Choosing an Panasonic Camcorder

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UrielR

New member
Well first let me describe myself and the uses for the camcorder. I am a student at a high school. There I have created a theater program. In the program, I will be doing plays, movies, mini tv shows, etc. In addition, the school has put or at least requested that I record some school events as well, sports, rallies, etc. I have recorded plays and have done 2 full featured films in school.

I was very proud when I finished them, especially with the work I put in with the actors, but the video quality and sound quality had made the videos not much of a success and in my mind disasters. I promised then never to create half-baked or such crude works ever again and so saved up a couple of thousand dollars and raised money with some investors to buy a worthwhile camcorder and sound as well.

I plan to do the best with what I can have, which goes now what can I afford and get. I was looking into the HMC40, HMC150, and HPX170. I have tried the HMC40 and was satisfied with daylight results, but in more darker places, like home at night with some lights on and at a school dance, the camera did terrible. I tested the HMC150. Although I received the HMC150 later than the dance, so I could not test it, I tested it at home. The quality I thought was substantially better and so returned the HMC40, Even though the HMC150 had a more yellow tone and the HMC40 had a more white tone.

At this point I request recommendations from people actually in the business. I just might be able to buy the HPX170, even though the P2 cards are expensive for my taste. Is the quality better and warrant the increase in cost. Are there enough differences in the Codec to recommend the HPX170 more (AVCHD vs DVCPRO HD)? Are the 4 channels in the HPX170 important or the 2 channels in the HMC150 are enough or should I just record sound completely separately?

I am lost. This is something that I plan to do for some time and actually created a class for it. Although I am not the most knowledgeable person, I plan to study wholeheartedly to create a worthwhile film, plays, the works. I have tried a couple of years to create the program I am doing now and cannot allow to fail like in other years. I plan to buy one of Barry Green's books once the camcorder is decided.

I thank you for taking the time to read this very long description. And iif you have any recommendations or useful tips, they are most welcome.
 
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In daylight the HMC40 would do well, of course, but for the uses you're talking about indoors, if there's not enough light then it has to use a lot of gain, and that can produce muddy results. An HMC40 needs an adequate supply of light to deliver its best results.

The HMC150 needs much less light (about 1/8 as much) to deliver good results.

As for the 170 vs. 150 -- they're largely the same hardware, with the primary difference being the codec (and lots of other features such as variable frame rates, time lapse, etc). If you don't need those features, the 150 might be ideal for you, especially if you have to record long events.

As for sound quality -- using external microphones or plugging into the theater's sound system will result in a million times better quality than anything you'd get from an on-camera microphone.

The HPX170's four channels are only accessed through the two external inputs and the onboard stereo mic. I don't know that that should be a significant consideration for you.

The real question is about workflow and budget. The HPX170 is a better, more full-featured camera than the HMC150, but it's also more expensive and its media is more expensive. If you don't need what the HPX170 can do for you (and I suspect you don't), I think the HMC150 would be the better buy for you, given your (presumably) limited budget and the long-form recording you're talking about doing.
 
First of all, I bow to Barry in the technical aspects. Buy his book on the 150 if you opt to go that way.

I looked at the 150 (actually the 151 as I am in europe) and the 170 (171) and decided to go with the 150 (151) because I needed to buy multiple (3) cameras and a mass of memory cards (I typically come away with 8-9 hours of footage at a time - calculate SDHC vs P2 on that !) and the 150 (151) did a good enough job that the differences between the 150 and 170 were not enough to worry about. When things get slightly noisy (as they tend to do in extremely low light requiring 12db-18db) then a modest touch with NeatVideo makes things perfectly acceptable for all but the most discerning connoisseur.

I do use an external mic (either Rode or Sennheiser wireless) for important audio. The built in mic is 'ok' but not brilliant. I also plug i to the house board where ever possible and mix in post.
 
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Yes, unless you have pretty unlimited funds, the HMC150 sounds like the way to go. One caveat, which keeps me using the HVX as my primary camera, IS the audio. The HMC has a fairly low tolerance on line-in signal level, and only records compressed (AAC) audio. The HVX (and HPX170) record four channels... two of which are always the internal mics - this does provide the benefit of a backup in case your main audio has problems, which may well be the case sometimes when plugging into the sound board at high school productions...

If the camera will be your main AUDIO recording device as well as video recording device, you may want to consider the advantages of the 170 over the 150... but, given the cost of media, an even better idea would be a 150 and a decent outboard audio recorder....

Other than audio, however, the HMC sounds right!
 
Thank You

Thank You

I must thank you all for the replies you all have given. Thank you Mr. Green for the technical explanation. Thank you Exact for your experience. I guess you are right Ullanta, my most difficult problem now is finding a good way to record sound. My school does not have theater or an auditorium for that matter, I am starting the program as I love film and theater. As I do not know what variable frame rates or time lapse are used for, I guess I may not need them.

