How can you possibly compare the Panasonic HDC-TM300 with the HMC150?
They aren't even close.
AVCHD: "I don't get no respect."
- Thread starter arrestthisman
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How can you possibly compare the Panasonic HDC-TM300 with the HMC150?
They aren't even close.
Not the 150. The 40.
Anyway, being "not even close" is not a good enough reason for a consumer cam to not have 720p (AVCHD Lite digicams have it) or native 24p (older consumer models had it). I am not asking for a mechanical focus ring or a flip-out viewfinder or zillion of buttons. All I am talking about is firmware and deliberate market segregation. When you buy a laptop, you expect it to perform the same tasks as a desktop, to run the same OS, the same apps, to have the same functions? Consumer cams are laptops of the video world, but for some strange reason all you can get is Pentium III with Windows Me.
With respect -- this is wrong. You're asserting that the "front end" of the camera is irrelevant -- that the lens and sensors and controls mean nothing.
The codec in only one element of a camera. If you're asserting that a Canon Vixia is no different from an HMC150 -- respectfully -- you're wrong.
I can also add that using an HMC150 with a quality 35mm lens adapter has significantly upgraded what's coming out of the camera -- meaning the H.264/mpeg-4 codec can be exploited to even better potentials.
My hero, the great Barry Green, says I'm "better serviced by a cheap memory card."
I respectfully assert that cost is only one issue.
Twenty Sandisk Extreme 3 "30MB/s edition" cost just over two thousand dollars. This gives me thirty hours of "PH" capacity. Twenty of these cards fit in a tiny little box that's a bit big for a pocket -- but I could force these thirty hours into a pocket if I wanted.
Thirty hours of tape capacity? In a pocket? In a box? A large box? Weight of the box? Durability of tape issues?
(I'm intentionally ignoring SxS cards)
Okay -- P2 cards. How many for thirty hours of 720/60p recording? How many for thirty hours of 1080/24p?
At B&H -- an "A Series" 64GB P2 card is available for $2599.95. According to Panasonic the general idea is 1GB per minute of HD recording.
For thirty hours of recording capacity -- I'll need twenty-eight 64GB P2 cards. My inadequate math skills puts this around $72,798. Storage space of these twenty-eight cards? Weight of these twenty-eight cards? Do these twenty-eight P2 cards have some security feature that prevents me from being the dream target for a bag snatcher or corrupt airline/airport security thug? (go read the camera theft reports and tell me I'm "dumb" for considering this)
The good news is that Panasonic released an "affordable" series of P2 cards -- called the" E-Series." In September I can get twenty-eight of these from B&H for a mere $27,438 -- not including tax and shipping.
Again, weight? Cargo space? Logistics of travelling with these 28 cards?
Yes, I do understand there are ways to "offload" P2 cards -- but -- how much equipment? Flimsy/vulnerable hard drives? Travel logistics? And if I'm hauling around vulnerable hard drives -- doesn't this defeat the entire durability benefit of the P2 card?
So -- you take all of the above -- and then ask -- what are the problems with the HMC? I need to "transcode." Then there's the people who chant "4:2:2" and "intraframe." Can these issues be overcome in post? The answer is -- if you know what you're doing -- about 93% 'yes.'
Finally, there's the archiving issue. In terms of storage space on backup drives in my studio -- there's a universe of difference between DVCPROHD and the HMC150's H.264/MPEG-4 compressed files.
SO -- if there was a way to have those H.264/MPEG-4 files utilized in a post production workflow that resulted in something indistinguishable from the HVX/HPX170-300-500 "P2 workflow" -- what would you do?
The answer -- I gambled on the new thing -- and my company is turning out two documentaries produced with the HMC150/Letus Ultimate in the next 90 days. SO -- we'll find out if I'm the stupid sucker, or not.
My hero, the great Barry Green, says I'm "better serviced by a cheap memory card."
Respectfully -- I assert there's more to it.
In other words -- while I'm still waiting for the Red Scarlet -- perhaps Panasonic could create something that looks like an HMC150 that records AVC-ULTRA to SDXC cards.
Nope, I did not mean that.
I did not mean that either.
You can use a consumer camcorder with a 35mm adapter as well, so what?
