HPX 170 opinions

[Jim Stamos]

heard alot about the cam.
would love to hear some users opinions on it. im coming from sd of pd150 and dsr300.
im looking to get the 170 and the hpx500 as replacements.
how good is the hd quality of these especially the 170. i know the 500 looks great.
hows the lowlight on the 170?
ive heard its not quite as good as the 150, but that its pretty good.
also heard people are shoot 720p on this cam . how good does it look
thanks

[TingSern Wong]

Great ... no problems. Lowlight quality is also good. Much better than HVX200. I shoot exclusively at 720p - no issues at all. Compared with the 500, well, you aren't comparing apple to apple anymore. 1/3" CCD versus 2/3" CCD. But, I have seen footage from 500 and 170 under the same lighting conditions. Pretty good, if you asked me. The 150 shoots AVCHD - whereas 500 and 170 shoots DVCProHD.

[Mark Williams]

Jim,

Have owned the Hpx170 for 3 weeks now after doing exhaustive research any saving my pennys for over a year. Here is my opinion based on doing mostly SD-DVD projects and desiring to move to HD. I was attracted to the cam because of it being able to shoot so many formats and the "Pany" look which I am used to and like very much. I'll start by saying that 1080i and 720p look really good. The overcrank and undercrank features are fantastic. In contrast DV and DVPRO50 out to DVD looks poor compared to my old SD DVC30 camera. The zoom control which is important to me IMO is not slow enough "I like to do crawl speeds". According to the experts there is no solution to this even with 3rd party controllers. This is very dissappointing to me as I will now have to change my shooting style if I decide to keep the cam. I really like the cams lightweight as I backpack some long distances. P2 workflow seem good, I am using it with Edius 5. Focus assist is very good. Controls are well laid out. I feel the camera is a little overpriced but I understand that starting in July there is a $500 rebate which make it more reasonable (just missed getting it). I will add that I looked at the EX-1 which was nice, but heavier and $1300 more expensive. Finally, I am not experiencing any artifacting that others report shooting in HD and outputing to SD-DVD. Image looks great.

Hope this helps,

[David Heath]

Originally Posted by Mark Williams

I will add that I looked at the EX-1 which was nice, but heavier and $1300 more expensive.

I found it quite difficult to do a price comparison, since it depends how much memory you feel comfortable with for continuous shooting. Using SDHC with the EX means that memory costs are very small compared to the basic camera cost, P2 means that the cost of the package goes up very quickly with shooting time. When I compared the data earlier this year the break even point was around 90 minutes if I remember right.

On top of that, the EX offered true manual lens features, 1/2" chips, better viewfinder, and a far nicer picture IMO. Having chips with 4x the resolution doesn't just give a sharper picture - it gives a sharp picture without any detail enhancement, and being able to turn that down makes a vast difference to me.

I'd also look hard at the JVC HM700, which may not have quite the resolution of the EX, (though better than the 171) but does offer superb handheld ergonomics - far better than the 171 or the EX. Being SDHC native, it can also have similar economics to the the EX v the 171 - higher capital cost, but the same or even far cheaper when equipped with memory.

[Dan Brockett]

Hi Jim:

You might want to sink your teeth into this Panasonic's HPX170

FWIW, I own the HPX170 and absolutely love it. It has already paid for itself about five times over. The picture is sharper and cleaner than my HVX200 was, and the ergonomics and usability are superior to the Sony EX1. Having built-in waveform and vectorscope, SDI output, six-pin Firewire, improved sharper LCD screen, user button for VFR, etc. has been an amazing experience.

With the recent rebate and price drops, there has never been a better time to buy one. I may buy another one as I now own eight P2 cards.

It is my primary video tool. I save the bigger more expensive cameras for rentals, I am done owning cameras that I cannot pay off quickly with work, although if they did the same deal with the 2700 that they have recently done with the 3700 I would buy it in a heartbeat for $15-20k.

Dan

[Paul Cascio]

I don't own an HPX170, so I can't speak about it, but I hear it's very nice. However, I would suggest skipping P2 cameras altogether and make your choice from either the EX1 or the HMC150, which I do own.