For audio, what is recommended? Exact had mentioned Rode or Sennheiser wireless for important sound but how can I use it in practice? Anyone have a clear cut place to find such info, the web can be such a big place.
 
For sound... first sit a few minutes and think through all the sound-recording situations you may run into... sounds like there will be many, requiring a few different sound setups. Recording stage productions is very different from recording film dialogue or recording music... and some idea of your budget would help, too!

But in brief, if you will be shooting a lot of stage productions and want high quality, I'd get at least a 4-track recorder (Sound Devices 744t? Edirol R-4Pro or R-44?), a set of boundary mics for the stage surface, a general purpose pair of stereo mics (always recommend the Oktava 3-capsule stereo pair as a good workhorse set!), a decent shotgun, and perhaps a wireless lav setup to cover everything... unless physical limitations prevent it in a given situation, you'd record with the recorder but also feed the signal from the recorder to the camera as a guide track, or for quick edits where you don't care so much about ideal sound and don't have time to sync.

So... let us know a little more about the situation and budget, and we can chime in better!
 
For my funds, I have relatively 1000 left as my total stash, give or take 100 and a few hundred more I can fund raise. The editing software I can get through my sister at the university. I wonder though, would it be best to have the HPX170 as its sound is uncompressed? My worry is aligning the sound when editing video as well as the sound on the HMC150 is compressed. Mr. Green did say that the HPX170 is more Full Featured, is that worth the cost? I am looking at the features and the main differences I see are the time lapse (which I have not seen on the spec sheet but was mentioned as a feature) and the variable frame rate. Did I miss something? Is the DVCPRO-HD codec that much better using cost analysis? Would variable frame rates be useful when recording sports? Would it be too expensive to store footage discounting the memory required to record it or my budget would likely be best kept with the AVCHD format?

As you can see I am very new to this and hope that my questions are not too problematic or annoying. Just that with the amount I have worked for and raised, I hope everything goes perfectly.
 
I'd get the hmc150 and be happy with it, it's very very good and so is the 170, but you get cheaper media, and more budget for good accessories (tripod, lighting, sound, etc.). With the work I've done (everyone has different experiences), P2 Recording times get expensive for long-form stuff like plays and the footage takes up considerably more space initially. While transcoding AVCHD will produce similar sizes, you can choose to keep the raw footage small and transcode only the files you want to edit.
 
UrielR said:
For my funds, I have relatively 1000 left as my total stash, give or take 100 and a few hundred more I can fund raise. The editing software I can get through my sister at the university. I wonder though, would it be best to have the HPX170 as its sound is uncompressed? My worry is aligning the sound when editing video as well as the sound on the HMC150 is compressed. Mr. Green did say that the HPX170 is more Full Featured, is that worth the cost? I am looking at the features and the main differences I see are the time lapse (which I have not seen on the spec sheet but was mentioned as a feature) and the variable frame rate. Did I miss something? Is the DVCPRO-HD codec that much better using cost analysis? Would variable frame rates be useful when recording sports? Would it be too expensive to store footage discounting the memory required to record it or my budget would likely be best kept with the AVCHD format?
Click to expand...

If you really are concerned with $1000 for audio and important camera accessories, then I'd say definitely go with the HMC because the money you save (on the camera and especially the media) is much better spent on other things. In some ways, AVCHD gives a better result than DVCProHD (AVCHD is full-raster, DVCProHD is not). The most important thing you'd want variable frame rates for in sports is extreme slow motion; that can be achieved with the HMC pretty easily (e.g., you can't choose as many frame rates as with the 170, but you can get the same extreme slow motion). So I'd say definitely go with the HMC and a dedicated sound recorder (which will work as a preamp to feed the HMC as well)... and use the extra $$ for all the other essentials (mic systems, support systems, lights, etc...)
 
It is Official then, I will stay with the HMC150. Now First thing first, order Barry Green's book on the HMC150, research on dedicated sound recorder, research video editor (I have both Windows computer and Mac laptop), and see what else I should buy.
 
ullanta said:
The HMC has a fairly low tolerance on line-in signal level, and only records compressed (AAC) audio.
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Hmm.. I have not experienced that. (the low tolerance).

AAC compression is actually a pretty decent audio compression algorythm.

one thing. The HMC is not a full raster chip either. In fact it uses the same lens/chips as the HPX. It does record 1920x1080 in the codec (with pixel shifting like it's brothers) while the DVCPROHD codec records 1440x1080. All be it with a less compressed algorithm and intraframe (and 4.2.2 color) encoding vs AVCHD's (h.264) interframe (and 4.2.0 color space).

I suggest always leaving your ALC (limiter) on in the camera, on any of these three cams.
 
