AF-100 Wishlist/Suggestion Discussion Thread

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Mike Harvey said:
The SDHC thing is overblown. Is it less reliable than P2? Yes, but compared to P2, EVERYTHING is less reliable. I have yet to have an issue with my HMC150. The same can't be said about any tape based camera I've owned. You will occasionally get a bum card (it IS consumer media, after all), but there are ways to check it before hand before you put it into service that helps cut down on that them crapping out when it counts. I have 10 SDHC cards.. most I've owned for over a year, all get used routinely, and none of them have had issues (knock on wood).
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Good call.

You guys complaining about reliability remember that just a few years ago we were doing everything on little plastic boxes filled with spinning spools of fragile magnetic tape inside them? Thin, brittle, and it moved.

We have it so good today.
 
There is nothing inherently wrong with SDHC as a format. Any good card will be highly reliable.

You just have to make sure you get a good card!
http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=918
http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1029508162&postcount=1
http://members.shaw.ca/fakesandisk/
http://reviews.ebay.com/FAKE-SanDisk-Extreme-Compact-Flash-Cards-Exposed_W0QQugidZ10000000001456539
http://reviews.ebay.com/FAKE-SanDisk-Ultra-Secure-Digital-Cards-Exposed_W0QQugidZ10000000001254879
http://reviews.ebay.ca/FAKE-Sony-Memory-Stick-Pro-Duo-MagicGate-Cards-Exposed_W0QQugidZ10000000001236041

It seems that no-one has yet bothered to make fake P2 cards, so you are guaranteed the genuine article. But for many consumers, the lure of really low prices on eBay for memory cards (and batteries) has fed a strong counterfeit market, and competing with those low online prices have driven some distributors and retailers to stock counterfeit cards on store shelves as well.

I read a thread a few days ago on the GoPro forums, about what SDHC cards work with their HD video cameras. The manufacturer recommends class 4 cards, and many people are finding that long recording times at high bitrates actually requires a class 6 card. Well, someone there posted a message asking if a class 2 card would work, "because they're so much cheaper."

When consumers pull out their wallets or credit cards, they are voting over and over again that they want the lowest price over anything else, and this is the result.

Sony introduced SxS memory cards, which many applauded for being cheaper than P2. But as soon as they found out they could get media even cheaper with an SD card adapter, even though it meant sacrificing overcranked slow-motion, and sacrificing reliability, a great many of them jumped at that.

The message to manufacturers is "no matter what, make it as cheap as possible, even if everything else has to be sacrificed."

My problem is that I am not a consumer, I am professional. I do this for a living. I don't care if a memory card only costs $40, I'll gladly pay $800 for something that doesn't crap out and lose footage that could easily be worth $250,000. And I fear that Panasonic will look at customers like me and figure we're just a small percentage of their sales, and they need to focus on consumers who want nothing more than low low prices.

I would be (pleasantly) surprised if they ever introduce a P2 version of the AF-100. I think it's far more likely they'll sell a ton of SDHC-based cameras, and then everyone will run off to eBay to buy a bunch of fake cards, and Panasonic will just have to train their support staff to tell everyone "sorry, we only guarantee the camera will work perfectly with genuine Panasonic SDHC cards purchased directly from us, and if you bought a card elsewhere, we can't help you."
 
Or the professionals will spend the money on Panasonic or SanDisk SDHC cards from somewhere like B&H.

You just said SDHC is fine if you get a good card, but it's hard to get a good card if you buy cheaply...you also said you were willing to pay more for something that works....so do that. Buy nice SDHC cards from first party retailers.
 
strangways said:
The message to manufacturers is "no matter what, make it as cheap as possible, even if everything else has to be sacrificed."
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My problem with DSLRs in a nutshell.

My problem is that I am not a consumer, I am professional. I do this for a living. I don't care if a memory card only costs $40, I'll gladly pay $800 for something that doesn't crap out and lose footage that could easily be worth $250,000.
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Agreed 1,000%. Which is why I'm lobbying for a P2 version. Barring that, it may just be that I choke down the cost of an HPG20 and have the best of both worlds. AVC-Intra from the HDSDI port, and cheap onboard AVCCAM.

And I fear that Panasonic will look at customers like me and figure we're just a small percentage of their sales, and they need to focus on consumers who want nothing more than low low prices.
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I doubt the DSLR revolution is doing anything other than reinforcing that idea. However, we should consider that this product is coming from Panasonic Solutions Company (formerly known as Panasonic Broadcast and Television Systems), and is marketed through the professional division. It's not a GH2. I have no doubt that there will also be a GH2 someday, marketed through the consumer division, for those who want that. But this product is offered from the professional division. Presumably that would mean that it will meet certain standards (such as no moire, etc) that wouldn't be acceptable in a broadcast environment.

