Why an HPX500 & not a PDW355

J

Jonny Bravo

Carbonite Member
Its very well known.

HPX500 is 2/3" but pixel shifintg 900x600 (apprx), its using very costly P2 cards, Its 100mbps

PDW355 is 1/2" but 1440x1080, its using cheap BDisks, its only 35mbps

but i need more reasons to consider one over the other. The competition in field is forcing me to reconsider bwtenn either of these two as many guys having gone with PDW355

:(
 
I rarely ever get a job based on the camera I own. Thats been my experience. There are clients with specific camera requests, depends on the client type, John Smiths car yard doesnt care, but the advertising company commissioned to create the advertising campaign for a large chain etc, will most likely have some requirements. But, I rent if I need to.

Just saying whatever way you go, you may need something else sometimes.
 
What have you been shooting with? I have an HVX200 that I've shot with for the last two years and then bought an HPX this summer. I just finished editinng a 1 hour fashion show that I shot in August and when I showed my wife the DVD (SD) the first thing she said was "I see what you mean about the new camera, you might as well sell the others." The show was shot with a Sony A1U, HVX, and HPX in HD. She simply couldn't believe the difference in quality. As for complarisons to the PDW355 I can't say. I looked at the camera when I bought the HVX200 and chose the Panasonic after talking to Barry Green at a show in DC. The Sony is obviously a well made production camera. But I happen to like the P2 workflow and the card system. It has been totally bulletproof for me.

One other thing, I like the HPX because it is 2/3" inch chips not 1/2" which means I'm able to find an abundance of cheap broadcast lenses on eBay. When I looked at the Sony to buy, another consideration was buying a 1/2" HD lens for $25K. To me that was money out the window when I moved up to a 2/3" camera. With the HPX I've been able to get into a full shoulder mount set-up with excellent picture and most of the professional features that I need for under $12K. And when I need the top HD lens I can rent. Funny thing is, unless you are doing HD broadcast or very high end corporate, you will rarely need the HD lens.

Just my .02 cents. The best part of this decision is that you really can't go wrong. Both are good cameras from excellent companies. Good luck with the decision making!
 
I absolutely love P2 tchnology but more than that I absilutely HATE HATE HATE P2 costs. i am trying to explore if i use a CF thru an adopter in P2 slot. just waiting for any other HPX owner who can try it sooner since i dont have a HPX yet !!!
 
I agree with everything Mark said. I feel the HPX is superior in every way.

P2 cards will continue to drop as higher capacity ones are released.

Thats the cost of business.
 
Um okay. :violin:

Lots of people are buying into the P2 camcorders.

Are they for everyone? Maybe not.

Are they for you? Maybe not.

But to accuse a company of maliciously starving you because YOU can't afford the product is ridiculous and without merit.
 
hey dont take me otherwise... was just kidin. As it is the forum is a very serious place so wanted to lighten up the spirits ... Uh.
 
Right now for a 16gb card about $850, give or take a little.

I want to say, Jannards crew have are now doing their own 16gb CF cards, basically added more pins to get the through put, not sure what else. But these cards are currently on the market for $550. So what you say? Well, I believe the p2 are still overpriced. Its a good solid system that rarely has a problem, but regardless of components used they are a bunch of circuits that arent that expensive to make. Just IMO.
 
My problem with P2 cards is the dinosaur-like pace at which they're upgraded and price-adjusted. Case in point: Panasonic "announced" 64 GB P2 cards in early February, but they still haven't shipped in October! That tells me that Panasonic was eager to show some "movement" on the P2 front in the early part of the year, and so they started publicly talking about a mythical card that was, in fact, far far off on the horizon.

Also, why hasn't Panasonic dropped the price on 32 and 16 GB cards lately, even though flash ram prices are dropping steadily? And where the hell is Fuji with their P2 card? Again, it's an example of someone makine grand P2 announcements, and then producing absolutely nothing for god knows how long. When I spoke to Fuji at the Cinegear Expo in the early summer, they told me to expect their cards to show up in a matter of weeks. What happened??!
 
I've used both

I've used both

I used the sony 330 for two years and now own the HPX500.

The HPX500 has a 620,000 pixel imager with the red and blue imagers offset by 1/2 a pixel in the horizontal and vertical domain, this is the spatial offset process. This has a net effect of giving the imagers resolving power equal to that of a 1.1 million pixel imager. Once that is done, the analog signal coming off of them are captured in 1920 X 1080 and all of the signal processing is handled at this 1080P level.

Both cameras (Sony and Panasonic) codecs are 8bit codecs on final record. The panasonics processors that convert the 14bit video to 8bit are better.

4.4.4 - 4.2.2. 10bit and 12bit codec cams are in another price range all together.

The Sony is only 1/2 CCD 1440x1080 native.

Yes the P2 is expensive at first over time after buying $30 dollar discs and storing them it is not.

Why I switched:
Sony is expensive for what it is.

FCP and Avid eat the panasonic codec like a snack. I can edit full res HD on my laptop and keep my business portable. (using two external estata drives). My laptop hated the xdcam codec. XDCAM is a very heavy number crunching codec for FCP to handle. For any computer for that matter. Slows the system down and you have to edit in lower resolutions.

2/3's will out class 1/2 ccd's any day of the week. The 500's latitude kicks the 330 -355's butt. The color saturation far exceeds Sony's.

500's low light and gain are much cleaner and clearer.

Plus DVCPRO50 and HD is standard with the majoity of TV stations and production houses. (Olympic coverage, Discovery, SciFi Channel,) Most older networks are still using DVCPRO tape or DVCPROHD tape format.
With Hard drive prices dropping there's no excuse for not archiving digitally.

Finally the 500 will not fail mechanically. There are no moving parts. It can handle one hell of a beating. Shake the crap out if it. freeze it, heat it, it shoots through it all.

I do bring my laptop with me to off load the one 32 gig card I have while on a shoot.
But I shoot so much in SD DVCPRO50 that I never fill up the card. In HD I'll off load once, maybe twice. With more cards I'll never off load until I'm back at the office.

Panasonic also has a 5 year year warranty (free) with cam purchase. Sony doesn't!
In fact Sony's known to stop repairing out of production products such as it's beta line.

The only con with the HPX500 over the 355: lack of in cam picture tuning. (KNEE< GAMMA and junk) I don't consider this a flaw because I record everything with the most Color and gamma I can get then tweek in post. I never create my look on set, you'll screw yourself in post later if you do, (like recording high contrast cinelooks in camera), do that and you lost all control in post.

Almost forgot, you can attach a $30,000 2/3 cine lens straight to the 500 with no adapter. You can even use a SD 2/3 lens on the 500 with hardly any issues. The weird ass 1/2 lens mount on the xdcam is very limited. Limited type of lenses. Poor selection.

If you didn't take advantage of the B&H sale last month too bad. I got the HPX for $8000. If your lucky they might have the sale again. Now it's $11500 with two free 16gig cards.

If you're a die hard Sony fan, look at the Sony EX 3 with detachable lens. The EX codec is similar to the DVCPRO and FCP can handle it with ease. It's still 1/2 inch though and $8500 smacks.

Happy buying
 
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