HVX200 - Is Panasonic Silly?

[videoman69]

Is Panasonic silly? So what about the camera. When you have to spend $1700-$2k for 5 minutes of recording it makes it uselss. This is the most retarded thing I have ever seen in my 15 years of video. WHo wants to spend $10k on a camera and P2 cards only to be able to capture 10-15 minutes of video? Panasonic is obvioulsy lost here in another reality. No way thi scould be used for a wedding, or anything for that matter. But hey, you can record Standard DV! Yea! $6k for standard DV, that will work!

Whoever is supporting this nonsense is just ga ga over the technology. Real world use is just not "real" - Oh yea, lets strap an ipod to it! Or even a HD! Yea thats convenient!

Shame on this site for catering to panasonic. Too bad this site turned from a user forum to a site that relys on the ads from panny. The moderators here push panasonic like its teh best thing ever, and that is not true. I liked my Panasonic DVX but moved on to better things. The HVX will not be something I move on to and if its Panasonics answer to Sony or JVC, they lost it.

[reservoir]

Dood....get a life. Why would you come in here and start a flame thread like this? :angry:

Go buy a JVC HD100 or an FX-1 / Z1U and use one tape over and over again. See how great your footage starts to look.

The point that has been made HUNDREDS of times by now is P2 cards are reuseable. They will get bigger, faster, and cheaper. Can tapes do this? Uh...NO!!


I liked my Panasonic DVX but moved on to better things.
OH REALLY? Like what?


The HVX will not be something I move on to and if its Panasonics answer to Sony or JVC, they lost it.
So you're saying that HDV is the *ANSWER*!! Right!! That's just "Brilliant"!!



~reservoir~

[David Jimerson]

Dude. Bro. Buddy. Pal.

All of this has been discussed and debated AT LENGTH. Pros and cons. Warts. Everything. Read the other threads in this forum. They go on for hundreds of posts.

[FatDaddy]

You are so far from seeing reality with this camera that I won't take the time tme to explain.

Go play somewhere else...

[bgundu]

Have fun shooting weddings with your FX1.

[Neil Rowe]

"who wants to spend that much to only capture 10 - 15 min of video?"

thats like asking .. "who wants to pay 1 dollar for a good fork when it can only carry 1 ounce of food to your mouth."

..its not like youve "used up" the card after its full , and its not like a fork is used up after youve put a little food on it. ..you empty it somewhere else.. to a HDD or your mouth ... then you rinse and repeat. and can keep a constant flow going if you wanted. ..and just like a feeding tube.. there will be options for the HVX that allow for constant recodring.. perhaps to you an HDD attached is cumbersome, but the rest of the world and other manufacturers dont seem to think so. in fact almost every pro camera manufacturer i can think of either has or is working on HDD capture and storage.. and would love to move to or already has solid state recording options.

..you are unfortunately an uninformed individual on the technology or workflow of the HVX.
theres alot to be said about the misunderstandings in your post, but ill leave that for someone more inclined to cater to this sort of stuff than i am.

let me just say that this site gets NOTHING from panasonic.. absolutely NOTHING. lets make that clear. the mods are people just like you and me that just happen to recognize something worth while when they see it.. and may i add ..understand it.

seriously .. take this garbage eslewhere. asking how it all works is one thing.. but negative diarhea of the mouth without being infored is only trolling and isnt helping anyone.

there are great answers to all the things you seem to not understand or be misinformed on. so why not start asking questions about your concerns with the workflow or camera.. or better yet since all these things have been answered 10 gajillion times just take the time to read up in the HVX section here. id suggest by starting here to hear it from the horses mouth though:


ftp://ftp.panasonic.com/pub/Panasonic/Drivers/PBTS/papers/P2-WP.pdf

[Isaac_Brody]

The best thing about progress is that it gives you choices. You don't have to choose this camera. I'm sure there's another tool out there that fits your needs.

This website is informative and relaxed, and people are pretty respectful of each other. It doesn't sound like this is the best place for you, or at least your attitude.

It's been said again and again, but this site receives no advertising from Panasonic. People are pretty gaga over Panasonic because it's a company that listens to its customers.

As for moving onto better things why are you here stirring up a flame war?

[J.R. Hudson]

Well said Issac.

[kstnate]

There is a copmpany that makes a camera (without dropping any names, starts with a "P") their cameras can only shoot 10-11 minutes at a time before sombody has to remove the media and shoot again. The media needs to be interfaced with the camera by a trained technician both on removal and installation, and is usualy handed off to another technician that downloads the media, so that it can be reused. Good news is the camera can record multiple formats and frame rates, all progressive. The camera costs MUCH more than 6K or even 10K.
Sounds like a disaster, right? Tell that to Panavision.
So, yes,the HDX is not at all like other video cameras, and Yes, it will not be suitable for many people. Workflow is different. But not completely alien. I don't see many weddings shot in 35. but I bet its not because the mags hold 10 min a pop. more likely it's the film costs among other things (while the mag is reusable, the film, alas, is not.)

[Mediacre]

While he's totally off about P2(I mean OFF) and is totally ignorant on the matter, he did hit a couple things on the head :laugh:

[J.R. Hudson]

Well those of you that are up in arms over this inpending release need to get over it; it is what it is. If it isn't for you then move on. I have never seen so much negativity, whining and moaning over the release of something that isn't even on any practical horizon. It's almost comical.

There are many more cameras on the market and undoubtedly behind the curtain; get over it. Let's focus on what we know and what we can expect; save the negativity for the camera manufactures that don't offer 24p.

[Zim]

I'm hoping the cost and size of the P2 cards drop too,,,but if I'm able to record HD to something like a Firestore or iPod that would probably be better anyway. I'm really more worried what the cost to upgrade my computer will be,,,,,

But if you record to a Firestore then you don't have to capture to the computers hard drive to edit? Is that right? If so then edit, then download to a computer. That would save some space.

[scharky]

Yeah, recording to a hard drive is SOOOOOOOOOOO inconvinient. I wish people would think before they spoke, so what if it's not practical for weddings. That does not seem like Panasonics intended market. This is a "FILM MAKERS CAMERA". IF your not a film maker, then this camera may not be for you. NOw I know Panasonic is keeping it's options open by stating how great this little camera is for ENG work, because of stability and all, but by the end of the day, 720p 60 and 1080p 24 are for film makers. This camera will work great for shooting films, I don't need to record 60 minutes of straight video. Would I give up super long recording times for higher resolution video and lower compression, in a heart beat. So if you don't like it, don't get it, stick with HDV, it'll be good to ya.

[thisiswells]

moaning=groaning=can't afford it=somebody else's mistake=they're total pudding heads=haha

[braw]

We should probably stop feuling this guys fire. There are so many ignorant statements and stances in his obvious flame attempt.

We are given one if not both of two things, this is an attempt to stir up trouble, or this poor human has little to no knowledge of the subject.

[mthornton]

This is a free country we live in, and he has the rights to be ignorant!

I really think people who ask, "Are we there yet?" should never be taken along for the ride, but in this case can we just pretend that he is a five years old. A bed wetting five years old.

The P2 8GB is just the beginning, next year we might have 16gb 32Gb and 64GB Then idiot like that would shut up.

I am looking forward to seeing P2 in actions.

I do not work for Pani!

I'm just a storie teller, and this is the best specs for a flip book that is on the market.

To me P2 + DVCPRO50 + DVCPROHD is still a dream that I hope is not Vaporwarez.

If I don't wake up from this dream, we will have the HVX by Nov, 05 hopefully. I really can't ask for more out of a camera, so I will keep my finger crossed.

For wedding Video? Yes, you can shoot wedding video in DV mode no problem for now.

You want HD wedding video? Buy a 1200a deck for now and use that, we did it in old day with Beta cam anyway idiot.

This is a matter of work flow not technology other wise, we would not be here today. Everyone would wait for the perfect camara then.

Mthornton

[gcaus]

I believe I even read Barry Green commenting that this may not be the "event photographer's" camera. If you want to do weddings, maybe 24p isn't even that important. Who said this is the only good camera out there?

I think some people get confused and think that the board leaders' enthusiasm is due to some form of prejudice. I don't think that is the case at all. Jan and Panasonic are great at listening to their installed base. How could you not love a company that takes your wish list and puts nearly all of them (plus more) into a new camera?

I agree that Sony has lost their earlier creativity, but that might be a little harsh. They have a huge installed base, and they might find that their users ask for different features. I still love Sony products, too. However, Panasonic is the one to beat in the indie market, IMHO.

-Jerry

[D_and_G]

Well those of you that are up in arms over this inpending release need to get over it; it is what it is. If it isn't for you then move on. I have never seen so much negativity, whining and moaning over the release of something that isn't even on any practical horizon. It's almost comical.

There are many more cameras on the market and undoubtedly behind the curtain; get over it. Let's focus on what we know and what we can expect; save the negativity for the camera manufactures that don't offer 24p. I agree with John. Healthy debate is encouraged, but there are many threads devoted to the aforementioned subject.

As an indie filmmaker, this camera will be a quantum leap forward (if they deliver on their promises). Just think. Even three years ago, could you imagine having the ability to shoot DVCPRO, edit it uncompressed and output to HD/Film, without mortgaging the house ?

This is what I've been waiting for. More of a level playing field in the competitive market. There will be bumps along the way, as with any paradigm shift.
I, for one, relish the challenge. Let Havoc, unslip the dogs of war !...
Sorry mate. Too much excitement.

[mthornton]

This is what I've been waiting for. More of a level playing field in the competitive market. There will be bumps along the way, as with any paradigm shift.
I, for one, relish the challenge. Let Havoc, unslip the dogs of war !...
Sorry mate. Too much excitement.


Thank you! D_and_G

Mthornton

[Barry_Green]

But if you record to a Firestore then you don't have to capture to the computers hard drive to edit? Is that right? If so then edit, then download to a computer. That would save some space.
The currently-existing FireStore products capture to their internal hard drive. You then can plug that FireStore into your computer (via firewire) and edit directly from that hard drive. Or, optionally, you can copy the files off of the FireStore and edit from your computer's hard drives. Doing that takes more time, but it frees up the firestore so that you can use it in the field again.

[Clint Johnson]

No need to hammer videoman69 too much, he obviously has different criteria than most people here. He does event video that isn’t terribly demanding and he has no need to move past a camcorder that captures a decent standard definition video that can be edited and then dubbed onto a VHS tape for the bride and groom so that the grandparents can watch it on the 19” television that they bought back in 1985.

What I can’t understand is why he is complaining about the AG-HVX200? It isn’t remotely a tool that he would be using in his line of work... something like the Canon GL2 is more camera than he needs. The HVX200 isn’t aimed at him... but maybe he can only see a product as it relates to what he is doing on his job. I really hope he doesn’t catch wind of the Viper, he might burst a blood vessel.

On my last project I shot 25 hours worth of video over sixteen days and I don’t think that the DVX100 ran for longer than seven minutes on any given take. Most of the time they were one or two minutes each and there would have been plenty of time for someone to offload a P2 card to a hard drive and get get it back into the camera before the other card was full.

And if he thinks that P2 cards are expensive he should take a look at the cost of the tape transport mechanism and heads that go into a camera that can record at 1080 24p... then again maybe he shouldn’t, he might have a conniption.

[Constantine]

Every camera is going to have great qualities and challenges. Yes, it will be more challenging for a documentary film maker to use this camera, expecially if they can't afford to miss anything and have to keep rolling for hours on end. As for me, an indie film maker, A P2 card is all I need, because the camera only "rolls" for 2 minutes at a time anyway. Having the ability to record 100Mbps HD for five minutes instead of 25Mbps HDV for an hour? Good for me, Maybe bad for you. So you...don't buy the camera...Me? I will. Peace.

[Bart_Boge]

Hey--I'm a wedding/event videographer, and I still think this camera is kick@ss!

A rental firm I often use will be getting one as soon as they are able. I will rent it one weekend and try using my Powerbook/FWHD as a direct capture system for 1080p. If successful, I'll get a few of these babies!

[araujofh]

"who wants to spend that much to only capture 10 - 15 min of video?"

thats like asking .. "who wants to pay 1 dollar for a good fork when it can only carry 1 ounce of food to your mouth."

..its not like youve "used up" the card after its full , and its not like a fork is used up after youve put a little food on it. ..you empty it somewhere else.. to a HDD or your mouth ... then you rinse and repeat. and can keep a constant flow going if you wanted. ..and just like a feeding tube.. there will be options for the HVX that allow for constant recodring.. perhaps to you an HDD attached is cumbersome, but the rest of the world and other manufacturers dont seem to think so. in fact almost every pro camera manufacturer i can think of either has or is working on HDD capture and storage.. and would love to move to or already has solid state recording options.


Dude, I quite liked this comparison. Wow, that was really cool. Good point, iamloser.

[alpi69]

i ahte it when ferrari make another car that costs 200.000. i am a bikecourier and it would never go down the stairs with me........

the guy has a point: the price of these P2 cars it ridiculous at the moment (but my fist 1MB extension for the AMIGA 500 costed also something like 300 euros). but the workflow and timesavings in logging and capturing will be waywaywayway worth the "card-dumping" to HDD.

[scharky]

Hey Alpi69, I didn't realize you were from Austria. I was born in Saltzburg. Are you my Daddy? I've never met him.:huh:

Sorry, go back to your regularly scheduled program.

[liquidigital]

I had to write.
I think the guys has a point as well. I don't see too many of you running out and buying these cards. And the prices aren't going to just drop suddenly. The damn camera isn't even out yet. Firestore's probably the best option, that is, if there won't be compatibility issues. Incidentally, it is really comical to see so many people riled up over this guy's posts. You guys are die hard Panasonic, that's for sure. I'm going to stick with the DVX100, old school. :)

[NoahK]

Yup it's the very definition of a troll post. Say something just silly that everyone feels the need to chime in on and then watch the fun. Notice you don't hear a single word of rebuttal from the original poster. Real courage of convictions there...

[bilgami]

BiLGaMi Video Productions :beer:

Do you think there was this much debate over the conversion from black and white to color?

bilgami@hotmail.com
http://www.bilgamivideo.com (http://www.bilgamivideo.com/)

[reservoir]

Color is overrated :grin:


~reservoir~

[braw]

Color is just a fad, it will never catch on. Let's all get back to how Panasonic will have to file for chapter 11 because of the lack of a removable or "real" lens. :grin:

[reservoir]

Maybe they'll change it and make it a HD B&W camera with a removable lens. Then they won't have to file bankrupcy. The entire community will rejoice. :evil:

~reservoir~

[braw]

Hey reservoir, is your location taken form Tribe Called Quest lyrics?

[Loki]

in repsonse to the very first post in this thread:

your an F-ing idiot.