I wish there was a second P2 model. I'd buy that one. I understand them wanting to keep the costs low; even though this unit should be a thousand times better than a DSLR in every imaginable way, I can guarantee you we'll see a flood of threads saying "why should anyone buy a $6k camera instead of a $799 t2i?" So they need to keep it cost-competitive. If there was an AVCCAM version and a P2 version, I bet you that 90% of the sales would be the AVCCAM version. But I'd be happy to be in that 10% buying the P2 version! :)

Okay, with all that said -- I hope that if it's SD-only, it'll at least be SDXC. They're touting higher reliability on their SDXC cards.
http://dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=195887https://panasonic.ca/english/accessories/storagemedia/sdcards/pdf/SDcards_en.pdf
 
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Barry_Green said:
Agreed 1,000%. Which is why I'm lobbying for a P2 version.
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Agreed 100% me too. I apologize (as usual) for my broken english. I've met Panasonic japanese engineers in Italy when they have made their tour around the world to discuss about this project with customers (I think you know, now this is not a secret and I can speak about it).
We also have suggested an AVCHD version and a P2 version with AVC-intra (so you can consider Italy as a part of your lobby :-)). We have also suggested to improve the video version of micro 4/3 mount with a lens lock or something similar: there is a minimal play of the lens that has no consequences when you use the GH1 as a photocamera but can give you serious problem of image wobbling if you use a follow focus, for example. In my copy this happens both with the stock lens and with adapters. They need to add something that locks the lens and doesn't allow any minimal movement. Another good idea, in our opinion, is to add a built-in rod support. They only need to make two holes (two tunnels) in the bottom of the camera and to add four thumbscrews and we can use it for inserting rods for mattebox, follow focus etc. Finally, using long rods it is very easy to customize a shoulder support or a support for our accessories according our needs. And we could put the camera directly on the tripod plate, qithout any support that can reduce stability and add weight. There are a lot of reasons to add a built-in rod support, in our opinion

What do you think about?

Regards

Gary
 
Gary Senda said:
We have also suggested to improve the video version of micro 4/3 mount with a lens lock or something similar:
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This is exactly what RED is doing for the Canon mount on their new EPIC and Scarlet systems, a PL-like locking ring for an existing lens mount.

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showpost.php?p=501414&postcount=11

I would certainly welcome something like this on the AF-100.

However, would the majority of their intended customers agree with something that works differently than what they are used to, and in most cases requires two hands to mount or dismount a lens?

I'll just add "PL-style lens mount" to my "Pro version with P2 and AVC-Intra" dream file... :thumbsup:
 
Mike Harvey said:
The SDHC thing is overblown. Is it less reliable than P2? Yes, but compared to P2, EVERYTHING is less reliable. I have yet to have an issue with my HMC150. The same can't be said about any tape based camera I've owned. You will occasionally get a bum card (it IS consumer media, after all), but there are ways to check it before hand before you put it into service that helps cut down on that them crapping out when it counts. I have 10 SDHC cards.. most I've owned for over a year, all get used routinely, and none of them have had issues (knock on wood).
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No. it's not overblown. I had 2 Transcend 16GB fail and critical footage was lost.
 
For me, I'd love to see the option of recording to SDHC Cards or P2. I trust P2 for my corporate work, but when I go traveling on my own, I'd rather have the smaller memory footprint, since there isn't any cash on the line.

And, I know its been said already, but, I want to see the same or greater menu of frame rate options that the 170 or the 370 has (at 1080P would be divine).
 
strangways said:
I'll just add "PL-style lens mount" to my "Pro version with P2 and AVC-Intra" dream file... :thumbsup:
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I think that this solution in much more than a dream, it is simply mandatory. If they release the camera with the identical micro 4/3" mount that is used on GH1, without any upgrade, there is a big risk that it will be unusable with Follow Focus, expecially with tele lenses and it could be critical even achieving rack focus manually (do you remember 170's lens wobbling?). I've tested more than one GH1 attachments and all they were simply unacceptable using follow focus. Micro 4/3 is a photo attachment, we need a video/cine attachment.
They must find a simple and effective solution for a video version of Micro 4/3 attachment that mantains the full compatibility with M4/3 lenses but that has a locking sistem for the lens, so that the camera and the lens itself will become a single piece.
Without this feature this camera could be very problematic and quite unusable for cine-style shooting (just the target of the camera).

This is what we think in Italy

Gary
 
Ben_B said:
Transcend is not a reputable brand.
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Entirely untrue- even JVC was recommending them as the card of your choice for HM series.
I also had Sandisc Extreme III skip recording frames and froze during the recording- my luck the rest of the footage was not lost.
 
OldCorpse said:
Whatever. I just want to stress that it is critical that Panasonic comes out with an affordable [/B].
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One man's affordable is another man's expensive. The often quoted price is around $6000 well a HVX170 goes for $4400 (B&H) and a 64 gig P2 card goes for about $900, so if Panasonic wanted to I believe they could make a AF-100 with P2 for $6000, that will be twice the price of a Canon 5D but it will be a true Pro Video Camera.
 
Jan_Crittenden said:
Excuse me, why would you want to edit any long GOP codec natively? Am I missing something or does everyone just want to degrade their image at every edit point?

Thanks,

Jan
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I posted this because it is great being able to take the files off of the card, put them on the timeline and edit straight away.

Who wants to add another step and transcode everything?

Maybe there is some symantics going on here. Footage gets recorded in AVCHD, I put it on the timeline in Edius and edit it and export to a delivery format. How am I degrading it?

If long GOP is so bad, why is Panasonic using it? That is not my problem.
 
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