Panasonic HPX370 is here

[Ron Wilk]

There has been chatter on the net in regards to an alleged upcoming release of the Panasonic HPX 370, with details said to be available on or about April 5th.

[Robert Lane]

All should become clear at NAB 2010.

[Dan Brockett]

These days, it is tough to know whether a company should be glad that something leaked and caused a preemptive buzz that will mean increased sales or if they should be mad because someone violated their NDA and stole their thunder. It did seem pretty strange that EVS posted that on their website, they should/would have known better? That leads me to believe that it could have possibly been a "semi-authorized" leak, I know that when specs are released to dealers, there is always an embargo? Who knows? As far as the ethics, I think it is morally bankrupt to sign an NDA and then violate it by posting all of this stuff about on the boards.

From a marketing standpoint though, it is kind of RED on one side and Apple on the other. Both are valid strategies that have worked for their respective originators.

I am in total agreement that if the 370 exists and is a version of the 300 that reduces noise significantly, reduces the image skew at 1080 24p and 30p and does not cost significantly more, they will have a pretty good seller on their hands.

Dan

[Mike Blumberg]

Hi all,

The 370 is a go, I have in my hands a hard copy of Event DV April 10 the back cover shows the 370 in all it glory, not much detail.

We had seen this ad eariler, but now it real, on my desk and I do believe it is a real camera.


Copy from the AD:

Panasonic's AG-HPX370 p2 HD cmcorder moves you up to a whole new level of production quality. A new, state-of-the art 2.2 megapixel 3 chip ULT imager produces stunning HD content in a wide range of shooting conditions, with sensitivity and signal to noise ratios of larger imagers. With a superior 10bit 4:2:2, full 1920 x1080 resolution AVC-Intra codec, the HPX370 can record more image detail more accurately. Ready for global production, the HPX370 offers international HD and SD standards, including 1080p/i and 720p as well as industry standard DVCPRO HD

[Robert Fierce]

Mike- Whatever "Ultra Luminance Technology" (ULT) is, it better be a big breakthrough for Panasonic to completely change the nomenclature of a camera that's only 1 year old. Afterall this isn't a HPX300A, the is a HPX370, and all current 300 owners just took a hit on the resale value ot their now "older generation" cameras. Not really a way to endear yourself to your user base unless HPX300 sales were so low as to chance allienating all of the faithful or that the technology was so outstanding that the name change was warranted. Afterall the specs look the same and the camera looks identical.
I can't wait til the 5th when Panasonic formally introduces the 370 and Sony is rumored to be making an announcement of either an update to the EX3 or a completely new replacement. This coupled with new lenses from Fujinon could make for an interesting NAB.

[Rajiv Attingal]

Now it is official in Panasonic site.


Learn about Panasonic's AG-HPX370

Rajiv

[Mike Blumberg]

Link to the new 370 PDF on the pann site

http://www.panasonic.com/business/pr...HPX370s_PE.pdf

Have a great day

[Dan Brockett]

Thanks for the links to the .pdf guys. It does raise some questions in my mind.

It looks as if the main changes are:

New ULT sensors. Their samples against the EX1 look interesting. You have to hand it to them, Panasonic is obviously highly committed to 1/3" sensors. Based upon physics though, I am curious about how exactly the new ULT technology functions. That is a tiny sensor for containing 2.2 MP of pixels, how do they so improve the light gathering ability of those tiny pixels so well?

U.S. model camera now seems to support world standard (50.00Mhz and 59.94Mhz) scan rates. Which begs the question, if Panasonic has given the 370 international scan rates built-in, why are the 371, 372 and 374 still needed? Makes no sense to me, Sony sells the EX series the world over with no model number differentiation.

It looks as if they did stay with the current Fuji 17x lens, some rumors had pegged a new 20x lens being included. It is not a bad lens for a stock one although not wide enough.

Anyone else have any thoughts on the 370 this weekend?

Dan

[Gary Nattrass]

An upgraded sensor is all that it would give me different, the PDF says f10 but as the chromatic aberration above f4 or 5.6 with the CAC on is worse with it being 1/3" I presume that the noise floor is lower.

I cant see myself buying one just for that alone as I have found my 301 very useable in most situations as I light things well and work to the BBC specs.

I feel this is a marketing exercise as the 300/301 has not sold quite as well as they had expected, I already have PAL and NTSC ability too so in europe the difference is not very big as f10 will only give me two more stops of noise floor from f5.6.

[Tony Tibbetts]

It seems kind of interesting for it's price point, but am I missing something? I can't tell if this is CCD or CMOS based? Is it another 960x540 uprez chipset?

[Scott Webster]

Pick-up Device: 2.2M pixels Progressive MOS Image sensor x 3

[Tony Tibbetts]

Ahh... I was missing something. Thanks.

[Tim Polster]

My thoughts are that unless CMOS or MOS has been improved to operate without a lot of skew, it is kind of a non-event for me.

I realize not a lot of viewers are likely to notice, but I see cameras as an investment. I don't see buying another CMOS camera as a good investment until they get all of the compromises worked out. Wait a year or two when they do fix it and what you purchased is going to look a bit sour. Kind of like the original P2 cards purchased for an arm and a leg.

Basically, seems like some new acronyms and a little better sensitivity which will have to be proven beyond the little image on the PDF as the predecessor was supposed to be "the" camera. But in my eyes, it is still a 1/3" camera no matter how good they say it is. I know it is stated that Panasonic doen not do 1/2" anymore, but I just can't get too excited about a 1/3" camera.

[Dan Brockett]

"I see cameras as an investment."

A bad investment unless they can earn their purchase price back to you within six months, tops. I am glad that my 170 paid for itself long ago. I charge my clients $250.00 per day for the camera package, but I have seen some LA rental houses that now rent 170s for as low as $120.00 per day including one 16Gb P2 card! Amazing. But I guess it beats having your 170 sit around collecting dust.

The VDSLR revolution is really changing everything when you can buy a T2I (granted it's not a video camera, it's a still camera that shoots video) that is capable of pretty impressive footage for well under $1,000.00. I have to say that unless I sell a TV series, I am not planning on buying any more video cameras for quite a while. As we can all see, the new high end video camera (not digital cinema camera) is going to be around $20k and the new average video camera price is still way up in the air.

While the 370 will be a great camera I am sure since the 300 was, I just cannot see shelling out the money for any camera unless your business is booming. I know mine is not, it is just at a trickle this year so far.

Cheers,

Dan Brockett

[Tom Roper]

My sentiment as well, cams an expense not investment. Just today, I purchased a Pelican case off Craigslist, from the former largest rental house in Denver liquidating everything, F900's, Betacam, Varicam, you name it. There was so much pro-stuff slammed in that warehouse I could not believe it. Not a good time at all. Unemployment in Denver is only 7.7%, but very misleading, no manufacturing or production in this town, just a retail service economy and government offices.