Panasonic announces AG-HMC70 Shoulder Mount AVCHD Camcorder

[Jacob Mason]

Is it reasonable to consider the possibility that an AVCHD camcorder such as this one could have a firmware update that will allow it to optimize the bitrate recording from 13Mb to 24Mb? If not a firmware update, maybe a hack?

[Tom Wills]

I'll say that as someone who uses the DVC60, which is quite close to this camera, only SD, and with a focus ring, the body especially looks pretty good, and the rest of the camera might be decent too. I certainly would appreciate a few of the new features it has. (Though obviously, not having used it, I'll reserve true judgement)

The lack of a focus ring is a bit silly, and the controls look a bit lackluster, but other than that, it doesn't look all that bad. Their ergonomics of the DVC60-style body are great (and this one looks even better), they're incredibly stable on the shoulder, you can pop AB batteries on the back with an adapter, and the viewfinder is miles ahead of anything else I've seen in its price range.

One of the local schools around me shoots on DVC60s also, and even with all the student abuse, they all still work admirably. I'd imagine these cameras will be similar in that respect.

All in all, not a bad offering, though as I said, the lack of proper controls is a poor move, but it might have some promise.

[John Bosco Jr.]

1/4" sensors... not available until April '08... same ole low bit rate for AVCHD, topping out at 13mb/s... I'm surely not excited.

Well, I guess it has its market for those consumers and prosumers who prefer tapeless, and the camcorder will have XLR audio inputs; However, this could have been a breakout camera for Panasonic if they did max out the AVCHD codec @ 24mb/s.

I agree with Chris. I think AVC-Intra will be the codec of choice for Panasonic's next step up. However, I think AVC-Intra @ 50mb/s is quite a big leap from their AVCHD offerings.

[Paulo Teixeira]

I think Panasonic didn’t want to spend time designing imagers for this thing so they decided to use the exact same chips that are in the AG-HSC1U. Same goes for the bit-rate. Since they released the AG-HSC1U without a focusing ring, I’m not surprised that they decided to release this without a ring either but I really hope they will reconsider if it’s not already in the plan at least to compete against Sony’s HD1000U. This is going too far and I was really hoping that Panasonic would release a successor to the AG-HSC1U with a focusing ring around the lens, 2 memory card slots and a bit rate that goes up to 24MBps but with this announcement, I’m starting to have second thoughts although I’m still wishing that it will happen.

Back then, I thought Canon went too far with the HV20 having 24p in a camcorder that doesn’t have a traditional focusing ring but I think Panasonic beat them by releasing a shoulder mounted camera with XLR inputs.

[Paulo Teixeira]

http://www.wired.com/gadgets/miscell...allery_dv_expo

I give credit for Panasonic putting an extremely affordable price tag on this but like I said in the post above, it should have a focusing ring even if it forces them to increase the price tag by a little. Does anybody have an idea on how much it would cost Panasonic to add one for each unit?

[Michael Jouravlev]

13 Mbps is just silly. Yeah, yeah, it is MPEG-4, not MPEG-2, thus it provides the same visual quality with lower bandwidth. Still, I would expect full-blown 24Mbps from a pro camera.

The primary reasons for low bandwidth (aside of conspiracy theories that 24Mbps AVCHD could topple HDV) are bandwidth and capacity. 16Mbps is the limit of the lowest grade Class 2 SDHC cards. I can understand that Panasonic and Sony don't want to handle calls from infuriated customers about jerky motion and lost frames, but here we are talking about a professional camera. The users of such equipment are generally not idiots and can read manuals. If the manual requires Class 4 or Class 6 memory card, then such a card should be used.

From capacity standpoint, 13 Mbps is about 100 MB/min, so a 2GB card is good for 20 minutes, 8GB card is good for 80 minutes, cool. With full 24Mbps rate the capacity almost halves, still, 40 minutes on a 8GB card sound pretty reasonable to me. A 8GB card can be found for about $100, again pretty reasonable price for media that can be reused practically infinitely (10,000 times or so).

