new Pannie HPX250 info

[Rob Katz]

i am very interested in this camera.

really adds to the 170/200a.

it is said to be a hand-held version of the 370.

http://pro-av.panasonic.net/en/sales.../ag-hpx250.pdf

ymmv

be well

rob
smalltalk productions

[Sanjin Svajger]

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/digital-...ml#post1679304

[Mark David Williams]

Looking at the 1/3 chips and reading Barry Greens article on how this is now addressed and better than Sony's 1/2" chips I have to ask is this the same technology the Panasonic 370 employed and caused ghosting?

I notice the 250 doesn't come with a P2 card so this will certainly add to the price and just how compatible is P2 with NLEs. The 20x Signal processor sounds really cool.

If the noise reduction is from the 370 but fixed and a P2 card supplied this could be a camera to consider.

I'd like to have bought a large sensor camera and I'm getting frustrated at having to wait for a camera that isn't crippled. At least the 250 appears to have a decent build and technology for its £4000 price tag. Fingers crossed its a goodie.

[Gary Nattrass]

Yes I think the 250 uses the same technology as the 370 so should be the same, they did a firmware update that cured the ghosting problems and as you are in PAL land you won't have a lot of the problems anyway.

The P2 system is tried and tested and I have used it for two years without any problems, it is worth the investment and E ser cards are a lot more cost effective these days but will last you for many years without problems.

The P2 system and the codecs are very NLE friendly and I have even completed projects on a single 5400 rpm firewire 800 drive on a macbook pro using AVC Intra 50.

AVC Intra 100 is a superb codec and about as good as you can get, it loads into FCP very smoothly and is very efficient thru post production to delivery as it all stays in pro res HQ all the way.

I have had my HPX301 camera's for two years now and they are very useable for all sorts of content, OK the 1/3" DOF limitation is there as is the cmos chip problems but for most 25p work I find it fine and no one has ever complained. In fact the last HD TV commercial I did the DOP said he didn't find the camera limiting at all.

[Mark David Williams]

Sounds great! I know I'm asking probably to much here but can you edit AVC-Intra 100 in sony vegas 10?

[Christopher Young]

Yes you can. Have done it frequently, Vegas 9 & 10, but you will have to install Raylight Ultra from:

Raylight Ultra by DVFilm - Edit HVX200 P2 MXF DVCPROHD with Vegas

You can download a trial version. I highly doubt that Sony will ever put their major competitors codecs, that's Panasonic's P2 codecs into Vegas. A bit like Ford using GM parts... never going to happen... or would be very surprised if it did!

For what it's worth I have heard through the grapevine that there has been some behind the scenes cooperation between DVFilm and Sony to enable Vegas to handle P2 based material. Whether there has or hasn't been I have been impressed by the way Raylight Ultra seamlessly works within Vegas. Just bring in you DVC Pro or Intra footage and edit away. The other way to use P2 codecs would be to batch transcode to the CineForm codec using Neo. Much bigger files but run as smooth as butter on a decent speed box:

Cineform Neo4K

Chris Young
Sydney

[Ken Hull]

I've been thinking of getting the new HPX250 when it comes out, but I would also need Raylight Ultra to edit in Vegas. I've heard that Ultra uses a proxy video for the editing. That worries me, since I would be getting the HPX250 for it's 4:2:2 encoding, since I want to do a lot of green screen work. If I'm editing with a proxy, can I properly judge how the chromakey settings will work in the final render? Anyone know if Ultra has a non-proxy option, that would work smoothly with an i7 and 12 GB of RAM?

(I know the Canon XF300 is an option, but I really liked my old standard def Panasonic, so I'd like to get a high def Panny if possible.)

Ken

[Marcus van Bavel]

Using proxies is optional with AVC-Intra and Raylight Ultra, you can turn it off. The proxies are there for slower computers like single-CPU laptops with only one hard drive.

Also there are two "Power Pack" options for Ultra that improve the playback performance with or without proxies. The Power Pack I uses a Panasonic-licensed decoder and is about 2x-3x faster than the decoder that comes with Ultra.

see Raylight Ultra Power Pack I for example

There is also a Power Pack II for authoring AVC-Intra P2 cards if you need that.

Finally you might be interested that DVInfo.net posters can get a $75 discount on Ultra, contact DVFilm Support for more info.

[Mark David Williams]

Re noise cleanup I believe noise removal occurs at the signal processing stage on the 250 I just wondered if this is better or the same as running neat video over Sony EX1 footage and if so do the benefits level out if you do.

A lot of night time footage I've seen from the 250 and maybe its me but doesn't look as good as the EX1.

Another problem is with the P2 cards as they are so expensive especially if you want to record at its highest level which equals 32 mins on a 32 GB card. It would be great if that cost could be bought down.

[Gary Nattrass]

Well I've had my P2 cards for over two and a half years now and whilst it was a large investment at the start they have paid for themselves many times over, the E-ser are most cost effective and you can also pick up cheaper ones on e-bay.

[Sanjin Svajger]

Originally Posted by Mark David Williams

Another problem is with the P2 cards as they are so expensive especially if you want to record at its highest level which equals 32 mins on a 32 GB card. It would be great if that cost could be bought down.

I really don't, really don't, understand why everybody keeps comparing EX1s cost per minute to the Panasonic P2 cost per minute. This is such an unrealistic remark.

