HMC150 questions answered...

Hi all,

A customer of mine is looking into the HMC150 and the HPX170, a few of each.

We'll know in the next few days which way it goes.

They have a unique shooting environment, extreme cold weather, from -15º to -50º, so tape-less is an attractive feature. They fried (poor choice of words) a Canon's tape mechanism last Winter. It is outside the working temperatures of either camera.

I've shot in these extremes, too, and it's just tough going. Both models will be covered, of course, and heated, and hopefully, we will have shelters for the cameras built (even for the camera people, too ;-) ).

If anyone has any advice to offer, I'm always an old dog willing to learn.
 
Boomerang said:
Very cool.

I have two 150s showing up noon tomorrow from B&H.

If anyones interested I may have time this weekend to set up my DVX, HVX and 150 all side by side for some shots.

So no DVX battery usage.... augh. Did not know that. Also if this is the case where can i buy some big ones because i do not see them out yet?
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VW-VBG6PPK I got mine from B&H for $169.00.
 
While the HMC150 has yet to be proven it is basically the same as the HVX200 which was very reliable in extreme cold conditions. Here is good article on using Panasonic tapeless cameras in the cold. Below are some quotes.

"At one point the HPX2000s, as well as the HVX200s, were exposed to the elements for five days straight, at -35 and below, and they performed flawlessly. It got so cold that one of the lenses broke off a camera at the lens-mount because the screws got metal-fatigued and simply crumbled. This happened as the camera was being picked up—and it wasn't a heavy lens. That's how cold it was. Yet, the cameras, the cards and the images stored on the P2 cards were not affected by the cold.

In another incident, a producer was juggling P2 cards in and out of a camera, so to prevent dropping a card in the snow, she stuck one in her mouth for a second and it froze to her tongue. The images on the card remained intact. That's about the worst that happened. We did not have a single problem either with the performance of the cameras or the P2 cards or the workflow—not one single crash, lost clip, corruption or anything in 110 hours of footage."
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Hopefully Panny have improved the metallurgy on the lens mont screws in the newer cameras... lol. Quite a testimonial nonetheless. I'd love to hear Barry Green's comments!!


-Shrigg
 
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shrigg said:
Quite a testimonial nonetheless. I'd love to hear Barry Green's comments!!
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I was up there that year. It was cold. ;)

But yeah, we had custom Portabrace cold-weather jackets that were made for the HVX200s. We didn't even bother with them. The cameras were fine without them, and Bernie Mitchell and Mike Caporale (the guys who made the entire 1100 mile trek) never bothered to use the cold-weather jackets.

The HVXs never had a problem with the cold, unlike the Varicam whose lens mount broke.

The P2 system never even flinched; only problem we had at all with any card was when one of the assistant producers decided she needed to get an interview and tried to carry too much stuff, so she stuck a P2 card in her mouth -- and of course it froze to her tongue. A little warm water took care of that.

The LCD screens were a problem, being "liquid" crystal they did indeed start to turn to "ice" crystal; we rubber-banded hand warmers to the back of the LCD panel and that took care of that.

I don't know how the SD card system would perform in the cold; I assume it'll do just as well, but I can't speak from firsthand experience. But I can vouch for the P2 system, that handles the coldest temperatures on the planet just fine.
 
Here is another testimonial praising Panasonic tapeless for cold weather use.

The Weather Channel commits to tapeless ENG (Apr 6, 2007 8:00 AM)

The Weather Channel used the Panasonic P2 HD AJ-HPX2000 camcorder to cover the Valentine's Day blizzard in Cleveland.
The Weather Channel has acquired five Panasonic P2 HD AJ-HPX2000 2/3in shoulder-mount camcorders and five AJ-HPM100 P2 Mobile recorders to use for all major electronic newsgathering (ENG) by its headquarters and regional bureaus.

The Weather Channel made its initial move from tape-based electronic newsgathering to solid-state P2 with its purchase of six HVX200 DVCPRO P2 HD camcorders for live coverage and field production of special reports fed to Atlanta studios. According to John Thayer, senior manager of broadcast operations for The Weather Channel, the tapeless workflow has brought increased efficiency to field operations.