You been shooting weddings for the past 15 years with your fisher price camera? cause you sound like a ranting 8 year old little boy.

your the only person that is screwed. I think your just angry at Panasonic for creating a great product that you can't use.. cause lo and behold you only do weddings..how about just using the camera you have now until the new one becomes more viable..

well shux.... maybe one day when your all growed up you won't be such a tool, and will be able to think with the larger of your two heads.

get a clue man, if your so pissed about the low recording time.. don't buy the camera, and stop trolling this site.

[reservoir]

Hey reservoir, is your location taken form Tribe Called Quest lyrics?

I'm representing North Carolina. That's where I be *stay* at!!

~reservoir~

[mthornton]

No need to hammer videoman69 too much, he obviously has different criteria than most people here. He does event video that isn’t terribly demanding and he has no need to move past a camcorder that captures a decent standard definition video that can be edited and then dubbed onto a VHS tape for the bride and groom so that the grandparents can watch it on the 19” television that they bought back in 1985.

What I can’t understand is why he is complaining about the AG-HVX200? It isn’t remotely a tool that he would be using in his line of work... something like the Canon GL2 is more camera than he needs. The HVX200 isn’t aimed at him... but maybe he can only see a product as it relates to what he is doing on his job. I really hope he doesn’t catch wind of the Viper, he might burst a blood vessel.

On my last project I shot 25 hours worth of video over sixteen days and I don’t think that the DVX100 ran for longer than seven minutes on any given take. Most of the time they were one or two minutes each and there would have been plenty of time for someone to offload a P2 card to a hard drive and get get it back into the camera before the other card was full.

And if he thinks that P2 cards are expensive he should take a look at the cost of the tape transport mechanism and heads that go into a camera that can record at 1080 24p... then again maybe he shouldn’t, he might have a conniption.

I agree!

Let's hope this guy never run for President, because he will use a nuke to kill a fly.

HD is the nuke and a wedding is his fly.

Ouch! Yeah, you can come back a say something now so we know you are not coward.

Hey, videoman69
Your turn to talk man!

Mthornton

[Nutsy]

Right this thread wanted me to post.
Iv been looking into affordable HD cameras quite alot reacently hoping to get one by the end of the year so i could make a little film. Im primaly a effects artist wishing to high heaven for HD to be avalible. And here it is.

Honistly the guy that started this thread acted like a dick and went about the whole thing the wrong way. But honistly the rest of you lot need to take a chill pill and calm down yourselves.

The guy is only pissed because such a great cam was made. But was limited by its recording format.

I personaly dont like the idea of memory cards. What was wrong with using HDs. Its certainly beter than tape. ANd i always was very suspisiouse on the idea of using Mpeg2. The codec is old and not great quality.

As long as you can record into a portable storage device like a firewire based media player directly. Or some thing like that I would be happy. As i didnt trust the tape.

But if the P2 card is the only option i beleave its a bit of a waist of a brillient camera. And at the moment this camera looks like the one of choice. True HD progressive scan. What more can some one want :D WOOHOO.

Anyway my 2 pence. Ill be keeping an eye on these forums looks like some good infomation flying about.

Oh and sorry about any bad spelling or grammer im sevearly dyslexic... Dossnt help.

Nutsy

[scharky]

Who said that P2 was the only option for recording HD on the HDV200? I suggest you read a little bit more about the camera. It is not limited in any way to the medium that it can record to. If anything, it is limitless to the number of perefrials that can be hooked up to this camera to record HD.

[Nutsy]

I didnt say it was limited. From what i understand it can be hooked up to some sort of external capture deck or HD deck. I dont know exsacly how. Im still budding new to HD so new i havnt even touched a HD camera yet. Im only going by what i read here.

[ransom]

Who says this camera can't be used for weddings? I do weddings and I want to play too. But instead of crying about a perceived shortcoming I'm thinking of ways to make it work. And if clients will pay a premium for their wedding in HD then I'll be all over it.

[bilgami]

BiLGaMi Video Productions :beer::thumbsup:

I dont consider what panasonic is doing with their p2 cards as screwy. I think its bold and its good to know there is company out there who listens to its customers and bold enough to try something new and innovative. I too shoot weddings and although right now p2 is suited for that I know someday they will and I will be ready for them.


bilgami@hotmail.com
http://www.bilgamivideo.com (http://www.bilgamivideo.com/)

[Jaime Valles]

I didnt say it was limited. From what i understand it can be hooked up to some sort of external capture deck or HD deck. I dont know exsacly how. Im still budding new to HD so new i havnt even touched a HD camera yet. Im only going by what i read here.

The confirmed modes of recording HD on the HVX are:

1) Direct to P2 card/s, then put the card in the slot on your laptop and dump footage.

or

2) Stream directly from the HVX to a laptop with Final Cut Pro or Avid Xpress Pro with a Firewrie or USB2 cable (no P2 cards needed).

or

3) Record to P2 card/s, then dump footage to an external HDD connected directly to HVX (no laptop needed).

We also know that the Firestore folks are P2 partners, so you can bet they'll come out with a firestore that works with the HVX, but it hasn't been announced yet.

You don't need an HD deck. You can rent one if you want to backup your footage to tape later on.

[natob2]

I ask that you please don't use the term "troll" on this site. There are enough video-nerds around here. Not that they are a bad thing or I'm trying to slam them. But let's just keep the nerdom to a bare minimum around here.

And my more topic centered response...hey, the guy is entitled to his opinion. This camera is afterall just an electronic tool. It's not someone's only child or lifelong labor of love.

P2 ultimately could be a huge disaster. History can repeat itself. This can happen. Just ask Sony.

[wabbit]

There are enough video-nerds around here. Not that they are a bad thing or I'm trying to slam them. But let's just keep the nerdom to a bare minimum around here.

Dude, your one of us, embrace it!!! :)

The day you decided to be behind the camera instead of in front, is the day you became a nerd (I prefer the term geek, but that's probably a regional thing). There are no cool directors, DP, crew, etc.

(Hoping to hijack this thread to something more constructive)

[braw]

I ask that you please don't use the term "troll" on this site.

If the original poster felt the need to defend his stance or elaborate then one could think labeling him a troll is harsh and unnecessary. The original poster wrote a very inflammatory post and hasn't been heard from sense. According to Wikipedia, that exhibits many numbers of the definition. :thumbsup:

[ericcosh]

There is one more possibility. The original post was meant to do exactly what it's done and that is get everyone's BP to the boiling point. The next thing we know, just because he mentioned something about shooting weddings, now all wedding and event videographers are out there shooting with $239 camcorders and dumping to VHS.

I would like to add a few thoughts of my own. I happened to be at the private showing that Panasonic put on for the DXVuser group, and had the chance to say hi to Barry, Jarred and Noah and Jan. I think Panasonic was very graceful in the way they tried to answer our questions about the camera. Who will be the end user? I think it will be extremely broad. I'm an event videographer who sees great potential in this camera. Contrary to what some on this post have mentioned, this isn't just for film makers. It's for any creative person who will now have a tool to do anything from straight DV, 16:9 or move to HD, without being limited to any one of them.

To me, this is the genius of this camera. Plain and simple. Not to mention at a cost that is almost obscene. Who on this thread who has been shooting and editing video for say 20 years or more would have ever dreamed of having a camera that does sooooo much for so little cost?

[jpbankesmercer]

Personally this camera will save my life!!
I’ve wanted to shoot a HD picture for the last two years. Just when I couldn’t think of another way to justify those MASSIVE hiring costs, let alone editing costs. Panasonic announce this marvel. A camera like this will help thousands of directors/ scriptwriters/ shooters to realize high quality productions.
That’s not to say the content will be any good.
Although my script is ACE.

[BenB]

I began with weddings and events and have moved on to mostly commercial stuff. I am former president of the Louisiana Association of Video Professionals, have taught at WEVA Expo in Vegas, write for several film & video magazine, and have an FCP tutorial book and Studio Artist tutorial DVD about to be released.

That said, I will be the FIRST to step up and claim wedding videographers as "good folks with good hearts" but very technically lacking and/or simply missinformed about FILM MAKING. The two feilds are TOTALLY DIFFERENT!

I got a DVX100a and all my wed vid buddies said, "but 24p doesn't do good slo-mo and looks weird and isn't useful for weddings!" Well, I couldn't agree more. BUT what they miss is that I didn't buy it to do weddings. I bought it to help me move away from weddings.

I have a collection of microphones that blows away most wed vid folks. I came into video from being a semi-pro music composer. I needed really good mics. I found once I did wed vids that the mics most of these folks use are lower end, nice mics, but cheaper than I'm used to using.

For example, I have a pair of Rodes NT5 for live music concerts where I can't get a mixing board feed or want to enhance the mixing board. I once recommended them to an event video guy for doing live sound on a small concert. His reply was typical, they cost way too much.

I guess my point is, the HVX is fantatic for what it was made for. It is NOT by any means a wedding and event camera AT ALL, PERIOD! I for one have a new edit bay planned out for purchase this summer with FCP Suit and a pair of HVX200 cams. I will NOT do weddings on these. I'll continue to use my GL-1's and FCP-HD for weddings, IF I ever do them after this year again.

A camera and it's discussion must be kept in focus, within the relm of what the device was designed to do. Don't discuss how a shoe horn makes a bad mouse trap.

Sorry, just an early morning rant...

[scharky]

I think there are too many people out there that want every camera to do everthing perfectly. Unfortunatly that is not the case. Cameras are tools, and you wouldn't use a hammer to cut down a tree. Some cameras are better suited to run an gun situations. Sure you could use any camera in that situation, but some are better than others. Now I guess you could technically use a hammer to cut down a tree, it would take longer and give crappy results, but it could be done. I'm not saying that the HVX200 will not give beautiful results at a wedding, but unless you have a couple of 60gig cards laying around, it will not be convinient. So at this point in time, teathering the camera to a laptop, or hard drive is better suited towards film making. It just is. I can't stand it when people say, My DVX can do everything your camera can do, but better. People look at there cameras as part of their families, and I think that is just wrong. Get over it, it's just a tool. IT doesn't have to be good at everything, just the things that you need it to be good at. IF it isn't good at the things you need it to be, then use a different tool.

THE END. :)

[ransom]

I've never used my DVX in 24p mode for weddings. But I have used it in 30p with great results. Everyone knows light sensitivity is a big concern at wedding receptions especially. But wouldn't the HVX in 60p be close to a DV cam in 60i in light sensitivity (all other things equal). If Panny only intended this camera to be used for film making it would have no need to include all the modes it will be capable of. I personnaly would probaly use it only in DVCPRO initially and wait for the price of P2's to come down. Does anyone think in 10 years all weddings and events will still be shot in SD?

Film making and event videography ARE very different things but to say a camera like this with it's flexibility is meant for only one group is seriously narrow-minded. And to say ALL event videographers are technically lacking is just an ignorant statement.

[Jaime Valles]

I guess my point is, the HVX is fantatic for what it was made for. It is NOT by any means a wedding and event camera AT ALL, PERIOD! I for one have a new edit bay planned out for purchase this summer with FCP Suit and a pair of HVX200 cams. I will NOT do weddings on these. I'll continue to use my GL-1's and FCP-HD for weddings, IF I ever do them after this year again.

If you want to shoot weddings in HD, it's either the HVX, or the Varicam at $60k.

If you want to shoot weddings in HD for cheaper (price and quality), you need HDV.

If you want to shoot weddings in DV in native widescreen, use the HVX or XL2.

If you want to shoot weddings in DV in 4x3, use a DVX or PD170 or GL-1.

I think the HVX would be great for shooting weddings in 16x9 miniDV. Then you can use the same camera to shoot narrative films using P2 in 1080/24p.

The perfect transition camera.

[stephenlnoe]

The Sony solution (HDV) FX1 or Z1 is a perfect fit for event folk that want to jump up in resolution from DV25.

I'm getting the HVX for one reason only, commercials shot in DVCPro50 422. The HD is gravy.

[ransom]

Quote:
"The Sony solution (HDV) FX1 or Z1 is a perfect fit for event folk that want to jump up in resolution from DV25."

With the half second dropped frames issue with HDV and the impossibility of doing a second take - I don't think so. Also they are not good in low light.

[stephenlnoe]

Uhhh.. Ransom... Do you have personal experience with the FX1?

I do.

FX1 is a great solution, regardless.

[wabbit]

Also they are not good in low light.

Yeah, this is probably gonna be true for the HVX also. I hope Panasonic puts some focus on getting the low light capabilities as good as possible. In addition to our 2 DVX, my company had to add a pd170 to our lineup for low-light situations. It sucks to work with that camera though (IMHO).

I realize the constraints of a 1/3" chip but for me, I know this is going to be the thing that leaves me wanting when the HVX is released (still probably buying 2 or more :)).

[thisiswells]

If you want to shoot weddings in HD, it's either the HVX, or the Varicam at $60k.
VariCam only holds a 46 minute load. Barely enough a scrape by in a wedding, IMHO.
HVX200 will get 40 minutes of DVCPRO-HD in a camera. Not bad at all.

[flyerland]

Panasonic is screwed. So what about the camera. When you have to spend $1700-$2k for 5 minutes of recording it makes it uselss. This is the most retarded thing I have ever seen in my 15 years of video. WHo wants to spend $10k on a camera and P2 cards only to be able to capture 10-15 minutes of video? Panasonic is obvioulsy lost here in another reality. No way thi scould be used for a wedding, or anything for that matter. But hey, you can record Standard DV! Yea! $6k for standard DV, that will work!


Bud your in the wedding business, that doesn't count as 15 years in video. Take your tacky pd150 footage cut to a beautiful day elsehwere.

Do you make porn too, 69???

I like how he can't even get the minutes straight either, first it's five, then ten, then somewhere around fifteen. GOOGLE the damn camera's specs before wasting space with this.

[princigalli]

WHo wants to spend $10k on a camera and P2 cards only to be able to capture 10-15 minutes of video?

Ahem... I am willing to spend that money and I can't wait for it. The camera can't come fast enough. I have all of my Sony HDV stuff ready to go on Ebay and of course some money on the side for the panasonic. Of course the price is a little high for P2 cards, but they will drop very fast. And until they drop, I'll swap cards. That easy.

[princigalli]

Uhhh.. Ransom... Do you have personal experience with the FX1?

I do.

FX1 is a great solution, regardless.

I have one. It's a good camera in may respects, and lately I managed to get footage that looks like film. But let's face it, it's interlaced so this film, in my opinion, has a resolution of 540 lines, despite claims I read that it has an effective resolution of 700 or 800. Also, it's low compression MPEG2 doesn't give you much freedom. Don' do action scenes. Also, low light performance is not great, but I understand many people don't need it. Also, it's latitude is not that good, so it will give you mich better results if you use it in specific ways.

