countrymatters
Member
Hi,
I've been lurking around these forums for years with the intention of educating myself on the pros and cons of buying a HVX200 over an HDV camera. I've been waiting for P2 Cards to have enough capacity to work with and I believe that the time has finally come - although at a hefty price. Then I heard about a new HVX coming out and so I waited again with fingers crossed that it would be PAL and NTSC switchable. Now I'm waiting for a decision on why the 171 is and the 170 is not. I still can't understand why the european model is switchable and the north american model is not - doesn't make any sense to me and no one from Panasonic seems willing to explain this as far as I can tell.
I was in Germany recently (I'm Canadian and living in Vancouver) and had a chance to finally try the 171 out and an HVX 200a (or whatever it's called in the EU), and the picture quality actually surpassed my expectations - we had it wired directly out the HDSDI port to a monitor. Even in low light, I thought the noise wasn't too bad and better than what I was expecting. For the price, I was happy with the results.
Apart from the great picture (the LCD sucks though), the second first hand thought was how cheap it felt to handle. Compared to the Sony cameras, the build quality of the 171 seemed very flimsy. I was comparing it to a Sony Z7 camera which felt way better but I didn't like the picture nearly as much. Plus I don't like HDV as a format. The EX1 also feels like a higher quality camera.
So my question is to people who have used the 170(1) since it's been released: what is your opinion of it's build quality and have you had any quality issues using it? (I realize that there's a 5 year warranty but still....)
Cheers, and happy new year to all.
I've been lurking around these forums for years with the intention of educating myself on the pros and cons of buying a HVX200 over an HDV camera. I've been waiting for P2 Cards to have enough capacity to work with and I believe that the time has finally come - although at a hefty price. Then I heard about a new HVX coming out and so I waited again with fingers crossed that it would be PAL and NTSC switchable. Now I'm waiting for a decision on why the 171 is and the 170 is not. I still can't understand why the european model is switchable and the north american model is not - doesn't make any sense to me and no one from Panasonic seems willing to explain this as far as I can tell.
I was in Germany recently (I'm Canadian and living in Vancouver) and had a chance to finally try the 171 out and an HVX 200a (or whatever it's called in the EU), and the picture quality actually surpassed my expectations - we had it wired directly out the HDSDI port to a monitor. Even in low light, I thought the noise wasn't too bad and better than what I was expecting. For the price, I was happy with the results.
Apart from the great picture (the LCD sucks though), the second first hand thought was how cheap it felt to handle. Compared to the Sony cameras, the build quality of the 171 seemed very flimsy. I was comparing it to a Sony Z7 camera which felt way better but I didn't like the picture nearly as much. Plus I don't like HDV as a format. The EX1 also feels like a higher quality camera.
So my question is to people who have used the 170(1) since it's been released: what is your opinion of it's build quality and have you had any quality issues using it? (I realize that there's a 5 year warranty but still....)
Cheers, and happy new year to all.
