HVX UPDATE: Jarred and Barry go to Hollywood [Archive] - DVXuser.com -- The online community for filmmaking

Jim Arthurs

10-09-2005, 12:29 PM

I was holding my breath about the inclusion of time-lapse and single frame recording, as it seemed a simple and logical thing to address with an "I.T." camera, but at the same time the kind of thing that would be overlooked in a first effort. Thank you Panasonic.

I was going to start a thread about this very issue, but didn't want the long list of people telling me to "go use a digital still camera". I know the benefits and drawbacks to this technique front to back. As someone who has shot hours of 35mm time-lapse clouds and traffic, have tons of national exposure with time-lapse, and have made an actual living income from this work, it's great to see some though go into this feature.

From one of the stills you took of the Recording Setup menu I see "one shot time" and "recording interval". My hope is that "one shot time" steps down to one frame and "recording interval" has a USEFUL range of times.

What do I mean by useful range? 1sec, 2sec, 4sec, 8sec, 10sec, 12sec, 15sec, 20sec, 30sec, 1min, 2min, 5min, 10min, 20min, 30min, 1hour, and up is what I would call a useful range. Even better would be the ability to set your own digit by digit similar to setting timecode manually. Just an FYI... of all my timelapse material, the best selling cloud work is from 1 to 8 seconds between frames.

Also, I'm assuming that you can trigger the exposures from the IR remote so no need to jiggle the camera...

Finally, long exposures combined with single frame make night time-lapse interesting... I hope there are some provisions for long exposure times...

I really hope single frame and interval recording is implemented well, as this would be unique in the market, simple to program and a big selling point.

Regards,

Jim Arthurs

Zig_Zigman

10-09-2005, 01:05 PM

That 22 fps will be very useful. Tre cool.

rgdfilms

10-09-2005, 01:25 PM

How will 22 FPS be cool exactly ? Basically slightly faster motion than normal. I like all the variable frame rates but what would be the point of having so many ? I would think one slow and one fast would be enough but thank you panasonic nonetheless.

Icarus2005

10-09-2005, 01:44 PM

I hope they offer the frame rates up to 72 fps, just sothere can be smooth slow-mo look when put into NLE at 24 fps. but is they really want to give me a woody, they go up to 96fps.

The p2 stuff looks promising, just not enough record time at present. When doing live events we really to be able to log hours of footage, so I guess the question will be how good is the taped 720p footage and will it be good enough to please the TV crowd that always want BETA shooters or better. if the case is "yes" then it really will be revolution.

either way, I'm still on the waiting list, just don't yet if I'll be getting p2s or firestore, or just resigning myself to lugging around a terabyte drive with me.

Isaac_Brody

10-09-2005, 01:45 PM

22 fps is great for Kungfu scenes. It gives action scenes a little extra punch. :thumbsup:

rgdfilms

10-09-2005, 02:34 PM

Thats sweet - Panny says that dumping P2 footage onto an external 1394 drive will be possible. Does this mean that one would theoretically be able to hook up a Lacie drive for a example to the camera directly and dump it off or would you need a PC/ laptop in between the two. If I can just carry around my Lacie drive and dump footage onto it from the camera then this will be awesome. I have a little power adapter in my car so this could make shoots where I am away from comp simple , well, less simple then running home -

braw

10-09-2005, 02:50 PM

steindj

10-09-2005, 02:58 PM

Hey me and Barry took a little trip to LA last week to find out what we didn't know and confirm what we did know about the HVX... read our findings here:

http://www.dvxuser.com/V3/showthread.php?t=35794

Another updated feature is the placement of the speaker for audio. Unfortunately the audio section of the camera we had to work with was not working and so we couldn’t tell how well it functioned. It should be nice and loud though; moving it outside the LCD panel (like on the DVX100B as well) makes the speaker more useful if the LCD panel is closed.

I like the new speaker, the one on the DVX100A was too faint and ill positioned, although I realize such speakers have limited use just as the internal mic.

