Shootout 200 v.s. 170 initial impressions.

[ripupthehwy]

Okay, I have been shooting with my HVX 200 for a couple years now. A friend of mine just bought an HPX 170 and we decided to compare them.
I want to stress that this is in no way a detailed, highly technical evaluation. I have been pondering selling my HVX and buying an HPX but wondered how much difference it REALLY would make in the overall image. Should I sell my HVX and get the HPX to get a much better image? Less noise? Better in lower light? This is my first look at the camera and I hope to do a more in depth test later, but thought I would share my thoughts:

First off, I felt like I was holding the DVX. Very similar in size and appearance. I was slightly surprised that it was not as light as I had assumed. Lighter than the HVX of course, but not by much, in my mind. I do see though that it is much easier to handhold/grip than the HVX, which has it's bulky videotape housing.

Features - yes it has better features (a few). The best thing about this camera that I saw is the Waveform Monitor. Very cool and useful! The focus bar - it's okay I guess. I would need more time getting used to it, but honestly I felt better using the same focus feature utilized in the HVX, which is the zoomed in image overlay. With it I actually can see that its focused. On a wide shot, I'm just trusting the focus bar is right. Good for on the fly run and gun I guess.
The focus histograph (or whatever it is) I found is totally useless.
The other great feature is the ability to delete the last shot recorded.

Okay now the most important thing: The video quality.

We put both cameras side by side in a small studio. We looked at them on an HD monitor (analog component) and on an SD monitor hooked up through a Tricaster (this gave us the ability to do side by side/split screen comparisons. Like I said, this is not a highly technical evaluation).

The still shots you see below are obtained by bringing the original files straight off the P2 cards into Grass Valley Edius and exporting still frames from that.

We shot everything here in 720p 24native mode. This is what I always shoot in and wanted to see the comparison in that way. I hope to do another test later in the 1080 mode. (are the cameras more different from each other in 1080? Anyone know? )
My HVX was set with the following Scene file settings:

Detail: +7
V Detail: +7
Detail Coring: -2
Chroma: +2
Master Ped: -4
Gamma: B Press
Knee: High
Matrix: Cinelike

Knowing that the HPX does NOT use these settings identically, I set the HPX up the same and then tweaked it to try and match the shots. For instance, the Detail Coring bottoms out at -2 on the HVX and all the way down to -7 on the HPX. I ended up setting it at -7 which gave me the sharpest picture I could figure out. The Chroma setting I raised to +4. I did some other tweaking after that, but I'm sorry to say I did not write it down. The point is, I roughly tweaked the settings to match the cameras as close as I could. Judge for yourself below. The last shot in this post I actually color corrected the HPX in post on the Edius and match it better. I lowered the blacks and it seemed to actually sharpen up the image as well, which I thought was interesting. Let me point out too that on the other split screen comparisons below, I did NOT apply any other effects. The SMPTE wipes in Edius that I used made the edges of the pictures look like it had a DVE move added, but thats just how that wipe does it.

My overall impression was not what I expected. I did not see lower noise in the picture with the HPX as it has been claimed to have. I don't doubt it is less noisier, but I could not get it to prove that to me just looking at it with the naked eye at normal scale (not enlarged). Even in +6db gain, I did not see that the HVX was any noisier. This is good enough for me, because what I wanted to find out is if the cameras are NOTICEABLY different without putting them under the microscope. I don't think so in normal shooting situations. We tried shooting a plant hit with light and the background dark, but again I couldn't see any more noise or better detail in low light with the HPX.

I heard Barry Green talking about the HPX having a creamy look to it. I saw what he's talking about but I can accomplish a similar look with the HVX by simply putting a Pro-mist filter on the lens. I tried it and it worked, but it did give it more noise, and my particular filter was stronger/more pro-mist than what I wanted to achieve, but it was a similar look.

Overall summation : If you have no camera, buy the HPX, mainly for the added features it has.
If you already have an HVX like I do, why sell it for less than you paid for it and then have to add more money out of your pocket to get the HPX? I'd rather spend the money on a depth of field adapter, and that's exactly what I'm gonna do instead. At least now I feel that I can shoot with my HVX together with an HPX and intercut them seamlessly in post.

http://www.dvxuser6.com/uploaded/9387/1233198942.jpg

http://www.dvxuser6.com/uploaded/9387/1233198974.jpg

http://www.dvxuser6.com/uploaded/9387/1233199012.jpg

Below is the shot I color corrected in Edius to match them better:

http://www.dvxuser6.com/uploaded/9387/1233199040.jpg

http://www.dvxuser6.com/uploaded/9387/1233199093.jpg

http://www.dvxuser6.com/uploaded/9387/1233199173.jpg

After Tweaking the HPX more, we got a pretty close, identical look here:

http://www.dvxuser6.com/uploaded/9387/1233199205.jpg

[reem12]

why is it that the hvx looks just a ad sharper on your test?

[ripupthehwy]

That's exactly what we saw. It was sharper. We couldn't get the HPX to look as sharp. Granted we are still learning it. We got it a little closer by the time we shot the mug.

[vic777]

I set the HPX up the same and then tweaked it to try and match the shots. I don't get it ... if I have two race horses and I'm comparing them ... do I weigh one down so they both run at the same speed?
At least now I feel that I can shoot with my HVX together with an HPX and intercut them seamlessly in post. This is good technique to know ....

[ripupthehwy]

Ha ha. Good Point about the horses. But I don't think we were trying to dumb down the HPX. If you're telling me the factory settings for the HPX is what we should start with, then thats fine, but we tried to get the HPX to look better than the HVX, not the other way around. We had just gotten our hands on the HPX, and like a said, this was just a rough test. We are going to test again after my friend has had time to really learn the camera and get the best out of it, then we will compare them again. I saw another low light test someone on here did where they shot both cameras in darkness to show the lowlight/noise difference. Guess we will look at that too, but I don't see how we would ever be shooting like that professionally. Anyway my original point with this post was to try to see if the cameras are NOTICEABLY different in normal situations. I'm still waiting to see a difference in normal shooting situations (not it darkness or by enlarging the frame 4x just to prove one is less noisy-er. That kinda thing.

[puredrifting]

I found the opposite of your conclusion when I put my HVX up against my HPX. If you take a look at the stills at the bottom of my article http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/hpx_170_evolution_brockett.html check out the pumpkin lit by candlelight shot and compare detail, there is no comparison. Also check out the color of the wine labels between the two in the wine and fruit stills.

My shots were with the cameras matched in setup including the adjustments with greater detail range like master ped matched compensated to match the HVX's smaller adjustment range. I did not tweak either camera to try to look like other or to look "better".

In looking at your images, I feel as if you have inadvertantly, slightly degraded the 170's picture. You should see slightly less noise and slightly more detail in the 170 if you match the cameras. In my mind, it is ridiculous to compare the HVX or the HPX to anything with detail maxed out. Do you really ever shoot with detail/vertical detail at +7? You are adding metric tons of lousy edge enhancement that makes video look terrible.

Dan