JVC's answer to the HPX300- THe JVC GY-HM700

Puredrifting is so right.

Once we had a full suite of JVC 'PRO' S-VHS kit - cost $20,000 and camera $10,000.

And it was nothing but trouble - one thing after another.

They kept selling us boards to increase the picture quality (Noise reduction board $1200) - FFS.

The quality control was awful, we then went BETACAM (and then Panny) and never looked back.

We still have the odd JVC monitor which is okay, and a DV deck which is as flaky as hell.
 
puredrifting said:
Just out of curiosity, how many posters in this thread have ever actually owned a JVC professional video product?

Just walk away, I am telling you. From a reliability standpoint, JVC pro video products are not in the same league as Sony and Panasonic, that's all I can tell you. Take it from someone who used to have an entire company with nothing but JVC, walk the other direction.

Dan
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Hey Dan,

Actually, we shot our last feature with the JVC110 and redrock m2 adapter. I was very pleased with the results but I did have a lot of dead pixel problems with the JVC110. I don't know if dead pixel is the right term, but the jvc110 suffered from a lot of still white dots in some of our shots. I had to bring a lot of these shots into Shake in order to get rid of them.

I just hope this is something that's been fixed in this new HM700 model.

The other reason we used the JVC110 with Firestore was because P2 was more expensive to rent and use for our production (not trying to start another P2 is too pricey argument, just informing about why we chose the jvc over the hvx). The entire production took about 4-5 weeks to complete.
 
I have heard from numerous filmmakers that the JVC pumps out very nice film-like pictures. Having worked on the 110 once, and I am kinda agreed with them. Although I still think Panasonic has the best film-like pictures vs the other brands.
 
It could have been better if Panasonic would have decided to take 1/2" CCDs with a pixcel count inbetween the HPx171 and native HD and staying with a kind a pixel shift. This way it would not be a treat for the other higher end panasonic cams and the resolution and sensitivity would have been very close to the full HD CMOS cams like the EX without having the rollig shutter !!!

Maybe there is a technical reason for not have chosen 1/2" ccd's, anyone have some thoughts aboiut this ???

philip bloom said:
i was interested in the JVC due to the sd cards and quicktime but the specs of the hpx300 are so good am sold on one.
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Not sure why, but Panasonic seems to have a distaste for 1/2" CMOS imagers. Barry has mentioned this before.

Dan
 
Not sure why, but Panasonic seems to have a distaste for 1/2" CMOS imagers.
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Nobody makes 1/2" anymore other than Sony. JVC used to have some 1/2" products but they've discontinued them, and Panasonic made some 1/2" products before but they've discontinued them. Sony is the only one still making 1/2" stuff.

The presentation I heard sums it up about like this: if you want big chips, get big chips. If you can't afford big chips, go with 1/3" and save cost/space/weight/power.

And, frankly, nobody actually wants 1/2" chips. I have traveled this globe speaking at events and talking to clients and the story I heard over and over is this: broadcasters wouldn't touch the 1/2" system, they wanted only 2/3"; Sony had nothing but 1/2" XDCAM-HD to offer them. Sony had to go around promising the broadcasters that they were going to eventually produce a 2/3" version and that when they do, they'll actually trade out the 1/2" product and give them free upgrades to the 2/3" product! Yes, the pitch was "buy our XDCAM-HD system today, and when our 2/3" camera comes out we'll come around and take back all those 1/2" cameras and give you free 2/3" cameras." Why would they do this? Because that's about the only way they were able to move any XDCAM-HD products. And they couldn't risk the customers moving to Panasonic, so they did anything they could and made astonishing promises and deals to get the customers to commit. Of course, the other shoe has now dropped - Sony has said "sure, we'll exchange out the bodies for 2/3" bodies, but you're going to have to go buy all new lenses." Which may be why so far 75% of American stations and 85% of Europe has ditched Sony and gone with P2; you can't pull stuff like that and expect continued customer loyalty.

So: when it comes to 1/2", it seems the only folks who actually *want* 1/2" chips are those who are in the 1/3" price bracket. Guys like us. :) But the big customers don't want it.