I was not saying that a prosumer/pro camcorder is the same as a consumer one, this would be insane. All I said is that AVCCAM is just a BRAND. If Panasonic were GM, then AVCHD would be Chevrolet, and AVCCAM would be... well, I don't know, Buick, because P2 is Cadillac. AVCCAM does not guarantee using 3CCD system, because Panasonic is abandoning it. It does not guarantee using 24 Mbit/s, because the HMC70 records at 13 Mbit/s. It does not guarantee a full range of professional controls, because the HMC70 has pretty much the same controls as the consumer SD1, and the HMC40 has five buttons and a touch screen.
AVCCAM is a name for AVCHD camcorders sold under Panasonic Broadcast umbrella, this is it. This means more pro features on the body, like buttons, rings, waveform monitors and stuff, but it does not mean that encoding is anything better -- or different at all -- that on competitor's consumer models.
Panasonic carefully separated features on its consumer and pro lineups, but it cannot control what Canon is doing. Hence, you can have 24p (though over 60i) and 30p on the consumer Canons. You can have color peaking on the consumer Canons. You can have a 1/2.6-inch sensor on the consumer Canons. You can have built-in ND filters and a superfast iAF sensor on the consumer Canons. And yes, 24 Mbit/s bitrate with 4.1 profile too. All this in a palmcorder that costs $1000.
Barry_Green
Moderator
Why does everyone on the internet think they know what goes on inside these companies? Do you have spies in place who tell you what they're *really* planning?
Could there actually be a case to be made wherein the genius engineers and the product managers and the executives of a hundred billion dollar corporation might actually know something that the armchair quarterbacks don't know?
I mean, I know the companies don't necessarily do themselves any favors. People have been whining forever that P2 cards are "just 4 SD cards". It took forever to drag out of them what all the differences were between a P2 card's internal microcomputer, and some off-the-shelf compactflash card, and in my opinion they could have saved themselves a lot of hassle by coming out with this info earlier. But having dominated the market the way they have, it makes me think they might know what they're doing.
So -- the assertion being made here is "there's no valid reason, they just want to price-gouge you." Well, I guess if that's what you want to believe, you're free to, but maybe some little differences like a 3-year warranty and PH mode should be factored in? A 3-year warranty isn't necessarily free; go look up what a Mack 3-year warranty costs, I found one for $619.95. You wanna be fair, you have to factor that into the price difference.
Secondly, there's PH mode. PH isn't just about a few more megabits! PH mode uses a special technique called "multi-slice technology" to make it more efficient for computers to decompress. Instead of each frame in a GoP taking up a core of the computer, in the multi-slice it's my understanding that each frame is divided into quarters and each quarter is assigned to its own core, making individual frame extraction up to 4x faster.
I don't know all that multi-slice does, but it's something they specifically mention as an advantage of PH mode.
Thirdly, there's the sales and support staff. You buy from the consumer division, your sales/support guy is the kid at Best Buy that you bought it from. You buy from the professional division and you've got guys like Spec-Comm and Abel backing you up, and you can go further up the chain to a whole line of dedicated Sales Support Engineers who, depending on the size of the installation, will come out and configure your equipment, etc.
Of course, if none of that means anything to you, save some bucks and buy the consumer division product.
Yes, they most certainly do. They offer the multi-slice PH mode, they offer a 3-year warranty, and they offer the sales and support staff of the broadcast dealers and the sales support engineers. Find that, or anything comparable, on any "regular" AVCHD camera.
I'm not telling you you have to value it, I'm just saying that it's not accurate to pretend that it doesn't exist. There definitely is a difference.
Barry_Green
Moderator
Well, apparently you took offense at my statement, although I don't think you should have. As I look through your list, cost is pretty much the main issue throughout. Size being another, but even so, 30 P2 cards take up about the same amount of space as a single Anton Bauer battery, so I wouldn't say they're excessively large... but still, you are served better, for your purposes, by that small inexpensive memory card.
Do we disagree in principle? Or was it the use of the term "cheap" that causes the ruffled feathers?
I have acknowledged that long-form shooters are definitely better served by having lots of cheap memory available to them. Thirty hours is a LOT of footage to need to carry around in a pocket. We spent 9 days in Africa and came back with about 1.25 terabytes; at a gig a minute that's 20 hours. We used a 32 and a 64, and archived it to about $300 worth of hard disks.
There are definitely a whole range of shooters who are better serviced by using inexpensive/cheap/commodity memory cards. Anyone who has to hand over footage, for example. Anyone who, as you illustrate, wants to travel as lightly as possible. Anyone who wants to shoot 3 hours continuous on one card. There are many valid reasons for them to have developed and offered an inexpensive/commodity media system in addition to the P2 system.
Sorry if it came off as offensive.
