AC160 AC 160 or HMC-150 CCD Vs Cmos

J

joe_causeway_media

Member
Hi Guys!

Im pretty new to the forum - and pretty new to panasonic - Ive always been a sony man until now.....

I have been using the HMC 151 with the company I work for who have bought 4 HMC's, Im now moving from sony to panasonic myself, and really like the look of the ac160 over the HMC, the vision mixer and tech guru who chooses cameras/computers etc, is steering me away from the 160 due to it having cmos sensors instead of ccd's and encouraging me to go with the HMC's, Due to the Skew/Wobble on panning and the flashbanding as the company does a number of live events (although not too photg flash intensive. From my research the 160 seems to be a much better camera, higher res chips, longer lense, Variable frame rates, uncompressed audio etc etc

Is anyone else stuck between the HMC and the AC160? or is getting the 160 a new brainer and cmos is the new ccd?

Ive only made a few posts so far - but hope to contribute to anything I can in the future once ive made the move to panny!Thanks guys!
 
I have to correct you, the AG-AC160 has got 3MOS.
I got this information from the official brochure and the Panasonic hotline.
 
3mos is 3 CMOS imagers… all the CCD vs CMOS issues apply.

Joe, loads of footage from 160/130s is starting to appear, much of it exploring the CMOS issues. You'll have to look yourself to decide if they are enough to bother you. General consensus seems to be that they are pretty mild in the 160/130.
 
Only other 3 chip CCD HD solution (that I know of) is JVC HM700 series. I have it an love the camera, it's matched up with my Nano.
I find the original 700 needs more light that it's SD counter part. So be prepared to bump the gain. Thankfully it still looks good. I think the newer models address the issue or they were planning a camera to address that issue.
 
Hi Joe, the cmos chips in the new 130,160,250 are the same ones as used in the hpx370. In an earler preview by Barry Green he said the skew was comparable and sometimes better than the sony EX-1.

With regards flash banding the 250 has the same flash band compensation as the 370 (ie quite good). The 160 has a differant processing engine (similar to the AF100) so it doesnt have built in flash band compensation. There are some earlier posts covering this on the other forums.

Ive had an hmc150 and i have an hpx371, the newer chips are a lot sharper and more sensitive than the 150.
If you are doing live events and need a good zoom, the 160 will trounce the 150, best thing is to try and get a demo and see for yourself if it is right for you :)
 
CMOS chips will be sharper than CCD. The chips in the 160/130 exhibit very little flash banding artifacts.

The HMC150 is still a very good camcorder, I'm certainly not dumping all of mine anytime soon, and they match well enough with the 160/130 to keep a couple around. But the AC160 is a better overall camcorder, and gives you HD-SDI out, which the HMC150 does not have. There's also a 22x zoom on the AC160, and dual card slots, among other improvements.

As for pricing, the HMC150 is available for almost $2,000 less than the AC160 in many places right now, so you may want to consider that as well.
 
ELN614 said:
Only other 3 chip CCD HD solution (that I know of) is JVC HM700 series. I have it an love the camera, it's matched up with my Nano.
I find the original 700 needs more light that it's SD counter part. So be prepared to bump the gain. Thankfully it still looks good. I think the newer models address the issue or they were planning a camera to address that issue.
Click to expand...

how good is hm700/750 in low light compared to ag-ac130/160
 
Folks! thanks so much for your replies, I have been using the Sony PD175 & the Z5 recently - both of which have cmos sensors, and to be honest ive had no problems with panning - although I havnt been in a situation where there were a lot of flashes going off.... so im guessing if they're ok, the new chips in the 160 should be even better, At the min, the best price i can get the hmc new for is £2250 ($3500) and the AC160 at £2675 ($4264), The money isnt the issue as Ill happily pay the bit extra and go for the 160 - the question is, is it the better camera?

My work is, TV News/Live events such as boxing,dancing,football,surfing. And inverview pieces/promos & documentary, at the minute ALL IN STANDARD DEF, but, It will change to HD in next yr or so. Im leaning on the 160, Any further thoughts from you guys would be great!! thanks again, Joe
 
CCD is pretty much dead in this section of the market. Larger 2/3 CCD will still be produced but it'll be a completely different (higher) price point. The HMC150, while pretty good, is creeping up on 4 years of age....and comparing yesterday's CMOS sensors to today's CMOS sensors is pointless since the more modern ones are much better, and will continue to get better.
 
