New GY-HM700 Camcorder

[Joe Carney]

I hope the low light capability on these are good. I'm in the process of specking out new HD cameras' for my church and these could be an affordable alternative to the EX3s'. They want to move to an Apple/FCP based editing system anyway. For my Church, 8bit 4:2:2 is perfectly great, I need 10bit for my upcoming feature this spring.

[Brian Tori]

Tim,

You stated that you were able to import .mov files into Premiere CS4 on Windows XP without issue. My question is, do you have to use XD Decoder to do this, or, will Premiere import these regardless without having to render? Is XD Decoder only necessary if you want to playback files using Quicktime player?

[David Johns]

.... it was on display at the Broadcast Video Expo in Earl's Court, London today. Apparently the only one in existence, it was flown over from America on Friday. I didn't get the chance to do any serious testing with it but it was 'live' on the stand, plugged into a large monitor and available for anyone to pick up, sling onto a shoulder and play with.

The sensors, they tell me, are indeed 1280x720, scaled up to 'full' HD. It was heavier than I expected, oddly but entirely comfortable on the shoulder, seems to be very similar to their existing tape-based models so far as I could tell.

There's been a bit of flip-flopping within JVC about what lens it will ship with over here and at what price. The sales people on the stand say the latest is that it'll come as standard with a 16x Fujinon lens that's used on their current 200-series units - and will have a lower-than-I-expected street price of around £5,000 + VAT (sales tax).

For a few hundred pounds more (£6,300 list price, ie less than that on the street), a wider Canon 14x lens will be available. Interestingly, the SxS option module was quoted as only 500 euros; that's about £450 at current exchange rates. That may be only the case if bought as a bundle with the camera though, I wasn't quite sure on that point.

The LCD screen is (relatively) vast and so far as I could tell in the less than ideal conditions of a trade show, quite clear and crisp. Menus were easy to navigate with the big silver button on the side of the camera and did't involve many button presses. Apparently the final version will have a customisable "favourites" menu of sub-options that can be clicked through to very quickly though it wasn't available on this engineering preview model.

The JVC rep I was chatting to has promised to sort out a loan unit for me as soon as the production models hit the shelves in March (it was going to be at NAB but the've brought the date forward)

Regards
Dave

[Dennis Stevens]

Sorry about the newbie (but basic) question:

If I record at 1080p24 to the SDHC cards, how long can I record to say a 16gb card? A few minutes? An hour?

I've never used the SDHC, but I love my JVC HD100, but the HM700 is very tempting. I'm sooooo ready to never use tape again.

[Shaun Roemich]

According to my calculations, at 35mbps you should get 1h5m out of a 16GB card. 1h30m at 25mbps.

[Jeffrey Butler]

Well, the thread goes a new direction for me. I'm ready to sell my HD250 b/c I shot for a month with two EX1s and was blown away by the image. So, to be keeping this form, shooting XDCAM EX + the larger frame size and to SDHC - is brilliant; must have even.

But...there's one product that is making me pause just a bit - and that's the Flash XDR. If I can get rid of some of the chunkiness of HDV and essentially collect a pure signal to the same SDHC (or whatever; no tape) then I might be a little less needy for the HM700...

If I can get so much more out of my 250, then perhaps I CAN wait a year or so to upgrade....only thing about this Flash thingy - it's not cheap. It's $4800. That's awfully close to what the body of the 700 will probably be... B&H needs to figure this out, but they list it with the 14x as 6995 then again as just the body for 7495. For a 2k upgrade to the XDR, you can toss in a whole video camera...

Any thoughts about this??? I need to spend some time on the XDR thread - but can you nip this in the bud for me? Can you say - no, dude - go buy it? The difference is amazing???

Thanks...

[John Markert]

Just checked the HM700 price at B&H: with 17x Fuji lens, $9,995. Ouch! That's for 1/3" CCD's.

If I can get so much more out of my 250, then perhaps I CAN wait a year or so to upgrade....only thing about this Flash thingy - it's not cheap. It's $4800. That's awfully close to what the body of the 700 will probably be... B&H needs to figure this out, but they list it with the 14x as 6995 then again as just the body for 7495. For a 2k upgrade to the XDR, you can toss in a whole video camera...

[Eugen Oprina]

John, Jeffrey,
Check the Flash XDR younger brother called Nano Flash.
The 250 is embeding the sound on the sdi out signal so the nano will do just fine.
Check the specs on convergent design site.
Good luck,
Eugen

[Daniel Weber]

Originally Posted by Shaun Roemich

According to my calculations, at 35mbps you should get 1h5m out of a 16GB card. 1h30m at 25mbps.

On the EX1 @35 mbs, 16 gigs gets you 59 minutes. @25ms you get 79 minutes.

I would think that the JVC would record the same times.

Daniel Weber

[Shaun Roemich]

Thanks Daniel. I LITERALLY just did the math and didn't take into consideration file systems and other overhead.

[Jeffrey Butler]

Originally Posted by Eugen Oprina

John, Jeffrey,
Check the Flash XDR younger brother called Nano Flash.
The 250 is embeding the sound on the sdi out signal so the nano will do just fine.

Thanks Eugen - it is intriguing. Still not exactly cheap at $3495 - two SR12s or one new HM100s...or 500 back hair removals...I guess at some point, substitutional pricing breaks down.

Going tapeless at a higher quality than I've been shooting at...really going to have chew on this one...

[Jack Walker]

Originally Posted by Brian Tori

Does anyone know what the second file format extension is when using the HM100 or HM700? The cameras are obviously .mov compatible, but I'm confused as to what we get on the PC side. What does "ISO based" mean? On the HM700 page it states that it can record to XDCAM EX compatible .mp4 files only with the optional SxS recorder. What is the extension going to be when shooting to the SDHC cards?

Here is an explanation of the ISO based file format:

What is MP4 Format Video?

[Lee Roberts]

I'm curious - my dealer is offering me an HM-700 with a Fujinon 17x lens for < $7k. His claim is that the 17x is a better lens than the Canon lens that the 700 is scheduled to be bundled with the package.

What would you do if you had the $7k?

Thanks ~ Lee

[Shaun Roemich]

It really depends on whether you need to go long or go wide.

I'm holding out for the Canon SOLELY because I already have 2 16x5.5 lenses from my 2 - 200U's. And I know I can buy a 17x from B&H for about $3k. Not sure how long before the 14x Canon will be available as a "for purchase" lens instead of being available in the kit but this is merely my speculation.

[Lee Roberts]

Originally Posted by Shaun Roemich

And I know I can buy a 17x from B&H for about $3k.....

That was his point - that the lens by itself was around $3k, so that amounted to $4k for the camera. It seems that everyone regards the 16x that comes with the 200 as a 'throw away' worth a few hundred bucks. I have a couple of 16x's also, but I'm thinking about selling my 200 for a 700, and I read somewhere that when the 'official' 700 comes out with the 17x option it will be north of $9k.

He said that when the Canon lens became available to him that the $7k price would be the same and that the 17x would be an upgrade. Just trying to figure out if it's a real deal or not.

Thanks ~ Lee