But above all, I mentioned it, it's interlaced. Interlaced is bad and it's so 1920's. Doesn't work for me. I need high resolution progressive footage stored with a decent codec. My FX1 will go on Ebay when Panasonic comes.

[ransom]

Uhhh.. Ransom... Do you have personal experience with the FX1?

I do.

FX1 is a great solution, regardless.

No I don't have any experience with the FX1. I only know what I've read and it may be a great solution until the 1/2 sec worth dropped frames happen at an inoportune time. I'm not saying it's a bad cam, I'd just like to avoid the few issues with HDV if I could. Who knows, the HVX may have more issues than the FX1 for events after it comes out and people start using it. As wabbit eluded, low light performance is a big concern and if it's worse than the DVX I may just stay with it.

[vanguy]

I don't think the HVX is ready for prime time yet, at least not to shoot HD. I've been studying the workflow and costs of production for about two solid days now (I know, I know, get a life, loser) and I can't come up with an economical/practical way to shoot a feature. I'm estimating I'd need about 2 hours of media space to shoot one day.

These seem to be the options:

1) Buy about 15 P2 cards (might as well pick up a Varicam), or
2) Use two P2 Store boxes and transfer every night (expensive and inconvenient), or
3) Bring a laptop on set, and add an external 120+ GB drive (still expensive and even more inconvenient), or
4) Use some yet-to-be-developed Firestore drive, and buy a slew of 2 1/2" drives (better, but still expensive)

Then, there's post:

1) Buy enormous storage (about 3-5 TB for a feature) and shelve it after the show (expensive, although slightly cheaper than DVCPROHD tape), or
2) Spend a LOT of time archiving to tape or DVD-R (500+ DVD-Rs!), or
3) Delete all my footage FOREVER!!!!!

I also must hope that the drives don't crash before I have a chance to archive the footage.

Whereas, with HDV, I can use cheap tape ($3/hour), there's no archiving issues, there's safety in case my drives crash, and there's no P2 cards, P2 Store boxes, nor 5 GB drives to buy. I can edit it offline on my laptop's internal drive, then online it, probably still using the internal drive.



BTW, I have shot with the FX-1. I shot 4 hours of tape (which cost me about $15) and did not notice a single dropout. I didn't like Sony's quasi-24p crap, and the camera was not very ergonomic, but the pictures looked nice.

I'd very much like to use the Panasonic's variable speed capabilities and superior DVCPRO-HD codec, except the workflow and required accessories make it expensive and impractical. Maybe with 64GB P2 cards, and much cheaper Blue-ray or holographic storage. But I don't see that happening until well into 2006 or 2007.

[scharky]

Vanguy, personally, I think your wrong, but we are all entitled to our opinion. Some people go for convience over image quality. Some go for image quality over convience. Personally I don't find it inconvinient to save to an external hard drive, and I don't find it inconvinient to be tethered to a laptop for some shots. The image qualtity of DVCpro HD and the options that this camera gives you far outweigh any slight inconvinience. I personally am looking forward to getting rid of tape storage for my shoots. Just one less thing I have to worry about.

[vanguy]

Some people go for convience over image quality.

I could handle a little inconvenience, even though one of the selling points of this level of HD production is the freedom of a small camera (which is greatly reduced if you're tethered to a laptop). And, speaking as a guy who's gotta spend a grand on a new display because my DP tripped over my laptop cable, I think there's other disadvantages to being tethered to a computer...

But the major issue for me is the cost. This camera needs a bunch of expensive accessories to be reasonably practical on set. And by "reasonably practical", I mean have the capability of recording more than 16 minutes of footage without going back to a desktop computer with a large drive (the biggest laptops can only hold about an hour of footage at full res) and transferring, which, at this date, is almost as slow as digitizing (about 1 GB/minute to firewire drives in my own actual tests).

So the inconvenience is: shoot for 16 minutes, then go to a computer with LARGE storage and transfer for 16 minutes. Or have an extra guy to do this and swap cards back and forth. Or, suppose you want to shoot an hour and a half of footage in the middle of the woods? Or on the side of a mountain? HDV: No Problem. Bring an extra tape. HDX: Bring a laptop and a 120GB Firewire drive and an extra guy and look for an AC outlet.

But forget about that. That's merely inconvenience. The cost of all that extra stuff is what kills me:

HDV Camera: $6K + tape: $4/hour
HDX Camera: $6K + P2 cards: $1700 each + laptop: $1200 + firewire drive: $120 + bigger storage for post: $45/hour of camera footage + archive storage


I personally am looking forward to getting rid of tape storage for my shoots. Just one less thing I have to worry about.

What you WILL have to worry about is large, relatively expensive hard drive storage. Hard drive storage is, depending how you calculate it, 5-20 times as expensive as HDV tape. And, takes up as much or a little more space on the shelf.

The alternative is the VERY time-consuming archiving to DVD-Rs (under 5 minutes of footage per disk, which you can burn in what, 15 minutes? maybe 10 with the fastest burner? Multiply by the length of camera footage: for a short film with 3 hours of source footage, that's maybe 40 disks which takes you a full working day to burn. Imagine shooting a feature).

Or perhaps you don't mind throwing out all your source footage after completing a show? Personally, I find that unthinkable.

I don't mean to pee on people's corn flakes here. But I gotta ask; what do you do with your footage after you're finished?

[thisiswells]

Vanguy,

You've made your point clear. You haven't got a clue. Comparing the cost of DVCPRO-HD to
HDV is futile. HDV will always be more affordable in the end. What is your point? People get
a better product from a DVCPRO-HD camcorder than they do a HDV camcorder and they will
pay for the difference. If you think they should be the same price, then you're an idiot.

I'm not starting a flame war, but to expect Mercedes quality at a Ford price is being an idiot.
Quit complaining. Get with the program, understand the system instead of dissing, or buzz off.

Tape is the most expensive archive medium at 2.00 per GB. Other storage mediums are much
lower, around the .35 per GB range. Why on earth would you want to use tape for archival????

[thisiswells]

Oh ok. You've never heard of DLT or LTO, have you?
What about holographic blue laser storage (NOT blur-ray) ?

There are a lot of data storage solutions you appear unaware of and thus I think you are
making some erroneous conclusions about this camera and its' workflow.

[PanasonicNZ]

Vanguy, it seems the HVX will be able to copy straight to a USB2 inexpensive HDD, without the need of a laptop. I also have a question: why do you need to archive everything? Isn't it better to archive only the useful stuff and drop the bad takes? This would make your archive much smaller and more efficient. As for archiving, for now, until BD or HDDVD or holografic comes out, why don't you considder using hard drives? A 400GB will take 400 min 1080 ot 1000 min 720/24p. I don't think tape is cheaper and i've personaaly never heard of a HDD going funny only by sitting on a shelf. When a cheaper/bigger disc comes out, if the hdd makes you nervous, you can copy across. In my opinion, this sounds different from a tape workflow and that's what makes people nervous. Thinking outside the square is probably the biggest challenge.

[stephenlnoe]

The point here is the recording length which is more favorable on the Z1. Live feed from a Z1 is stunning, interlaced or not. All cameras are limited, and I mean all. There is not a single one that can match the human eye so you must use each and every one like a tool in a painters kit. FX1 is superior to a great many cameras on the market right now. When HVX comes out we will pick it apart too....

[vanguy]

Vanguy,

You've made your point clear. You haven't got a clue.

I probably deserved that. The tone of my response was a little confrontational.

But I included a lot of researched information that I thought indicated that I DO have a clue. I even omitted some to save space on this forum.

For the record, I've heard of (and used) DLT and other tape backup systems. Blue-ray is still even more expensive than DVCPRO-HD per GB, and holographic is not a commercial format yet, so I can't comment on the price. DLT drives (and other tape drives) are EXPENSIVE, and TIME-CONSUMING.

I've also shot with Varicam, HDCam, and HDV (and a ton of SD formats). So I've tried almost every HD camera out there. And I have no illusions that any $6K camera is going to blow, say, the Sony F900 out of the water. Right now, the ONLY <10K camera out there are the JVC single-chip and the Sony X1/Z1-U series. Which I've shot with.

I think you're missing something here. I'll try to be really clear.

I don't agree that the comparison to HDV is futile. This is a range of cameras whose beauty is supposed to be that it's a lot cheaper than pro formats. And you put up with a little inconvenience for that.

But you seem to be laboring under three illusions:

1) HDV is unusable (it's not, it's pretty good, and quite a jump up from DV)
2) No one cares much about keeping their footage
3) Everyone has unlimited storage on their home computer, or at least unlimited time on their hands to do extra work (like backup) that the workflow demands.

There might be a fourth, and that's that paying extra money for hardware and media storage doesn't matter.

Why would anyone want to use tape for archival? How about this: why would anyone want to sit in front of their computer swapping disks for a day for every two days of shooting? Or, if you're just putting hard drives on the shelf why would anyone want to spend ten times as much money on new hard drives?

Maybe I don't have a clue. Educate me. Suppose you're shooting a feature. You shoot about two hours a day for a month. You're generating 120GB of storage each day for a total of 3 TB.

a) how much does the equipment cost? The storage device for your editor? The archive media? (no fair using any technology I can't get at my local store)
b) how much extra time do you spend (that you wouldn't spend if you - horror of horrors - shot on HDV) transferring your footage from P2 to on-set storage, from on-set storage to your NLE, and from your NLE to archive media?
c) what happens when, in the middle of the shoot, your NLE hard drive crashes, and you lose everything you've shot?

These are honest questions, which no one at this forum or at Panasonic has even attempted to answer. Be the first.

Vanguy

[vanguy]

Thanks, PanasonicNZ


Vanguy, it seems the HVX will be able to copy straight to a USB2 inexpensive HDD, without the need of a laptop. I also have a question: why do you need to archive everything?

Cool idea, and I've looked at this option. The USB2 (or firewire) inexpensive HDDs are a very real possibility. I'm not sure if they can match the speed yet, but perhaps by the time the camera arrives... Still, unless you buy a lot of them, you've gotta transfer them to your NLE at night and later archive the footage, and recycle drives, but it certainly saves on P2 cards. And the price? About 25% more than DVCPRO-HD tapes.


Isn't it better to archive only the useful stuff and drop the bad takes? This would make your archive much smaller and more efficient.

Yes, but in practice, I'd have to go over all my footage again to see if there's not some smidgin of a take I'd like to keep for some reason, because we're talking about destroying takes FOREVER. Realistically, most filmmakers would want to keep everything, but might be happy with only keeping 50%. So maybe not MUCH smaller, but somewhat smaller.


As for archiving, for now, until BD or HDDVD or holografic comes out, why don't you considder using hard drives?

Hard drives are great. In fact, if there was some reasonable way of hooking up about fifty USB drives (a feature, shooting 25:1), there's the whole answer: shoot to USB, plug 'em in, edit, then file the drives. But that's still quite a bit more than tape, and hooking up 50 mini-drives is probably impractical.

I'm not attached to tape. Thinking outside the box is fine. But I do get attached to my footage, and, unfortunately, my money. And I'm a little picky about what looks like a lot of inconvenience.

[wabbit]

Actually I think all those issues have been addressed. :) Read thru the million some post in this HVX forum.

HDV is undoubtably cheaper. Just not safe.

[vanguy]

The point here is the recording length which is more favorable on the Z1. Live feed from a Z1 is stunning, interlaced or not. All cameras are limited, and I mean all. There is not a single one that can match the human eye so you must use each and every one like a tool in a painters kit. FX1 is superior to a great many cameras on the market right now. When HVX comes out we will pick it apart too....

Yeah, I like being able to shoot an hour-long take. I also like being able to roll all day for about $30.

I'd like the higher image quality, too. Cake and eating it, I guess.

It's all kinda moot until the camera hits the shelves. Good fun ranting about it, though.

Vanguy

[vanguy]

Actually I think all those issues have been addressed. :) Read thru the million some post in this HVX forum.

HDV is undoubtably cheaper. Just not safe.

Actually, until the last couple of posts, the issues haven't been fully addressed. I'm still gonna have a hard look at the JVC, though.

[letsburnbridges]

no one cares about keeping their footage!?!? what do you do with yours? Hard drive space can HARDLY be called expensive anymore, its less than a dollar a gb.

I dont understand why you would need 15 p2 cards either, you dump one and record on the other.

HDV is great, i have an FX1 but I realize it wont compare to dvcpro-hd

[vanguy]

no one cares about keeping their footage!?!? what do you do with yours? Hard drive space can HARDLY be called expensive anymore, its less than a dollar a gb.

I dont understand why you would need 15 p2 cards either, you dump one and record on the other.

HDV is great, i have an FX1 but I realize it wont compare to dvcpro-hd

I was being somewhat ironic about people not caring about keeping their footage. Speaking from a lot of experience, hard drives fill up pretty fast, and usually, due to overlapping projects, you never seem to be able to take them offline. As for what I do with my footage, I usually leave it on the tape :)

As far as non-linear storage goes, I've shot with an XDCam, and the disks are reasonably priced enough to archive, and convenient to use. I can't say that about P2, since it's so expensive that you are forced to reuse them frequently. So you have to look elsewher for archiving

At some point, you've got to move a lot of files around, then remove a drive and put it into storage, or otherwise archive the media.

Hard drives are less than a dollar a GB for internal drives. Externals are a bit more. DV tape is about 25c a GB.

As for P2s, I understand the process of dumping. But with an 8 minute P2, we need a simple on-set solution; you can't stop after a couple of takes and run back to the post house. And a typical interview lasts from 15 to 45 minutes, and stopping six times is going to annoy the subject. So, there's P2 Store boxes. Not bad, but expensive, and at the end of the day, they have to be transferred too.

It's not simplifying things, is what I'm saying. It's making it more complex.

I'm also saying this technology isn't ready yet. Either you jerry-rig the camera with USB drives, or you have to buy a lot of expensive extras, which effectively double the cost of the camera. And it's still rather clumsy on set. And then you must spend a lot of extra time in post archiving. And you need a lot more storage to edit the show.

Panasonic needs to make this a simple, all-in-one-box solution, whether that includes bolt-on hard drives or tape or whatever. Or we need P2 cards that cost about the same as tape and hold an hour of footage. That'd be a 64 GB card for about $50-75.

I know that's not the point of P2 cards. But right now, it doesn't look practical in real-world production environments. At least not to me.

[ransom]

From the Panasonic DVCPRO P2 white paper:
"Infinite record times become possible with P2 as well. Because P2 cards are hot swappable, and because all P2 cameras include multiple card slots, one could theoretically record perpetually on a P2 camera. As cards are filled, they can be pulled out, empty cards can be inserted and recording continues. The camera knows to roll over from a full card to an empty one and the Metadata links the footage together so that it can be reassembled into one long continuous clip in the edit bay. This is something that tape could never do; with P2, you never have to stop recording, as long as cards can be swapped."

