Panasonic Shoulder-Mount AVCHD Camcorder

David Saraceno

David Saraceno

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Staff member
it looks like its just incased in the dvc60 body and a little more ugly added.

eww... come on panny, what happened?
 
now come on dont be too harsh on panny, with halloween being just yesterday maybe they are still dazed from the spiked pumkin juice and havent had the chance to take off the 80's retro costume.
 
I thought you guys were being pretty harsh with the ugly jokes, but I checked out the photos and - GOOD GOD! IT'S HIDEOUS!
 
It makes me despair sometimes. I'm sure both this and the new comparable Sony camera (with a 1000 in it's title) have a useful place, but why are they both shouldermount (even though most of the shell must be empty) whilst such as the HVX and the EX aren't? (Even though the latter are of a size/weight where shoulderstyling may be genuinely beneficial.)

And yes, it is ugly. Hideous even. (Same with the equivalent Sony.) My theory is that to Joe Public it sort of "looks professional", so is useful to low end pros, but people in the business fall over laughing when they see them. So it's not likely to cut into higher end sales........... :)
 
I can see this having a place in the education market. And in the "we need some professional features (like XLR) in what otherwise just needs to be a basic video camera" prosumer VIDEO market.


But yes, all these type of semi-shoulder mount (they arn't anywhere near balance dot actually sit ON the shoulder properly) cameras are pretty ugly, starting from the XL1 (even though they look "cool" to those who don't know better).

- Mikko
 
I've been gone a couple months and I might have to leave again to forget what I just saw! :zombie_smiley:
Just kidding...kinda. Beauty is in the eye of... oh heck, it's UGLY.
 
Wow, they converted my old Panasonic shoulder mount AG-460 S-VHS camcorder to digital.

That is so retro, it's amazing.

Does look like nice feaures for the in-house video departments and beginning wedding videographers of the world.

D
 
Saw it today at the Broadcast India show.

It's rather breathtaking. In a you-just-got-punched-in-the-gut-and-got-the-wind-knocked-out-of-you way. :)

It looks to me like they took the little AG-HSC1U camera and bolted a shoulder-mount body behind it. The audio section is moderately impressive though; two proper XLR channels implemented properly. But there's no lens control rings at all; there's manual focus but to do it you have to use the left & right buttons; hold down the left button and it focuses closer, hold down the right and it focuses further... weird.

It should be startlingly cheap, and I think it's aimed squarely at wedding shooters who "need" a shoulder-mount form factor to convince themselves and their clients that they're "true pros". I expect it'll probably be in the $2,000 price bracket. An HSC1U makes some very nice 1080i pictures, if you like 1080i pictures. This looks to be in direct competition with that Sony $2,000 shoulder-mount. Might do well for the right client, but I don't think this is something that most DVXUsers are going to be drawn to.
 
What Sony $2K shoulder mount?

And is there some idea why none of the companies go to 25 mbps AVCHD instead of 13-15?
 
Sony is sticking one of their microcams in a shoulder-mount body, just like this one, and selling it for something like $2,000.

And I've asked that question repeatedly. All I'm hearing back is "the encoder chips don't support that high yet."
 
A friend of mine is a wedding-filmer and he owns a DVX100 and a DVC60. But he can't use the DVX100 with its better picture for weddings, because he says that cht customers won't accept it. The customer of a wedding is not interested in your camera functions or whether you film on P2-card or Professional Disc or how large your chips are... he just wants his video for 1000-10'000 dollar, so with a small budget, it's better to buy 4 ugly cams as the DVC60 or the AVCHD of this thread than 1 DVX100 or HVX200 for the same price. It's pure commercial thinking. No passion - just maximum money for a minimum budget and no customer wondering about your HVX200 not being a shoulder cam....
 
I bet there's a lot of customers in a similar boat, and that seems to be who these products are aimed at.

Looked at it again today -- the audio section is really quite nice. There's practically no menu controls at all, it's a very basic little camcorder. But the video output is three locking BNC connectors! I dragged the Panasonic factory guy over and was all "hey, how come this little $2500 product gets three locking BNC connectors for component output, and we HVX users are stuck with that irritating D4 connector?" The answer, of course, is all about surface area; the D4 connector takes up a lot less physical room. But I hope I made it plenty clear that we'd sure like to have some locking BNCs instead of the little D4!
 
No worse than some of the other cameras on the market.

Look at the good things. 3 chips, XLRs, No tape, price.

Pretty good start in my book.
 
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