Confused potential buyer needs help

Blade Borge

Blade Borge

Well-known member
Hey I've been living under a rock and am just now hearing about the great news that is the HMC-150. I've been reading the forum for about an hour now but I'm still not sure if I can handle this camera for my line of work.

I need a main camera to complement my HV30 for weddings, interviews, concerts that I shoot.

I have a HP desktop with intel core2 quad processor 2.50ghz, 4 gigs of ram, 500g HD, GeForce 9300 card. Vista 64bit. I use Premiere CS4, no additional software for capturing.

I have about 3 grand to spend, I love the idea of going tapeless, do you think this is the camera for me?

Also the SD card talk is really confusing me, 8 gigs equals how much high quality HD footage? 16? 32? Thanks for your comments.
 
These questions are hard to answer as everyone is different, but in my opinion:

YES!


Also, to give you an idea, I did a test with a 16g card and shot 1 hr 47 min at max quality before it stopped. This should give you a ballpark figure about how much footage 8 and 32g cards should hold. Your computer should handle it with no problem. I use mine with the HV30.
 
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On my 16 gig card, I'm getting just shy of 100 minutes at 1080p/24 (not that it matters, as the bitrate is the same for everything at the highest quality setting).

Also, mine was $3,200... but with extra batteries it was closer to $3,600. Once you figure in a good tripod for it, you're looking at about $4k.
 
Yeah, you aren't going to get this equipped for a wedding for $3000. $4000 is more like it and that is without mics. I'm surprised actually that you are filming weddings with an HV30, but to each his own. If you want a good compliment to your HV30, why not get another HDV cam that is much cheaper?
 
Well I haven't started shooting weddings with the HV30...yet, it would be a nice little backup, b-cam in the back. The reason I would want this over another HDV cam is because HDV cams and the HMC are within the same price range, although the HMC looks muchhhh cooler.

So do y'all think my system could edit through PH footage pretty quickly?
 
You shouldn't have any problem editing your footage with that setup. I'm running a core two duo 2.8ghz and 3g ram. When I get into about 30 min to an hour maybe i slow down a bit but that could also be do to having other programs running. CS4 is great too. You can edit all the footage natively and if you do come across any issues you can use Adobe Media Encoder to convert the footage without loosing the quality. You should be fine!

Also at PH 1080/24p I get 98 min on a 16g card. The camera is great and also very light so I personally thinks its great for the hand held wedding videographer.
 
really? that's awesome! I guess I'm convinced now, HMC must be the way to go!

One other question, I hear people talk about the hassles of transcoding, when does this process occur, in camera or when I'm transfering files the PC? Is it it really that bad or is it easier than capturing?
 
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Blade Borge said:
really? that's awesome! I guess I'm convinced now, HMC must be the way to go!

One other question, I hear people talk about the hassles of transcoding, when does this process occur, in camera or when I'm transfering files the PC? Is it it really that bad or is it easier than capturing?
Click to expand...

Its done in your computer with software, and is still easier and more convenient than capturing. You can use programs like Cineform's Neo Scene ($129) which has a great codec and also removes pulldown from the 24p footage from your HV30, or the free DVCPro transcoder from Panasonic.
 
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