I've heard no mention of improvement of the power switch. On the DVX100A I hated it. Maybe I had a bad one, but it would grind against the back of the cam case when turning it, and then there was no definite "click" or tactile signal that it had entered the "on" position. It would just move no further, and then a few seconds later the cam would come on.:huh: Again, maybe I had a bad one.

braw

10-09-2005, 03:07 PM

Here's a good one:

http://www.firewiredirect.com/firewire/products/SparkEP.shtml

rgdfilms

10-09-2005, 03:15 PM

That dumping of the P2 footage onto a drive is the sweetest thing I have ever heard. This makes the camera a dealbreaker for me now. I always imagined that it would be a pain the ass to get back to my NLE or a laptop everytime the P2 was filled up, which in my broke-ass case will be every 4 minutes. Now I can just unload onto a drive and find some AC - doesn't G-Tech make a laptop drive that uses the laptops power to power the unit ? If that were possible with the HVX, which I doubt, that will be a double plus super sandwhich cake.

Jenga

10-09-2005, 04:41 PM

I don't know how much cred I have around DVXuser as I haven't posted on this site in years and nobody here knows me well. But I'm a long time DVX user and one of the first guys to convene online and sing it's praises.

Now I know that this HVX that they had at Resfest Hollywood was a prototype that was far from finished BUT...

I saw something totally different than Barry and Jarred (both of whom I trust and respect) did:

1. There were very definite green and magenta color fringes/chroma abberations. Just like the DVX100 (my biggest qualm with it's otherwise OUTSTANDING price/performance image quality). And I'm afraid this won't ever be fixed to keep price from spiraling into orbit.

2. The detail was quite soft in comparison to the XL-H1 (the only other new HD camera out front).

3. I didn't feel the HVX had any latitude improvement over the DVX....which really gave me a sinking feeling.

I do agree with Barry and Jarred that the noise was very low. Much better than my grainy DVX. The smear was effectively suppressed everywhere I pointed the camera.

My problems? The detail and the latitude.
The detail I believe could be due completely to the fact that the signal was 1080i but it seems to me that it's more likely due to the fact that those CCD's are probably not 1440x1080. Really, I'm hopeful that it's just a 1080i issue since there is such a positive difference between 480p and 480i. Plus the Panasonic HD LCD monitors could have been a big part of the problem (not sharp enough?).

As it stands now it feels like an uprezzed lower resolution image. I have almost no doubt in my mind that they are 960x720 chips and pixelshifted every which way but sunday. It makes sense to use smaller resolution chips with larger pixels on them to enhance latitude and sensitivity... but when the camera seems to have absolutely no gain in latitude over a DVX, is slower (in terms of sensitivity) AND the image is softer than the Canon camera (which I use as a point of reference because we know it has a 1440x1080 imager for sure)...then you've just hurt the camera, not helped it.

The canon was more finished, had a cinegamma curve, almost NO chroma aberration and was running in the mysterious 24f mode (better than i worse that p) on a nice sony HD CRT Professional Monitor. This doesn't constitute a fair comparison but it looked sharper, richer and had better latitude... I hope once the HVX is finished with cinegamma in place, a progressive mode and a final lens, that the image is of comparable quality.

I really want it to be better. I've always found Panasonic's DVX100 to blow canon's cameras out of the water. Talking to Jan and reading her posts all of these years has also convince me of Panasonic's superior ability to listen to feedback and truly value it's customers. With the DVX it was as if Panasonic suddenly just cut through the fog and delivered exactly what we all wanted.

The XL-H1's HD-SDI tap to that Sony monitor was showing me the image that I wanted to see coming from the HVX-200. Maybe there is just no way to do it with a $6,000 camera (as the H1 is 8999.99). I just feel like the HVX should be able to get to that same level of quality when it's finished. That would be the camera that I buy immediately when it becomes available.

