HVX200 Reviews are not focusing on what's important

[Marty Hudzik]

Originally Posted by David Mintzer

By the way, if you are going to spend 10,000 for a camera and accessories, a cheap flight to a city that has a store that has the camera might be in order. It is probably worth the investment.

That's a good idea and I have thought of it many times. However I am usually on a very tight budget and even with the HVX I am only spending $5400.00. Not near $10K. Also I need every penny so even a cheap flight can detract from the funds for the purchase. Oh....I wish I could be have money burning a hole in my pocket to just spend it! As it is I don't know how I am going to afford a case for the HVX!!!

Peace!

[Chris Hurd]

So you're already squared away on the editing side, with a Mac and Final Cut Pro, right?

[Michael Maier]

Originally Posted by Marty Hudzik

I agree with most of what you have stated. I love Panasonic (DVX100 rocked) but there is a real trend (not on these boards exclusively) for people to just brush off comments that are potentially negative about the Panasonic as unimportant... yet if some of these "first impressions" mentioned potential noise on the XLH1 or JVC it would be getting ripped up one side and down the other. There is a weird sort of "magic" over the HVX that seems to make us all want to not see anything bad in it. Like when you are in love you don't see the bad in you girl (or boy).

You just nailed it. That's exactly what goes on in any Panasonic board. I have seen people get humiliated just because they dared to point a real flaw in the DVX or HVX.
Truth is, it's out, and I'm not impressed by what I've seen so far. Not for 10k anyways.

[Marty Hudzik]

Originally Posted by Chris Hurd

So you're already squared away on the editing side, with a Mac and Final Cut Pro, right?

Chris,
If you are directing that to me I have 2 different answers.

1)I am still going to be editing most of my immediate projects in SD/DV so I will still be on my XP workstation for that. I am not in a huge hurry to go full blown HD. I can afford to dabble as the clients get up to speed and the software matures a little.

2)I do have a Mac-mini and access to 4 different G5's at the office though they are dedicated to graphics so I'd have to use those after hours. I also do have a copy of Final Cut Pro at the office but never needed to use it. However with several reports that you can actually do a little work on the mini (with DVCPRO-HD) I am going to test it out and see how I like it. I currently use Livetype 2 for most of my titles anyway then bring them over to the PC for compositing in Premiere or AE.

Tonight I am going to try some of Kaku's clips in FCP and see how the performance is. I am not expecting much but anything right now is better than nothing.

Also.....I sold my RTX100 Matrox card and breakout and was able to add 1 4GB P2 card onto my order so I can at least get access to the variable frame rates that the HVX offers. Even if I downsample to a DV tape that is still a feature that no other SD camera can boast.

[Michael Maier]

Originally Posted by Alister Chapman

I for one would love to know the CCD specs. It is important. If Panasonic are using low res CCD's and upscaling for 1080

That's pretty obvious I would say. If the camera had 1920x1080 CCDs, why would they hide it? The fact the CCD specs is being held from consumers even after release can't mean anything but inferior numbers, regardless of if it impacts image quality or not.

[Chris Hurd]

Yes Marty that was directed at you and I really like your answer. It makes perfect sense to use the camera for SD recording for now, and then move up to HD later. That's the way I'd probably play it myself.

Either that, or I'll go Mac for the first time ever. Thereby shocking all of my Mac friends.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Originally Posted by Michael Maier

That's pretty obvious I would say. If the camera had 1920x1080 CCDs, why would they hide it? The fact the CCD specs is being held from consumers even after release can't mean anything but inferior numbers, regardless of if it impacts image quality or not.

Not necessarily true. Sure, I'd love to know the CCD details, but there are a few reasons that Panasonic could be keeping them under wraps other than the pixel count being inferior. But no matter how hard Panasonic tries, sooner or later someone is going to figure it out anyway...

My guess is that the CCDs have a native res of 1024x768 or something very close to that. Just a personal theory of mine and based on what I've seen of the clips so far. I really do think the chips have a higher resolution than 720 lines vertical, which would be the minimum (with pixel shift) to scan a 1080p equivalent. IMO, I'm seeing more vertical detail than what we're seeing from the JVC HD100 that has 1280x720 native CCDs (also with pixel shift). Horizontally the image seems to be softened a bit and this could be that DVCPROHD already undersamples 1080i as 1280x1080 rather than the 1440x1080 of HDV and other formats. But it could also mean that the horizontal pixel count is lower than we would expect. Could it be possible that we're looking at a 16:9 CCD that has an odd pixel photosite (pixel) aspect that would be something like 860Hx820V ? Hmmm....