Ummm... a USB cable?
Yes, so we duplicated the footage so each was on two drives, for redundancy and safety.
None, really -- all six drives fit in a pocket.
Not necessarily -- depends on where you're carrying these drives around. If you're throwing them in the back of an open-air jeep and 4-wheeling around and bouncing around, then yeah, you really have pretty much defeated the purpose, you're right. But if you're filling up your P2 cards during the day, and offloading at noon/night back in the hotel room, like we did, it becomes effortless and the risk is extremely reduced.
Indistinguishable? From an HPX300 shooting AVC-Intra? I think not, not by a long shot. Comparable to an HPX170/HVX200, sure, I can buy that. But it's not gonna match the sensitivity, noise performance, or dynamic range of a 500, and it's not going to be in the same class as the 300 in sharpness.
Not that I don't love the 150, I do, but let's keep it in perspective. It produces excellent footage, it produces footage that looks better than the original HVX200, and it does so on inexpensive commodity memory cards. But it's not an HPX300 or HPX500, not by a long shot.
Not gonna happen. There's no way they'll put their premium codec onto commodity memory cards. We'd all love the option, but I've beaten that into their heads for years and the simple fact is they're not going to budge. The premium intraframe codecs go onto the indestructible, loss-proof, raided microcomputers known as P2 cards.
We would all prefer premium recording on inexpensive media, but Panasonic's angle on it is that the media must be absolutely bulletproof. They're not going to trust AVC-Intra or AVC-Ultra to be recorded on an ADATA memory card that craps out on the user, and then have their Varicam 5700 blamed for the failure of a $10 memory card. That is simply not going to happen, there's no way they'd allow it.
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Barry_Green
Moderator
Not exactly though. The way I've heard it explained, AVCCAM means professional equipment that records AVCHD footage. It's not a format, it's a ... well, it's sort of a brand, but it's probably more to differentiate people away from the idea of all AVCHD = any AVCHD, so by extrapolation consumer = pro; they've put the 3-year warranty and the professional colorimetry and the PH mode into the AVCCAM products. So it is sort of a brand, like P2HD is a brand, but it's not really just a brand. There actually is more to it.
Er... are they? As I look up and down the broadcast lineup, there are sixteen professional camcorders offered. 14 of those 16 are 3-CCD. Experimenting with CMOS on a couple of models on the low end doesn't amount to "abandoning 3-CCD". Every Sony and Panasonic that's 2/3" (or larger) is a 3-CCD.
True, but the 70 came out before PH mode was introduced. The next pro model, the 40, does offer it, and I would expect any future model would as well.
This may be true, or it may be completely untrue, depending on what the full implications of multi-slice mode are. We should acknowledge that there's more to recording than just bitrate (as if the GH1 hasn't taught us that!) Panasonic's PH mode 24mbps may be significantly better, or the same, or even potentially worse, than Canon's 24mbps mode. Just because they're the same megabits, doesn't mean they use the same technology or toolset within those megabits.
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I can't believe that the argument here is so double sided, its pretty simple really, I have personally shot both cams (170 and 150) love them both, there is one thing I will admit hands down, to the naked eye, the footage is very similar, but what I have seen is that most production companies that are set up and invested in the p2 workflow are not going to start over and experiment or try to adapt a different workflow, I know dudes that will not shoot with the 150 because of workflow and they know exctly the image it will produce, its just two very different cams, I do see, I have seen where the difference in price is going towards, its a combination of things that you are paying for
arrestthisman
Well-known member
Ok guys, let me just apologize for making this post in the first place.
By the sheer amount of posts overnight, I can see I've touched a nerve...
In hindsight, I regret ever writing this. It just was turning over in my mind, and I felt like expressing it. Simple as that.
The last thing I wanted to spur is infighting.
I think they are all great cams, and used all of them. For my purposes the HMC150 made more sense, though I do disagree about money being the only factor in the choice.
I had the money for an HPX170, and I happened to like the workflow, and yes, the "look" of the HMC150 better (or rather, looked virtually the same, but the compression artifacts of H.264 look more pleasing to my eye than the artifacts of DVCPRO HD... This is PURELY taste, and nothing to do with which one is better).
So I apologize. I think we are all happy Panny owners and renters.
Lastly, I'd like to say that Jan is awesome, and I didn't know she wasn't part of the AVC lineup. That puts her in a whole new realm of awesome, because she has helped and answered questions in the HMC150 forum; which obviously, she did not need to do.