DPwannaB

10-09-2005, 04:57 PM

I've always noticed the DVX image was soft in 24P mode BUT that's becuase the preset always set the detail to -4. If you were looking at footage with a cine preset the detail again might have been set at the -4 setting making the image soft (I've always prefered -2 it takes the edge off of video but you don't lose much detail).

Also, I'm sure you know that the SDI out of the camera (XL-H1) is not the same quality that you will get on the tape. I'm fairly sure the SDI will bypass the retched MPEG2 compression that will actually be recorded.

DPwannaB

10-09-2005, 04:59 PM

rgdfilms, it does dump straight to an of the shelf drive. What we need is cheap battery powered rechargeable enclosures.

What sucks is the ones I have seen are USB and not Firewire. Kinda wish they hadn't switched that or Firewire was included on these enclosures.
Hey...I wonder if a nice little 60GB ipod would work...plenty of space and battery powered. Only problem I could see would be the speed of the drive. (Since I don't have one I'm also assuming it can be used as an exeternal drive. I've seen it used like that on a computer but I'm not 100% sure it could be used like that on it's own. Anyone know for sure?)

Rasquachemedia

10-09-2005, 05:13 PM

I know you could upload pictures to an ipod w/o a computer. my experience, though, has been that it is very very slow and took out all the juice of the battery for 256mb. But I have a 3rd generation ipod. I would be suprised if the newer ones were much faster.

But going from computer to ipod is pretty fast. I've used my ipod to store footage and completed projects in full resolution. They used the ipod for tranporting dailies in Lord of the Rings. So it can definately be used as an external drive.

But I would guess that uploading footage from the hvx w/o a computer would be slow. I could be wrong though. I've never used the newest ipods.

robotx21

10-09-2005, 05:16 PM

80GB video ipod...HVX200....hmmmmmm....

DPwannaB

10-09-2005, 05:56 PM

thanks for the info. yeah I was afriad the speed would be a problem the battery sucking is a surprise though.

Jarred Land

10-09-2005, 05:58 PM

mmm.. it will be interesting to see if the new ipods on tuesday will be faster.. they are getting ready for video so it might just work.

saru

10-09-2005, 08:52 PM

Hey Jarred and Barry, thanks very much as usual !
I'm so thrilled to see those nice photos and HVX looks much prettier than I thought, which was a relief.

One quick question.
On one of the photos I see "SAFETY ZONE" menu under "DISPLAY SETUP".
Is that something you can turn on and off title and action safe markings on LCD and viewfinder ? Though that's good, did you guys find much needed underscan feature ??

Jarred Land

10-09-2005, 09:19 PM

yes.. underscan is very good to see. Its about time :)

Barry_Green

10-10-2005, 02:43 AM

1. There were very definite green and magenta color fringes/chroma abberations.
I looked far & wide for 'em, and didn't see 'em. Where did you see them? I thought there may have been a hint of it on one of the amsterdam shots, but it was so subtle as compared to the other cameras that I couldn't say for sure that it was or wasn't.

2. The detail was quite soft in comparison to the XL-H1 (the only other new HD camera out front).
Sure didn't look soft on what I saw. Where did you compare the footage -- on the bigscreen projection, or at the booths? The footage looked incredibly razor sharp on the LCD, and then you have to factor in two things: 1) we were watching 1080i, which isn't as sharp as 1080p will be, and 2) the LCD monitor they were showing it on was scaling the footage down to 1280x720.

If you saw the Canon on a CRT, then there's no comparison -- CRTs look much better, much much better, than LCDs do. If you saw uncompressed HD-SDI into a 1080-native CRT, that's going to look better than anything being displayed on a 720p-native LCD, no doubt. But that's not the camera doing the talking, that's the monitor.

Eventually we'll get a chance to put all these cameras on the same monitor and see what they're capable of delivering.

