Ralph Oshiro
Veteran
12/07/2005 Los Angeles, California
I attended DV Expo West 2005 on Wednesday afternoon and made these observations:
Noise:
Unfortunately, the 17" Panasonic LCD monitors on display in Panasonic's booth make the camera look much noisier than it actually is. I studied another HVX200 engineering protoype on loan to Samy's Camera, which was located in their booth across the hall, which was the only exhibitor which was showing the HVX200 on an HD CRT monitor. The HVX200 was connected via analog component HD to the respective inputs of a 14" Sony HD CRT. Images from the HVX200 were far less noisy when viewed on the CRT (judging only from the live camera output). On the 17" Panasonic LCDs, when viewing playback of footage that contained swaths of blue sky, severe aliasing, and unacceptably high amounts of picture noise were visible, much of this, I assume, attributed to the display technology, and not the camera. When the camera was put into either +6dB or +12dB gain, in my opinion, the noise level was unacceptably high, even when viewed on the Sony HD CRT.
Sensitivity:
The short answer is, apparently 1-stop less sensitive than an HDX400. The terrific news is that HVX200 did NOT appear to lose any sensitivity when switching recording modes from 480i/60i to any of the HD progressive modes in 24P.
Methodology:
An engineering prototype HVX200 and an HDX400 were both framed on a chip chart illuminated in Tungsten light at 60 footcandles. Utilizing the Panasonic 17" LCD display's built-in waveform monitor, the chart's white chips (89.9% reflectance) were irised on each camera to expose it at 100% IRE. The HDX400 was in 1080i/60i mode (the HDX400 does not do 24P) at what I assume was a 1/60th of a second shutter speed. The HVX200 was tested in all recording modes. Specifically, when set at 1080i/24p or 720p/24p, with a 180-degree shutter angle, the HVX200 managed an f-stop of f/2.8. The HDX400 imaged the same chip at 100% IRE at f/4.0. The HDX400 is rated at f/10.0 @ 2,000 lux, according to Panasonic.
I attended DV Expo West 2005 on Wednesday afternoon and made these observations:
Noise:
Unfortunately, the 17" Panasonic LCD monitors on display in Panasonic's booth make the camera look much noisier than it actually is. I studied another HVX200 engineering protoype on loan to Samy's Camera, which was located in their booth across the hall, which was the only exhibitor which was showing the HVX200 on an HD CRT monitor. The HVX200 was connected via analog component HD to the respective inputs of a 14" Sony HD CRT. Images from the HVX200 were far less noisy when viewed on the CRT (judging only from the live camera output). On the 17" Panasonic LCDs, when viewing playback of footage that contained swaths of blue sky, severe aliasing, and unacceptably high amounts of picture noise were visible, much of this, I assume, attributed to the display technology, and not the camera. When the camera was put into either +6dB or +12dB gain, in my opinion, the noise level was unacceptably high, even when viewed on the Sony HD CRT.
Sensitivity:
The short answer is, apparently 1-stop less sensitive than an HDX400. The terrific news is that HVX200 did NOT appear to lose any sensitivity when switching recording modes from 480i/60i to any of the HD progressive modes in 24P.
Methodology:
An engineering prototype HVX200 and an HDX400 were both framed on a chip chart illuminated in Tungsten light at 60 footcandles. Utilizing the Panasonic 17" LCD display's built-in waveform monitor, the chart's white chips (89.9% reflectance) were irised on each camera to expose it at 100% IRE. The HDX400 was in 1080i/60i mode (the HDX400 does not do 24P) at what I assume was a 1/60th of a second shutter speed. The HVX200 was tested in all recording modes. Specifically, when set at 1080i/24p or 720p/24p, with a 180-degree shutter angle, the HVX200 managed an f-stop of f/2.8. The HDX400 imaged the same chip at 100% IRE at f/4.0. The HDX400 is rated at f/10.0 @ 2,000 lux, according to Panasonic.
