you get some sleep ready for the next day in the wilds. But how long does any laptop run for on batteries. Forget the issue of a laptop and extra HD being more kit to lug, how are you going to power the things for a day? Buy more batteries, maybe if your laptop lets you easily swap batteries and hopefully that external HD runs off the laptops batteries otherwise it's going to need some form of power supply as well.

And the at the end of the day you've got all those batteries to charge, camera batteries no problem, just fork out for a multibay battery charger, but what about the laptop batteries, only way to charge most of them is in the laptop, I guess that's what PAs are for, stay up all night swapping batteries out of a laptop to charge them.

Not saying that any of these problems cannot be solved but why buy into problems that have to be solved, ones that Panasonic should have solved.

[Steven Thomas]

Good post Shannon.

I've been following the H1 for a while, and I'm also torn about the HVX200.

One thing for sure, the H1 produces one high rez image.

Also, according to your recent post, the -3dB gain option is the way to go.
Of course, at the risk of losing some sensitivity.
It would of been nice if the HVX200 offered the -3dB option.

Now, after reading your post about the firestore, this finding could change a lot of minds.

Steve

[David Saraceno]

Originally Posted by Derek West

My only 3 hesitations with the Canon H1 are:
1) importing HDV shot in 24F into Final Cut Pro

I take it that FCP 5 does not support capture of 24P HDV footage?

How then does Shannon edit the footage?

[Alister Chapman]

I reckon my H1 at -3db is still more sensitive than my Z1. As Shannon has always pointed out the low light performance of the H1 is very good for an HDV camcorder. Even at +6 the noise is not too objectionable. If you use the NR1 noise reduction on low at +12db there is almost no noise, just a little ghosting on movement instead.
I hear many complaining of the H1's image looking "electronic", to me it simply looks very detailed. I don't like the factory settings, the image looks very flat, but tweek the setup a bit and you get great pictures.
My BIG gripe with the H1 is the viewfinder. It's really not up to the job, it just dosn't have the resolution needed, even in monochrome mode. Its also not to good for judging exposure, you really need to use the zebra overlay to be sure of what is and is not blown out or just close to peak white. The peaking setting helps, but I will be looking at alternative viewfinder options.

Jonas,
I took a quick look at your profile and noticed that you are using the H1 and FCP Studio. I would really appreciate hearing your opinion on how the two are working together. By the way, NICE WORK!!! I'm referring to the images on your home page - you have a real artistic eye.

- - - - -

Alister,
Any H1 footage on your sites yet?

- - - - -

Originally Posted by David Saraceno

I take it that FCP 5 does not support capture of 24P HDV footage? How then does Shannon edit the footage?

I'll let Shannon answer that for the 100% correct answer, but I'm pretty sure from seeing some other posts that Shannon edits on a PC in something other than FCP.

[Shannon Rawls]

Originally Posted by David Saraceno

How then does Shannon edit the footage?

Shannon edits the 24p HDV footage on PC...where just about every editing program supports it. I feel sorry for the MAC guys.

You can edit it with Final Cut Pro, but you have to demux the .M2T file first using a program called streamclip (or something like that). Or simply wait until FCP will handle native .m2t files OR convert 24p .m2t files to AIC. whichever comes first.

It is obvious, that HDV is heaven sent for PC users
It is obvious, that DVCPROHD is heaven sent for MAC users.

Both will catch up with eachother very soon.

- ShannonRawls.

[Daniel Epstein]

Derek,
At the present time 24F is incompatible with FCP 5. A plug in is supposed to be in the works (Don't hold your breath... think NAB). Also the H1 is the only deck capable of playing the tapes in 30f HDV and 24F HDV. 30F HDV does work in FCP 5. So far harddisk solutions for the camera have issues for a direct workflow in FCP5.


Daniel Epstein
Gold Teleproductions, Inc
New York, NY

Originally Posted by Derek West

Just talked to one of the DVinfo.Net sponsors and I'm thinking about giving up on waiting for the HVX. I don't have a schedule that I'm trying to keep or anything like that, I'm just tired of not knowing anything at all. I think Panasonic's dropped the ball when it comes to keeping people (dealers and customers) informed. They have the resources, they are just choosing not to use them.

I'm also a little bit worried about where I'm going to keep all the footage I shoot with the HVX. I just finished capturing about 8 hours of footage and have 8 nice little DV's with that footage that I can now go stick in a closet. If anything ever happens to the footage I've captured, I can go get those 8 tapes and re-capture the stuff I need.

My only 3 hesitations with the Canon H1 are:
1) importing HDV shot in 24F into Final Cut Pro
2) from everything that I've seen in this forum and dvxuser.com, the colors of the HVX just look so much more vibrant and rich. This is not a "knock" to Canon in any way at all, I think I'm a pretty fair person over all, just a true concern from the footage I've seen that seems to be flat.
3) I would prefer to shoot 720p

I'm not a "fan" of any particular brand, but I have owned a Canon XL2 and still own a Canon GL2.

Anyone have any comments they would like to share?

Originally Posted by Daniel Epstein

Derek,
At the present time 24F is incompatible with FCP 5. A plug in is supposed to be in the works (Don't hold your breath... think NAB). Also the H1 is the only deck capable of playing the tapes in 30f HDV and 24F HDV. 30F HDV does work in FCP 5. So far harddisk solutions for the camera have issues for a direct workflow in FCP5.

I appreciate you going to the trouble of registering on DVinfo.net to let me know. I had not seen anything yet either, but was thinking that maybe since the camera has been out for a while now someone had come up with something. It does worry me though, because the JVC HD100 has been out for quite some time and there is still not an "Easy SetUp" (as of version 5.0.4 on 1/21/06) for "HDV 720p24."

Originally Posted by Shannon Rawls

It is obvious, that HDV is heaven sent for PC users
It is obvious, that DVCPROHD is heaven sent for MAC users.

Shannon, I think you are right about that, and thanks for posting the workaround.

Originally Posted by Shannon Rawls

And finally, if you have nothing coming up in the next 30 days...then I DEFINITELY recommend you don't buy a thing.

I would like to thank everyone for your feedback on the subject. I'll continue to consider the H1, and will probably just wait until I need a camera for a project and will decide that day which one will be best for me and "next day" it from one of the DVinfo.Net sponsors I buy from.