Press Release: HMC150, "the new DVX"

milleto said:
....while I wait for what is going to be my first HD camera...150/170 or both who knows... Thanks a lot OT
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Why wait? Get true DVCProHD now with the same imager that the 170 will have and will work great in your MBP and G5 very comfortably . . I know at least a half a dozen guys doing it. And now that the HVX200A has that new imager . . . the images I've seen passing around are stunning. I'm picking up ours tomorrow morning and will be using it in two productions this weekend and this is our 2nd one. We'll sell the HVX200 (old one) that hardly has 150 hours on it and get another 200A . . YES!

Don't wait. Get the HVX200A today and by the time the 170 comes out you could have made enough money with the 200A that it will pay for a 170 with I-frame cinema or a 150 with the long GOP? That's how we got our second one tomorrow? The last HD project we did the customer liked it so well he gave us a 20% bonus payment. Now trust me I been in business for over 30 years, commercial clients aren't in a habit of giving bonues unless it is in a contract! Go HVX200A :o)
 
A bonus...NICE!!!!! congrats..

Dr D, to be honest...I thought about it but just for a moment but now that you mentioned it it looks like a good option. Got to think a bit about that.

Only reason I prefer the 170 is for the weight (also a bit cheaper means save a few $$$)... since I have a Merlin (adding the arm&vest soon) get worry about that, even though it looks like the 200a will do fine without accesories.

Good option...thanks drdimento. yeah..that's the dilema I had P2 cost vs Computer costs....hopefully P2s will come down in price quickly.

good nite all.

OT
 
milleto said:
. . . A bonus...NICE!!!!! congrats.. . .
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Yeah, who would have figured. That's a new one on us :o)

milleto said:
....hopefully P2s will come down in price quickly. . .
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Actually I'm not sure they will. Everyone carrying them have all raised their prices by 20 to 40 dollars :o(

The 200 is heavier than a 100 but better balanced AND much easier to get steadier videos than the 100 for me. The 170 I'm told his in between on size/weight BUT something to consider (and I know there are advantages to the weight and warranty) there are a lot of contractors that like the miniDV tape and if for nothing else we want that drive because we still get a lot of customers that want us to do the shoot and they will edit and they want the miniDV tape. In fact, so far this year, about 40% of our clients have been tape only and all but one asked for us to send them miniDV tapes and with the 170 not having a miniDV drive that precludes it from that market (which as I say has represented about 40% of our taped business) and we wouldn't have that business otherwise.

Something to consider. The way I see it, get a 200A now, you could hardly lose much if you had to sell it to get the other AND you will have increased your opportunities in the mean time.

Here's an astetic issue but is something to consider . . two of our clients thought we went down in camera when we bought the 100's and got rid of the dvc60's becasue they seen "size" as an important pro factor for their productions . . then when we got the 200 they feel WAY better and are giving us more business just to get more videos produced AND to help us generate revenue to buy 100% HD cameras and we're finally going to shoot their shows in 16:9 :o)
 
The pluses to getting the 200a are:
> You can get it now, important if you have jobs lined up.
> You can record to tape, SD only, but maybe the job requires that...
> It should be close in price to the 170.

The pluses to the 170 are:
> Is coming out soon, September, about 3 months.
> It's lighter and better balanced than the 200/200a; this makes single hand operation a lot easier.
> It has a few more features, like waveform monitor and vector scope; which are not found on the 200/200a.

The pluses to getting the 150 are:
> Is coming out soon, October, about 4 months.
> It's lighter and better balanced than the 200/200a; this makes single hand operation a lot easier.
> It's a lower cost camera than the 170 and 200a, and uses lower cost memory cards.



I hope this helps,


Bob Diaz
 
Also if it HELPS . . I just fired up the 200A . . and if the image on the P2 looks equal or better than the LCD (which the HVX200 did BIG TIME) then I have a winner . . AND . . exactly what I was looking for. I shot a scene in the kitchen with available late afternoon light AND it was nice with no noise during the recording AND in play back. I'm digitizing it later tonight and I can't wait to see the output. On the LCD it LOOKS FILM. I am soooooooooo excited AND I still have a tape output in SD for those miniDV jobs. WOW . . thanks Panasonic!
 
The new CCD found on the 150, 170, & 200a is a real improvement over the older CCD found on the 200. Not that the 200's CCD was bad, but the new CCD is even better.

Of interest is when we can compare the 200a to the 170; the difference is the lenses.

Also, when we can compare the 170 and the 150; the difference is the CODECs.

At this point I can only GUESS, but my guess is that there won't be a whole lot of differences in image quality between the models.


Bob Diaz
 
Rough estimate of release date or has this been confirmed?
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The source is from a recording I made of Jan (from Panasonic at NAB), she said "October".