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Hi Denwa... I did some extensive testing, posted on here somewhere, comparing the HMC, HVX, and DVX; the two HMC's I tested, at least, showed input clipping at much lower levels than the others - don't remember what it was, and too tired to search now, but the levels are there. The limiter doesn't help; this is in a preamp stage before the limiter. Not terrible; but it means that the signal levels may need to be padded in situations where you wouldn't expect the need, and the possibnility of nasty sounding clipping even when the levels look very low. Just something to be aware of!

AAC is OK as a final delivery format, but I don't like it for acquisition - when you have to boost the levels in post, you start noticing the artifacts. Again, not terrible, but something to be aware of!

And, yes on all counts about the chips and codecs; but I don't think that will matter for the O.P. The 4:2:0 vs. 4:2:2 color issue is somewhat mitigated by the full-raster recording of the HMC; and the H.264 vs DVCProHD in high-quality modes is an open debate. Given the media-cost differences, I think in this case the convenience of virtually unlimited recording space trumps any codec differences....
 
ullanta said:
Hi Denwa... I did some extensive testing, posted on here somewhere, comparing the HMC, HVX, and DVX; the two HMC's I tested, at least, showed input clipping at much lower levels than the others - don't remember what it was, and too tired to search now, but the levels are there. The limiter doesn't help; this is in a preamp stage before the limiter. Not terrible; but it means that the signal levels may need to be padded in situations where you wouldn't expect the need, and the possibnility of nasty sounding clipping even when the levels look very low. Just something to be aware of!

AAC is OK as a final delivery format, but I don't like it for acquisition - when you have to boost the levels in post, you start noticing the artifacts. Again, not terrible, but something to be aware of!

And, yes on all counts about the chips and codecs; but I don't think that will matter for the O.P. The 4:2:0 vs. 4:2:2 color issue is somewhat mitigated by the full-raster recording of the HMC; and the H.264 vs DVCProHD in high-quality modes is an open debate. Given the media-cost differences, I think in this case the convenience of virtually unlimited recording space trumps any codec differences....
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That's the exact reason I bought my HMC150. Media costs compared to the HPX150. (My prefered camera will be what ever the HPX500's evenutal replacement will be - as long as it is NOT CMOS).

OK, I'll have to check out the audio clipping thing. I have not noticed it, but then I usually keep the levels below -12db.

I did record wild sound on stage at a concert with the onboard mic and didn't notice any problems. Actually there was one short moment when I was between the drums and a main speaker. I did notice some clipping. Rest of the events audio seemed OK though compressed as I was probably near or in the red for most of it. (On one channel, second channel was turned way down, I usually do this when recording wild sound).

So, you are saying that clipping can occur in the preamp before the limiter? That kinda defeats the point of a limier doesn't it? Can you post a link to your tests?
Is this something that can be fixed with new firmware or is it solely a hardware issue?

EDIT: I just reread your post. You are saying you noticed clipping even when the levels were low? I have not noticed that myself. Except for that before mentioned moment when the camera was between loud drums and an insanely loud main speaker, I have so far found my HMC's audio to be quite clean. It's only a few months old. Not sure if that makes a difference.
 
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There were a few threads on this a few months ago... lemme see... http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=165151 (some of my testing results are at http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showpost.php?p=1622274&postcount=181)

Since this was recognized and compensated for, I've had no audio issues with either of the HMCs I've used. And it was never clear if all cameras were like this...

("Clipping" can occur oin the analog or digital domain, at a few different points in the signal chain. The typical limiter sits between the preamp and the A/D converter, but it's also possible for the preamp INPUT to clip.. in which case, the preamp output might be very low even though the signal has clipping distortion. Some very safe equipment has multiple limiters at different stages of the signal chain... input limiters and output limiters...)
 
ullanta said:
There were a few threads on this a few months ago... lemme see... http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=165151 (some of my testing results are at http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showpost.php?p=1622274&postcount=181)

Since this was recognized and compensated for, I've had no audio issues with either of the HMCs I've used. And it was never clear if all cameras were like this...

("Clipping" can occur oin the analog or digital domain, at a few different points in the signal chain. The typical limiter sits between the preamp and the A/D converter, but it's also possible for the preamp INPUT to clip.. in which case, the preamp output might be very low even though the signal has clipping distortion. Some very safe equipment has multiple limiters at different stages of the signal chain... input limiters and output limiters...)
Click to expand...

Interesting. Without reading the whole 25 pages. What do you mean by "recognized and compensated for"?
 
Basically, in most cases just using more of the camera's gain than I would on the HVX or DVX. I found one of the gain positions on the dials that is the minimum "safe" gain... when the camera gain is at that level, the OUTPUT will clip before the input, and thus the meters and limiter are effective and no unexpected clipping noises occur. I don't have the camera in front of me, but will try to check and report in what that level is for me... but can't guarantee it's the same for other cams! A little testing will find this gain level for you...

-B
 
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