This whole 1/2" thing is kind of odd anyway. Sony's been on a bit of a kick of making smaller-chip cameras than their competitors. When Canon and Panasonic went 1/3", Sony introduced the 1/4" V1. With Panasonic offering 2/3" on its broadcast lineup, Sony introduced a complete line of 1/2" (and tried to claim that their 1/2" used special magic technology to make it perform like a 2/3"). It was an odd strategy, which only makes sense now in reverse. Now that there's a camera with smaller chips than the EX3, now all of a sudden Sony is able to say "hey, bigger is better" when their strategy heretofore has been to say "smaller is just as good and cheaper."

I guess the old adage of "sell what you've got on the shelf" applies here.

Anyway, with all other things being equal, of course bigger will always be better. 2/3" beats 1/2", and 1/2" beats 1/3", and 1/3" beats 1/4". But, with the Japanese companies, you'll almost never ever get a case of "all other things being equal". They'll always carve out some unique market niche and let the others have their own niche. Panasonic gives you 1/3" chips and the best recording system ever produced on a camcorder, 10-bit AVC-I. Sony gives you 1/2" chips, but sticks you with MPEG-2 long-GOP recording. So the choice you have to make is: do the bigger chips make up for the worse recording media/format? Or does the better recording media of the 300 make up for it having smaller chips? Don't ever expect the Japanese companies to truly deliver a knockout blow to their competitors; they instead seem quite content to play leapfrog.

I'm all for 1/3" handheld, and 2/3" shoulder. 1/3" shoulder seems like an odd niche, but when you see that all NBC owned & operated stations are going with HPX170s and HPX300s, then Panasonic's strategy of a 1/3" shoulder-mount seems to make a lot of sense. If that's what their big customers want, then that's what they build. I'm sure today's economic climate for the news business factored in heavily, and 1/3" glass is cheaper than 2/3", and having the body+lens+VF package costing less than $8500 might have been the whole reason they even got the deal. And if price is that big a consideration, then having gone 1/2" (and its cost increase, and its corresponding cost increase for lenses) wouldn't have made any sense at all. Besides, they already have a 2/3" HPX500, so would 1/2" have made much sense? 1/3" is at least different enough that it explains why both products are on the market.
 
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Barry, thanks for the great overview. I kind of knew most of that subconciously, having used Sony gear mostly up until I bought my first DVX100. Sony cameras used to be the standard back when I owned the BVWD600, a great analog beta sp back on a 2/3" digital head, the same one as the 700 Digital Betacam used.

It all makes a lot more sense and the strategies are much more visible after reading you typing it all out on the page.

Dan
 
puredrifting said:
Right, it looks the same as the HVX/HPX170 doesn't it? Pixel shifted to get 1080?

Dan
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I really would like to see Adam Wilt put this camera trough its paces. Or a 2009 VS test with the new players and the established ones, just to compare to where we are today to where we were 3 years ago (when the first vs test was made...)
 
Simon Höfer said:
I thought so, but did you read the specs for this cam?

CAMERA​

Image sensor​


1/3" Progressive scan 3CCD​


Recording mode​

NTSC setting: HQ mode:1920 x 1080/59.94i (.mov only), 29.97p, 23.98p, ​





http://pro.jvc.com/prof/attributes/specs.jsp?model_id=MDL101851&feature_id=03
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Yes I read the specs. Nowhere does it say what the chips do. The recording format is unrelated to the chips; for example, an HMC150 records 1920x1080x59.94i, 29.97p, and 23.98p, but its imagers are 960x540 with spatial offset. So there's nothing about the recording format specs that has anything to do with the imager specs; Panasonic and JVC have both put out 960x540 consumer AVCHD cameras that record at 1920x1080.
 
Seems like Native 1280x720 is a reality and confirmed by JVC in another thread.

Here's also some interesting news. The camera is tentatively priced at 6995 USD, which means a good 1400 USD bellow Retailers initial price for the HPX300 ( USD 8400)
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/606881-REG/JVC_GY_HM700U_PRO_HD_COMPACT_CAMCORDER.html

Very interesting! This camera looks more and more attractive... In therms of resolution, it should perform close to what an HPX2000 is getting (a pixel shifted 1280x720 camera, if I'm not mistaken). That should be quite good!
 
Sergio, I got my hands on the 300 last week for a while, there will be no comparison unless you MUST have a CCD camera. But if you are going to buy a CCD camera, I wouldn't even consider JVC, ughh. Yes, I am very anti-JVC, they burned me and a few of my clients numerous times with their "pro" gear.

Dan
 
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