[thisiswells]

I probably deserved that. The tone of my response was a little confrontational.
Well, you're digging for answers. And, you're being very polite about it. Would you afford me the opportunity to share some conclusions that have been made?


But I included a lot of researched information that I thought indicated that I DO have a clue. I even omitted some to save space on this forum.
I'll agree you are an educated individual and aren't making senseless comments.
Much appeciated.


For the record, I've heard of (and used) DLT and other tape backup systems. Blue-ray is still even more expensive than DVCPRO-HD per GB, and holographic is not a commercial format yet, so I can't comment on the price. DLT drives (and other tape drives) are EXPENSIVE, and TIME-CONSUMING.
DVCPRO-HD VTR's are expensive too. The cheapest one is the HD-1200A and it costs $21,000.00 + $4,000.00 for the FW400 output board.
I think that if you compare the price of so-called expensive options, they all still come in far below the price of a DVCRO-HD deck... Many times less. It's still a bargain to use another type of tape, even if it's still tape. Time consuming? Yes? No rebuttal there.



I've also shot with Varicam, HDCam, and HDV (and a ton of SD formats). So I've tried almost every HD camera out there. And I have no illusions that any $6K camera is going to blow, say, the Sony F900 out of the water. Right now, the ONLY <10K camera out there are the JVC single-chip and the Sony X1/Z1-U series. Which I've shot with.
Great, so have I... except the HDCAM.. never touched one of those.


I think you're missing something here. I'll try to be really clear.
Okay.



I don't agree that the comparison to HDV is futile. This is a range of cameras whose beauty is supposed to be that it's a lot cheaper than pro formats. And you put up with a little inconvenience for that.
Agree to disagree? I have shot VariCam. I have edited DVCPRO-HD. I have shot Super16mm. I have shot every DV25 format. I never touched HDCAM. This camera is using a Pro Format... even though it may not be a "pro" lens or a "pro" form factor, it does in fact, use a "pro" format. You know the difference. Regardless of the size of this camera or its' price point, it does, indeed, use a pro format. You would certainly recognise the value in what the format offers above other formats, right?



But you seem to be laboring under three illusions:
1) HDV is unusable (it's not, it's pretty good, and quite a jump up from DV)

1)I am laboring under the fact that HDV is not up to par with professional standards particularly in the area of color sampling and compression level. HDV is, as I'm sure you're aware, a transmission-grade codec. FWIW, JVC's DigitalVHS format uses 1.5 the datarate as 720p HDV. The 720p HDV is 19Mbps v. D-VHS which is 28Mbps. You're entirely accurate that I feel HDV is a joke as a professional format for any serious work.

2) No one cares much about keeping their footage
2)Though innaccurate, I realize that was written to bring about discussion. How does anyone store DVCPRO-HD footage currently? Let's examine that. a Large-Size cassette (camera size) will hold 46 minutes of data at 100Mbps or more simply, these $80 tapes hold about 40Gb of data. This equates to about 2.00Gb. So, anyone shooting DVCPRO-HD today pays about $2.00/GB to retain their data. Is there a less expensive storage medium than DVCPRO-HD tape, a DVCPRO-HD deck that offers a similar convenience factor and even reduced cost? Yes, there are tons of options. It is futile to think in terms of "this tape cost $6 and it holds an hour" What that tape holds is about 11.5GB of data. If you could backup DVCPRO-HD to a data drive that used MiniDV tapes, that would seem a reasonable solution, because you're talking about 0.50/GB in data storage. Still, there are other options that are less expensive than this. The point here is that data is data is data. Doesn't matter where it comes from. Only matter where it goes and what it goes on. Yes, I would want to archive my footage, but videotape is a terribly expensive and linearly inefficient method of archive.


3) Everyone has unlimited storage on their home computer, or at least unlimited time on their hands to do extra work (like backup) that the workflow demands.
3)Agreed. But, DVCPRO-HD is not a consumer video format. You claim experience on a variety of mega-buck HD cameras, how can make a statement like "home computers lack the storage to handle HD" That's not very intelligent, do you disagree? No-one purchasing a 10K camcorder will buy into the system without considering the 4-8K they'll spend on computing equipment, plus an additional 3-5K for an archive system.


There might be a fourth, and that's that paying extra money for hardware and media storage doesn't matter.
Why would anyone want to use tape for archival? How about this: why would anyone want to sit in front of their computer swapping disks for a day for every two days of shooting? Or, if you're just putting hard drives on the shelf why would anyone want to spend ten times as much money on new hard drives?
Where are you getting these figures? I'm so lost in this thread I don't know where you're getting your numbers from, my friend.


Maybe I don't have a clue. Educate me. Suppose you're shooting a feature. You shoot about two hours a day for a month. You're generating 120GB of storage each day for a total of 3 TB.
First, lots of bad takes. Second, two hours a day is 3x46minute tapes. That's over $200/Day just for tapes. Then you still need HDD for editing. When using "P2 RAM CARDS" you'd offload them to HDD and be prepared to edit. A 120GB HDD could be had for much less than the price of 3-46 minute DVCPRO-HD tapes.

Don't like the HDD idea? Fine. HDD's are among the more expensive solutions. Again, DL tape and LTO are both solutions available today for data abckup.... But, you still need HDD for editing, so really you need both.. But, it's not more expensive in any possible way... DL Tape and LTO are slow, yes, but both are much cheaper than DVCPRO-HD tape.. and you would need HDD's anyway...



a) how much does the equipment cost? The storage device for your editor? The archive media? (no fair using any technology I can't get at my local store)
Since you couldn't buy a DVCPRO-HD camera at your local store, my feeling is that it is fair to include technology obtained at same-level vendors as would carry DVCPRO-HD product. Of existing options for editing, HDD is the only choice. This point does not matter whether you originate on a 46 minute tape or on P2 cards.. The only way to access any of this material fast enough for editing is HDD. You know this. It is not reasonable to think someone would have an entire movie on HDD, all bad takes included. So, you keep everything on a slower mass-data archive format like DL Tape or LTO drives. That seems a reasonable way to go.



b) how much extra time do you spend (that you wouldn't spend if you - horror of horrors - shot on HDV) transferring your footage from P2 to on-set storage, from on-set storage to your NLE, and from your NLE to archive media?
Less time than it takes to log and transfer from videotape.
How could you see it any other way? I can't.



c) what happens when, in the middle of the shoot, your NLE hard drive crashes, and you lose everything you've shot?
I would never use a HDD as a primary capture device. I don't trust them. Think about this: What happens when your Aaton camera has a faulty registration and your film comes back ruined? You're F*&c(d.



These are honest questions, which no one at this forum or at Panasonic has even attempted to answer. Be the first.
Well, I'm definitely not the first. But, I hope my replys have been helpful. This is obviously the way I view things.. I would like to think I've not "bought in" to the "P2 is flawless" mentality. I'm actually quite open to discussing this or any reasonable topic. Quite honestly, I find a lack of questions that push the envelope and require me to think on this board. I do genuinely appreciate open discussions like this.

Please advise.

[Antoine_Fabi]

I really think this camera is innovative.
But i dont know why Panasonic can't record to tape in the DVCProHD format...
Should be easy, no ?
I am afraid there will be some problems archiving footage.

Am i missing something ?

If P2 could record 20, 30 or 40G, then should be very very convenient, but the archiving problem still exist.

...but i want one HVX anyway !

[braw]

I think the most realistic storage for those on a budget is going to be a raid 5 array. It's redundant and recoverable if 1 drive goes down. Worst case scenario, you have to pay a data recovery service to get your footage off if something catastophic goes wrong. If that happens though, you weren't quick to replace the bad drive (your fault) or God decided you aren't a film maker (not much you can do).

Less than $400 gts you a controller card and 3 SATA 80GB drives. That's good enough to to edit a full feature, granted you don't have more than 4 hours of footage. Edit, and dump the final cut to tape or another external drive. Seems feasable to me. This can be used over and over until a drive crashes, then put in another $60 drive and keep going.

Just have one decent size HDD in a battery powered or standard enclosure to store the footage you got for the day, and dump it to the home drives at the end of the day. Seems very doable for a high quality low budget production.

[thisiswells]

But i dont know why Panasonic can't record to tape in the DVCProHD format...
Should be easy, no ? Am i missing something ?
For the 900th time:

A DVCPRO-HD tape system consists of 16 video heads spinning at an unbelievable velocity and they cost $800 per pair, $6400 total, just for the heads. Add in the chassis and assembly, and the cost of a DVCPRO-HD tape system would add about $16,000.00 to the price of a camera, plus about four pounds in weight.



If P2 could record 20, 30 or 40G, then should be very very convenient, but the archiving problem still exist.

Archiving is what you make of it. Since you obviously haven't thought of a strategy or read the White Paper, you clearly are not in a position to make relevant comments about the archive system. Remember, Panasonic did not take a 4K camcorder, add HD, then charge 6K. They took most of the best parts of a 60K camcorder and made it 6K.

Do you get it?

[thisiswells]

Message For Everyone Who Doesn't Understand The Value Proposition of P2-HD

Too bad for you. The people that do understand it will be making more money
than you as they one by one will get all of your clients.

So, get with the program.. Or, get out of the business..

[reservoir]

Hot DAMN!!

Is it getting hot in here or is just ME?

Great responses Wells......My hat is off to you. :)

Great Discussion.

~reservoir~

[vanguy]

Message For Everyone Who Doesn't Understand The Value Proposition of P2-HD

Too bad for you. The people that do understand it will be making more money
than you as they one by one will get all of your clients.

So, get with the program.. Or, get out of the business..
It is rather warm in here... good fun though. In that spirit:

While Thisiswells is setting up his laptop and connecting his umbilical, I'll be shooting tape, and be finished sooner, and gradually stealing all HIS clients. I also won't be annoying interview subjects by interrupting them every few minutes to swap out a card. Because that's going to shake the camera, even it I can hot-swap them. Tape lasts an hour.

Moreover, since HDV tape is so cheap, and the clients can't tell the difference anyway (they're always amazed it looks so much better than television), I'll be able to bid lower than him. And while he's archiving his show, or going out to the store to order new hard drives, I'll be off taping the next client.

Damn right I don't understand the value proposition of P2.

But keep on insisting on it. I enjoy our little chats.

Vanguy

[thisiswells]

Only to re-iterate a key point: The 40 minute load offered in 720p24 on P2/HVX200
is only 6 minutes shy of the longest Large-Size 46 minute tape that fits in a VariCam.

I rest my case.

[Michael_Bott]

There's a major point in Vanguy's posts that everyone seems to be missing. We ain't going to meet his concerns unless Vanguys claim to need to shoot 2 HOURS a day on a feature :shocked: is addressed. My God, surely most feature directors are happy if they've got 5-10 MINUTES in the can at the end of the day? I can well see that if Vanguy has a workflow that produces 2 hours of footage a day then he's got a need that is well outside the norm and that P2 ain't never, ever going to seem viable to him. On this point maybe he should be given a break?

[vanguy]

Actually, most feature directors will have a lot more than 5-10 minutes in the can. Forty or fifty minutes at least for a major project. Low budget indies shoot faster.

I'll tell you how I arrived at two hours, so you don't think I'm insane:

1) I just shot a trailer and we burned four one-hour HDV tapes in two days.

2) my math: 25:1 shooting ratio x a two hour movie = 50 hours of camera tape. Divide by a 25 day schedule = 2 hours per day. These are not crazy expectations for an independent, low-budget shoot. A lot of indies shoot on much shorter schedules than that, maybe a lower ratio, but that would scale, so a fifteen-day schedule shooting 15:1 (which is SO easy to go past) still nets two hours of footage a day.

Yeah, I could use a break.

[Barry_Green]

I really think this camera is innovative.
But i dont know why Panasonic can't record to tape in the DVCProHD format...
Should be easy, no ?
You can record straight to DVCPRO-HD tape if you want. All you need to do is run a firewire cable out to a DVCPRO-HD deck.

Of course, that deck will cost $25,000. And if they'd built it into the camera, the HVX would cost $30,000 instead of $6,000. But for those who want to record on tape, you can -- just firewire it to a deck, and use tape.

[Barry_Green]

There's a major point in Vanguy's posts that everyone seems to be missing. We ain't going to meet his concerns unless Vanguys claim to need to shoot 2 HOURS a day on a feature :shocked: is addressed. My God, surely most feature directors are happy if they've got 5-10 MINUTES in the can at the end of the day?
The most we ever end up with is about one hour, on tape, per day. And of that hour, probably half of it is unusable garbage (meaning, takes I don't even want to look at again). So 30 minutes of usable, kept footage in a day's work is a pretty good pace. Of course, with P2, you can nuke "garbage" clips immediately.

If you get the camera bundle with the 2 8gb cards, I can foresee that for a feature shoot, shooting 720/24p, and deleting useless takes as you go -- it's likely you'll *never* need to swap cards during an entire day's shooting. Shooting 1080/24p, you may have to dump the cards once per day. Not constant, not "every few minutes", but once.

Of course, some people "firehose" footage, and they may run through several hours per day... but for disciplined commercial or feature work, I think 30 minutes of "kept" footage is quite a lot. For those shooting documentaries and interviews, this may not apply.

[vanguy]

Only to re-iterate a key point: The 40 minute load offered in 720p24 on P2/HVX200
is only 6 minutes shy of the longest Large-Size 46 minute tape that fits in a VariCam.

I rest my case.

Hey, now, there's a way of looking at it. Shoot in the lower resolution, get more on the cards.

Better yet, shoot in SD, and the cards hold over an hour. But wait! you could stick in a tape for 3-4 bucks, and not have to archive it later!

[vanguy]

The most we ever end up with is about one hour, on tape, per day. And of that hour, probably half of it is unusable garbage (meaning, takes I don't even want to look at again).

Yeah, you're probably right. On a more "disciplined" shoot I directed, we shot about 1 HDCam tape a day (50m), on average. My two hour number might be a bit liberal in conventional dramatic production, but imagine allowing for 60 minutes of storage (a single P2 store) and running out of space in the middle of the afternoon. Sorry, guys, I gotta run back to the post house and dump this. Take a couple hours off.

You're also right about discarding takes on set. Although some directors like to keep even their outtakes incase there's a fleck of gold in there. Especially if they're used to shooting tape.

So, worst case, dramatic production, two hours a day. Doc or interview, live event, or insane indie film, maybe more. Gotta allow for worst case, right?

It's 2:30 AM here. Much as I'm enjoying this, I gotta hit the hay.

[thisiswells]

Hey, now, there's a way of looking at it. Shoot in the lower resolution, get more on the cards.

You make it sound as though 720p is flawed or has a serious defect or a birth mark..
Variable framerates are made possible by 720p... VariCam is 720p.. This format has
been good to the HiDef community for many years and will continue to be. Just 'cause
the new kid on the block has twice the frame size as 720p, does that mean it's necessary
to use it for any other reason than bragging rights? I just don't see the benefit right
now. It takes a lot more storage space, card changes more often, and a more powerful
computer to edit it, et al. I really don't need that much resolution, man.