Now, while October is very likely, it is not a 100% given. Delays do happen and who knows, it could be November...

So, as of April, we heard October as the date. Try to think of that date as a 90% chance and 10% of being later. We will know more as the date draws near.



Bob Diaz
 
drdimento said:
Also if it HELPS . . I just fired up the 200A . . and if the image on the P2 looks equal or better than the LCD (which the HVX200 did BIG TIME) then I have a winner . . AND . . exactly what I was looking for. I shot a scene in the kitchen with available late afternoon light AND it was nice with no noise during the recording AND in play back. I'm digitizing it later tonight and I can't wait to see the output. On the LCD it LOOKS FILM. I am soooooooooo excited AND I still have a tape output in SD for those miniDV jobs. WOW . . thanks Panasonic!
Click to expand...


I'm glad to hear you like it so far. How is manual focus on the LCD? Will be nice to see some grabs..

enjoy
OT
 
Tapeless camcorders are not a Mac's best friend

Tapeless camcorders are not a Mac's best friend

I thought I'd post an article form Mac World that shows a potential problem we may encounter with the HMC-150 and the MAC. This problem may be solved in 4 months (October) by the time the HMC-150 ships, but it is worth looking at...

by Brian Chen, Macworld.com
timestamp(1212701400000,'longDateTime')Jun 5, 2008 2:30 pm

Macworld Lab has been testing five high-definition, tapeless camcorders, and thus far, the results aren't pleasing. Three out of the five camcorders we tested don't work properly on a Mac. Now, before you drive to One Infinite Loop and camcorder vendors’ buildings crying “This is an outrage!” allow me to explain my definition of "not working on a Mac."

To me, a tapeless camcorder is not Mac-compatible if it meets one or more of the following criteria:
  1. The camcorder’s footage cannot be imported to your Mac even though you meet the system and software requirements listed in the manufacturer's manual—and even after you follow every step of the instructions.
  2. The supposedly compatible video-editing application you’re using crashes when you try to import the video to a Mac.
  3. After successfully importing the video to a Mac, the footage is unusable because of a software glitch.
I wanted to clarify my definition because when I’ve done camcorder testing in the past, some users have offered arcane ways to work around Mac incompatibility, like converting the video to a different format using a third-party application (not included with the camcorder) such as Ffmpegx. Kudos to those who have found ways to beat the system, but to me, if you have to find software that the manufacturer doesn’t provide and make efforts beyond what you're normally supposed to do (i.e. follow the manual, or plug in the camcorder and click Import) to get everything to work—then that's not true Mac-compatibility.


With that clarified, we’ve tested five camcorders—the Sanyo Xacti HD1000, Canon Vixia HF10, Panasonic HDC-HS9, JVC Everio GZ-HD5, and the Sony HDR-SR11. These are all camcorders whose specifications clearly state Mac compatibility (either online or in their instruction manuals), and yet the Vixia HF10 and the HDR-SR11 were the only two that worked properly with a Mac. And by worked properly I mean, I plugged them in, my Mac recognized them immediately, I imported the footage and was ready to edit the video. That’s how the Mac experience is supposed to be, right?


In my last blog about tapeless camcorders, I already mentioned what was wrong with the Xacti HD1000 and the HDC-HS9. The playback and importing issues persist, and both Sanyo and Panasonic said they're working with Apple on a fix. These camcorders are very close to being truly Mac-compatible: My Mac recognized them and imported the video, but the footage was unusable due to some bugs.


The GZ-HD5 is a different story, however. When I plugged in the camcorder, Final Cut Pro, iMovie ’08, and even iMovie HD didn't budge. I consulted the user manual and saw I had to install a QuickTime Everio driver, so I did that. Still, nothing happened. I flipped through the manual again, which said to read the digital manual on the CD-ROM for detailed instructions on video importing. So I popped in the CD and loaded that. The CD-ROM manual said to read the instructions on JVC’s Web site for detailed directions on importing to a Mac. (I took a deep breath.) I clicked on the link in the digital manual and found myself at a Japanese Web site.


I attempted to follow the first step of this set of instructions and got stuck: QuickTime Pro said the TOD file had an “incorrect duration” and would not load the video for me to convert it. I picked up the phone and dialed JVC's public relations, and the representative was also confused about the instructions being listed on a Japanese Web site. He offered some alternative methods to get the video onto a Mac, and they didn't work. As I post this article, I continue to wait for a solution from JVC.


Tapeless camcorders are a trickier area, as I’ve noted previously. They require that both the camera-maker and Apple work closely together to ensure Mac compatibility. It’s not just a question of hardware—the camcorder also requires compatibility with things like Final Cut Pro, iMovie, and QuickTime to work properly. That's a lot of moving parts to keep in sync.


