150.. initial impressions out of box

I think that the OIS works pretty well. I was a bit shaky with the cam the first time since the weight and balance is totally different than the HVX.. but man it's getting better and growing on me each and everytime I shoot with it. The HVX won't be used much anymore.. and if I had the 170, I don't think I'd be using that one either. Swapping P2 cards like I did seems barbaric now.. For almost 3 years I've shot 2200 hours of HVX footage all on 2 P2 cards and the p2store. Now I can roll and roll and roll with the 8 SD cards I have. Life is GOOD! Plus the footie I think looks better while I'm shooting.


I know I've said it a few times.. but the LCD on this thing like Barry said is such an improvement. You can actually tell that you are in FOCUS.. WOW! No more need for the focus assist. I'll have a review on the tripod I bought and some footie next week. cheers to all.


If you are on the fence about this.. I'd say to pull the trigger, IF though, you have an editing platform that can handle it...
 
Has anyone taken the footage to SD DVD from 720/24p or better?

And what do you get when you shoot 1080/24p? Is it a true progressive?
 
I just also did my first capture test and it works Flawlessly with the intensity card.. and none of that breaking business at 30 minutes. I think it's a darn good cam for a 2nd camera unit.. and for those that need to shoot and shoot and shoot... Next week I'll be shooting some greenscreen and some high key stuff so we'll see how it works side by side with the HVX.
 
Barry... is the LCD also this good on the 170? It really makes shooting much more enjoyable and much more critically in focus... CHEERS in helping me to decide on this...
 
David I have burnt SD DVD from 720/24p and to me it looks amazing but i can only compare to what i was getting with the DVX.
 
Glad you're enjoying it, Justyn. Yes, the 170 has the same LCD improvements as the 150 does. The 200A doesn't quite get the full deal, it's sort of like halfway between the original HVX and the 170/150.
 
Barry... that's very true. I actually didn't notice much of a difference with the 200a in terms of the LCD quality... of course it's low-light and smear were noticable right away.


The more I handle this cam.. the more I love it. The more I think that I'd love the 170 as well and maybe it's not the revoluctionary cam that the 200 was, but it's clearly more refined.. and just handles a lot better for the long handheld stuff that I'm forced to use. I don't also think it suffers at all on the wide side of things... seems a bit wider, but we'll see how it handles long throws as tomorrow I'm shooting from the back of a church. Shooting two church ervices with only one card swap instead of like 20 is going to be incredible.
 
What are you editing in?

Anybody doing native AVCHD editing? On what platform and NLE and is anything RT?

I tried some avchd mts footage on a MacPro natively with CS4 Adobe Premiere.

No RT whatsoever.
 
David I transcode to dvcprohd with toast and edit on a dual G5 with FCP 5. Probably stay with this workflow for a while until everything catches up to native editing with a possible switch to the PC side if need be. My usual delivery is either SD DVD or web so this works out well for me.
 
matt s. said:
David I transcode to dvcprohd with toast and edit on a dual G5 with FCP 5. Probably stay with this workflow for a while until everything catches up to native editing with a possible switch to the PC side if need be. My usual delivery is either SD DVD or web so this works out well for me.
Click to expand...


I'm with you on this.
I'm still using Premiere CS3 and right now and I'm not sure if I'll jump to CS4.


Transcoding is not bad and it does not add too much time to my overall workflow.
I have to say that AVCHD looks sharper than transcoded DVCPRO HD to my eyes but when I factor in the requirements to edit AVCHD versus the image quality of DVCPRO HD – I'll stick with transcoding for a while.


My main output is either Flash Video or Windows Media HD.


Hey, when are people going to start buying Blu-ray players en masse???
 
NEVEr.. I think that that bitter war caused people to look elsewhere. Like upconverting DVD players and online delivery. I think that the world might have moved on and those greedy buggers cost them millions. Yesterday I was watching the football game, full screen, on my computer and able to pick the angles I wanted to watch. I think that online delivery will take a big chunk of the HD player sales, and also so many people have invested heavily in DVDs that they don't want to give that up...

The blueray thing might end up like laser disks.. who knows....
 
To be honest, I just don't believe blu-ray™ will ever truly catch on/be adopted.

A solid upconverting HDMI SD DVD set top appears, to my clients, indistinguishable from a blu-ray™ player at about 10 feet -- the optimal viewing distance.
 
Blu-ray may become the next ATRAC but we still need some type of standard delivery format so I'm not sure if Blu-ray is dead just yet.
I'm going to assume that most of us here produce content tailor made to each client and their needs be it standard DVD's, some form of HD media for computer playback or for the web but when we try to produce some “mass market” delivery product we'll have to have a common end product to reach the most people.
Plus after February 17th of next year I think standard def will start its decline in favor of better images.


I don't know guys.... Maybe us cutting edge types are just too far ahead of the curve.




Sorry for straying too far off topic.:)
 
My situation is going to sometimes require blueray or passing the hd or ....I do work for clients who want the raw material because they have their own post arrangements. I will be setting up a blueray burner in order to deliver raw data (probably in pro res) and to have large scale backup of some kind.
Brian
 
questions for Justyn

questions for Justyn

Hi Justyn,

I'm investigating the purchase of a 150. I have a couple of questions for you about capturing with the HDMI connection that I'd really appreciate you answering.

- I'm wondering if you were able to capture with timecode by also connecting with USB or some other means?

- The current problems associated with log and import in FCP aside, how does the quality of the HDMI stream compare to that of the Log and Import/AVCCAM files to ProRes/?

Thanks,

-Russ


Justyn said:
I just also did my first capture test and it works Flawlessly with the intensity card.. and none of that breaking business at 30 minutes. I think it's a darn good cam for a 2nd camera unit.. and for those that need to shoot and shoot and shoot... Next week I'll be shooting some greenscreen and some high key stuff so we'll see how it works side by side with the HVX.
Click to expand...
 
BrianMurphy said:
My situation is going to sometimes require blueray or passing the hd or ....I do work for clients who want the raw material because they have their own post arrangements. I will be setting up a blueray burner in order to deliver raw data (probably in pro res) and to have large scale backup of some kind.
Brian
Click to expand...


Brian, you can send them the SD cards as well. That's one option that has opened up.. and it's cheap to ship and you can back it up before sending.
 
rosebud said:
Hi Justyn,

I'm investigating the purchase of a 150. I have a couple of questions for you about capturing with the HDMI connection that I'd really appreciate you answering.

- I'm wondering if you were able to capture with timecode by also connecting with USB or some other means?

- The current problems associated with log and import in FCP aside, how does the quality of the HDMI stream compare to that of the Log and Import/AVCCAM files to ProRes/?

Thanks,

-Russ
Click to expand...


Rosebud.... I haven't captured the timecode as we are doing this through the intensity card as an uncontrolled device. I don't think that the AVCAm will stream over firewire or USB.. so I'm not sure if I'd be able to get that info into the comp. It will of course come over if you are using the log and transfer option in FCP or something else. I'll try to see what I can do, but other than putting the display up I don't think I'll get that info via the intensity....


Well... I can capture this directly to prores, dvcpro or whatever else I want and the footage is comperable. I believe also that if I were to shoot it live and capure simultaneously through the intensity card, that it will look better.


I'm just also doing this till the FCP bugs get worked out. So far so good. I LOVE LOVE LOVE this camera and it's a dead ringer for HVX footage.. so much so that I'm selling my HVX. Anyone want to buy one?
 
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