AF101, HPX250 or HPX370

S

Svein Rune Skilnand

New member
Hi.
I am looking to buy a camera to be used in my multicam productions. And I find myself standing at a crossroad wondering what to do. The sort of work I do range from making documentaries and filming rally for national TV to live events like concerts, news and weddings as well.

My current setup is a Sony EX3, a JVC 790, a Sony NX70 and a Sony Z5. They are all on their own very good cameras, in my opinion, but they all use different battery types, codecs and media for recording, making logistics a little nightmare from time to time. I always seem to find myself loaded with different equipment for each camera wondering if or what I have forgotten to bring on the shoot.

Back in the edit suite I find myself transcoding the recordings to Pro Res or XDCam EX which is a time consuming affair. I use FCP3 and multicam doesn`t handle different codecs or frame sizes very well.

And my FCP system insists on rendering everything. Even though my 4 cameras have been transcoded to the same codec. For instance when I have loaded all the clips and want to start editing in multicam I get this green line above the timeline. Since I render in Pro Res I use massive amounts of space on the harddrive. I have contacted my supplier with this problem and have bought loads of RAM as suggested by them, but to no help. My system is a MAC Pro Dual-Core Intel Xeon 2.66 GHz with 10 GB RAM. My graphics card is a ATI Radeon HD 3870.

At first I wanted to buy an EX1 so at least the codecs would match, but then I realized that the editing and rendering problem wouldn`t go away. I have tried for a year to solve this problem. As everything plays in half resolution it is real hard to see if the shots are in focus or corectly exposed and I always seem to find myself going back in the edit changing angles.

Then I started thinking of buying a vision mixer like the Datavideo HS2000 and started searching the web. Looking at different mixers I browsed Panasonic`s website and saw the new HPX 250. This seems ideal for multicam shoots as it has a good zoom range, TC in and out and genlock as well. Also small and portable. This should make setup a breeze if I sold off the other equipment and invested in one system. Same batteries, same codec and so on.

Looking at the B&H website I see that they offer a good price on the HPX370 as I would need a camera with interchangeable lenses.

The AF101 also seems interesting though. Does anyone know if it uses the same battery system as the HPX 250? And how these cameras would match?

I have been thinking of just buying an HPX370, or 3 HPX250s or 2 HPX250s and one Af101 down the line.

And now to my final question. I have never edited AVC Intra before. Does anyone know the workflow in FCP3? I have looked at the Log and transfer and see that there is an option to transcode to Pro Res. This also seems to be the case with the AVCHD codec used by the AF101. This leads me to think that when I import the clips they would all end up in the same codec which means I could start editing right away.

Would I be crazy to invest in a new system?

Any inputs would be highly appreciated and thanks for reading my long post.

Svein Rune
 
Your rendering problem is probably something to do with configuration. It seems strange that you need to render all the time. Have you checked your "log and transfer" preferences? What codec is it transcoding to? After transcoding or importing the footage, place the clip on a new Sequence and see if it asks to change to a different codec. Accept and it should then not ask for any additional renders.

COnverting everything to prores is an excellent idea. I have been working on an old Macpro 2x 3ghz intel Xeon with 8gb Ram and it works perfectly with prores 4:2:2 and 4:2:2 HQ.

Are you happy with the EX3 footage? If so, and seeing the kind of work you do, I would probably go for the HPX250, which should be excellent for event coverage with AVC-Intra, and also purchase either a Gh2 or, if you want to give your client the wow factor of shallow DOF, a 5D. However, know that either camera will take you to a specific set of lens requirements. Of course if you could get both the HPX250 and the AF100, it would be better for color matching and for operator use.

The only downside I could see of purchasing the HPX250 would be low light performance, but since we haven't seen how it performs yet, it would be premature to say it doesn't perform at least on par to an EX1 ( common sense says larger sensor equals better low light, but Canon, with the XF series have proven some wrong in this regard)
 
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If you're transcoding all your footage to Prores and FCP is still trying to render, it sounds like a configuration problem. Panasonic is releasing a few new cameras within the next month or two so perhaps I'd wait and see what the reviews say. If I were you and needed to purchased multiple cameras, I'd consider buying the exact same ones so that the footage matches in post and all components are interchangeable.
 
We have a team of HPX170s, and having all batteries and media the same is fantastic.

Do note that the HPX250 uses P2 cards, and these are expensive in general compared to SD cards or the like. At AVCIntra100, you get a min of recording per GB (approx), so two 64GB cards get you two hours of literal shoot time. As you do events, this can become expensive quickly. The AC160 is the same in many respects to the 250, but uses 8-bit color (like most cameras do currently) and AVCHD which will get you about 4x the record space per GB on SD card media. The batteries of the AC160 I believe would match the batteries of the AF100, where I would expect the HPX250s batteries not to match it.

For events, I highly do not recommend an AF100 alone as it can be difficult to get the shot reliably unless you are really good setting focus/exposure/zoom instantly, can change lenses quickly, and are able to anticipate what you are shooting. The HPX170s we have (which the HPX250 is replacing) are stellar at shooting events. Super reliable, easy to handle and use well. Personally, I would pick up two AC160s and an AF100. They will share all batteries, use the same AVCHD, and you can have a nice army of SD cards. Also, the AC160 has dual SD slot recording for extended peace of mind :D

I doubt you would ever have a problem with AVCHD. The only scenario I can think of is if you spend 80% of your time shooting water scenery as this is the most challenging for any codec. But for me AVCHD on the AF100 has been super robust, great quality with small file sizes. Other than AVCHD vs AVCIntra, there is pretty much no downside to getting a AC160 instead of a HPX250 (except maybe the TC/Genlock in-outs? cant find info on that...). You can check this link for some banter about differences between the two.

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?245417-Panasonic-AC130-and-AC160
 
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As to your FCP render issues, it really sounds like your system is not configured well. First, you need to make SURE that your footage that you put in the timeline matches the settings of the timeline. When you drag your first clip onto the timeline, a message should pop up asking you if you want to modify your timeline to match the clip settings. Be sure to click, yes.

However, even though everything is converted to ProRes, that doesn't mean the frame size (resolution), or frame rate is the same on all clips, ESPECIALLY when dealing with four different cams. For us, when using AF100 and HPX170 footage together, the resolutions don't match. The AF100 shoots AVCHD 1920x1080 or 1280x720 that is converted to ProRes on transfer at those resolutions, where as the HPX170's shoot DVCPRO HD with 1280x1080 or 960x720 with rectangular pixels. Because these don't match, renders in the timeline are often required.

I have no idea what your various cams record at, but I'm guessing that they all don't use the same frame sizes and converting directly to ProRes on transfer/capture won't change that. I would say that getting the same cameras would help solve the render issues.

In the meantime, make sure you turn ON unlimited RT. I dont understand exactly how it all works, but you should be able to set it so that FCP can playback with orange color in the render bar at the top of the timeline. It might be a little slow on the frame rate or slightly blurry on playback, but should be enough to help you make a good edit without rendering everytime anything gets touched. If you need info on how to set that up, search unlimited RT on google, something should show up. The button for it is the down arrow looking button on the top left side of the sequence timeline window.

ALSO, I find disabling clips that are underneath footage can help alot! If the footage is synced between two-three cams, you want the clips to stay in the timeline so they stay in sync, right? But you only see one cam at a time, right, the one on top? So to save processing power, right-click and choose disable on the underneath clips. The clips will stay there in the timeline, but will no longer be processed in the timeline.
 
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