Yet another feature that Panasonic could implement is having several card slots and recording onto them in order. When one card fills up, it would switch to another one. Add an LED or another means that displays a card currently being written to, and a hot-swap, and here you go: inifinite recording time, just remove a filled-up card and insert an empty one. This would be a good use for the huge plastic box this camera sports. Umm, isn't this how P2-equipped camcorders work?

[Jacob Mason]

Originally Posted by Michael Jouravlev

The primary reasons for low bandwidth (aside of conspiracy theories that 24Mbps AVCHD could topple HDV) are bandwidth and capacity. 16Mbps is the limit of the lowest grade Class 2 SDHC cards.

Ummmm, which card is that?
Because last I read - according to the specs listed in this article, " a standard line conforming to SDHC class 2 (Greater than 2MB per second) and Platinum II which is class 6* (Greater than 6MB per second). "
There doesn't appear to be a limitation on Class 2 cards from handling full 24mbps, seeing that they can sustain greater than 2MB per second here.

[Michael Jouravlev]

Originally Posted by Jacob Mason

There doesn't appear to be a limitation on Class 2 cards from handling full 24mbps, seeing that they can sustain greater than 2MB per second here.

1 byte == 8 bit ==> 2MBps == 16Mbps.

[Jacob Mason]

Originally Posted by Michael Jouravlev

1 byte == 8 bit ==> 2MBps == 16Mbps.

And the 2MB specification is provided at a minimum speed for the class 2.
On average, does the calculated write speed still fluctuate around the 24Mbps?
It shouldn't really matter anyway.
I would just assume people getting an AVCHD camcorder that's capable of shooting 24Mbps would have no problem getting a class 6 SDHC card anyways.
That can handle it no problem.

[Robert M Wright]

What strikes me as quite odd about the maximum bit-rate for this camera, is that Panasonic is also coming out with a new consumer AVCHD camcorder that records at a much higher maximum bit-rate (13mbps for the HMC70 vs 17mbps for the SD9).

[Jurgen Geevels]

Looks like a terrible cam to me :s

But what tha.. do I see xlr-connectors? :/
and no focus ring!

wouldn't it be way better to do it the way around..

[Andrew Kiu]

What happen to the "AG-HMC70 Focusing Ring? How you do the "Manual focusing" if without the ring on lens? Can anyone tell me or will this pro-cam worth the money?

[Randy Johnson]

Its pretty clear the game that Panasonic is playing here its the same one Sony plays. They need to cripple the camera enough so only TRUE entry level people will buy it. Right now I like the cards better than their p-2 because there cheaper and avalible anywhere. If they gave this camera manual focus or REAL manual focus and 1/3 inch chips it would step on their HVX-200 market. Sony did the same thing by maing their new full size(the HVR01000 i think) a one chip and full auto. They know that there are alot of wedding guys out there that also do industrial work and for those they want to sell the pro cameras. I do like this camera though put a anton/bauer on it and better chips and a focus ring and id buy it id even spend $3,000 if it was good in low light.

[Ken Wozniak]

I think Panny has the right idea with this camera.

They are obviously targeting wedding videographers (as evidenced by their recent ad campaign for the cam) who do a few weddings a summer. They are going after the people using an old single-chip Handycam-style camcorder. This allows for 3-chip AVCHD capture for about the same price as a VX-2100.

I don't mean to offend anybody, but I consider it a "baby steps" camcorder. I can't think of a better term for it. The larger size, SDHC recording, XLR inputs... All that will be more than what the target market is accustomed to. There is a little more control available on the HMC70 than on their old camcorder, but not enough to overwhelm the budding pro. They kept the sensors small and mechanicals to a minimum to keep the price low. Of course, Panny hopes that users of this cam will upgrade to an HVX in a few years.

As a bonus, the larger size will give them a more professional look. It's a sad reality that some clients judge a videographer by the size of his camera.

As long as it performs well in low light, they should sell lots of these.

[Randy Johnson]

See I think the shoulder mount does more than make you look professional. I really dont care how I look, I need shoulder mount cameras to do decent hand held work and to give you room to put stuff on your camera ie wireless recievers. Id like to see Panasonic put that new camera they are releasing in the fall into a shoulder mount id buy that in a minute.
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=114838