But, you make it sound like just because 1080 is an option now, that 720 is a
worthless piece of crap and that isn't the case. Sooo much 720 production occurs and
will continue for a long time to come.

I never thought I would live to see the day when someone wasn't content with 720p.
Wow. :cry:

[vanguy]

Wells;

I read on the Panasonic site that the HDX records 1080/24p. Is that a misprint? Because that negates the Kell factor.

As far as benefit goes, 1080p would be substantial if blowing up to 35 or projecting in a digital cinema. I do have access to a screening room that has a 1080i projector. Don't know about p. Don't remember the model number. Not my room.

Anyway, look, as this has gone on, I've gotten argumentative for argument's sake. It's good to knock ideas back and forth and learn more about something. So thanks for that. I'm pretty convinced that this technology is not quite ready, but will probably be the cat's caboose in two or three years. For limited applications, it will work fine when it's released. For long-form production, it's too clumsy.

Here's my conclusions:

For a serious production camera, the only options are the VariCam and the F900.

For toying around with HD, maybe making ultra-low budget features, probably the HDV coming out in summer from JVC, or the Sony X1 or Z1-U, if you don't mind quasi-24p.

For working on short-form projects and experimental films, the HDX would probably be the best bet. Meanwhile, we have the DVX, and some time to write a kicking script.

Obviously, the hay has not been hit. Gotta deal with that soon. Getting tire......

[Daniel Moore]

I never thought I would live to see the day when someone wasn't content with 720p

I know this is an asinine comparison, but Bill Gates never thought he would see the day when people would need more than 640Kbytes of RAM. (to allude to a famous, but probably slightly skewed, quote of his)

My point is, people are never content. The HVX has 60p, all the sudden people won't be content with the JVC simply because it can't do sweet 60p slo-mo effects. That's just one example, but I can easily see how people will not be content with 720p considering we are being offered 1080p.

[Rosestar]

Vanguy, I believe that we just need to agree to disagree about the use of P2, It sounds like hdv is just great for you. Best of luck, I sincerely hope that you are a great success using it.

I just believe that the P2 solution is very innovative and that what you precieve as great disadvantages are not going to be that big of a deal. Using the P2s is going to be a big change of workflow as compared to "run and gun" shooting with DV, but all disciplined professional production is.

I think that the instant access the P2s will offer will be a godsend. The next time the Script Supervisor says, "Wasn't she holding the wine glass in her left hand on take 3", and I can click on a thumbnail and replay the scene instantly, I will be happy as a clam.

I think that moving to an IT based workflow will introduce economies that we have not even thought of yet.

Yor are right, let's wait and see.

[braw]

I personally can't see 1080p being as big a deal as it initially sounded. It's still 100Mbps, for the 60i it's imbedded in. It seems like it would the be the same data rate as 720 and there fore would have to be more compressed. I think the 720 is the sweet spot.

As far as vanguy's opinion, it's just that. I feel bad that you can't see it any other way than fear and doubt. It's not much different than a film workflow, and the record times at the time of release aren't really that far off from tapes for an F900 or Varicam.

By the way, "serious productions" have been using a DVX for some time now. There is nothing in the realm of logic that dictates that the HVX would be worse, so in the hands of skilled productions, we'll see incredible footage. Several movies have been released shot on a DVX, and again, the HVX will have more resolution and colorspace.

I know this won't be the last time, but the HVX is a mini Varicam with smaller sensors and a fixed lens. The Z1 is by no means a mini F900, and the JVC is a Z1 on steroids but still HDV. The only thing they have in comon is that they will have an HD monicar on the outside.

It's hard to think of changing your whole setup when tape is all you've ever known. It was also hard to stop wetting the bed, but soon we learned that the toilet system was much better than the giant twin sized sponge.

I can't wait until the HVX goes through the ringer like the DVX did and some random director uses it so that fanboys and nay sayers suddenly think it might be okay for "serious" work.

[wabbit]

At this point I gotta assume vanguy still does not understand the P2 workflow. You don't need to stop a take at unload card, just hotswap one while the other continues to record. Dump it on the computer and put back in camera. At 8 minutes for HD this will be inconvenient but doable. As cards get bigger this will be really easy.

As far as speed goes, the P2 will be far quicker. Your footage is on the HDD ready to edit. With tape you need realtime to digitize the footage. At 25-1 shooting ratio, you will be spending a minimum of 50 hours of logging and dumping your footage on the computer while the p2 guy will already be editing.

I work in sound and got the Sound Device 744t last winter. Cannot imagine going back to DAT now. Firewire to my laptop, burn a disc for client and day is done. Client is ready to sync and edit. Before client has to upload video footage in realtime then again upload DAT in realtime. If you can't understand the value of non-linear recording then I am lost in how you value your time (maybe you get interns to log and record your footage so this time is meaningless to you).

BTW, 25-1 shooting ratio? 2 hours a day? Do you light? I have never been on a set that shoots 2 hours of footage a day (using one camera at least). Maybe for some improved scenes where you just let the camera role, but 2 hours everyday? I guess some people being brought up on shooting DV features are getting sloppy (no offense but seriously, how do you pull off 2 hours of footage in a 12 hour day).

Even so, you are going to need the HDD space anyways, bring 400GB of HDD with you to set and you can shoot all you want. Blu-ray disc will be coming out for computers not too much longer after the HVX, you can burn a backup onto blu-ray by mid 2006 (in my humble estimation).

HDV is a format that some will embrace, but with this move by Panasonic professionals can use a realistic compression for HD on a budget. HDV will probably continue to be embraced by event videographers and eventual consumers (when Sony, et al start marketing it to them as was intending). Professionals (the vast majority) will be done with tape recording in the next 6 or so years. The ones that will be still using tape are the ones that are holding onto their older cameras (almost all the big-time videographers in Seattle still shoot BetaSP). Non-linear recording is in your future, it's not if but when. I choose December 2005.

[vanguy]

Thank you all for your considered responses. I'm learning a lot.

I feel I should try to better explain where I'm coming from.

First of all, I do get the P2 on-set workflow, honest:

Shoot onto a card, swap it out of the camera much faster than tape, offload and reuse. Non-linear access to media, DVCPRO-HD codec for pro-quality. Zero dropouts. Robust media that doesn't wear out with multiple head passes. Reduced digitizing/transfer time. Up to there, it's beautiful, and I'm all for it.

But, with respect, I don't think people are getting the REST of the workflow.

First of all, this camera is often going to be used as a guerrilla tool, shooting run-and-gun, for those who can't afford longer, more disciplined production schedules. Often, you're shooting alone, in difficult environments, with not a lot of time to get to a laptop or other storage device and switch cards. You've got batteries in one pocket, tapes in the other, and you go until you drop, over mountains, through forests, in cars, on bicycles. A "little inconvenience" like being tied to a laptop can be entirely fatal. P2s would be great in this situation if you could have enough of them to go a whole day. But that's a lot of dough, at least until much bigger, cheaper P2 cards come out. True, even on a guerrilla movie, you don't shoot like that every day, but you've gotta be able to handle it.

Second, there's the transfer to what I'm calling intermediate storage. This is a temporary thing, only because P2's are currently so small and expensive. Even shooting 24p, you've gotta offload your media on set at some point. This intermediate storage has to hold enough media to cover your worst-case shooting day, hence the two hours I listed. Which, at 1080, is 120 GB, too big for a P2 Store, firewire/USB2 portable or a laptop's internal drive. So you need two P2 stores, multiple firewire portables, or a laptop with a larger firewire/USB2 drive. Which requires an AC power source.

Alternatively, you buy something like a Firestore and several disk cartridges, and use disks like tape. Of course, you need additional batteries to power the firestore. Great, but you could do that with any digital camera. P2 is not helping in this case. You've basically jerry-rigged a disk camera.

*****NOTA BENE: All of this is not required if you're shooting with tape. Until much larger P2 cards come available, the HDX workflow has added work where it's least desirable; in the middle of production.*****

Third: okay, you've shot a day, and you've filled up (or used a good chunk of) your intermediate storage. Now you go home, and you must offload the media onto a mass storage device, so you can reuse your intermediate storage devices. Even when P2 cards get huge and intermediate storage devices become obsolete, you've gotta do a nightly offload. No option.

Now, at this point, you may save some time as compared with digitizing. But, according to my research, transfer rates are currently about 1 GB per minute, or essentially real-time for 1080 resolution. No real time-saving there.

There is an alternative: take your mass storage onto set, and don't use intermediate storage. But that means your editor has to be working right on set, interrupted periodically to load media or move to another location.

With tape, you don't have to digitize your media for weeks. Or, you could digitize them right on set. Your option. No loss if you wait. But with the HDX workflow, you MUST TRANSFER at the end of your day. And you must have enough mass storage to hold your entire show at full resolution. With tape, you can capture at low-resolution, using a much smaller drive, edit, then recapture. Using FCP and Offline RT, you could put all the footage from a feature on your laptop's internal drive. Not with HDX, because you have to save it at full resolution.

Fourth workflow item: Archiving. This seems to be the least-thought-out part of this workflow. Somehow, you've gotta store any takes that you don't want to lose forever. You've got a couple of options: Use external drives for your mass storage, and bag them and store them when you're done, or do a backup to tape or disk. Backups to tape or disk are very time-consuming and require a LOT of tapes or disks.

With HDV tape, you just put tapes on the shelf.

In summary:

P2:
1) captures better than HDV tape.
2) More time/extra crew/more equipment on set.
3) Much larger arrays on the edit suite, and required downloading every day. Possibly some time saved digitizing. Media costs are much higher than HDV, unless you toss all your footage.
4) Time-consuming archiving required, or HDD arrays must be stored.

HDV Tape:
1) Somewhat inferior codec. Most people won't notice.
2) more convenient on set. Much cheaper, too.
3) possibly slightly longer digitizing/transfer phase, but you can do it whenever you want, and you need smaller cheaper drives.
4) no archiving required. Just stick 'em in a box.


A few extra notes:

For those who won't compromise by shooting on the "vastly inferior" HDV, but WILL compromise by shooting 720p, which, incidentally, has only a 50 mbps data stream: Que?

2 hours of footage is not an average but a maximum. Sorry, I was unclear. There's always the day when you're doing multiple long dialogue takes and burning a lot of footage. With tape, you bring a box of stock and no problem. Three hours of even large format DV tape will fit in your pockets. But with digital, you don't want to run out of storage. You need that buffer. Which means having at least 120 GB of empty storage every morning; disk, tape or P2 (if you're shooting 1080 resolution).

Hot-swapping cards allows for continuous recording, but I'd like to see someone do it without shaking the camera.

If you can afford an extra human plus extra equipment on set to handle media management, probably you can afford to rent a VariCam instead.

A lot of my objections go away with much bigger, much cheaper P2 cards. But my point remains: this technology is not ready YET. Give it 2-4 years. Bold of Panasonic to get their feet wet like this, but they're going to lose market share to the others because it's not ready, and not easy to understand for most people.

[braw]

HDV is a more consumer based format. They found a way to put HD on MiniDV tapes at quite a comprimise. They did the best they can, and HDV footage doesn't look bad at all, but because of the way it's compressed, both audio and video have a little less room for post. The trade off is you don't have to do much to upgrade to HDV. That I belive was either the point of HDV or a strategy to make it more attractive to event videographers and dreamers with money.

I think it needs to be pointed out that by getting the HVX you are almost essentially moving to a professional workflow. It is going to be more expensive, but it's a lot cheaper than it ever was before. It isn't for everyone. Especially not you vanguy. So don't get it, simple, get a Z1 or HD100. For narrative work it's incredibly rare to have very long single takes.

At $6000 it's an upgraded DVX. At $10,000 it's a scaled down Varicam. Panasonic has made a decision to go with what they have announced, if it doesn't suit you then walk away. What's the point of trying to argue how "stupid" the camera is. No one camera can do it all, not even the $100,000 pro cameras. Not even film cameras, they have specially designed ones for slow mo.

Your summaries are just dead wrong. DVCPRO can be edited on the same drives as HDV. If you are getting anything cheap, like 5400 rpm drives, HDV will be a bear too.

All you need on set would be an off the shelf HDD in an external enclosure to dump the footage off the camera when the cards are full. The limitation from what I understand is the HDD speed. I have seen HDD enclosures that have built in lithium ion batteries that can be recharged. I bet offloading the footage wouldn't take much longer than unwrapping the celophane from the new MiniDV tape and sticking it in.

With HDV, if it's just straight forward drivel with no real intensive post, most people won't notice indeed. For those of us that would like a little more to work with for post, DVCPRO is incredible. What's inconvenient about P2, no umbilicals here. So you have to dump it to a drive every 40 minutes...you have to change tape every 60. Yes maybe a little more inconvinient, but when you get home, no digitizing time. Copy the footage over from the external drive to the home machine at much faster than real time.

You do have a few concerns that are in fact pretty accurate, but I think most of what you are saying is streaching it a little too much, and being a little too dramatic.

Go get a Z1 or HD100 and stop trying to "convert" those of us that understand how it works and are prepared to make the leap.

[wabbit]

Your points about long shoot times have been address before. That is why some of us don't get your confusion. The point is, for some, this technology is not there yet. We have all made mention of wedding and event videographers will probably not like this camera. To ask the next question: what are these people shooting HD for anyways?

You are right about the camera shake. And for the time being if you got someone rambling on for over 10 minutes and you have to shoot them in HD, the HVX is not your camera. I have done a TON of cinema verti and don't think I have ever witness someone going on for over 10 minutes. We usually have a 2nd camera to cut to anyways.

If you are heading out into the wilderness to shoot, then again maybe right now the HVX is not the best choice. The first film out of school I ever did was an independent shoot way out in the wilderness. We dragged a small generater over 3 miles of hiking trail. It sucked but where there is a will... Nature documentaries are another beast since you need to be mobile. (but no tape drive noise is certainly a big advantage though). To summerize: one size does not fit all!

This point about offloading at night I don't get. You fill up a drive, remove it from the portable USB external HDD drive (you can easily swap out the IDE/SATA drives in external drives), put in the next. Keep these as your masters and set them aside. You can make a backup HDD later to cover your butt and for editing. Still much quicker then realtime digitizing. Yes the HDD cost more per minute then HDV miniDV tapes but since when is the cheapest way to go the best?

The workflow will require more effort but to most that understand how unfortunate the HDV codec is, the extra work is worth the superior format.

Additionally, with the compressed audio on HDV, I gotta assume you are recording your sound seperately. Many wince at the thought of recording audio separately and syncing later. If Panasonic even keeps the audio as good as the DVX, it will be suitable for most video applications (4 channels no less).