The canon was more finished, had a cinegamma curve, almost NO chroma aberration and was running in the mysterious 24f mode (better than i worse that p) on a nice sony HD CRT Professional Monitor. This doesn't constitute a fair comparison but it looked sharper, richer and had better latitude...
Again, I'd suggest the difference was more due to the monitor you were viewing it on. No doubt the Canon was more finished, that's for sure. And the lens is very clean, in the clilps I've been downloading off DVInfo it's very difficult to discern any chromatic aberration whatsoever. The notion of it having more latitude is new though; most of the complaints about XL1H footage is that it has quite narrow latitude (although others point out that perhaps the footage is just overexposed...)

taubkin

10-10-2005, 08:02 AM

I think the Canon will have a sharper image. It's a guess, but seeing a transfered version of the Z1, I can say that the HD lenses in those cameras are not up to the task of projected HD. And the Canon glass is substantially more expensive, so I'd guess that.

Stevet

10-10-2005, 09:39 AM

I'm sure the H1 is one decent camera. I had considered buying it, but HDV does not interest me...not to mention it's format is not compatible with other exsisting HDV formats.

Of course, the HD-SDI output is the way to go, but after investing in the HD-deck, this initial cost ($8,000.00 +) will be a MUCH smaller percentage of your total hardware investment.

Steve

davetronic

10-10-2005, 10:11 AM

Can anyone say what the drawbacks are to dumping via 1394 to an external drive might be? I mean, the benefits seem obvious enough, but surely there has to be some sacrifice made for not caputuring to P2 or a more expensive Firestore option.

Oh, and as a new user who has been following these threads for several months, thanks Barry and Jarred and everybody else. This is a killer resource!

Shaw

10-10-2005, 10:19 AM

1. There were very definite green and magenta color fringes/chroma abberations. Just like the DVX100 (my biggest qualm with it's otherwise OUTSTANDING price/performance image quality).

I don't believe I've ever seen chromatic aberration from my DVX. Maybe at night on bright lights but that's more related to overexposure I believe than the lens. Maybe I'm just not looking carefully enough?

It should also be mentioned that if the HVX can compare in latitude with the DVX then we are in a good place! No other HDV camera comes close (that I have seen) and it would take some skill to increase pixel count while simultaneously decreasing image noise and retaining latitude.

Jaime Valles

10-10-2005, 10:21 AM

Can anyone say what the drawbacks are to dumping via 1394 to an external drive might be? I mean, the benefits seem obvious enough, but surely there has to be some sacrifice made for not caputuring to P2 or a more expensive Firestore option.

You CAN'T record directly into an off-the-shelf Firewire Hard Disk. You can record footage into P2 cards or the Firestore.

What you CAN do is, once you've recorded to P2 cards, connect an off-the-shelf Firewire hard disk to the HVX and TRANSFER the footage from the P2 cards directly into the Hard disk. This only works if you've recorded to the P2 cards in the first place.

The benefit of this workflow is you get the reliability of the P2 cards (no dropouts, etc.) and then you can archive it to regular cheap firewire drives, in a ready-to-edit format. No laptop required. But, you still have to buy at least one 4GB P2 card for this to work. Fill up the card, plug in the hard disk, dump from P2 to Hard disk. Rinse and repeat as necessary.

The Firestore allows you to record DIRECTLY to its built-in hard disk, which is great for long record times when stopping to transfer from P2 to regular hard disk is impossible. But, of course, the Firestore isn't cheap, either.

BBF

10-10-2005, 11:16 AM

Will dubing to an off the shelf harddrive require the HD itself be self-powerd either buy internal battery or through an AC adapter? Or would the use of bus-powerd portable drives like the Smartdisk Firelite be possible through the firewire cable useing the HVX's battery?

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=357354&is=REG&addedTroughType=search

Jaime Valles

10-10-2005, 12:20 PM

I believe it's been confirmed by Jarred that the Firewire drive will need either AC power or it's own battery power. The Firewire port on the HVX is 4-pin, so it won't power a drive by itself.:cry:

fiercecurry

10-10-2005, 12:42 PM

An Ipod will do just fine, because its battery powered.

davetronic

10-10-2005, 12:44 PM

You CAN'T record directly into an off-the-shelf Firewire Hard Disk. You can record footage into P2 cards or the Firestore.

