HPX250: AJ-PX270 new youtube video

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digitalgecko

Well-known member
Sounds pretty good. Claiming ultra slow zooms are possible.
They moved the mic inputs. One at the top of the camera and one at the right back of the camera.
Good if you are inputting from a board, but not so good if you have two wireless units in the top shoe mount.
Overall looks pretty nice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVBiUI32Ur0
 
looks great, but probably the most annoying voice over in history.

that being said, i'll probably buy one
 
I noticed that during the zoom demo, the camera briefly lost focus. Also, they did not show the start of the zoom out, the video simply cut to it. That makes me suspicious that it really isn't any better than the HPX 250. I'm not happy with the XLR placement. On the plus side, the new batteries have a level display.
 
Voice over style is almost like short poetic recital. Perhaps this guy's new to the industry.

The on-screen level gauge will be useful for me because countless times I have a very hard time balancing the horizon. Shooting at the ocean and the sky looks easy. But if you're there the whole day and looking into the VF, your sense of balance is off. I mean way off due to the environment immersion. Tried to close my left eyes and look only in the vf, it's still biased for some odd reasons. The only way to overcome this is to either get a 9" ext monitor and look backward away from the scene or use any 2/3" cam w/ custom user box for balancing straight.

OLED VF is nice but I rather stick w/ super hi-res B&W like the AJ-VF21KG. In fact, I turn off all colors on the HPX-250 and choose B&W for easy focus.

Super smooth servo crawl zoom in/out is just not possible with a $5K camcorder. Gimmick. It may be improved a bit but no where close to the one on 2/3" EFP HD lens where it has precision 16-bit super fine start and stop motors.

Disappointing 22x lens. Looks like the same one as the HPX-250. Lens is not P's top priority.

Not really compelled to upgrade due to the same 22x lens design. Front rec, dual media recording are nice but not essential. If they changed to Fujinon like the Sony PMW200, I'd upgrade. But somehow this is very similar to the Sony PMW200 in design. The ext QHD IPS lcd screen is on the top just like PMW200!.
 
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THoff said:
I noticed that during the zoom demo, the camera briefly lost focus.
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Did you notice that they put a note on there that said "camera is in manual focus mode"? I'm thinking this was just a poor choice by the editor, to use a shot of a zoom that isn't in focus. They really should have reshot it instead of trying to cover their own mistake with a little note in the corner.


probably the most annoying voice over in history
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I'm sure Terry Lasater could dig up a more annoying one, but -- yeah, this one was pretty bad.

That said, the camera looks good.
 
So what do we think about this guy overall? Not really an improvement (i.e. Fixing the issues people had with the it) over 250 except micro p2 slots and the new codecs?

Anyone know if sd cards can be used instead of microp2?
 
New buyers: Lucky you. Having the latest bell & whistles for a 1/3" class cam. If I'm not mistaken, the QHD IPS 1.5 Mpixel LCD screen is not even on their latest 2/3" PX5000! I'm sure this latest and sharpest screen will be on the upcoming Varicam 3 & 4. LCD sharpness matters especially w/ the HPX-170 to HPX-250. And there is a huge leap from the HVX-200's LCD to the HPX-250. Night and day improvement in sharpness and clarity.

Upgrade fr HPX-250: No urgent rush. But one should plan to get rid of their HPX-250 before it depreciates further.

They still haven't disclose whether DRS will work in 1080/30pN or 24pN. It will in regular 60i but I don't like 60i. If DRS works in 1080pN, it'll be a worthwhile upgrade. I couldn't believe how much I use DRS on 2/3" AJ series cam. It's now almost 90%! It's an amazing DSP for soft and even look under unfavorable lighting conditions.

3rd party SDHC Class 10 should work but not at the full AVC-I 100 codec. Those tiny SDHC cards are very easy to get misplaced and lost in the field. One distraction or slip up in storing the SDHC card in your wallet or in a bigger case will be all over for your footage. I probably would use it as a redundant backup recording if the 64 Gb SDHC cards are at $100/unit. No need to do double offload.
 
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Josh Bass said:
Not really an improvement (i.e. Fixing the issues people had with the it) over 250 except micro p2 slots and the new codecs?
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Not sure how you could think that yet... I mean, what issues are you referring to? Nobody's tested it yet, so we don't know what type of fixes it may have implemented. And we don't know what performance increases it may have over the HPX250; the 250 is using the chipset from the original HPX300 which is now almost 5 years old, so -- it's entirely possible that this new PX270 might have a new chipset, might have a new lens, we don't know yet.