Lastly, for editing. Yeah it's gonna take a stronger system to edit DVCProHD, when was there any confusion about that? Panasonic is responsible for the production phase. Editing is another discussion. (Don't forget the several thousand dollars for an HD client monitor).

[vanguy]

At $6000 it's an upgraded DVX. At $10,000 it's a scaled down Varicam.

Then there's your on-set drives you're storing to, plus a laptop... So it's more than $10K.



Your summaries are just dead wrong. DVCPRO can be edited on the same drives as HDV.
Not quite. they have to be up to four times bigger. And there's no offline option.


I bet offloading the footage wouldn't take much longer than unwrapping the celophane from the new MiniDV tape and sticking it in.

I'll race ya. Downloading an 8 GB card: 8 minutes. Unwrapping and inserting a tape: 30 seconds if you're clumsy.


So you have to dump it to a drive every 40 minutes...you have to change tape every 60.

Except for all that extra equipment you're dragging around, and unless you're shooting in 1080, in which case it's eight minutes, and even if you're shooting 720, it's 20 minutes, not forty, unless you want to stop your production dead for 16 minutes while you download two cards.

Everyone stretches it a bit. I think the proponents are over-minimizing the extra trouble and expense this will cost.


Yes maybe a little more inconvinient, but when you get home, no digitizing time. Copy the footage over from the external drive to the home machine at much faster than real time.
Again, again, again, not for 1080. I'll admit that for 720 it's a lot faster, but that's more than offset by the amount of time you spend on set transferring to intermediate storage, and archiving at the other end.


You do have a few concerns that are in fact pretty accurate, but I think most of what you are saying is streaching it a little too much, and being a little too dramatic.

Can't help it. I'm a filmmaker. Naturally dramatic. But, check around. A lot of people are saying, 8 minutes (okay edit that to 20 for 720p) for $1700? You mean I gotta reuse it? What happens to my footage?

Don't start. I'm only telling you what people are saying.


Go get a Z1 or HD100 and stop trying to "convert" those of us that understand how it works and are prepared to make the leap.

Sorry. I'll quit trying to convert you if you quit insisting I don't understand.

I'd really like to use the superior codec. But there's probably $10,000 in extra equipment, compared with HDV, and an ongoing media expense from 2.5 to fifteen times higher. Plus, a more convoluted workflow.

Still, I'm looking at it. I'm still here, looking for solutions.

One option that came out of all of this is buying something like a FireStore system, plus a whole fleet of 2.5" drives, and using them like tape. No digitizing time at all, no on-set transfer, no archive problems, no expensive P2 cards. About the same media cost and shelf space as DVCPRO-HD.

Which is exactly the kind of outside-the-box thinking that comes out of these little discussions.

[vanguy]

The workflow will require more effort but to most that understand how unfortunate the HDV codec is, the extra work is worth the superior format.
My point in a nutshell: More effort, more money (twice as much) on the one hand. Inferior HDV codec on the other. Which I've shot with, and it certainly wasn't as awful as everyone's making out.


Additionally, with the compressed audio on HDV, I gotta assume you are recording your sound seperately.

Now there's something I hadn't thought of.

[Barry_Green]

Wells;

I read on the Panasonic site that the HDX records 1080/24p. Is that a misprint? Because that negates the Kell factor.
Yes it's true, yes it supports 1080/24p. No it doesn't negate the Kell factor, but it does negate the interlace factor. The Kell factor deals with resolving images that fall between lines, and that will happen in either a progressive or interlaced system. The "interlace factor" is a permanent resolution loss applied to all footage to redule interline twitter/flicker due to the interlaced display.

[Barry_Green]

The HVX has 60p, all the sudden people won't be content with the JVC simply because it can't do sweet 60p slo-mo effects.
Not true. The concern over the JVC lacking 60p has nothing to do with slow-mo (although some may want it for that). The concern over the JVC lacking 60p is because it cannot now, nor ever, produce footage with the "reality" look, something that's vital for many shooting situations. 60p isn't just for slow-mo. When you're shooting 720p, shooting 60p and displaying 60p gives you the "reality" look, same as shooting 60i in NTSC video. But the JVC can never deliver that look. And that's something to be concerned about.

[Barry_Green]

I personally can't see 1080p being as big a deal as it initially sounded. It's still 100Mbps, for the 60i it's imbedded in. It seems like it would the be the same data rate as 720 and there fore would have to be more compressed. I think the 720 is the sweet spot.
In my codec comparisons between DVCPRO-HD 1080 and HDV 1080, and between DVCPRO-HD 720 vs. HDV 720, I found that the gulf in quality between DVCPRO-HD and HDV is even higher in 1080 mode. They look more comparable to each other in 720 mode, but in 1080 there's a world of difference.

That's for still shots. For moving shots both versions of DVCPRO-HD obliterate HDV completely.

[Barry_Green]

For those who won't compromise by shooting on the "vastly inferior" HDV, but WILL compromise by shooting 720p, which, incidentally, has only a 50 mbps data stream: Que?
Have you seen the differences in the codecs? 720p DVCPRO-HD vs. 720p HDV? There's a world of difference. On still shots there's not so much, but once the footage starts moving, it's night-and-day different. There's a very, very good Que as why someone would do that.

[braw]

Then there's your on-set drives you're storing to, plus a laptop... So it's more than $10K.

Again, you don't need a laptop unless you are using capture software. Just a hard drive in an external enclosure. There's no way you don't need to upgrade or purchase anything else with any other camera. I'm only talking walking out of the store with a camera.



I'll race ya. Downloading an 8 GB card: 8 minutes. Unwrapping and inserting a tape: 30 seconds if you're clumsy.

The speed of the transfer is at the mercy of USB 2.0 and the drive speed. It is not realtime as I understand it. I'll admit unwrapping a tape is obviously faster, but who has never had to change the camera position or items in a scene? Hit the dump button then. When you are ready to go, so should the cards.



Except for all that extra equipment you're dragging around, and unless you're shooting in 1080, in which case it's eight minutes, and even if you're shooting 720, it's 20 minutes, not forty, unless you want to stop your production dead for 16 minutes while you download two cards.

Again, it transfers faster than realtime. 2 8GB cards in 72024p is 20 minutes from everything I remember reading. And the transfer of 8GB is 640Mbps



Everyone stretches it a bit. I think the proponents are over-minimizing the extra trouble and expense this will cost.

If it's a hobby then all you need is an HDV camera and some tapes. If it's a real attempt, you'll need mics, generators, lights, and a crew...reguardless of the camera. So there is always more expense than the camera.



Again, again, again, not for 1080. I'll admit that for 720 it's a lot faster, but that's more than offset by the amount of time you spend on set transferring to intermediate storage, and archiving at the other end.

Again, again, again, with a reuseable external hard drive, you dump your footage at faster than real time, and there is NO digitizing, it's in the digital realm the whole time. You are just transferring data.



Can't help it. I'm a filmmaker. Naturally dramatic. But, check around. A lot of people are saying, 8 minutes (okay edit that to 20 for 720p) for $1700? You mean I gotta reuse it? What happens to my footage?

It's been covered more than enough. P2 is not like tape. You can't think of it like that because it isn't supposed to be like that. It's temporary memmory like in digital still cameras. People have devised many ways of archiving digital stills. A lot of concern cropped up when this transition took place, and now it's a huge industry. The same will happen for solid state video. P2's design may fade away and something else will probably replace it, but they will be useful for this and other Panasonic cameras as long as they exist.



Don't start. I'm only telling you what people are saying.

As am I. From what I have read that appears to be credible or at the very leats make sense.




Sorry. I'll quit trying to convert you if you quit insisting I don't understand.

I'd really like to use the superior codec. But there's probably $10,000 in extra equipment, compared with HDV, and an ongoing media expense from 2.5 to fifteen times higher. Plus, a more convoluted workflow.

Still, I'm looking at it. I'm still here, looking for solutions.

One option that came out of all of this is buying something like a FireStore system, plus a whole fleet of 2.5" drives, and using them like tape. No digitizing time at all, no on-set transfer, no archive problems, no expensive P2 cards. About the same media cost and shelf space as DVCPRO-HD.

Which is exactly the kind of outside-the-box thinking that comes out of these little discussions.

$10,000 is a wild random guess. The HVX will have a ton of recording options, all with their strengths and weaknesses. It's all about how much you want to spend for what you get. Again, you don't need P2 to use the camera, you also don't need a Firestore. A Firestore is pretty much a recording bypass for the camera. With 2 8GB P2 cards and an inexpensive off the shelf HDD you have a workflow that should last a hell of a long time. More options will crop up when this thing drops, as I expect it will sell pretty well.

As I said before, there is NO digtizing with a Firestore or the camera. NONE...it is already a digital format. You will still need to dump your files onto a machine to edit anyway, or at least hook it up to edit.

For shooting B-day parties and Weddings, it's not a great solution, but for production work it is and will get much better. It's a technology that has room to grow. :beer:

[vanguy]

No it doesn't negate the Kell factor, but it does negate the interlace factor.

My bad. I was replying to someone who said 1080 looks the same as 720p because of the Kell factor. Which seems wrong if both are progressive scans.

[Moderator]

-1 for everyone!

[reservoir]

It's obvious Vanguy is HELLBENT on using Film. Let him go. He obviously doesn't share the sense of elation the rest of us feel about P2 or the HVX200.

I guess they're right. Panasonic is Screwed!! :shocked:

~reservoir~

[Moderator]

It's obvious Vanguy is HELLBENT on using Film. Let him go. He obviously doesn't share the sense of elation the rest of us feel about P2 or the HVX200.

I guess they're right. Panasonic is Screwed!! :shocked:

~reservoir~
-1 for you!

[wabbit]

If you are gonna correct someone, please make double sure you are right. DV audio is not digitally compressed. Video yes, audio, no.

"Certainly not as awful" is not the point. HDV cannot be relied upon. Compression artifacts, drop outs, and all the headaches (and expense) that go with tape drives. How often do you maintain your mini-dv tape heads? We have to take ours offline for over a week, once a year. With HDV 1/2 sec drops outs, you better be staying on top of that. Do you buy a deck for your HDV or are you planning on uploading footage thru camera? That deck is gonna set you back. If you are using the camera that is gonna wear your heads even more. My company doesn't have workflow to be using our camera as decks. If you can, then that is a plus for HDV for you.

As for the Firestore, that workflow was announced pretty much the same day as the camera was. No great "out-of-the-box" revelation there.

Where do you come to $10,000 of extra equipment (above what you also need to buy for HDV)? I count the HDV deck as close to $5000 in extra equipment on that side of coin. HDV does not edit on most stock home computers either. If you are throwing in a new PC/Apple, don't forget to do that for HDV also. Again, since you are talking professional HD, don't forget the client moniter for both too.

Please don't tell us "what people are saying". If that is what you are saying, fine. If "they" are saying it; educate them. What your are doing is a way to say things and then not be held responsible for the ignorance of the statement:

"Did you know German people have an extra toe? That is what people are saying." :)

[Moderator]

^-1 for you!

[wabbit]

Vanguy, have you even read the white paper yet?

http://catalog2.panasonic.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ModelDetail?storeId=11201&catalogId=13051&itemId=93120&catGroupId=14569&surfModel=AG-HVX200&surfCategory=Cinema%20Series%20Cameras&displayTab=R

It would be great to have an inteligent discussion of this new technology, but if you are coming to the table not fully informed and trying to laud some other technology (HDV), it really becomes a waste of time.

[Moderator]

^-7 for you!

[wabbit]

^-1 for you!

Did I get the minus one for the German people comment...sorry! :(

Some of my best friends are German :)

[vanguy]

If you are gonna correct someone, please make double sure you are right. DV audio is not digitally compressed. Video yes, audio, no.

My mistake, and I quickly corrected it. Sorry about that. Reload the page. I have had some problem with the audio compressors on some cameras, which made for crunchy audio. Not the DVX, which seemed fine.


As for the Firestore, that workflow was announced pretty much the same day as the camera was. No great "out-of-the-box" revelation there.

Sorry, did not see that.


Where do you come to $10,000 of extra equipment?

2 P2 Cards: $3400
P2 Store x 2 : $3600
Larger array for editing: $3K




Please don't tell us "what people are saying". If that is what you are saying, fine. If "they" are saying it; educate them.

Sorry, didn't realize I had to footnote my remarks. I've read this on other forums, and heard it from local DPs I've spoken to. And since when is it my responsibility to educate people I'm asking the opinion of?

[vanguy]

Vanguy, have you even read the white paper yet?

http://catalog2.panasonic.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ModelDetail?storeId=11201&catalogId=13051&itemId=93120&catGroupId=14569&surfModel=AG-HVX200&surfCategory=Cinema%20Series%20Cameras&displayTab=R

It would be great to have an inteligent discussion of this new technology, but if you are coming to the table not fully informed and trying to laud some other technology (HDV), it really becomes a waste of time.

Yes, as a matter of fact, I have read the white paper. Cover to cover. And I thought we WERE having an intelligent discussion of this new technology. After careful consideration, I have one opinion, you have another. We talk about the details to try and convince one another.

[vanguy]

One thing: no one's seen this camera in action. The only comparisons between HDV and DVCPRO-HD would have to have been between a $6K Sony or a $4K JVC and a $60,000 VariCam (with a >$20k lens). Hardly fair, no?

Okay, I know, the lens and the pixel count are going to have only a minor effect on motion artifacting. But still, best to wait and see. Compare apples to apples. All this talk is theoretical.

[reservoir]

Oh My!! Looks like *Moderator* was banned!!

-1 for him I guess. :)

I'm sure in just a few short months we'll have more specs and footage to compare with HDV stuff. Then....*MAYBE* the pissing contests will end. Or at least they will quiet down a little. I like what JVC is doing, yet I'm just not totally sold on HDV yet. I think Panasonic made the right decision. O'Doyle Rules!!

~reservoir~

[braw]

2 P2 Cards: $3400
P2 Store x 2 : $3600
Larger array for editing: $3K

Wrong! That's not the best way to go. True the P2 cards are very expensive, no denying that. The P2 store is and option but not a good budget concious one. It has been confirmed that with P2 cards, you can hook an off the shelf external hard drive to the camera and dump the footage.

True you may send 3K if you have to get a whole new machine and software, but I think some of us considering the move may only need to upgrade a few components or software.

I think If you were buying into this whole system from the ground up, you can look to spend $20,000 for camera, computer, software, a mic, and randowm other crap you would need.. That's an extremely rough estimate, but only slightly more than buying into an HDV system from the ground up. I think alot of us already have one foot in the door, and you don't have to buy this stuff, you can rent. Who ever said movies or video production was cheap.