What you CAN do is, once you've recorded to P2 cards, connect an off-the-shelf Firewire hard disk to the HVX and TRANSFER the footage from the P2 cards directly into the Hard disk. This only works if you've recorded to the P2 cards in the first place.

Thanks for the clarification. I remember a thread that discussed transfer times from P2, but can't recall it now. Nonetheless, for doc filmmaking with a small crew, it would appear the best method for HD of those discussed remains the Firestore.

braw

10-10-2005, 12:58 PM

I believe it's been confirmed by Jarred that the Firewire drive will need either AC power or it's own battery power. The Firewire port on the HVX is 4-pin, so it won't power a drive by itself.:cry:

While that isn't the best case scenario, ipods and battery powered HDD enclosures exist. You can get an 80GB lithium ion powered 2.5" HDD for under $200.

USLatin

10-10-2005, 03:09 PM

For doc. and events I still belive you would want the Firestore unless you will have an assistant, two to three 8G P2 cards and a laptop with you.
This is really big news for film. All you need is one 4G P2 and your iPod (or your friend's). The only compromise is the shot length unless iPods take too long to take the 4Gs, but then all you need to solve that delay is a $200 drive... This will make the wait for the cheap 8G or even 16G P2s really easy for film makers.
I will probably go the P2 way right from the start now instead of getting the Firestore. Later on I'll add to my stuff a bigger P2 (or two) and hoefully the next generation of Firestores with bigger capasities unless they take for ever to come out with them.

Jarred Land

10-10-2005, 03:16 PM

The only compromise is the shot length unless iPods take too long to take the 4Gs, but then all you need to solve that delay is a $200 drive... .

What is the longest dramatic take you ever shot? I know mine is probally closer to a minute than 5.. I think having 5 minutes is a good number for entire scenes.. well at least one angle. While the DP is changing lighting thats time for the offload.

DPwannaB

10-10-2005, 05:53 PM

Keep in mind the drive speed of an ipod you may be looking at less than (DVCPRO-HD @ 100Mbits) real time transfer which may take awhile. Hey I'm a big fan of the ipod idea I'm just not sure if the speed is going to be there.

Jarred Land

10-10-2005, 05:54 PM

yeah for sure.. its gonna be slow.

ChuckS

10-10-2005, 06:13 PM

Even if an ipod had the required performance for DVCProHD, the real costs of production (sweat equity or real dollars) are in getting the crew, talent, equipment, location etc., do you trust a ~$300 consumer product to be the keeper of the data?

Panasonic offers the AJ-PCS060G data repository for $1800.

DPwannaB

10-10-2005, 06:34 PM

That's very true ChuckS but if you are working with a no budget production unfortunately penny's need to be pinched, what fwe pennie you have anyways. Hell I would shoot everything with a Genesis if I could, lol

rgdfilms

10-10-2005, 06:49 PM

SEGA makes videocameras now ?????????

;)

ChuckS

10-10-2005, 06:57 PM

I understand the no-budget thing, but even if you don't spend any money look at the effort you put into getting everyone on the same page of production - the day of the shoot, just to trust all of that IP to a $300 comsumer device that was not designed for the purpose your using it. When considering the reliability of a hard drive one of the things you look at is the error rate, I bet the error rate of an ipod is very low. That's not to say that it won't work but all of your effort goes into "the picture." If you can't afford a realistic data management strategy then I would advise purchasing a less expensive camera - a DVX100a.

Buying an HVX200 and backing up the data on an ipod is a bit like buying a monster truck and putting 13" tires on it.

braw

10-10-2005, 07:26 PM

Yesssss...the car analogy is back! :grin:

Edelweiss

10-10-2005, 08:23 PM

So, Jarred, you got the camera all by yourself for an hour and you didn't try to made some testing footage with it that we can now enjoy - stills, or even better, movies? What's up, man, we're counting on you here!

Jarred Land

10-10-2005, 08:25 PM

I was too busy taking photos.. we did take lots of movies of Barry dancing around in a tu-tu but I promised him I wouldn't post those :)

DPwannaB

10-10-2005, 08:38 PM

ChuckS I'm happy to say I have a DVX100a and a wonderful camera it is. the ipod is just a solution for mobile transfer, I would love to see a DC powered Hard Drive that would be far the better choice, faster and more reliable. A lot of people may already have ipods though which means they can play around, if even with just a 4gb P2 card. I honestly agree with you when it comes to full out production and having a garuantee that your footage is safe.

Massive field acquisition and the abilitiy to hand the client the 'tapes' after shooting has been a concern of mine since the beggining but the new addition of the upcoming firestore and the new word that it will be possible to transfer to a stand alone HD has made me a happy man! I've been very worried about Run-N-Gun HD shooting capabilities with this camera but the solutions are starting to reveal themselves and I feel by March of next year there will be some more surprises than just the firestore, heck maybe even a fully working HVX200 for sale.

Take care...

fiercecurry

10-10-2005, 09:17 PM

Isn't an Ipod just a 4200RPM hard drive? Or is it 5200RPM? Either way, its a hard drive. I dont know what guarrantees other manufacturers offer, but i would argue that the hard drives that Firestore utilises are not any better. In fact i could see more complications arising from the Firestores. Out of all the people i know who have Ipods, (quite a lot) not one of them has ever lost any of their data, whether it be music, photos or just data files. In fact i have used the Ipod to edit DV with. So it should be fine for simply transferring files, holding them temporarily and offloading to another hard drive. Of course it wont be quick.

I am actually excited to test this solution for myself. If it works great, if it doesnt, than its going have to be Firestore, and who knows how reliable those drives will be also. But an 60-80GB hard drive for $400 thats battery powered, and truly portable, I am all for it.

Neil Rowe

10-10-2005, 09:23 PM

..I was a little concerned when i found out that I would need a power cource for the off the shelf drives attached to the HVX to dump to. but really. Ive always got power for lights and monitors, and other stuff anyway.. and a cars power inverter would work in a bind. you could also run a HDD off one those booster pack jump starters with a built in power inverter for quite some time.. and its got a nice carrying handle.. and will jump your car after you leave the lights on too long as well :) those are cheap.. like 30.00-50.00 theres other potable pattery options as well, but i dont think itll be an issue really anymore.

rgdfilms

10-10-2005, 09:31 PM

How would you get footage into that little ipod ? Do they sell special firewire cables for this purpose ? Ipods have that weird connector in the butt

braw

10-10-2005, 09:36 PM

iamloser, there are firewire drives that are battery powered. A few claim 10 hour battery life and are rechargable.

http://www.firewiredirect.com/firewire/products/SparkEP.shtml

http://www.dvvideo.com/shop/storage/buyEnclosurePortable.htm

fiercecurry

10-10-2005, 09:40 PM

How would you get footage into that little ipod ? Do they sell special firewire cables for this purpose ? Ipods have that weird connector in the butt

Yeah, it takes it in the butt. Its a Firewire cable that attaches to the dock. Its $20.

USLatin

10-10-2005, 09:48 PM

What is the longest dramatic take you ever shot? I know mine is probally closer to a minute than 5.. I think having 5 minutes is a good number for entire scenes.. well at least one angle. While the DP is changing lighting thats time for the offload.

I agree... the only time you might come close is if you are trying to show off your talent in a crazy "The West Wing" type of shot or something with a well written scene, great actors and maybe a steadycam (with a good operator)... so you rehearse it for ever as if it was for a play. But even then it comes accross only subliminally to most non-film-buff people that you rock... and even so, you are risking quite a bit... you might not get what you wanted or hoped for, then you might have too much pressure from your team to use it anyway, you might even feel you can't keep yourself from using it even though it isn't how it should have been...

The 4G card will give you all you need...

On respect to the other subject: I think that it you have an iPod and you are shooting an indie you might just end up using it... I will probably look for a hughe HDD just cause I know a 320G or a 500G are not that much more money and your cost per G stays really low... I will also use a power inverter if I have to to use an HDD that needs AC... chances are that if you cn't have a car close by then you will have a power socket close by and vice-versa... unless you are by the beach and you can't bring your car there...

Jenga

10-10-2005, 10:46 PM

Thanks for the reply Barry!

1. I agree that I didn't see the chroma fringing on the prerecorded footage and this is definitely a good thing. It was when I was playing around with the camera at the Panasonic demo booth. There was just as much fringing as one would find in a DVX image evident around areas of highlight in the courtyard.

2. I would love to believe that it was just monitor causing problems....well in terms of richness of color I agree completely. It wasn't a professional CRT monitor, and is therefore destined to look much much worse. BUT... it was a 1080i monitor. It was one of their new professional series LCD monitors...I don't remember the name. But it displayed "1080i" at the top when she (Jan) was playing the footage from the DVCProHD deck (which she dubbed to from the P2 cards) and then "480p" when she switched over to the DVX100B). So, yes I know it's still not 1080p but neither was the XL-HI technically.

3. So in the end my post was just to raise attention to the fact that I found this camera (in it's prototype stage) to not be as free of traditional problems as you guys did (or as much as I hoped it would be). I am by no means trying to convince people to buy the Canon instead. If the HVX does everything we hope it does when finished, I'll still spring for it instead. I believe with all of its promised features intact, that it will still be superior even if it ends up with a slightly softer image and more chroma fringes. I hope it doesn't end up that way, but I'd rather buy it providing it delivers in 1080p and some more latitude like a healthy 8 1/2 to nine stops...okay nine is a pipe dream at this point in time....but speaking of more latitude....

I'm really excited about this horribly named News Gamma. We can always use more shadow and highlight detail.

Barry_Green

10-10-2005, 11:55 PM

BUT... it was a 1080i monitor. It was one of their new professional series LCD monitors...I don't remember the name.
No, it was a 720p monitor. It can accept a 1080i signal but it converts it to 720p. The monitor is a 1280x768 LCD.

Here's the link to the monitor on Panasonic's site:
http://catalog2.panasonic.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ModelDetail?displayTab=O&storeId=11201&catalogId=13051&itemId=94264&catGroupId=14625&modelNo=BT-LH1700W&surfModel=BT-LH1700W

but I'd rather buy it providing it delivers in 1080p and some more latitude like a healthy 8 1/2 to nine stops...okay nine is a pipe dream at this point in time....but speaking of more latitude....
There's not a chance it'll have nine stops! 7 is amazing enough... we were expecting it'd be more like five and a half, like the Z1. 7 is a big step up, considering it's a 1/3" high-def camera.

thisiswells

10-11-2005, 12:09 AM

I'm really excited about this horribly named News Gamma. We can always use more shadow and highlight detail.
Haven't seen it, but I think it was designed to match SonyGamma for seamless integration into existing Betacam operations at news organizations. Ick!

I would sincerely appreciate a clear explanation of what it does, exactly.

Barry_Green

10-11-2005, 12:39 AM

naw, they don't need to -- Beta's already been mostly exterminated in news in the US. At NAB Panasonic claimed that their DVCPRO format controls 70% of news acquisition in the US...

Jan_Crittenden

10-11-2005, 04:48 AM

Haven't seen it, but I think it was designed to match SonyGamma for seamless integration into existing Betacam operations at news organizations. Ick!

I would sincerely appreciate a clear explanation of what it does, exactly.

The News Gamma is one that allows for a black stretch for dark detail and compress highlights and more of a straight line inbetween. It has nothing to do with SonyGamma. And as you say Ick, or I say Eeeuwww! ;-)

I think for narrative work one of the cine gammas would be vastly more interesting. I happen to like the cinelike D setting of the DVX100A as my personal fav, but I can hardly wait to see it on the HVX.

Best,

Jan