Before going tapeless for ENG, The Weather Channel shot DVCPRO 50 video. With the new solid-state recording approach, editing can be done immediately after a shoot, he said. Rather that waiting to transfer and digitize tape footage, the network's ENG crews can begin editing immediately on laptops they take into the field. By the time they drive back to the network's truck, packages can be edited and ready to be fed to the studio, he added.

On the scene in Cleveland during the recent Valentine's Day blizzard, The Weather Channel videographer Will Rembert was one of the first to experience the performance of the HPX2000 during extreme cold-weather conditions.

The HPX2000 camera sat on a tripod at the shoot for about eight to nine hours during below-zero winter conditions. Because of the extreme cold, the crew frequently took shelter in the van to keep warm, but the camera "held up very well" in the extreme conditions, Rembert said.

Operating under the same conditions with a tape-based ENG camera would have required dealing with condensation and servo problems, he said.
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Barry_Green said:
The LCD screens were a problem, being "liquid" crystal they did indeed start to turn to "ice" crystal; we rubber-banded hand warmers to the back of the LCD panel and that took care of that.
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Barry, no permanent damage from freezing and thawing the LCD's? I assume the HVX's viewfinder would have been frozen completely?
 
...In another incident, a producer was juggling P2 cards in and out of a camera, so to prevent dropping a card in the snow, she stuck one in her mouth for a second and it froze to her tongue.
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I'm having vision's of Flick's tongue getting stuck to the flagpole in "A Christmas Story"

"I triple dog dare you to stick your tongue to that P2 card" :laugh:
 
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Thanks Shrigg and Barry,

I've read the article before and had already passed it on (but another thanks to you is in order!).

These folks are in the weather five days a week from October to March, more or less. Fortunately, the sun doesn't shine long enough to make it long days for them, so the days aren't too long. It never gets above -15º, and it hangs around -25º for the most part. When it gets cold, it's really cold.

I have an HVX200 I plan to trade to an 170 myself. We trained with it (the 200) and they really liked the work flow. They have a Sanyo Xacti (and I want them to get a few of those, too for their non-professional shooters to use). The idea is that their video team can take some footage from their non-professionals and inter-veave it with their professional footage in the media presentations and record keeping and documentation.
 
MikeGunter said:
These folks are in the weather five days a week from October to March, more or less. Fortunately, the sun doesn't shine long enough to make it long days for them, so the days aren't too long. It never gets above -15º, and it hangs around -25º for the most part. When it gets cold, it's really cold.

I have an HVX200 I plan to trade to an 170 myself. We trained with it (the 200) and they really liked the work flow. They have a Sanyo Xacti (and I want them to get a few of those, too for their non-professional shooters to use). The idea is that their video team can take some footage from their non-professionals and inter-veave it with their professional footage in the media presentations and record keeping and documentation.
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Getting away from the HVX200's tape drive sounds smart. While we can expect the HMC to perform similarly to the HPX170, the HPX's P2 workflow is the proven one so far. If you go with an HMC can you keep us posted with its cold performance vs. the HPX/HVX? That would be really useful information!

Thanks,
Shrigg

PS: Where is this cold weather location?
 
Sikari-Sakari said:
What about the LCD screen? I didn't like the HVX200 LCD so I'm hoping it would be more like the EX1 had...Any ideas?
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It is the same relatively low quality LCD as the HVX and reminds me of my HV20's. Coming from Sony's much better LCD's this somewhat of a disappointment. Guess I will continue using my 12" LCD monitor through HDMI. *sigh*

Panasonic did add many focus and exposure checking enhancements to improve its functionality. Who says you can't polish a turd!
 
I downloaded and unzipped your file shrigg- is this how the camera saves to the card or is there some sort of folder structure?
 
The PRIVATE folder is what was on the camera card. I dropped it into a new folder with a unique name and then zipped it. While I'm no file management expert, I think that is the correct way to keep "cards" seperated from each other on the hard drive.

Let me know what you think of the test footage. There is some 1/2000 shutter footage in 1080i60 and a lot was shot at 1/1000 and 1/500
 
Does the LCD show the full frame or the overscan image? I'm not sure if that even applies to 16:9 footage. Plus it's on a 4:3 3.5 LCD so maybe it just cuts off the sides a bit?

I hate how my hv20 does that. It cuts off so much of the image. I love my dvx100b for the full frame LCD feature.
 
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