Panasonic records AVCintra a broadcast quality I-Frame codec. And because of that you get a lousier economy GB/min comparing to the prosumer mpeg2 long-gop that the EX series cameras use. P2 cards and SxS cards cost the same. So it's not that the P2 cards are expensive - it's the codec! You really can't complain that the cost "gigabyte per minute" is worse because you're recording in a completely different codec whilst the cost of the medium is the same on both sides!

P2 --- http://www.creativevideo.co.uk/index...ic_aj-p2e064xg
SxS --- http://www.creativevideo.co.uk/index...sony_sbs-64g1a

If it's more record time that you want then shoot in AVCi50. And if one doesn't need such a high quality codec he doesn't buy such a camera...

[Mark David Williams]

Sanjin

I had to sell my EX1 and now need to replace it I also want to wait until nov 3rd but have become very interested in the pannie 250's spec but after seeing some test footage I'm not convinced and would be nice to see some uncompressed 100 intra posted somewhere to have a real look.

I could consider another EX1 or Panny if Nov 3rd doesn't turn out right. I originally had the first sony version and the R version does look quite tempting too. I'm trying to compare features and sort out what is good what works and what is dressing. Im looking closely at these cameras because they are a lot of money and close to the price of a small car.

For example the new atomos Samurai has prorez and about the cost of the P2 cards. I also have EX1 accessories like batteries letus adapter etc. The SXS cards no way match the P2 ones The problem I have with P2 is it doesn't fit with my fav editing programme Sony Vegas and I'm a bit concerned about the compromises and extra software.

The EX1R is a £1000 more expensive but with a 14x lens although lens size is not an issue for me nice to have the 22x but what is an issue is the chromatic abherattion which the 250 corrects.. Also though noise is a consideration and I'd like to know if the noise reduction employed is worthwhile compared to using neat video on an EX1. I'd also look at what does better skin tones and look for the best IE filmic picture in lower light conditions and which camera handles highlights better Also which camera gives the better gamma curves for post and have things really moved on with the new pannie Initially I thought they had but on viewing the test footage online so far I'm not so sure anymore.

You see I have a lot of questions and those answers could be worth maybe a few thousand pounds in MY situation. IE all the accessories bits and pieces programs etc .

I also don't know whats going to happen nov 3rd and that's frustrating the hell out of me especially as I've had to wait for so long for a low end professional camera to come along to replace my EX1 that would preferably be a larger sensor but if compromised in a way I feel is going to affect my ability to make a film then *sigh* I'll go back to the smaller chips. Unfortunately in the world of cameras we seem to get experts biased this way or another for whatever reason and trying to see the woods for the trees is sometimes difficult. I guess I need to see a detaled review by someone trusted like Adam Wilt or Alan Roberts then I could stop asking questions!

[Sanjin Svajger]

I was just talking about P2 cards and the endless debate that's going in circles from the day the HVX200 was released that's all. Nothing else...

Regarding everything else you wrote I agree. The footage from the new 250 didn't impress me to. Albeit it was shoot rather dull and unimpressive. There also weren't any real tests done where one could see the qualities of the camera... It's really weird how little effort was/is put into marketing of this cam. It's really low profile.

[David Morgan]

Panasonic just recently lowered the cost of the E series cards. Before that they were a lot more than the S x S economy series. On top of that, there are S x S express 34 to SD slot adapters cards for 200.00 / 64 gigs. I would like to see Panasonic do this with the PCMCIA slot.

[David Heath]

Originally Posted by Mark David Williams

Re noise cleanup I believe noise removal occurs at the signal processing stage on the 250 I just wondered if this is better or the same as running neat video over Sony EX1 footage and if so do the benefits level out if you do.

A lot of night time footage I've seen from the 250 and maybe its me but doesn't look as good as the EX1.

I haven't seen the 250 yet, but in principle I'd think it must be better to do any software noise reduction as a post process. With software, if it looks too aggressive, you can always click the "undo" button, adjust the amount, and try again.

With the 250, it gets burnt in at time of shooting - if you don't then like it, tough.

This was the issue with the 371. It seemed to have a good, clean image for 1/3" chips, then matters like the noise ghosts gave the game away and it turned out the seeming lack of noise was due to processing, not low noise chips. And the "cure" was to offer the option to turn the processing down - so up came the noise again.

Even if it doesn't give the noise ghosting, software noise removal may get rid of subtle detail which post processing may rely on, even if it's not visible to the eye on the original picture.

The only way to get round it is lots of light, and don't even think about gain, or bigger chips, which is the undeniable advantage such as the EX1 has with the 1/2" chips. I consider this a far more significant issue than codec (at the level we're talking about, you're only going to start seeing the codec differences when you cascade codecs etc). That said, it would be good to see the full broadcast 50Mbs XDCAM422 in the EX range.

As far as P2 costs go, then don't forget about the use of SDHC cards in the EX via an adaptor, and maybe Compact Flash and the Canon range are a better comparison. CF versus P2 are about half the price currently per GB, but the Canon codec gives you twice as many minutes per GB, so a 1:4 ratio in time terms. If you spend £2,000 on memory with P2, £500 with CF will give about the same run time, and a fully approved broadcast codec in each case. Look at it in terms of adding £2,000 to the capital cost of the 250, £500 to the Canon for cost comparison. (Obviously it will vary depending how much continuous running time you think you'll need.)

The 250 is undoubtably a big step forward from what Panasonic had at this price point before, but it feels like they're now catching up with Sony and Canon - not overtaking them.