[Simon Wyndham]

Are you seeing actual detail, or are you seeing aperture correction and coring?

What it boils down to is whether it produces a decent picture or not. Lets imagine for arguments sake that the FX1 has a 2mp ccd and the HVX had a 1mp ccd. Now imagine that the HVX had more picture contorl, handled a wider contrast range, and reproduced colours better. Resolution numbers don't mean much now do they?

I don't support one or the other, but if you like the picture a camera produces, then go with that camera. The main limitation of these cameras is not the ccd block, but the lens.

Want to know something strange? Some people often go for the Varicam over HDCAM because of the softer 'film' look. Some claim that HDCAM is too sharp (despite many setups in use actually turning all the detail circuits, and hence artificial edge enhancement off).

There are limitations with DVCproHD. There are limitations with HDV and HDCAM too. Which leads me to something else.

Many are claiming that certain codecs fall apart under heavy post adjustment and codec a is better than codec b for bluescreen/greenscreen etc. Some questions.

1. What ITH are you doing with your footage in order to have to push it so far?!

2. Taking into acount all the questions about bluscreen and greenscreen, where are all these composited videos being shown? Is everyone just talking about these effects or are they actually making them?

3. What do you expect for 6k?

[Michael Maier]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kilgroe

I'm seeing more vertical detail than what we're seeing from the JVC HD100 that has 1280x720 native CCDs (also with pixel shift)

The HD100 employs no pixel shift, the resolution is native.
I'm not sure the clips I have seen are any sharper than what the HD100 produces. It's sure more colorful, but not sharper. Most seem to agree the 1080 is uprezed 720.

About the reason they are hiding the CCD specs, reading your post I got the impression you agree it may be inferior pixel count, even though you started saying it may not be so. So I got a little confused over your opinion here.

[Michael Maier]

Originally Posted by Simon Wyndham

Want to know something strange? Some people often go for the Varicam over HDCAM because of the softer 'film' look. Some claim that HDCAM is too sharp (despite many setups in use actually turning all the detail circuits, and hence artificial edge enhancement off).

This may be true for TV movies, but for theatrical released movies HDCAM is preferred exactly for being sharper. I personally never heard of a major movie shot on the Varicam.

Originally Posted by Simon Wyndham

3. What do you expect for 6k?

For 6k the HVX is just a DV25 camera right?

[Simon Wyndham]

This may be true for TV movies, but for theatrical released movies HDCAM is preferred exactly for being sharper. I personally never heard of a major movie shot on the Varicam.

And since TV movies and documentary is where most HD is being used, that is what I was referring to. There aren't all that many movies being shot with HDCAM either.

For 6k the HVX is just a DV25 camera right?

Pretty much, yes.

[Stephen L. Noe]

I donwloaded the DVCPro50 raw MXF files offered and all I can say is NOISE. I'm looking at them raw with no transcode or anything (my editor supports the raw MXF).

I wish I could report better news but it is "rub my eyes" noisy.

[Ram Ganesh]

it looked like webcam! :(

[Nathan Brendan Masters]

Originally Posted by Ram Ganesh

when everyone was lynching HDV cameras, that it produces horrible artifacts, that its just a consumer format..etc back in May/June... where was the civility? did they all own a HDV camera?

I wonder why when it comes to Panasonic everyone is hush hush?

It's simple, the DVX100 delivered in a way no one had dreamed and now it created a loyal fan-base, though some may not want to admit it. I love Panasonic and am pretty loyal to them because they deliver. I think Sony sucks for a number of reason (mostly their corporate culture and they don't seem to care about their "fans" = buyers) but I'll probably buy a Sony FX1 this year. I'll probably sale the Sony and get an HVX next year. (Or maybe keep them both if money's good). The fact is Panasonic is known to deliver based on not only the needs but the "wants" of the prosumer market and this will get you far everytime. Canon seems to do this also. Sony, not so much.

-Nate

[Michael Pappas]

No it's not good. I can't understand why. The HVX can be such an awesome camera. I fear it may be inferior ccd's that are causing this.

By the way I just got back from Promax after and exhausting capture from an XLh1 of material I filmed at Birns and Sawyer. I will be posting jpegs for now taken straight from the tape via sd card. look for them later. Early thoughts on what I have seen are they look good. I hate log and capture, I wish the H1 had P2 slots.......


Michael Pappas
Arrfilms@hotmail.com
PappasArts & Arrfilms Main site

XLH1 and HVX200 frame grabs and news here:
http://www.pbase.com/Arrfilms

http://www.PappasArts.com
http://www.Myspace.com/