The Panasonic TM900 Users Thread

[Colin Rowe]

1. More misleading, I think
2. A lens with a wide aperture, f2.8 or lower, preferably f1.8 or f1.4

[Luc Spencer]

Ok, gotcha, thank you :)

[Nihal Jayasinghe]

Originally Posted by Claire Watson

Mark, as you have a Western digital disk for "outputting to a television" you can keep the full frame rate 50P output from Edius for this, thus enjoying it's fabulous full quality! That's what I do with my personal stuff, I make a 1080P/50 project in Edius 6, edit the film and export to mpeg2 to put on my WD TV® Live Hub™ for viewing on my HDTV or taking to friends and showing on theirs.

You can make a 50P project in Edius quite easily, here's my project settings..

Video
Frame Size : 1920 x 1080
Frame Rate : 50.00
Aspect Ratio : 1.0000
Field order : Progressive
Quantization Bit Rate : 8Bit
Audio
Sampling Rate : 48000Hz
Quantization Bit Rate : 24 Bit
Channel : 2
Setup
Render format : Canopus HQ Standard
Over Scan Size : 0 %
Audio Reference Level : -12.0dB

When you have completed the edit go to "Print to File" and in the left pane of this screen highlight "MPEG", then in the r/h pane double click "MPEG2 Program Stream". The MPEG settings window will open.

For the Basic settings tab leave Size at "Current Setting", Quality/Speed choose "SuperFine", Bitrate use CBR 35000000 and for Audio choose AC3. In the Extended settings tab, Field order should be "Progressive", Chroma Format 4:2:0, Profile MP@HL, GOP IBBP, Picture count 15 (for PAL) and put a tick in the Closed GOP checkbox.

This will produce a single file, video and audio combined, just what you need for the media box and the quality is amazing because you have not thrown out half the pixel information by converting to 25P (50i actually I believe which is what you would need to put on Blu ray or DVD).

Roll on the day when we might be able to put 1080P/50 or 60 on Blu ray...

Hi

"Roll on the day when we might be able to put 1080P/50 or 60 on Blu ray"

I have authored all my Panasonic HDC-SD700 1080P/50 HD footage since 2010
to Blu-ray using the free MultiAVCHD.

[Claire Watson]

"I have authored all my Panasonic HDC-SD700 1080P/50 HD footage since 2010
to Blu-ray using the free MultiAVCHD."

Hi, are such discs playable on most BD players or just certain ones?

[Nihal Jayasinghe]

Hi,

You can use multiAVCHD to author 1080 50p/60p blu-ray disc with full Menus & Chapters.
Newer 3D Blu-ray players now support “AVCHD V2.0” which now includes 1920x1080 @ 50P or 60P
My Sony PS3 and Samsung BD-C6900 plays MultiAVCHD authored 1080/50p Blu-ray discs without any problems.

[Luc Spencer]

A bit of an off-topic question: how do you guys CLEAN your TM900? Especially the lens. I tried using cotton swabs, but felt as if there are more efficient ways of doing it... had to apply pressure to get the dust particles off the lens, hopefully I didn't scratch it... thank you!

[Colin Rowe]

Impregnated lens/LCD cleaning tissue, followed by dry lens cleaning cloth. Dont worry about scratching the lens, modern day lens coatings are very tough. If my normal cleaning cloths are not to hand, a breath on the lens and buff with a clean handkerchief more than suffices

[Luc Spencer]

Thank you Colin, was actually worried about scratches, so good to know that.

[Al Bergstein]

In seeing my footage in HDMI out to my monitor, it is clearly superior to what I am getting from the AVCHD format I'm putting into my NLE from this camera. Is anyone trying to capture this stuff uncompressed directly from the camera? Or even running the captured footage out the HDMI port into something like a Matrox device to capture it uncompressed that way? If I can get the uncompressed footage like what I'm seeing on my 48" home monitor through HDMI, I'd be thrilled. Seems it could easily then match the 4:2:2 I'm getting out of my Canon XF305.

It appears from the fact that if I capture it in camera (before writing to the SD card), that I'm getting the uncompressed footage going out the HDMI port prior to conversion to AVCHD. Or am I wrong? Is AVCHD going directly to HDMI really that high quality? Putting this same footage into my NLE as AVCHD destroys so much of the latitude, and I can't get it back no matter what I do in rendering. I assume that's what the Matrox and other boxes will do for me. But will they work with this camera?

[Mark OConnell]

"It appears from the fact that if I capture it in camera (before writing to the SD card), that I'm getting the uncompressed footage going out the HDMI port prior to conversion to AVCHD. Or am I wrong?"

I believe that you're right, I mean, not wrong.

I am also very curious about this. If anyone is capturing to a Ninja or nanoFlash or whatever please share your results.

TIA

[Alastair Traill]

Hi Mark,

I tried unsuccessfully to use a nanoFlash with the TM 900 set at 1080p50. When I asked Convergent Design about the problem I was told that "there was too much information" for thenF to process. For further information I would suggest asking your question on the Convergent Design site.

[Claire Watson]

Assuming you are using full quality 50/60P mode while viewing live output and the same for the recording, how did you manage to compare them? I don't see an easy way to do this, not without a studio, consistent lighting and preferably a monitor with built in scopes.

I did this test with my EX1R but that was easy, I used SDI out into Edius via my Storm 3G card. The 3G card has HDMI output to my HDTV and I have live scopes in Edius.

Personally I don't recall observing any difference between live and recordings using my TM900 but then I have to rely on memory as I switch between the two and with the time gap the light changes, it's simply not the same as instant switch overs.

[Tom Roper]

Originally Posted by Nihal Jayasinghe

Hi

"Roll on the day when we might be able to put 1080P/50 or 60 on Blu ray"

I have authored all my Panasonic HDC-SD700 1080P/50 HD footage since 2010
to Blu-ray using the free MultiAVCHD.

Authoring AVCHD 2.0 onto Blu-ray media that play only on AVCHD 2.0 supported Blu-ray players is not the same as authoring actual 1080/50p/60p compliant Blu-ray disks. The latter do not exist. It's a step in the right direction, but some Blu-ray players have discontinued AVCHD 2.0 suppport and some that had it have even rolled back to unsupport it with firmware "upgrades," Oppo being noted for this.

[Greg Mlotkowski]

I've been using the TM900 for almost a year, and still quite impressed at how well it has done. Tomorrow I should receive the new HM-X900M. Can't wait to see the differences.

[Greg Mlotkowski]

Did I kill this thread or something?
Anyway, the new has some differences in operation, but performs very well.