So once again, I'm sorry. This was not important enough to post. I hope we can just bury it.
By the sheer amount of posts overnight, I can see I've touched a nerve...
In hindsight, I regret ever writing this. It just was turning over in my mind, and I felt like expressing it. Simple as that.
The last thing I wanted to spur is infighting.
I think they are all great cams, and used all of them. For my purposes the HMC150 made more sense, though I do disagree about money being the only factor in the choice.
I had the money for an HPX170, and I happened to like the workflow, and yes, the "look" of the HMC150 better (or rather, looked virtually the same, but the compression artifacts of H.264 look more pleasing to my eye than the artifacts of DVCPRO HD... This is PURELY taste, and nothing to do with which one is better).
So I apologize. I think we are all happy Panny owners and renters.
Lastly, I'd like to say that Jan is awesome, and I didn't know she wasn't part of the AVC lineup. That puts her in a whole new realm of awesome, because she has helped and answered questions in the HMC150 forum; which obviously, she did not need to do.
So once again, I'm sorry. This was not important enough to post. I hope we can just bury it.
tony240sx
Well-known member
You Should be!!!
No I'm just kidding. Don't worry about it. This forum is for asking questions and expressing your concerns.
Jon Casey
Active member
Barry_Green
Moderator
A valid observation. DVCPRO-HD is based around the 8x8 block size, and AVCHD can go to as small as 4x4 blocks, making for smoother transitions when the bandwidth gets taxed, so yes you could see a difference there.
arrestthisman
Well-known member
Barry,
Thank you double for both the "pardon," and recognizing the validity of my preference for h.264.
I backed up a lot of my DVDs into 2-pass h.264 files for my SFF home theater comp a while back, and though I knew mp4 was much more advanced than mpeg-2-- I didn't appreciate how much. (Though the XDCAM implementation is pretty amazing looking to me.) The first thing I noticed when comparing the DVDs to the AVC files was that, despite having gone through a second round of compression, which would degrade the files, I always thought the AVC files looked better than their original VOBs. You'd think the most you'd get would be a lateral transition in quality, but they just looked better to me. The reality is that at least some info probably did get lost in the transition, but the "magic" (in other words, technical stuff that is beyond me and too complicated to sketch out here even if I were fluent in the tech) of the codec made the image more pleasing to my eye. My friends noticed a mild difference too.
Since then I kind of fell in love with h.264 for many applications. I still can't quite put my finger on all of it... partly it just seems to be sharp at the right times, and render motion with a nice blur.
Either way, I do love the way it looks, and that was a serious part of making the decision between the HMC150 or the HPX.
Just a quick aside: there are so many great cameras right now, with many more on the horizon. I was kind of worried that 2010 would come and RED's new offerings would be the only significant improvements. I like that all of the manufacturers keep rolling out new products. The GH1 and the hpx300 are a nice start. Panny has AVC-I which they can roll out any time in the low end market if the need to compete arises. And of course this doesn't take into account the other manufacturers, Canon, JVC... all doing neat stuff and being very competitive. It's nice to know that there will continue to be options. That there is no "THE camera." It's comforting to know that in a couple years, I'll have a choice, and can pick based on what options are most important to me, like low light, rather than a monolithic environment.
my 2 cents... keep the change.
Thank you double for both the "pardon," and recognizing the validity of my preference for h.264.
I backed up a lot of my DVDs into 2-pass h.264 files for my SFF home theater comp a while back, and though I knew mp4 was much more advanced than mpeg-2-- I didn't appreciate how much. (Though the XDCAM implementation is pretty amazing looking to me.) The first thing I noticed when comparing the DVDs to the AVC files was that, despite having gone through a second round of compression, which would degrade the files, I always thought the AVC files looked better than their original VOBs. You'd think the most you'd get would be a lateral transition in quality, but they just looked better to me. The reality is that at least some info probably did get lost in the transition, but the "magic" (in other words, technical stuff that is beyond me and too complicated to sketch out here even if I were fluent in the tech) of the codec made the image more pleasing to my eye. My friends noticed a mild difference too.
Since then I kind of fell in love with h.264 for many applications. I still can't quite put my finger on all of it... partly it just seems to be sharp at the right times, and render motion with a nice blur.
Either way, I do love the way it looks, and that was a serious part of making the decision between the HMC150 or the HPX.
