AG-DVX200 4K Large-Sensor Handheld Camcorder

DVX200 4K "engineering sample" from an unknown source. Second shot of bridge at max zoom through haze. No way to establish if this is legitimate. Shot through window.

On a more definite note, Panasonic has flown several DPs to Japan to try out the camera; samples and impressions should flow soon.

 
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another video from the same source of unknown reliability. It does show a smooth powered zoom. This one HD test.


 
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Shame the second one isn't on there in 1080p, only 360p (or that's all I get the option in), I would love to see that 18x iA zoom in better quality
 
I just noticed a shaky moment at full zoom, the same of Hpx170 with servo control. There's also a problem of blockiness compression on green forest in the first footage.
 
^ Remember we do not know if this is real footage or one of the many frauds that pop up before a camera launches. And if it is real it is an engineering prototype that will inevitably have problems that might be corrected before launch.
 
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Danilo Del Tufo said:
I just noticed a shaky moment at full zoom, the same of Hpx170 with servo control. There's also a problem of blockiness compression on green forest in the first footage.
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We don't know how the camera was supported, so the shakiness may have nothing to do with the camera.

You can't judge the blockiness of video from highly compressed YouTube footage, we need to look at the raw footage directly from the camera.
 
On my Panasonic LX100 there's a zoom lens that starts at F1.7 and goes to F2.8. This is with a m4/3 sensor and it's a consumer compact camera. Given the fat glass on the DVX200 I would have expected a faster lens.
 
Come on, how can you compare a 3x zoom to a 13x zoom? Even with a constant f/2.8 the lens would have been substantally shorter, heavier and/or extremely expensive. The nice lens of the RX10 which does have a constant aperture of f/2.8 for example has a much shorter focal length (8x) and requires a significantly smaller sensor (1").

As the DVX200 must tic many boxes, a shorter lens would not be a valid alternative. Besides that, we still don't know when the lens is going to ramp up. We might be pleasantly surprised.
 
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Guys, I can't say this loud enough -- looking at footage from the first engineering sample is a bad idea. Period. Full stop.

It is like pulling a cake out of the oven while it's still wet, to taste it, to see if it's going to be any good. Anyone would recognize that's insane. But everyone wants to see the "first" footage from new cameras, and inevitably we get comments like this:
"I just noticed a shaky moment at full zoom, the same of Hpx170 with servo control. There's also a problem of blockiness compression on green forest in the first footage."

I know that's an honest reaction, but -- it's completely unnecessary because the footage shouldn't be out there anyway, because it's not ready. The engineers have a full three months from now to finesse, tweak, refine, polish, and improve the images. The Engineering Sample is a handbuilt product, the first functional (or, mostly-functional) prototype.

I know folks want to see footage so they can determine if they're even interested in the camera at all. But -- it's a BAD idea. Even if we had gorgeous perfect footage from the engineering sample, that's no guarantee that the final production model would produce that same footage!

Engineering Samples exist so that engineers can try out the design and report back on what works well and what doesn't. They are for events like the one I attended back in 2011 for the AF100 (and the one I would have been at this week if it wasn't for the evil of kidney stones) -- bringing in highly experienced users to get their views on operation, design, and requested changes.

Engineering Samples are NOT for producing footage that end customers will be evaluating. I know that won't stop people from doing it, but I'm just pointing out -- anyone making any decisions based on an Engineering Sample, is being foolish and would only have themselves to blame.

There are several phases that Panasonic products go through during the development cycle. The Engineering Sample is the first prototype, hand-built, where all the pieces are fitted together. It is NOT representative of the final product, it is NOT a finished product, and frequently it's not fully-functional. The first Engineering Sample of the HVX200 was 1080/60i only. That's how it goes with Engineering Samples.

Sometime around September there should be a close-to-finished model which would be representative of the final product. This isn't it, so -- don't sweat it too much, this is not designed for public viewing and people should most definitely not be releasing footage from these early Engineering Samples!
 
R Hudson said:
It's a real shame that they shot through a building window. It really screws the sharpness.
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It's a real shame they shot it at all. Well, put another way -- it's a real shame that they posted it. No good can come from this. Unless they had specific permission from the manufacturer, they should never have released a frame of footage from an Engineering Sample.

Now, I didn't get to get on the plane for this trip, I was in the hospital when my plane took off, so I can't say what the specific instructions were to the guys on this trip. I know from prior experience that they've been extremely clear that footage from Engineering Samples is not to be shown to anyone because it is not representative of what a finished camera could deliver. But, we also were told that we could release some footage from the AF100 trip, so -- maybe we will see authorized footage created from this meeting. Or maybe not.
 
TheDingo said:
We don't know how the camera was supported, so the shakiness may have nothing to do with the camera.
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Or if they had OIS turned on. Or if that particular Engineering Sample had problems with its zoom -- it is a hand-built prototype! There are no guarantees, other than that I can guarantee you that an Engineering Sample does not necessarily represent what the final product will be.

You can't judge the blockiness of video from highly compressed YouTube footage, we need to look at the raw footage directly from the camera.
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In general yes this is a very true statement. Again, though (broken record time) you should not be looking at the raw footage directly off of THIS camera, because it's a pre-production, handbuilt, Engineering Sample. It is not in any way polished, finessed, or finished. You might see way more noise in this footage vs. final footage because the noise reduction may not be finished, or fine-tuned. You might see blockiness that wouldn't be in the final footage because the compression engine wasn't necessarily optimized for the sensor's characteristics. There could be lots of reasons that the footage at this point in time isn't entirely representative of final, finished-quality footage. Should be in the ballpark, yes, but there's a lot of details that can change between now and then.
 
Barry-
You are 100% correct on all the above posts....and sorry about the "stones" issue...I've put up many a post about this same exact issue of people being critical of initial test footage put out by engineers. People need to wait until production-line prototypes are out there and a given company's marketing dept. hires veteran shooters to shoot practical application footage....period.......otherwise, this is just "cocktail conversations".
please be patient with Panasonic (and Canon, JVC,etc) and you will get your answers soon enough.
rant done...

Jim Martin
EVSonline.com
 
Barry_Green said:
It's a real shame they shot it at all. Well, put another way -- it's a real shame that they posted it. No good can come from this. Unless they had specific permission from the manufacturer, they should never have released a frame of footage from an Engineering Sample.

Now, I didn't get to get on the plane for this trip, I was in the hospital when my plane took off, so I can't say what the specific instructions were to the guys on this trip. I know from prior experience that they've been extremely clear that footage from Engineering Samples is not to be shown to anyone because it is not representative of what a finished camera could deliver. But, we also were told that we could release some footage from the AF100 trip, so -- maybe we will see authorized footage created from this meeting. Or maybe not.
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I don't take much stock in super early (unofficial) footage releases like this. I was simply disappointed that they would even shoot through a window. All of that (potentially) delicious resolution, color, and dynamic range can be totally obliterated by shooting through building glass and during the day, no less :)
 
R Hudson said:
I don't take much stock in super early (unofficial) footage releases like this. I was simply disappointed that they would even shoot through a window. All of that (potentially) delicious resolution, color, and dynamic range can be totally obliterated by shooting through building glass and during the day, no less :)
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Totally. Although it would be a useful test simply to show potential zoom range I guess.
 
Like many here I’m quite excited at the prospect of the dvx200, so much so that I joined these forums just to join in the discussion!

I’m probably the exact target market that Panasonic have in mind for this camera, I cover promotional work for small businesses, training videos for corporate clients, weddings, events, just about anything really (notably except short film).

I’ve never owned a camera with interchangeable lenses, I’ll be honest, a lot of the discussions in this thread regarding lens specifics, sensor size etc have gone over my head. My camera history just hasn’t required me to grasp all of that considering the work I do. Going from a sony a1e, to a sony ex1, which is now failing me with an intermittent fault. I need something of the same form factor as the ex1, the Sony Z100 grabbed my eye but after finding out about the low light performance that idea was quickly scrapped.

So the dvx200 appeared and it looks like it’s ticking all of the boxes (well other than not being sony!) Being able to crop into the picture for the 2in1 wide and close up for HD is very appealing (no more hiring of a second camera for interviews), future proofing with 4k quality, good low light quality (signs point to this but yet to be confirmed) and lots of other things on top.

It being a fixed lens may put a lot of people off, but for the same reason it’s exactly what people like myself require. For some reason I don’t like the term ‘run & gun’, but there’s not many other ways to describe what guys like myself do.

I’m certainly looking forward to this camera, my pre-order is already in!
 
i am in the same situation as you, guy above me, except i am not so eager i will pre order, want hands on reviews (preferably from articulate users rather than websites/magazines as those tend to be overly positive) before i jump.
 
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