[Barry_Green]

My bad. I was replying to someone who said 1080 looks the same as 720p because of the Kell factor. Which seems wrong if both are progressive scans.
Oh, you'd be right there... 1080/24p will smoke 720/24p regardless of any other factors. Both would still have to deal with the Kell factor as regards to rendering detail on half-pixel boundaries, but neither 1080/24p nor 720/24p would have to hassle with the "interlace factor".

When people compare 1080 to 720 and say that they're the same, due to the "Kell factor", that's not necessarily the proper terminology to use -- they should be saying that they have comparable vertical resolution due to the "interlace factor", the process that interlace cameras use to blend fields together vertically to reduce interline flicker. It costs about 30% of perceivable vertical resolution, leaving what sounds like a 1080-line display to deliver an actual 800 lines (or so). Which is in the same ballpark as 720p.

[Barry_Green]

One thing: no one's seen this camera in action. The only comparisons between HDV and DVCPRO-HD would have to have been between a $6K Sony or a $4K JVC and a $60,000 VariCam (with a >$20k lens). Hardly fair, no?

Oh that would be a totally unfair comparison, yes. Just as it would be unfair to compare an HVX against a VariCam as well.

No, I was talking about comparing the codecs, without the cameras. Just running the same sequence through the codecs in post, so no camera was involved at all. That's the only way to test the codecs without "polluting" the test with camera questions.

And in my codec testing, I go so far as to say: this is comparing CODECS, not CAMERAS. It is possible that a lesser codec attached to a better camera may actually produce superior footage than a better codec attached to a lesser camera, so you cannot compare Z1 against HVX based on the results of a codec test! All you can do is look at the codecs and say "well, if all other things are equal, a DVCPRO-HD camera would slap an HDV camera around like a sumo wrestler vs. a thumb wrestler". But we do not know that all other things are equal yet.

We cannot compare the cameras yet, as two of the three contenders don't even exist yet! We can compare the formats, and in any format comparison, DVCPRO-HD is far superior. But that doesn't mean that the final footage will be superior. If all other things are equal, it will. But we have to see how all the elements of the imaging chain work together to produce the final footage.

[thisiswells]

Revisiting Kell
http://broadcastengineering.com/aps/infrastructure/broadcasting_revisiting_kell/

NTSC, PAL & Interlace Explained
http://nickyguides.digital-digest.com/interlace.htm

[Aaron Koolen]

Vanguy, as already said several times - you only need a USB2 drive. Plug it straight in, and while you have a coffee, move the lights, talk to actors, talk with the others about how cool your HVX is etc etc, dub it off. Then you can take that same USB2 drive home, plug it into your machine and start editing. You don't need some larger array for editing; and if array was the operative word, you *definately* don't need it. DVCProHD is 100mbps - that's peanuts to a drive, it's about 12.5 Megabytes a second.

Aaron

[thisiswells]

720P comparison:
http://www.icexpo.com/dvx100/720vs720.png

1080i comparison:
http://www.icexpo.com/dvx100/1080vs1080.PNG

Original Post with explanation on process used to obtain samples:
http://www.dvxuser.com/V3/showthread.php?t=26165

[Mr. Blonde]

I've got a question, could a 720/24p cam, with some top quality glass, later upresed to 1080 outperform a HVX doing 1080/24p with its lens?

[vanguy]

Wrong! That's not the best way to go. True the P2 cards are very expensive, no denying that. The P2 store is and option but not a good budget concious one. It has been confirmed that with P2 cards, you can hook an off the shelf external hard drive to the camera and dump the footage.

I'd have to stop shooting and wait for the dump to complete, would I not?


True you may send 3K if you have to get a whole new machine and software, but I think some of us considering the move may only need to upgrade a few components or software.

And I was trying to limit my listed costs to those upgrades that you wouldn't need with an HDV system, which is why $3K for additional drive space, not $7K for a whole computer, software, monitors and storage. HDX requires more storage on your editing machine; a lot more. In the case of a feature, 2-3 TB more. $3K.

I'm saying that if you bought a "good enough" system for HDV, and a "good enough" system for HDX, you'd pay about $10K more for the HDX system. Whether you're upgrading or starting from scratch.

To put it another way, I have a FCP HD editing system, lighting, sound, and a few hundred gigs of HDD storage already.

To get into HDV, I need to buy a camera and some tape (probably $200 to do a feature) for a total of about $6.2K.

To get into HDX, I need to buy a camera, P2 cards, some sort of on-set transfer system, and about 2-3TB additional storage (for a feature), for a total of roughly $16K.

[thisiswells]

Why all the criticism about a more expensive product? I wish it were cheaper, too.

[vanguy]

Vanguy, as already said several times - you only need a USB2 drive. Plug it straight in, and while you have a coffee, move the lights, talk to actors, talk with the others about how cool your HVX is etc etc, dub it off. Then you can take that same USB2 drive home, plug it into your machine and start editing. You don't need some larger array for editing; and if array was the operative word, you *definately* don't need it. DVCProHD is 100mbps - that's peanuts to a drive, it's about 12.5 Megabytes a second.

Aaron

Yeah, then you need to buy a second USB2 drive tomorrow, a third one for Wednesday, etc. When you're done shooting a feature, you'll have about 3TB. If you're shooting 30-50 hours of footage at 12.5 MB/s, it works out to 2+ TB.

[Barry_Green]

That's impossible to answer until we have an actual camera to test. We don't know what capabilities the HVX lens will have. If the HVX can deliver the requisite 183lp/mm vertical resolution necessary to resolve the image fully, then no, no 720p camera will be able to match it FOR RESOLUTION. But resolution is only one small part of the imaging chain.

I guess another way to ask it is: would a VariCam up-rezzed to 1080/24p outperform an HVX at 1080/24p? And in that case, I'd say that it depends on a) the quality of the up-rez, b) the actual resolved detail in the HVX picture, and c) the cumulative effect of all the elements in the imaging chain. My money would be on the VariCam in this comparison, but we don't know.

A different way to phrase it would be: would a JVC HD100 with top-caliber glass and 720/24p outperform an HVX at 1080/24p? And, again, that depends. First, no HD lens out there can resolve the level of detail the HD100 will need... top-caliber lenses aren't made to the same resolution specs, because they don't need to be. A lens designed for a 2/3" camera only needs to resolve a max. of about 86lp/mm, whereas the JVC with its 1/3" chip will require about 133lp/mm for proper resolution. So, on paper, no -- the lens will need to be designed specifically for the JVC. But again, the lens is only one part of the imaging chain, the question really is -- how does the final footage look once it's all hit the tape/P2 card?

Fortunately, the question of JVC vs. HVX is easily answered, once both cameras are testable. And we intend to do much testing (including side-by-side, film-blowups). So when there are cameras to test, we will do an exhaustive (and unbiased) test. Well, I shouldn't say "unbiased" -- I want the MOST BIASED people I can get, running each camera, so they will extract the best quality picture from each. Then we'll split-screen 'em and let the chips fall where they may.

[Aaron Koolen]

Yeah, then you need to buy a second USB2 drive tomorrow, a third one for Wednesday, etc. When you're done shooting a feature, you'll have about 3TB. If you're shooting 30-50 hours of footage at 12.5 MB/s, it works out to 2+ TB.


Do you want to offline edit or not I guess is the question. I don't offline, but then I've never shot a feature. Even then, if I did I'd prefer to have all the footage there, ready for me to look at, edit, preview etc anyway. So I'm looking at having that storage on hand anyway, I just need it up front, and not when I capture. Of course, archive is the issue and I'm not sure of how easy (or cheap) that is, but you could always archive to DLT I'm sure.

Aaron

[vanguy]

720P comparison:
http://www.icexpo.com/dvx100/720vs720.png

1080i comparison:
http://www.icexpo.com/dvx100/1080vs1080.PNG

Original Post with explanation on process used to obtain samples:
http://www.dvxuser.com/V3/showthread.php?t=26165

These are eye-openers (I had a look at them earlier this weekend). But, as the post says, they are not actual camera tests, just codec torture tests. At 720p with a static image, the HDV actually looks BETTER.


Why all the criticism about a more expensive product? I wish it were cheaper, too

Maybe I'm stupid, but I'm trying to do what a lot of digital filmmakers are going to do, compare cameras in the same price range. The Panasonic is going to cost quite a bit more, enough more to make me have to rent or it instead of buying it. Is the improved quality worth that? Maybe. The other thing is that Panasonic is advertising a $6000 camera, but it's NOT a $6000 camera, you've got to buy a whole lot of other gack to make it practical. Some of it from other vendors, if you're gettin USB drives or a Firestore.

[thisiswells]

Yah--Aaton A-Minima Film Cam is 17K or 20K with a magazine or two.
Same price as a Panasonic SPX800, about 17K-20K.

Both systems need media (film on the Aaton, and P2 cards for the SPX800)
Are these companies being deceptive in marketing practices? No.

We're just not used to big money on media when shooting video.
The difference is our mindset.

[vanguy]

Do you want to offline edit or not I guess is the question. I don't offline, but then I've never shot a feature. Even then, if I did I'd prefer to have all the footage there, ready for me to look at, edit, preview etc anyway. So I'm looking at having that storage on hand anyway, I just need it up front, and not when I capture. Of course, archive is the issue and I'm not sure of how easy (or cheap) that is, but you could always archive to DLT I'm sure.

Aaron

You might want to do an offline edit to save buying 3 TB of storage, but only if you're shooting HDV. I don't think an offline cycle is at all practical with the HDX system. You have to put that 3TB somewhere, maybe DLT tapes and then "redigitize" from DLT data tapes, which sounds like trouble to me.

Incidentally, I haven't added the price of a DLT drive to this system. They're pretty expensive, no?

[braw]

Vanguy, it's obvious that no configuration or option with the HVX will ever be satisfactory with you. What the crap are you shooting 30-50 hours of footage for? If that's you workflow, I can only imagine the amount of months you must spend digitizing those 30-50 tapes.

You're not trying to out do Warhol's "Empire" are you.

[vanguy]

Yah--Aaton A-Minima Film Cam is 17K or 20K with a magazine or two.
Same price as a Panasonic SPX800, about 17K-20K.

Both systems need media (film on the Aaton, and P2 cards for the SPX800)
Are these companies being deceptive in marketing practices? No.

We're just not used to big money on media when shooting video.
The difference is our mindset.

I thought P2 shouldn't be considered to be media? If it was, "big money on media" doesn't begin to cover it.

[Mr. Blonde]

Thanks Barry :thumbsup:

[thisiswells]

I think VanGuy must be the next Oliver Stone to be shooting that much footage. (think JFK!)

[thisiswells]

Or, otherwise he's a troll for JVC.. though I find this unlikely since his profile links to a
Vancouver-based Media100 post production house. Maybe he's just sour because his
Media100 doesn't edit DVCPRO-HD natively, or any digital tape natively for that matter.

[vanguy]

Vanguy, it's obvious that no configuration or option with the HVX will ever be satisfactory with you. What the crap are you shooting 30-50 hours of footage for? If that's you workflow, I can only imagine the amount of months you must spend digitizing those 30-50 tapes.

You're not trying to out do Warhol's "Empire" are you.

(sigh) I want to make a feature film. I want to use the best camera system I can afford. I don't want a lot of extra hassle or expense, especially on set.

My objective is not to try and bend the HDX to make it fit into a round hole. My objective is to shoot a film. I don't care if I'm shooting with a Panasonic, a Sony or a Fisher Price.

I care about image quality (believe it or not), I care about not making things too complicated, and I care about expense. Which are very real issues I've raised.

I'm also trying to do my best to be realistic, and put real numbers out there. Braw, if you think you can cut a feature together with 4 hours of camera footage, go ahead. But for me, realistically, according to past projects, a ratio of 15 to 25 to one is reasonable, maybe a little tight. The ratio goes up when people start chanting, "tape is cheap". Multiply 15 by a two hour movie, and you've got thirty tapes. Which I can digitize in about a week and a half, if I'm slacking.

[vanguy]

Or, otherwise he's a troll for JVC.. though I find this unlikely since his profile links to a
Vancouver-based Media100 post production house. Maybe he's just sour because his
Media100 doesn't edit DVCPRO-HD natively, or any digital tape natively for that matter.

Actually, the new Media 100 HD does. And Media 100 was cutting DV footage via firewire before Final Cut Pro was born. Not a native DV codec, true. Uncompressed.

Jeez, how'd we get into this sniping? All I wanted was to figure out a way to shoot high-def movies cheap. Second, I wanted to figure out a better workflow. I found myself in the middle of a low-grade flame war with people claiming I'm lazy, unrealistic, and don't do my homework.

I've done a lot of research on this camera. I've had a lot of experience on set, and I've had A LOT of experience in post, using Media 100, Avid and Final Cut Pro. I found myself defending HDV. I don't give a crap about HDV. I just want to make movies.

[braw]

Braw, if you think you can cut a feature together with 4 hours of camera footage, go ahead. But for me, realistically, according to past projects, a ratio of 15 to 25 to one is reasonable, maybe a little tight. The ratio goes up when people start chanting, "tape is cheap". Multiply 15 by a two hour movie, and you've got thirty tapes. Which I can digitize in about a week and a half, if I'm slacking.

Well, I can definately cut a feature with that much footage for sure. Your workflow is an insane number of takes (for my taste), but that's how you do things, and you should NOT use the HVX.

If you need to have that much footage, then look elsewhere. And for the love of god, don't begin to consider shooting film with that take ratio.

As It's clear that nothing anyone is saying matters to you, and you need to either have the last word or just argue every aspect of this camera, I leave you with that and bow out of this conversation. Nothing very productive has come of it and probably won't. :beer:

[vanguy]

Well, I can definately cut a feature with that much footage for sure. Your workflow is an insane number of takes (for my taste), but that's how you do things, and you should NOT use the HVX.

If you need to have that much footage, then look elsewhere. And for the love of god, don't begin to consider shooting film with that take ratio.

As It's clear that nothing anyone is saying matters to you, and you need to either have the last word or just argue every aspect of this camera, I leave you with that and bow out of this conversation. Nothing very productive has come of it and probably won't. :beer:

Boo. Sorry. Had to have the last word.

[thisiswells]

I hope everyone here understands where you're coming from. You're in the biz.
You're experienced. Probably more than most of us (certainly more years than me)

I hope you've been able to reach similar conclusions I have:

Using this camera over HDV is alot more expensive because of all the "hidden costs"
I wish it were cheaper, too.

My need for a camera is for overseas documentary work for a missions agency and
I'm seriously scratching my head trying to figure out how to make this camera work
for my situation and I'm in the same boat. It's a whole lot more money than DV.

I'm trying to find the benefits here, too, and weigh my options. I really like the DVX
and I'll be sticking with it for about another year. Probably next summer is when I'll
upgrade my computing equipment and hopefully get a break on a single 8GB card to
start out. I'd probably lug aroung my Powerbook and burn DVD's and copy over to
an external HDD for starters. It's all very new. I don't have the answers, either.

