Press Release: HMC150, "the new DVX"

[BobDiaz]

Hands on with the HMC-150
I just worked on a shoot with a consultant and producer for Panasonic, using what is apparently the only prototype in the USA.

The camera wasn't even on my radar screen at NAB, but, selling at less than $4000, it looks to be a winner. I reviewed media shot on it, and it looked very much like HVX200 footage; the Cinegamma look so revered. The body is light and really comfortable for handholding, like the DVX100. 1/3 in chips, but using pixel interpolation, just like the HVX200, so, even though it can record 1080, it'll be softer than the EX1. At 720p, it rocks. One thing I noticed, the zoom function soft started and ended rather nicely on the prototype. There was an obvious mod, a clear plastic piece covering the top half of the audio level controls, already tiny and recessed deeply, which made adjustments a bear. A pencil w/eraser might be a handy tool for adjustments, unless production models are revised.

It already has most of the features of the HVX200, a few unique to it, like the advantage of post-recording: when you hit record, it adds a specified amount of frames already in a buffer, thus recording after the fact. SD cards are cheap media compared to P2 or SxS. It has the same body, chip set and lens of the HPX-170, a much more expensive P2 camera, but only 1 slot. HDMI, but no HD-SDI out, btw. Almost all features I noticed are covered in the PR. VF was brighter and cleaner than I remembered, although coarse in resolution. Using unshaded LCD panel in bright sun was impossible.

NLE's will support it natively, some do already, and the long GOP format can be transcoded, just like HDV, at the cost of time expended. My prediction: winner!
Especially for Indie filmmakers, documentarians, and event shooters, if it can be edited natively w/o transcoding delays. It'll be interesting to see how long a minute of AVC conversion to DVCPro takes using the Pana software.

iPaul
_________________
Paul Izbicki
i2inewMedia

At first I wasn't sure if he really worked with the camera or not. After all, people make up stuff all the time on the internet. However, in checking on his location, Knoxville, TN, that happens to be the same location as Bernie Mitchell, who is doing work for Panasonic on the HMC-150.

So to me, this seems to be someone who really has worked with the HMC-150.

Bob Diaz

[kurtmo]

Does anyone know if transcoding to DVCPRO HD creates a true 1280x720 image? When I looked in a few spots on the web it talked about 960x720.

kurt

[drdimento]

Does anyone know if transcoding to DVCPRO HD creates a true 1280x720 image? When I looked in a few spots on the web it talked about 960x720.

kurt

kurtmo, this was a big question we asked also and the conclusion we seemed to come up with from the discussions here and abroad was that the imager in the HVX200 & A models is a 960x720 (or reasonable facimile thereof) and it then takes that analog collection, digitizes it, then upscales the data image size through some algorithm/interrpolation to get (and i-frame record) a 1920x1080 . When we learned this we asked ourselves if this was better (especially the i-frame part) or if capturng a larger image size was better even though it would be recording to "gop" technology . . wherein, we learned through viewers (video buyers) that it wasn't about all the technical stuff, it was about the image . . wherein, we learned from the viewers (video buyers) that thy couldn't tell the difference.

So in our opinion the 960x720 upscale to i-frame or straigtaway larger image to gop is a wash, although in the defense of i-frame the colors might look richer atlthough we never tried using any filters on gop material (at least not yet) :o)

Hope that helps in the delima.

[Barry_Green]

DVCPRO-HD 720p is 960x720. If transcoding to DVCPRO-HD, that's what you would end up with.

[kurtmo]

I don't get it, 960x720 isn't 16x9. Does it have a non-square pixel ratio of 1.33?

I'm mostly interested in getting to 4:2:2 for better keying.

[Barry_Green]

Yes it has a non-square pixel aspect ratio. Most HD formats do; we really only got reasonably-affordable square-pixel recording formats last year. HDCAM, DVCPRO-HD, HDV, XDCAM-HD, most AVC-HD, etc., they all have non-square pixels.

[drdimento]

Yes it has a non-square pixel aspect ratio. Most HD formats do; we really only got reasonably-affordable square-pixel recording formats last year. HDCAM, DVCPRO-HD, HDV, XDCAM-HD, most AVC-HD, etc., they all have non-square pixels.

Where does DV Cam fit in the arena?

[Barry_Green]

DVCAM is a non-square-pixel format (as is DV and DVCPRO). 720x480, if you do the math, is neither 4:3 nor 16:9. It's actually 1.5:1, whereas 4:3 is 1.333:1 and 16:9 is 1.78:1.

[drdimento]

DVCAM is a non-square-pixel format (as is DV and DVCPRO). 720x480, if you do the math, is neither 4:3 nor 16:9. It's actually 1.5:1, whereas 4:3 is 1.333:1 and 16:9 is 1.78:1.

So is it this square vs non-square that is responsible for the issue I often hear about "pixel shift" ? Or, is that something althogether different?

Moreover, is this pixel shift issue resolved (or at least mostly or in part resolved) with this new method of turning/tilting of the imager so that the pixels are in a sort of diamond position instead of the traditional squared off position? And does the 150 or 170 take advantage of this newer technology?

Just a side note for those worried about the long GOP of the AVCHD, we have been doing a lot of experimentation with long GOP in a different format and intermingling this long GOP style with our I-frame work and it's interesting to note that our clients can't even tell the difference. Recently while editing some mixed materials together we were commenting how nice a particular piece was and started to rethink the whole I-frame and GOP back to our original process and even took it to some clients that were in our office that day then later the editor informed me that the material we were praising wasn't the I-frame at all but was GOP and when I argued otherwise the editor showed me the camera logs and I had to look at the tape before I believed it. Thus I'd offer to those worried about the AVCHD and it's GOP vs I-frame not to worry, the technology has advanced to the point inside the cameras before it gets down to the recording format that it's hard to distinguish one format from another it seems. Just a 2 cent offer for those fearing that the 150 AVCHD format isn't up to par.

EDIT: Note these latter I-frame - GOP comments are not coming from an expert but instead a user of the respective processes as a director, editor, and producer, who does over 150 video productions a year and having been a former industrial scientist and following the scientific experimentation route, routinely presents various video work to different clients for review and critiquing and studying the results of the observations accordingly. :o)

[Aroon_Narayanan]

Nope. Pixel shifting is a different thing entirely--it refers to shifting actual photosites on the sensors. Non-square pixels is how some codecs handle HD video. (In the HVX, as in most HD cams, the signal starts out true 1080p, but is converted into DVCPRO HD.)
Also, the HVX does not use the diagonal-pixel thing. That's Sony's HDV cams, such as the FX7, V1U, HD1000U, and Z7U. It's not called pixel-shifting here, although any video produced by these cams is interpolated from the diagonal sensor data. Sony calls it "ClearVID", or something like that.