Yeah, there are many more "real-world" versions of the skew test, and most of them show that especially on these most recent CMOS camcorders, the issue is all but eliminated. Flash banding is also pretty much gone, and completely gone in the case of the HPX250.

Still, we're holding onto the HMC150 for a little while longer (some of them, anyway) because the CCD does have a different look, as a result of the sensor, and when we don't need the sharpness of CMOS or the 22x zoom, the extended recording times on 2x SDHC slots, then the HMC150 remains very useful.

I'll freely admit to wringing my own hands when I bought into CMOS and saw all these tests, but like has been pointed out many times, it's only a problem in the test world, and almost nonexistent in real-world shooting.

Although...I can see that wobbly skew put to good use when incorporated as part of a scene transition. Bonus feature! :)
 
LanceOregon said:
Is this really considered to be an example of a bad case of skew??? What specifically is so bad about it?
Click to expand...

As the camera pans left/right/left/right, you can see the vertical lines (fence) shift diagonally. In a global shutter (CCD cameras, for instance) you expose the entire frame all at the same time, so there is not going to be a vertical skew in any frame. In rolling shutter (CMOS) you are exposing the frame from top to bottom, left to right, NOT all at the same time, so the bottom portion of the frame is exposed slightly later than the top. This is what causes the skew, and in some cameras it is VERY severe ("jello" looking) while in others, it is much less noticeable.

But no, this is certainly not a BAD case of skew. This is fairly decent, I'd call it "acceptable" personally, but that's just an opinion. Most cell phone cameras are terrible, and some smaller consumer cameras as well. The DSLR cameras are pretty rough too when recording video.
 
The previous Video was just trying to show the extremes, under normal shooting you should not notice skew. i've said it before, the 160 has the same level of skew as the Sony EX1 which is widely used here in the UK for a lot of documentry/reality tv shows. It set the benchmark for skew up until now.

yes we'd all love to have native HD imagers which dont skew at all, but for us mere mortals who cannot afford to get hpx-3100's with their native CCD chips, its going to be CMOS for now.

CMOS is still pretty new in the professional camera market, we've seen big improvements since the hpx300 and i hope this will continue. At the end of the day we are all our own worst critics when it comes to camera's and footage. What is great for one might be terrible for the other.

To the OP, many people have given advice or experience but only you can really decide what is good for you. The 150 is a great little camera, the 160 is too. Skew should not be an issue unless you pan the camera around under zoom like a wild man.

Try to get a demo yourself and look at the footage and not the viewfinder/lcd, Panny cams have lower refresh rates on theirs screens so the VF/LCD may skew even when the footage doesnt (I have this on my 371 too).
 
Last edited:
Garion is right. In real world shooting you are not going to see skew. Sure you can devise a test just to see it, bit it's not the kind of shot you are going to sell to a client.
The HPX250 is a great cam and it has a much sharper picture than the HPX170 especially on the wide end.
 
I agree, when on earth I would be producing a shot like that i dont know, although the DIY Video market is huge in ireland (wink wink :Drogar-BigGrin(DBG)), I think I'm sold on the 160 over the hmc, for the price difference between the hmc and ac, its def worth the jump, When I get ill put up some footage for ya's! Thanks again for all your advice! Joe
 
i think when it comes a cmos sensor, this problem will always exist. And to be fair to technology, it has been very controled in the latest chips. It won't be a perfect situation where you get only the best of both world and eliminate the bad's of them.

however, to me, i know that i will never pan so fast in my video thus it is never really a deal breaker problem for me. okay...maybe not never, but very rarely. Even when I do, I would half expected the footage to be unusable anyway. And if I would have to shoot on a locomotive train or helicopter which moves around very quickly, I would have a stabiliser mounted anytime.

So, like most of the dvxusers have always said, don't buy the technology, but buy what you need, haha...that's what i think.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top