1920 or 1440?

Which HPX? The HPX500? HPX2000? HPX3000?

All of them shoot 1920x1080; that's what the system processes and that's what comes out the HD-SDI port.

The DVCPRO-HD recording format is 1440x1080 (in 50Hz mode) or 1280x1080 (in 60Hz mode). The AVC-Intra recording format is 1920x1080.
 
Hey Barry

Thanks for your help...Im talkin the HPX-500. So If I wanted I could shoot at 1920x1080 for compositing purposes. But Im not 100% familiar with it, so if I go through the menu and make sure the recording format is @ avc-intra correct?
 
Ryan Harrell said:
Hey Barry

Thanks for your help...Im talkin the HPX-500. So If I wanted I could shoot at 1920x1080 for compositing purposes. But Im not 100% familiar with it, so if I go through the menu and make sure the recording format is @ avc-intra correct?
Click to expand...

Hi Ryan,
The HPX500 is not capable of internally recording 1950x1080 due to the limitations of DVCPRO HD. What Barry is saying is, to get 1920x1080, you would have to output to a capable external recording device via the SDI HD port on the 500.

Also, the 500 is not capable of recording the AVC-Intra - only the 2000 (with the upgrade), and the 3000.

-Brad
 
This is where I'm getting confused...and it seems to be what sets the 500 apart from the Varicam. Here is a quote from the article on here about the 500:

"The HPX500 also renders images more sharply than the HVX200 does. Both cameras use the large-pixel spatial offset technique, but the HPX500 is able to deliver better resolved images. This may be partially due to the lens, or the bigger chips, but either way the results are sharper HD images. The HPX500 uses a 620,000-pixel imager employing the same spatial offset technique as the HVX200 does; the larger HPX2000 uses a 1-million-pixel imager."

Does this mean that the 500 and 200 don't have a true HD chip? and the Varicam does have a true HD chip?

I'm definitely not the most technical guy around this board : ) But I have been looking at this camera a lot and might consider the investment sometime late in '08.
 
The 500 and 200 have HD chipsets. The # of pixels on the chip doesn't imply whether it's an HD chipset or not, it's how the chips work together. These cams use spatial offset which uses all three chips working together to deliver a true high-def image.

The HVX200 has a 1.5-million-pixel chipset, the HPX500 has 1.9 million pixel chipset.

The Varicam uses 1280x720 (1 megapixel) chips, but uses spatial offset only in the horizontal direction, so it doesn't get a vertical res boost the way the HPX500 and HVX200 do. Of course, it doesn't need it either, because the VariCam is a 720p-only camera, it doesn't record 1080.
 
Tony_Reyes said:
and it seems to be what sets the 500 apart from the Varicam.
Click to expand...
There are many, many things that set the 500 apart from the VariCam. The varicam is a much better camera head in every imaginable way (except not supporting 1080p mode). Plus the Varicam is tape-based and the 500 is P2-based, and the varicam is about 4x as expensive, and it has extensive image manipulation capability and film rec gamma. Many differences.
 
thanks barry for getting back to me so quickly. that info helps a lot.

since you mentioned it, another thing i have always been confused about, gamma (and most of the options in the different scene files for that matter). i dont expect you to explain it all right here. but is there a good resource that you could point me to?

thanks again for the response.
 
The HVX Book would be a good start for learning about the different gamma's and scene file settings for the HPX500. I believe Barry said most of it should be applicable to the HPX as well.

Later,
Jason
 
i think i'm gonna go hang out at the rental house that i used to work at and do some reading : )

i'm really interested in this camera and am a big fan of the panasonic line. i'd like to have as many questions that i have answered as possible to help make the ultimate decision.
 
Oh, when I said the HVX Book. I meant the one written by Barry Green, not the manual. Link to buy it is in my sig.

Later,
Jason
 
they actually have the book at the rental house. ive gone through the manual before as well but it really isn't a great resource.
 
how would I go about recording to an external device? Could I bring a labtop in and an external hard drive and record straight to that ?
 
Hey Barry

I have never ran to an external device besides the dvcpro hard drive once. Is it as simple as setting my FCP or avid into capture and going via firewire all the way through?
 
Or you can rent the Panasonic hpm100 with the optional AVC-Intra codec board (when it's available) and go hd sdi out of your camera and into the hpm100 and record to your p2 cards.
 
Ryan Harrell said:
Hey Barry

I have never ran to an external device besides the dvcpro hard drive once. Is it as simple as setting my FCP or avid into capture and going via firewire all the way through?
Click to expand...
Yes, although with computers there's rarely anything that's truly "simple". So as long as you are capturing to a separate hard disk, and that hard disk is not on the same firewire bus as your camera is, you should be pretty much good to go. Also, you can't have the HVX in 720pN mode since no data will be transported over the firewire in pN mode. You can capture any mode but pN, on both FCP and Avid, and also EDIUS and OnLocation, and I think other Mac programs like HD Monitor Pro and ScopeBox can do it too.
 
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