Still, the effort must be made. Having three out of five camcorders not work as advertised is a bad percentage—especially as the video world becomes increasingly tapeless. While MiniDV camcorders work seamlessly with the Mac, manufacturers are phasing these products out in favor of tapeless models. Apple, already lagging behind others in this product area, runs the risk of falling further behind if it’s not working closely with manufacturers to ensure compatibility. And camcorder makers risk losing the Mac market if they’re not making a similar effort.
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I put the section, "both Sanyo and Panasonic said they're working with Apple on a fix." in bold, so show that a fix is being worked on, but for now Final Cut Pro, Final Cut Express, and iMovie HD will have problems.



Then again, maybe Panasonic is making sure that the HMC-150's video file does not cause this problem. When at NAB, the engineer from Japan called the current file format on the prototype HMC-150, "Unstable". Maybe, Panasonic is working on making it stable with all the editing packages.



Bob Diaz
 
Well, may not be a popular stance but -- regardless of whose problem it *was*, whose problem it *is* is Apple's. Apple can change their software. Sanyo and Panasonic and JVC can't go recalling hundreds of thousands of camcorders.

It'd be interesting to know on whose side the true incompatibility lies. Either the AVC-HD coalition is doing a poor job of designing and enforcing standards, or Apple just blew it on their implementation. If Premiere CS3 works with those cameras out of the box, then it's almost unquestionably Apple's fault for FCP not working with 'em. Any word on CS3 compatibility?
 
I am going to go out on a limb and say that cs3 wont work it doesn't work the xh-a1 straight out of the box. I had to use cs2 with the downloaded 24f plugin/preset, mind you that was sometime ago.
 
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Excuse me for askin' this but just some random questions:

Was it specified if the unit officially incorporates HDMI-Out along with Component and Composite out?
What was the price speculated at? If I remember it was 4299.99 right?
Also, although you should probably record to SDHC cards for maximum quality, what about using SD cards of similar sizes simply for archiving since they're cheaper? Will that make any difference since it's merely an archival solution? Or are they not that much cheaper to begin with?

Thanks peoples.
 
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Yes, HDMI/component/composite.

Price was stated as "under $4500."

SDHC = 4GB or greater. SD goes up to 2GB. You might be able to use regular SD cards, I don't know, but if so they'll be of short recording duration.
 
Barry_Green said:
Yes, HDMI/component/composite.

Price was stated as "under $4500."

SDHC = 4GB or greater. SD goes up to 2GB. You might be able to use regular SD cards, I don't know, but if so they'll be of short recording duration.
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Thanks Barry,

32gb sdhc price isn't bad at all. Just wondering what the archive solution could be like with this cam. I need to scrub this thread for projected recording times. 1080/24pN sounds nice if Final Cut/Apple can get offa there butts for support.
 
The SD cards may not be fast enough to cover the 21/24Mbps data rate. However, if all you wan to do is use them for storage, that would work as long as the file is not greater than 2 GB. If you are looking for a place to put the data, you might want to consider the USB flash drives. I've seen 8GB USB go for as low as $40.

Keep in mind that is today's prices, by next year it will cost even less.


Bob Diaz
 
If you are looking to archive, I personally would stay away from <= 2GB flash media to save money when top quality DVD-R media is less than $1 for 2-4x the space and is much more reliable for long term archiving. The cards will keep getting cheaper, but their long term storage abilities are not reliable at this point since they lose charge over time. Plus, we'll all be cheaply burning to much larger BD-Rs soon enough.

What looks really promising is the talk of write-once flash media that will be cheaper than regular read-write cards and touts 100 year life. That would make an excellent archival media for any type of data. Also, if they become compatible with class 6 sdhc devices, they could become a replacement "tape" solution for those who do not like moving away from the archival benefits of tape cameras and are concerned of data loss. Their original target was still shooters who want a permanent "digital film" (figure there are many digital shooters who don't even use a computer).
 
Another silly question here (I got many): Does anyone know if the HDMI kicks out a 1080 4:2:2, 1080 4:4:4, or 720 4:4:4 or 4:2:2 and is the HDMI straight from the image block?

Was under the impression that there can be different signals coming out of an HDMI port and naturally would hope for the best possible.
 
HDMI never carries 4:4:4, that's not part of the spec (as far as I know).

I believe it's 1080 4:2:2 embedded in 60i, or 720 4:2:2 embedded in 60P. I don't know whether HDMI even allows for other transport protocol, does it?

As far as "straight from the image block", of course it's not raw, it's after it's been processed by the DSP. Nobody outputs raw out an HDMI port. But it's not compressed, if that's what you're asking.
 
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