The design seems like they're going upmarket some -- it has 3G SDI, it has an OLED viewfinder (if there's one constant complaint about Panasonics, it's about the viewfinder), it has a new screen, it has 1080/60p, it has AVCI-200, it has Micro-P2, it can probably record AVC-LongG on regular SDXC cards, and it has wireless connectivity so you can be uploading files while they're being recorded, for the fastest shoot-to-editing workflow we've seen yet. Seems like some fairly substantial improvements in usability and workflow.

If it does turn out to have new sensors and/or a new lens, it could be a nice step up in quality too.

I'm optimistic about it.
 
What I meant was, my research on the 250 turned up many bad things about that lens (or at least user complaints)---soft on wide shots, uneven sharpness (soft on edges, sharp in middle), not always holding focus while zooming, and the stopping down to 3.2 at the end of the range. Of course the P2 cost was a factor too, but mainly the lens stuff.

regarding tiny card size, aren't SD and Micro P2 pretty much the same size?
 
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Barry_Green said:
Did you notice that they put a note on there that said "camera is in manual focus mode"? I'm thinking this was just a poor choice by the editor, to use a shot of a zoom that isn't in focus. They really should have reshot it instead of trying to cover their own mistake with a little note in the corner.
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Yes, I was amazed at that. I'm wondering if they're still playing with the focus section of the firmware and added that message to shift blame.


it has AVCI-200,
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According to the preliminary brochure, Intra200 is optional. Which, in all honesty, I'm fine with, especially if it means they can sell the camera a little cheaper. I really can't see any 1/3" sensors being able to produce a signal worthy of Intra200.


it can probably record AVC-LongG on regular SDXC cards,
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Reading between the lines, I think that's likely, too.

One format that interests me is LongG25. Panasonic state that G25 produces similar quality to MPEG2 at 50Mb/s.
Comparing AVC-LongG25 to MPEG-2 compression adopted by other vendors with a bit rate
of 50Mbps and 8-bit 4:2:2 sampling, AVC-LongG25 archives comparable or better picture
quality with a 50% bit rate saving over MPEG-2.
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I'd also like to see a LongG50 and 1080/60p. That's conspicuous by it's absence from the AVC-Ultra spec.

I'm optimistic about it.
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Me too. This is the first of the recent camera releases that ticks many of my boxes.
 
Josh Bass said:
regarding tiny card size, aren't SD and Micro P2 pretty much the same size?
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They are exactly the same size and even share a similar connection configuration. Electrically, SD cards will work in MicroP2 slots. It's just a case of how much SD support is included (if any) in the firmware.
 
I will give it an optimistic view at this point too. The fact that they mentioned zoom motors is a posiitive sign. The addition of good 25 & 50 mbps codecs plus a new chipset are nice as well. If they actually added a color matrix to the menu it would be a slam dunk.
 
Bassman2003 said:
I will give it an optimistic view at this point too. The fact that they mentioned zoom motors is a posiitive sign. The addition of good 25 & 50 mbps codecs plus a new chipset are nice as well. If they actually added a color matrix to the menu it would be a slam dunk.
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12-position color matrix control on a $6K cam will pretty much remove the need to buy their $30K 2/3" AJ broadcast series cam. How about Film Rec Gamma and 120 fps and called it a mini Varicam? If they can pull that off, the next challenge would be not overheat the 1/3" PX170 w/ the extra circuits. But very unlikely for a corporation where profit matters.
 
Did you see that $6k figure confirmed somewhere or are you speculating? I guess thats perfectly reasonable, its just...man.
 
I think Barry summed up the positives of the camera nicely. AVC/Ultra codecs, sharp viewfinders, pro connections. Micro P2 cards are really nice. In the video, at the 1:15 mark, they say the sensors are new. Can we assume they're not the ones from the 250?

What will be this camera's competition? The PXW-Z100 will do 1080/60P and even does 4K. The 1/2" PMW-200, but it won't have 1080/60P. The XF305 is still around, but again, no 1080/60P. Maybe the PMW-300, but will it do 1080/60P? Who knows?

For me, it'd be between the PX-270 and the Z100. For your typical HD shoot, the 270 seems more versatile than the Z100, with its AVC/Ultra. The Long-G will save a lot of drive space.
 
After seeing some 4K footage from the AX1 I have lost interest in the AX1 and Z100. The sensor has significant blooming (as I'd expect from a single chip system with such small pixels) and the noise level, even at moderate light levels is significant. The noise does improve when scaled to HD, but then you've lost the one major advantage the Sony cameras have.
 
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