Just a quick aside: there are so many great cameras right now, with many more on the horizon. I was kind of worried that 2010 would come and RED's new offerings would be the only significant improvements. I like that all of the manufacturers keep rolling out new products. The GH1 and the hpx300 are a nice start. Panny has AVC-I which they can roll out any time in the low end market if the need to compete arises. And of course this doesn't take into account the other manufacturers, Canon, JVC... all doing neat stuff and being very competitive. It's nice to know that there will continue to be options. That there is no "THE camera." It's comforting to know that in a couple years, I'll have a choice, and can pick based on what options are most important to me, like low light, rather than a monolithic environment.
my 2 cents... keep the change.
That is what I said. A brand. If you don't like Chevy/Buick, let it be Toyota/Lexus. When your Lexus needs a repair, you come to a nice dealership, you are taken care of by nice people, and you get a Lexus loaner. This does not mean that Lexus is any different from Toyota. The ES350 is the Camry with different sheetmetal, and in Japan they don't have Lexus at all, or at least did not have until recent time.
You consider warranty and other non-technical stuff to be a valid part of AVCCAM brand. This is a valid point of view. But when we talk about technical differences, there is nothing about AVCCAM that is different from "normal" AVCHD, at least when you compare to Canon models, not to deliberately crippled Panasonic's own consumer models.
Video is just data. The way it is assigned to a core depends on decoder. I guess what you meant to say is that Level 4.1 allows 4x4 macroblocks in addition to 8x8 macroblocks of the Level 4.0. Yes, Canon uses Level 4.1 too. I don't know whether Canon uses 4x4 macroblocks, many of encoding features are optional.
Sales staff? I know more than most of them do. I saw those sales reps at trade shows, they are trained to pitch whatever the Party proclaims. Ask them a question that steers one foot off and they would not know what to answer besides "this is what you want" and "no one makes it better than us".
Here you said it yourself.
Right. You can install Unix on an industry-robust system or on a laptop, you can store your CAD/CAM files on a RAID array or on a flimsy 1.8 drive, and the software manufacturer would not care, and no one in their right mind would make them liable if the media crashes and data is lost. But Panasonic cannot record AVC Intra onto anything but P2.
I am not against AVCCAM brand. What I am against of is deliberate market segmentation. Prior consumer AVCHD models could record native 24p, but the most recent ones cannot. Why? Panasonic does not care to explain, so all I have is to guess. As you rightfully said, Panasonic does not necessarily do itself any favors in terms of explaining its technical policy. It does not need sales pushers, it needs knowledgeable technical evangelists.
Please, don't apologize. You touched a nerve and thats good. I bought the HMC because I was impressed with its picture quality after doing quite a lot of comparison. Now I have some serious doubts wheater my decision was right to buy the HMC.
Not technically wise, but as I am also working as a director, for my next project I need to hire a DOP. I think there is and will be a "psychological problem" with the HMC if its not regarded as a professional cam due to this strange kind of marketing...
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How do you explain that one?
Because you would be downsizing quite a bit there to go to DVD from both cams :S
From Panasonics website- AVCCAM opens up a new world of creative possibilities for event videographers, schools, churches, website producers, law enforcement and much more.
Panasonic is not targeting broadcasters and other high end users for the hmc150. I think that might ruffle some 150 owners. It's only good business sense that Panasonic would want to sell their more expensive cameras to the higher end crowd.
We all know the 150 can hang with the 170 and the 200a, it's just that Panasonic doesn't want to promote it(in my opinion). For me the workflow of the 150 is absolutely liberating. I don't want to deal with laptops and hardrives and digital asistants. I would rather concentrate on lighting, composition, and coverage. I use my 150 for doing alot of commercials both local and national. The 150 is a great camera for broadcast, I just don't think Panasonic wants to promote it. The 150 is the baby, and "nobody puts baby in the corner."
Panasonic is not targeting broadcasters and other high end users for the hmc150. I think that might ruffle some 150 owners. It's only good business sense that Panasonic would want to sell their more expensive cameras to the higher end crowd.
We all know the 150 can hang with the 170 and the 200a, it's just that Panasonic doesn't want to promote it(in my opinion). For me the workflow of the 150 is absolutely liberating. I don't want to deal with laptops and hardrives and digital asistants. I would rather concentrate on lighting, composition, and coverage. I use my 150 for doing alot of commercials both local and national. The 150 is a great camera for broadcast, I just don't think Panasonic wants to promote it. The 150 is the baby, and "nobody puts baby in the corner."
Why not start your own company then?
"Deliberate market segmentation?" These companies are usually stockholder held, and are in the business of making money.