Last Week me and Barry b-lined to LA to intercept the HVX on its way to Resfest. Now in a closer to production form, we dug deep into our sources and found out a few more answers to what's hiding under the hood of this elusive new camera. We obtained the camera for a few hours, and this is what we discovered.
Physically, the camera looks much better than some previous shots we'd seen posted on the web. The color is a rich dark black with a hint of blue in it; it's the same color as its big brother (the VariCam). The knobs, wheels, and switches are all where you'd want them to be -- the audio dials are now thoroughly protected from accidental movement, and the focus ring was buttery smooth. The focus, zoom, and iris controls are all much larger now, and the camera can be comfortably handled in a two-hand position -- right hand holding it through the wriststrap, left hand cradling it, left thumb riding the iris wheel while left index finger controls the manual focus and manual zoom rings.
As far as size goes, the camera is almost the same size as a Sony Z1. It's just a little shorter and a little fatter, but about the same weight as the Z1. One updated feature is that you can now offload files from the P2 card onto an off-the-shelf 1394/Firewire drive. Initially it was reported that we would be able to offload to USB2 drives, but that has changed -- the offloading is to 1394 Firewire drives. The USB2 port is for connecting the camera to a PC computer, so that it shows up on your desktop as an external hard disk.
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. The viewfinder tube is thick and beefy, and the speaker's placement explains why.
The focal length of the lens has changed. It's still 13x, but now it has an even wider wide-angle setting. The final unit's focal length will be 4.2 to 55mm. Some variable frame rates have been confirmed. This is not a final list, but we can at least confirm what some of the frame rates will be.
We have been able to confirm 12, 18, 22, 24, 30, 36, 48, and 60. More may be added by the time the camera ships. While we're on the subject of frame rates, it's been confirmed that you will be able to record single-frame recordings directly to the P2 card. This gives us a more-reliable, more direct path for single-frame animation and time-lapse photography. As far as dynamic range, Panasonic has measured at least 7 stops. Another nicety -- they've added a "wind cut" filter to the microphone; when you have to get interviews in the wind, the "wind cut" filter will cut out a lot of the bassy rumble of wind noise hitting the mic.
All the scene file settings are the same as the DVX, plus there's an added News Gamma (basically designed to deliver the ultimate latitude, employing black stretch plus highlight control). It's designed to capture as much information as possible; they named it "News" because news shooters are often facing uncontrollable lighting circumstances and need the maximum latitude they can get to cope with unpredictable circumstances. Regarding the footage: the camera's image is about 80 to 85% done.
They're still improving it. But from what we saw, it looked absolutely fantastic. The particular footage they showed wasn't anything fancy; it was simple "still life" type imagery, as well as some handheld shots out of an Amsterdam hotel window. But what that footage did was show us what the camera's capable of in controlled conditions, and in lousy conditions -- and what it was capable of was blowing our socks off. There was practically zero detectable noise in the image -- it was clean, clean, clean.
Extremely clean. And there was absolutely no evidence of vertical smear (the effect that happens on a tiny-pixel CCD when it's asked to handle a bright light against a dark background; smear happens when the CCD pixel gets overloaded and causes a large vertical smear from the top of the frame to the bottom). We saw shots at night of a dark city wall with streetlights in it; the type of shots that have caused an HD100 or Z1 to exhibit substantial smear, and the HVX had no smear whatsoever.
And the detail was incredible -- even though this was 1080i footage we were watching, it looked remarkably sharp and detailed. It didn't look like HDV, that's for sure: it really looked like footage coming from a higher class of camera. While we didn't have an opportunity to see the large-screen projection, you can read reports from others who did -- and they were dumbstruck. We studied hard for chromatic aberrations and came away with none to report. In situations where we've seen large pink (and green) fringing on HD100 footage, the HVX was completely clean. The only thing I noticed that wasn't completely up to snuff was a blue halo shadow offset from some neon signs; when pointed out to the engineers they said "yes, it's being worked on, that's why the camera's image is not 100% yet." Even so, the detail, noise performance, lens performance, freedom from compression and motion artifacts all added up to deliver an image that was substantially superior to anything we've seen from a low-cost HD camcorder to date.
Then there was the P2 recording. This is the bomb. P2 is just so cool! When you turn the camera on, it's instantly ready to record -- no wheezing and groaning as the tape drive gets up to speed etc. And it's silent -- there are no moving parts at all (unless you zoom) so it's completely quiet. You record your footage onto a small PCMCIA-style card, and it's instantly available for review. When you examine the contents of a card, the LCD panel fills with little thumbnail sketches so you can identify and select any clip on the card. This means no more hunting for clips, no more fast-forwarding and re-winding, no more "end search"... The entire contents of the card are available for instantaneous review. If you need to match a shot, just play back the shot on the card to review it. You don't have to hunt for it, just select its icon and play it.
You can play back single-frame or full speed, freeze it, whatever you need to do. And you'll never have a timecode break. Every time you hit "record", the P2 system makes a new individual clip. And those clips will be 100% reliable and worry-free, there will never be a dropout when recording to P2. Switching from playback to camera mode is instantaneous too -- you can actually be playing back a clip and hit the "record" button, and the camera will immediately switch to camera mode and start capturing. It doesn't matter that you were in the middle of a clip when you hit "record", because the P2 system is non-linear -- it just starts recording a new clip, while leaving the last clip completely intact (no accidentally "taping" over your footage anymore).
P2 offers some other unique benefits as well, such as pre-record -- you can configure the camera so that it will record footage prior to you actually shooting it. Here's an example -- say you're whale-watching, and you're waiting for a whale to breach the surface. With the HVX/P2 system, you can actually have the camera pre-buffering up to 3 seconds in HD or 6 seconds in SD , so when the "event" happens, you hit "record" and it will save the seconds prior to the event, as well as continue recording from there. You'll never miss a shot again -- it's almost like having Tivo(tm) in the camera! There is also Loop Record, where the camera is constantly in record and you can segment out scenes by tapping the record button twice, the camera never stops unless it has a one record button stop. The two pushes tells the camera to make a clip. This obviously would be very useful in the nature or fashion work as the stuff between models is dull.
Another nice feature of P2 is that you can instantly delete garbage clips. If you know what you've shot is no good and is just taking up space, you can delete it and free up that space for better footage. Of course, you can protect clips from being accidentally deleted as well -- so when the director yells "Cut! Print!" you can mark that take as "protected". Deleting bad takes as you go can significantly extend the runtime of the P2 card. Now, rest assured that they've safeguarded against deleting the wrong clip: you have to confirm three different times to actually delete a clip, so it's not like you'll accidentally delete your good footage. And no, we're not recommending that you delete shots that may have potential, just the stuff that you know you'll never use (a truck comes by and ruins the audio, or halfway through the take you realize there's a continuity error you'll never be able to cut around; those kind of things.) Deleting junk as you go will give you more recording time on the card, and save you time in post. The P2 system is really, really cool. The nonlinear aspect of acquisition is going to change the way people work. P2 (and competitive systems like the FireStore or XDCAM) are going to make tape obsolete for acquisition; just like we don't edit tape to tape in post anymore.
Speaking of P2 cards, there are hints that there may be alternate packages made available by the time the camera ships. Panasonic seems acutely aware that some indies are stretching their budgets to afford the top-of-the-line $9995 bundle that includes two 8gb cards. We pressed for confirmation about the possibility of Panasonic releasing a lower-cost bundle that would instead include two 4gb cards, something that might price somewhere down around $7490... Jan would neither confirm or deny the exact price, but there was definitely a sparkle in her eye about the 4 GB package. We'll keep you posted as to how this develops.
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