The EX1 has numerous benefits over the 170, and when you factor in the cost of P2 cards, the price is pretty close.

As for the HMC150, I've had mine for a month and I'm very impressed. It won't do time lapse like the HPX170, but the image quality is awfully good and SD cards are cheap compared to any other memory option. Also, the HMC150 is the hottest prosumer camcorder on the market right now so I think it will hold its value quite well, where the HVX200 is now dropping resale value quickly.

Just one man's opinion.

[Tom Chartrand]

Hi Jim,

I'll second Dan's opinion on the 170. I own a 200 and have used the 170, 300 and 500. For the money and P2 usability the 170 is without comparison. It's a huge step up over the 200 and it's increased low-light sensitivity and ergonomics, not to mention waveform, vectorscope and SDI are great.

[Daniel Weber]

Originally Posted by Paul Cascio

I don't own an HPX170, so I can't speak about it, but I hear it's very nice. However, I would suggest skipping P2 cameras altogether and make your choice from either the EX1 or the HMC150, which I do own.

.

Paul,

What do you do when a client calls up and wants you to shoot P2 because that is the workflow that they use? "Oh, sorry I can record AVCCAM to SD, will that work?".

If you were just going to shoot for yourself than the HMC 150 is a great camera, but if you want to get hired for professional work, you will need the 170.

Daniel Weber

[David Heath]

Originally Posted by Daniel Weber

What do you do when a client calls up and wants you to shoot P2 because that is the workflow that they use? "Oh, sorry I can record AVCCAM to SD, will that work?".

But by the same token, if you buy a 171, I could ask what you do when a client calls up and wants you to shoot on SxS? (Or HDCAM, or DVCProHD, or XDCAM-HD, or HDV, or .....?) That logic is only valid if all your clients are going to want P2.

My experience is that for that sort of work, it's far more acceptable if you can shoot and simply hand media over. Clients don't like a downloading session with a laptop after shooting if they can avoid it. Which is why using SDHC cards with an EX seems to be exploding in popularity - all the advantages of solid state, yet a simple handing over of media at the end. If it's only a half hour shoot, the card costs less than £10, so if you pass the charge on it's less than something like an XDCAM disc.

Alternative scenario is they may provide their own cards and take them all away at the end, but in that case, fine, an EX will still record to their SxS cards.

I wouldn't suggest that anyone always has to immediately sell what they've got to get the latest and greatest, but if you're buying afresh it makes sense to me to get what's state of the art when you buy. And I strongly feel that in this price bracket that's increasingly meaning full 1080 resolution imaging and full resolution recording. That's true of Panasonics HPX301, true of the Sony EX cameras, and is likely to be true for most newer cameras. AVC-Intra 100 is Panasonics next gen codec, and surely it can only be a matter of time before that finds it's way to a 171 or 500 type of camera, together with better than 960x540 chips? What happens then to the demand for, and resale price of, 171s !?

[Dan Brockett]

Hopefully we can keep this thread on topic which was the original poster asking specifically about the 170 and opinions of it vs. the 150 in lowlight. The debate of SxS vs. P2 isn't really what he asked about, right? I shoot with the EX1, like the EX1 as well as the 170 but the OP really sounds as if they wanted opinions on the 170, not the format/brand debate although he did mention AVCCAM.

Dan

[David Heath]

Originally Posted by Dan Brockett

Hopefully we can keep this thread on topic which was the original poster asking specifically about the 170 and opinions of it vs. the 150 in lowlight. The debate of SxS vs. P2 isn't really what he asked about, right?

Right, but isn't it inevitable that the best opinions will inevitably involve an element of comparison with similarly priced/specced cameras? How much value is there simply in a comment such as "it's good"? How good? Better than the competition, worse than the competition? And my reading of the original post was an invitation to comment with general opinions, not solely low light.

In that case, the obvious alternatives to compare it with are Panasonics HMC151, the Sony EX, and the JVC HM700. Part of that comparison should take account of relative pricings, and how it's possible to do that sensibly without taking into account the costs of differing memory systems I don't know. The cost of a basic 171 isn't that much more than a basic HMC151. Load them both up with enough memory for about 90 minutes shooting and the 171 is roughly double that of the 151.