It's a new way to shoot, certainly. We're all trying to sort this mess out.

Best Wishes,
Brian

:)



Jeez, how'd we get into this sniping? All I wanted was to figure out a way to shoot high-def movies cheap. Second, I wanted to figure out a better workflow. I found myself in the middle of a low-grade flame war with people claiming I'm lazy, unrealistic, and don't do my homework.

[thisiswells]

Fast, Cheap, Good. Pick any two. :)

[vanguy]

I hope you've been able to reach similar conclusions I have: <SNIP> It's all very new. I don't have the answers, either.

It's a new way to shoot, certainly. We're all trying to sort this mess out.

Best Wishes,
Brian

:)

Brian, I'm with you 100% on your last post. I'm more drama than doc, but there's a lot of the same problems. If you're every in Vancouver, ring me up, and I'll buy you a beer.

Coffee. I'll buy you a Coffee. Beer's expensive.

Regards,
Steve

[vanguy]

Actually, coffee's almost as much as beer.

oh no, here we go again...

[thisiswells]

HaHa, Steve. :thumbsup:

[Aaron Koolen]

If you need to have that much footage, then look elsewhere. And for the love of god, don't begin to consider shooting film with that take ratio.


Hey Shuddup, Peter Jackson did it - in fact wasn't his ration more like 100 to 1!


Re DLT - you are right, they are not cheap. I'm in NZ and for about NZ$1500 (~US$1200) you can get a 160GB DLT drive for a PC. That's a real basic, slowish one.

Aaron

[thisiswells]

Aaron--
As mentioned often, a DVCPRO-HD drive is 25K and the tapes hold 40GB each and cost $80.
It's much faster--about 12.5Mb per second--but many, many times the price.

[Barry_Green]

These are eye-openers (I had a look at them earlier this weekend). But, as the post says, they are not actual camera tests, just codec torture tests. At 720p with a static image, the HDV actually looks BETTER.
With regards to mosquito noise, under the very best case, yes I think it does as well. Regarding color information, not a chance -- DVCPRO-HD was much smoother and more detailed in color information. And once you move away from best-case, the HDV falls apart quickly.

In 1080, there was never a question, DVCPRO-HD was far superior.

But again, this is just codec testing, not full image-chain testing from actual cameras!

[vanguy]

DVCPRO-HD was much smoother and more detailed in color information. And once you move away from best-case, the HDV falls apart quickly.

In 1080, there was never a question, DVCPRO-HD was far superior.

But again, this is just codec testing, not full image-chain testing from actual cameras!

Agreed. Soon we will all know.

[vanguy]

As long as we're into time-consuming backup systems, Coolatoola.com makes one called DV Backup. (I mentioned this somewhere else, but I don't remember where). It backs up data to regular DV tapes using a regular DV or D8 camera or deck. Cheap, cheap cheap. Limited to about 12 GBytes/hour. Which is about 1/4 the speed of DLT. An hour of DVCPRO-HD would take four hours to back up. But it's cheap!

[thisiswells]

I saw that in one of your other posts... That is really cool. I downloaded the demo yesterday (not ten minutes, ago.. like really yesterday) and have yet to try it out. Thanks for the info!!

[D_and_G]

Vanguy has some interesting points. Personally I'm only interested in feature films with the aim to film transfer. My experience is mostly in the film realm, so P2 and the HVX don't scare me. From what's been said it fits into my on set experience.

And I've never had a 25:1 shooting ratio. Probably because it was film (and we didn't have Peter Jacksons unlimited resources). Maybe Max. a 10:1 (if the actor was particularly flustered). Although I use the DVX I haven't been convinced its good enough for film blow up (although i may be wrong). I've been waiting for this level of quality in a camera.

Stopping several times during a shoot day to offload footage ? Not a problem. Check out a film set some time - The ratio between prepping, lighting, continuity etc... and shooting is incredible. The HVX will be like a vacation. Heck I might be able to light a Cubana as an excuse while I wait (ot talk to the actors - if I HAVE Too :p).

The only concerns I have are :

1. Will the HVX image live up to the expectations.?

2. Power/generators etc... on location - expense, safety etc...

3. Reliability of external HDD storage - that's a new one for me because
at least with film, either you got it or not. No use worrying. There's a
crazy kinda cool with that. Maybe its the cowboy in me ? (Tim
Mcgraw song - fantastic).

4. Archiving - I'm going to take a leap on this one and hope it's
there and viable when I need it. Yeah I know not too smart.
But for me its worth the risk. And if its not there then at least
i can come here and complain. :p

BTW with a 5:1 - 10:1 shooting ratio for a feature a 1 TB RAID should be fine. I'm ok with that. As long as some kind of archiving exists. Worse case scenario I have to go to a professional suite and off load to another medium. Also I've got to setup a suite from the ground up anyway. Might as well customize it for HD.

So sorry if like some other guys I can't rhyme off tech specs and such.

Just thought I'd post in case anyone else is in a similar situation.

Thanks for your posts Vanguy - you made me evaluate if my workflow was satisfactory (with what limited HD knowledge I have). Actually I feel more confident.

Time for that Cubana and maybe a Coca -Cola.
Ahhh, when two cultures meet it's a glorious thing to behold :)

[vanguy]

Thanks for your posts Vanguy - you made me evaluate if my workflow was satisfactory (with what limited HD knowledge I have). Actually I feel more confident.

I thought I was just being cantankerous. Glad you found some benefit in all of that.

As for your concerns:
1. Will the HVX image live up to the expectations.?

Hopefully. We're only guessing until we see it.

2. Power/generators etc... on location - expense, safety etc...

Uh, not sure I get your point. Possibly you're talking about powering on-set HDD storage. You could tie into the power distribution system for the lighting, or you could get a gel-cel or battery belt powered inverter system. They rent them out at lighting/grip houses, or you can cobble your own out of a jumpstart battery kit for your car plus a $40 inverter from Home Depot. Total cost about $100, and would power a laptop and external drive most of the day without recharging. But if you're not shooting the insane amounts of footage i tend to, you can use a USB or Firewire powered hard drive, which takes its power from an internal battery or a laptop.

3. Reliability of external HDD storage

If you're using it like tape, filing it away when you're done the show, it's probably at least as reliable as tape. The hard drive crashes I've had are with older drives, after a fair bit of use. It's never 100% safe, but neither is tape or film. I might consider using some kind of redundancy like RAID 5, but that ups your drive costs.

4. Archiving

Probably there'll be something cool like blue-ray or holographic by the end of the year. Worst case, you just file away your external 1 TB drive(s).

You might want to allow a bit more than 10:1 ratio. Part of the beauty of HD is the economy of letting it roll and doing more improv work. Or, just moving the camera and shooting an extra angle. You'll never regret having got extra shots, takes, and cutaways when you're trying to edit a difficult scene.

[D_and_G]

You might want to allow a bit more than 10:1 ratio. Part of the beauty of HD is the economy of letting it roll and doing more improv work. Or, just moving the camera and shooting an extra angle. You'll never regret having got extra shots, takes, and cutaways when you're trying to edit a difficult scene.

Yeah that's the one caveat. I've never worked that way on features, and i've been curious to incorporate it into my directorial style and experience, but I guess I'll have to wait for bigger P2's or a streaming option (although i use a lot of movement - not MTV type, but enough that it might be a hinderance). But for now the quality outweighs the experimental/improv style of directing.

Besides, I've talked to fellow directors who fall into either school. It's kinda like discussing sex. Everyones got their own unique perspective on it and how to get to the promised land. :)

[vanguy]

But for now the quality outweighs the experimental/improv style of directing.

Don't let it. So what if you've gotta buy a little extra storage. Direct how you think you'll make the best movie.

Technology is your servant, not your master.

[D_and_G]

True. But I have to weigh creative considerations with budget and technological encumbrance.

It'd be great if i could just let the cam roll and capture everything, but budget would be an impediment (just as it is with film).

Like you pointed out earlier the amount of footage and your needed output flows outwards causing ripples (or tsunamis) in your production workflow.

You have to decide wear to put your scheckles for the most effect.
Maybe, as an experiment, and I skip the Carribean next winter, I'll try it out (improv). Unfortunately, when I cost it out a 10:1 (maybe 15:1 for a really bad day - rare as those are) is what falls within my parameters.
.
But for now, I know what I can achieve using traditional (filmic) methods
with regards to acting etc... so I'll go with that. Now if I've been overly cautious or prices drop, I'll try the letting it run method. Believe me, with whatever medium you work in - the parameters of the technology are a factor.

Doesn't stop me from pushing them though. Like they say "necessity is the mother of invention" - as I suspect many of these board regulars know all to well.

Cheers.

[Barry_Green]

As long as we're into time-consuming backup systems, Coolatoola.com makes one called DV Backup. (I mentioned this somewhere else, but I don't remember where). It backs up data to regular DV tapes using a regular DV or D8 camera or deck. Cheap, cheap cheap. Limited to about 12 GBytes/hour. Which is about 1/4 the speed of DLT. An hour of DVCPRO-HD would take four hours to back up. But it's cheap!
Is it cheap?

I just looked at it -- people have been talking about making DV tape devices into data backup devices ever since the VX1000 first came out in 1996. Always ran into the same problem: DV decks are video decks, not data decks, and when an error is encountered on the tape, it employs video error correction, which can scramble data! Very bad thing to have happen.

So with their program, they're talking about 17.5 gb per tape, if you use LP mode(!) and turn off error correction(!!!!) Seems like that's just crazy. Now, if you back up in the safer method, using SP, and even employing data redundancy to overcome the error correction problem, you're getting about 5.5gb of data per tape.

Or... you could just back up to DVD-R instead...

5.5gb, on a $4 tape, which takes an hour.
vs.
4.7gb on a 50-cent DVD-R, which can be burnt in about 10 minutes.

Seems to me the coolatoola solution is risky, much more expensive, and much slower... the DVD idea seems much more practical and a lot less expensive.

[vanguy]

Do whatever it takes to make the best film. If you can do that at a 10:1 ratio, more power to you. But it'd be a shame to diminish the quality of your film because you didn't want to spend $500 or $1K on a slightly larger drive.

Audiences don't care how efficiently you shot. They don't even care that much about image quality. They want a good story with good acting, and they'll put up with inferior production values and/or image quality. Blair Witch, Open Water, etc. etc.

The whole thing is, look around and find out what tools will help you make the best film. If that's a DVX100A, fine (done that). If it's an IMAX camera, use that (have NOT done that). If it means hanging out the window of the car holding the camera, great (done that). If it means setting up millions of dollars worth of grippage and lighting, also great (done that too).

Yeah, you've gotta work within budget. I just think with HD cameras, at least ratio worries should be a thing of the past.

[thisiswells]

I agree video should offer significantly longer record time without worrying about film costs.
That is a tech innovation that will be much appreciated one day.

It's gettin' there.

[vanguy]

Is it cheap? <SNIP>
Seems to me the coolatoola solution is risky, much more expensive, and much slower... the DVD idea seems much more practical and a lot less expensive.

True, and you could get better media density if you're using dual layer disks, although they aren't quite as cheap.

I brought coolatoola up mainly as a novelty.

Can't wait for holographic.

[alpi69]

i like how this discussion went from the wrong answers to the right questions. i fully respect vanguys standpoint and can only agree to much of it.

there was a show in austria called expedition austria which is a bit like the robinson thing in the US. a friend of mine was on it for 4 months and they were in the mountians, on the bike, in the woods etc all the time. they produced 15 hours of footage every day FIFTEEN!
it was shot on DVCam ok, but not onto tape! Firestore FS4! tape was too expensive and too slow for them. they brought the 15 hours in, they threw out 8-9 immediately and edited with the rest. about 15 minutes after they entered the cutting room. so it can be done, it is not limiting you while climbing or running and it is fast.

where i totally agree with vanguy is the archiving question. i do not want to only keep the best shots. maybe i want to keep the whole project. but again: a RAID-5 with 3 400GB discs will hold me 800 minutes of full HD which is a lot and when they are full you put them on the shelve. as backup disks you won´t need fast ones, but take cheap 5400rpms for 0.20 per GB or less.

also there are 60GB 2,5-inch laptop disks out there which do not need a poweradapter, but are fed by the USB cable if you want to go straight into a HDD. they are also very rugged and better than 3,5 inch disks for fieldwork anyway. if you feel unsure....dump it again at night to have it doubled. after the edit you still need to find a way to archive, but i guess it will be faster than what the logging on a tapemedia takes.

i only hope in december the P2 cards will be down a bit......1700 for 8GB sheesh..

[Duct Tape Films]

Alpi69,

It appears that right now this camera, er actually, it's HD media storage, is not suited towards projects that depend on such high shooting ratios, like documentaries, or for some folks, events - although I'm not sure HD would ever really be necessary for such shoots - don't do 'em so I can't really comment on an informed basis.

I would imagine that this will change in the next couple years as P2 prices come down, but it seems there are much better options, strictly in terms of cost effectiveness, available right now. For me, I do have some interest as the camera is right now, as I do some narrative work, although for the most part I'm firmly planted in documentary work. So, I am one of those folks who is going to be watching P2 developments with a keen eye. Does anyone know if someone planning to put together a website like RAMseeker for P2 cards? Hey, there's an idea for someone who has skills oriented as such. I'd even be willing to pay for a short term subscription fee (granted it didn't eat into my savings so much) to get the lowest possible price on the P2 cards....

[Antoine_Fabi]

thanks Braw and Barry for the good info.

I like the P2 cards concept because they should (will) increase the capacity and lower the price.

thisiswells,
...man, i was asking a question...smile ! life is good !

[Antoine_Fabi]

Guys,

Was the DVD "countdown AG-HVX200" shot with the HVX ? SDX ? or the Varicam ?
Very beautfull images.

[Jan_Crittenden]

Varicam, posted in SD. Sorry guys

And can we let this thread just drift to the bottom. The Title just kills me, I hate it as it just simply is not true!~

Best,

Jan

[wabbit]

And can we let this thread just drift to the bottom. The Title just kills me, I hate it as it just simply is not true!~


LOL, I feel your pain (sort of). I decided to back off this thread when it became clear it was going nowhere, but I just had to chime in to laugh at....err with you Jan. :)

Signing off thread now.

[ettubaby]

17 pages?? You guys just gave a troll alot of joy

[J.R. Hudson]

I deem this thread just plain ole silly; as the new title states.

[braw]

Can some moderator just lock this damn thing down so it goes away?

[reservoir]

Who changed the original title? It was called *Panasonic is Screwed*!! Whatever.....just lock it down and throw away the key.

~reservoir~

[Barry_S]

Ok, I agree and will put this one to bed. The original poster was just lucky I was on vacation. :thumbsup: