AG-DVX200 4K Large-Sensor Handheld Camcorder

Hi Greg
you are absolutely right. This test is useless. It is not me that did the test and I did not pay too much attention to the settings more the image. And that was wrong.
The best test would be from a setup with two DVX200: one with old and one with new firmware shooting in v -log and all the different scenefiles, but apart from that with ecxactly the same settings. It could also be interesting with tests comparing the best internal record mode with external 4:2:2 to see the difference. But that requires two cameras, a person who knows what he/she is doing, and a lot af time :-)
 
Since the DVX200 is marketed as a "run and gun camera" what can one expect from a typical run and gun situation...running to a news story, no time to set white balance, so relying on AWB. Should the camera work okay? Should the colors be in the ball park? Can you trust this camera to produce decent video on the fly, and look just as good as Panasonic;s $800 point and shoot cameras? I am really wondering about this.
 
greytail said:
Since the DVX200 is marketed as a "run and gun camera" what can one expect from a typical run and gun situation...running to a news story, no time to set white balance, so relying on AWB. Should the camera work okay? Should the colors be in the ball park? Can you trust this camera to produce decent video on the fly, and look just as good as Panasonic;s $800 point and shoot cameras? I am really wondering about this.
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Guess you will have to mKe some scenefiles yourself. Nobody seems to know whats going on tight now? Or does anyone knows if things are happening behind the scene?
 
greytail said:
Since the DVX200 is marketed as a "run and gun camera" what can one expect from a typical run and gun situation...running to a news story, no time to set white balance, so relying on AWB. Should the camera work okay? Should the colors be in the ball park? Can you trust this camera to produce decent video on the fly, and look just as good as Panasonic;s $800 point and shoot cameras? I am really wondering about this.
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At this point in time it's very debatable that this camera will ever turn out to be a run & gun camera as Panasonic has marketed it. Without another firmware upgrade and highly engineered scene files this will never turn out to be the camera that it was supposed to be.

Yesterday, I spent hours with the camera, back and forth between the DVX200 and my laptop. I had never shot V-log footage so I thought I would give that a try since anything shot with scene files has proved to be unacceptable. I shot random stuff around the house and yard. I had a couple of clips that just applying the V35 lut actually looked respectable. A bunch of other scenes required more tweaking in FCP after applying the lut.

My attempts at manual exposure using the waveform in V-log produced wildly variable results. I need to do some more reading on that but I thought that I was relatively close. Using the light meter and manually white balancing gave me the best results. Running in auto was second best but AWB while moving around shows it's recalculations. For the most part either footage still needed some work in post. Many of the blacks or grays end up wth a purple cast in them. This is more present at higher gains. This may also have something to do with my exposure or abilities but I'm leaning towards it being the camera.

If you are reading this and thinking of buying this camera for run & gun, this isn't the camera to buy.....at least not at this point in time. If I were Panasonic, I would be embarrassed. I really don't know if the DVX200 will ever be capable of producing a quality image right out of the camera and with no feedback from Panasonic or some decent baked in scene files yet to show up on the web, we can only say NO. I'm still waiting to hear back from Panasonic. If you are only a run & gunner then more than likely it's not within your abilities to come up with an acceptable scene file. The success of a camera marketed for run & gun lies almost solely on the manufacturer. I've come kind of close to getting the look that I was looking for by modifying an existing scene file but after getting it corrected for one aspect, something else gets blown out. I'll admit, I'm probably not the best person to be manipulating the color settings in a scene file but what's my other option.

Someone might be enclined to say that if people were looking for the image that comes out of a palm style recorder why didn't you just buy one of those. Well the problem is that the DVX200 doesn't have an image right out of the box that can compete with most of the HD cameras that have been released in the last five years. Sure, the image is clear but clarity is only one part of an image. I would think that the worst case would be that the DVX200 would look even a little better than any manufacturer's palm sized recorder and then you could tailor it for a more professional look from there. Instead, many people are scrambling in frustration to get an acceptable image from this brand new camera that doesn't even have a decent starting point.

Where am I at with this camera? Well, I do some run & gun work but probably more locked down work where I have time to break out a light meter and work between the camera and lighting to get the shot that I'm looking for. I probably hand off 65% of my footage and edit the other 35%. I don't think I can confidently hand off the footage from the DVX200 the way that it is now, but for the stuff that I edit, I may be able to deal with it if I want to. The question is, do I really want to? I guess that's what I need more time to think about. If Panasonic would just resolve these issues or speak up and say that they are aware of this then I be as happy and this would all be over.

My problem with returning the camera is that I bought it from B&H and I bought the Panasonic 5 year extended warranty which I have still not received from Panasonic after three weeks. I'm not sure where that will leave me as far as being able to return the warranty. If I return the camera I may be out $500 for the warranty just becuase Panasonic didn't deliver the product as marketed. I have until the middle of next week to return the DVX200 and all of the accessories that I bought for it. I may have to call B&H tomorrow and see what my options are. I really never thought that I would be in this situation and I can only blame Panasonic. I would honestly like to keep this camera if it showed me the results that not only I, but everyone else had been expecting. I think if Panasonic spoke up and said "we have our team looking over this and we realize that there are some issues but give us some time to get you the updates that the DVX200 needs", I would sit tight not worrying about the >$5000 that I put out for the camera, extended warranty and accessories. I bought the extended warranty in case the camera eventually developed a defect and that warranty doesn't apply to poor engineering.

I owned a Panasonic U-matic recorder and camera combo back in the mid 80's and I loved it. A while after that I had switched to buying Sony becuase they offered what I was looking for at the time and I've stuck with them ever since. Having an open mind and looking at all of the current offerings for 4K, I really thought the DVX200 had what I was looking for and it was going to be my transition back to Panasonic. I guess that makes my frustrations even greater. I'm starting to feel like maybe I should have known better. I really suspected that the image quality would be the least of any caveats that would have come up.

Ok, so you guys that are cringing behind the scenes at my rant, someone had to say it. If there is a reason that we should all expect this to go away anytime soon, let's hear it. Again, I really want to like this camera but it's money out of my pocket and not my employer's.
 
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I have spend a lot of time trying to investigate this camera now. I have been so close to buy it, but evertime I tried to find a few positive statements about it or find footage that could convince me this should be my replacement/supplement for my GH3 and DSLRs, I got second thoughts. The camera sure looks impressive on paper, but when it comes to really convincing footage it does not impress me very much. I really got excited when Barry Green did announce the firmware update, but we still have to see what it really did to the camera. So I guess I have to wait and see. I really had high hopes for the DVX200. I have missed my HMC151, mostly for its camcorder capabilities. The footage was not always the best, but I have made a living with that camera. Then I changed to DSLRs and GH3' but I am annoyed by all the rigs, lenschanging, rigs and external audiorecording, Nd filters etc. It goes fine in 50% of the time, but in the field in dusty enviroment, with the demand for quick zooming etc, it does not work. So the DVX200 just sounded so good. But I have now realized, that buying this camera is like buying an unfinished house, that still needs a lot of work to be a good place to live. Untill Panasonic does make something radical to this I guess I will not buy this camera.

It is posts like this http://forum.slashcam.de/viewtopic.php?p=820942#820942 (read the english posts from Journalist22) that makes it hard to be very optimistic about the future for the DVX200.... :-(
 
It's a bad designed camera if the LOG recording doesn't show a good and consistent result. It really should be to once learn the correct exposure and then just happy shooting.
 
Xoomtell said:
So the DVX200 just sounded so good. But I have now realized, that buying this camera is like buying an unfinished house, that still needs a lot of work to be a good place to live. Untill Panasonic does make something radical to this I guess I will not buy this camera.
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At least with a house you can figure out what that's going to cost you and you can have someone come in and fix it. What do you do in this situation if you hold out to the point that you can't return it? You're banking on the big machine of Panasonic to be on your side which may or may not happen.

I've noticed that the only real bad review on B&H's website was removed. When I read it, it was before I received my DVX200 and I even hit the thumbs down button or whatever you click to say that the review wasn't helpful. I thought maybe the guy just hadn't spent enough time with the camera. I'm not sure that a user can remove their own post so I question what happened there. Seems a little fishy to me. I'm not ready to review it on B&H's site. I'm kind of hoping someone in the know will chime in and calm our fears about what is going on. Barry whom appears to be the only insider on here has been silent for the last few days.

I'll be honest and say I'd rather not go through the return process in my situation as stated above. I seriously want to like this camera for the features that it has but we have to remember that it's a camera and I bought it to get nice video. It's kind of like buying an audio system that looks good but sounds bad. Luckily in both cases either can be returned. I don't think holding Panasonic to the term run & gun which has been said by many of their reps in You Tube videos during its release is unfair. Run & gun is just one of my applications for the DVX200 but to many, it's the only application their camera will ever see.

I really hope that in the future I'm a little disappointed at my rant above if the camera turns out to be a success but we're not hearing anything from anyone at this juncture that leads me to believe that will be the case. I don't think I've said anything that as of today is untrue. One can only guess what the future will hold.
 
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Are there lemon laws against bad cameras? Is the consumer protected at all? How about a class action to get our money back?
 
Nick Driftwood has the camera and said in the comments of a video he would do side by side with GH4 footage. Been three weeks and he hasn't followed through so maybe he's busy or didn't like the results and is waiting on Panasonic.
Has the highlight roll-off issue improved with the new firmware?
 
Its kind of funny how we are not seeing any new reviews or comments in this thread from the so called reviewers who get their cameras on loan for free. Wonder why they are silent...." I also notice the sellers have mysteriously disappeared!
 
mapper65 said:
At least with a house you can figure out what that's going to cost you and you can have someone come in and fix it. What do you do in this situation if you hold out to the point that you can't return it? You're banking on the big machine of Panasonic to be on your side which may or may not happen.

I've noticed that the only real bad review on B&H's website was removed. When I read it, it was before I received my DVX200 and I even hit the thumbs down button or whatever you click to say that the review wasn't helpful. I thought maybe the guy just hadn't spent enough time with the camera. I'm not sure that a user can remove their own post so I question what happened there. Seems a little fishy to me. I'm not ready to review it on B&H's site. I'm kind of hoping someone in the know will chime in and calm our fears about what is going on. Barry whom appears to be the only insider on here has been silent for the last few days.

I'll be honest and say I'd rather not go through the return process in my situation as stated above. I seriously want to like this camera for the features that it has but we have to remember that it's a camera and I bought it to get nice video. It's kind of like buying an audio system that looks good but sounds bad. Luckily in both cases either can be returned. I don't think holding Panasonic to the term run & gun which has been said by many of their reps in You Tube videos during its release is unfair. Run & gun is just one of my applications for the DVX200 but to many, it's the only application their camera will ever see.

I really hope that in the future I'm a little disappointed at my rant above if the camera turns out to be a success but we're not hearing anything from anyone at this juncture that leads me to believe that will be the case. I don't think I've said anything that as of today is untrue. One can only guess what the future will hold.
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I agree. A few comments from Barry to calm our fears would be quite nice right now...I would - like you - be more than happy to like this camera :-(
A lot of other companies has found out how important it is to have a good relationship with their customers. Having a dialog, listen to them etc. It seems to me Panasonic still lives in the 90's. This reminds me of when I once had some issues with my HMC151. I e-mailed Panaosonic and got an answer telling me they were sorry about my issues. I also suggested they took a look at their company website that was a joke at the time. After that I never heard a word. Finally I did get some help in here and from other users. But Panasonic was silent. I am tempted to say "Obi-wan Barry, you are our only hope" :-)
 
greytail said:
Its kind of funny how we are not seeing any new reviews or comments in this thread from the so called reviewers who get their cameras on loan for free. Wonder why they are silent...." I also notice the sellers have mysteriously disappeared!
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I certainly hope we will soon hear something from somebody else who knows whats going on. We are not coming anywhere with this...
 
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