DVXuser.com exclusive hands on with the HVX200

I can imagine jan and the other Panasonic Reps laughing reading sony and JVC Releases, months ago... Man those were probably some great staff meetings!

You did it. Beautifully, gracefully, intelligently. You might have just accelerated the HD deelopment with your products, making it possible to produce independent quality content for HD. You make it possible for us to make MUCH cleaner transfers (and they aren't bad as they are now!). The only question I have is: who am I going to sell my DVX to, in order to raise the money?

This will brake the film barrier as the VX1000 did with broadcast video, and when everybody starts referring to panasonic for indie film production as they do sony with broadcast theese days, it will be clear it was worth it. That's the way to run a company! Congratulations!
 
WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Awesome.

Great job Panasonic.

Give the artists what they want and the art will get better.

I know a camera never made a great movie but the removal of barriers is very important in art and cost is one barrier.

Thanks so much.

And it takes the same batteries! Perfect, I have 20...
 
$10.000 for going HD?

man I was thinking to buy a 16mm SRII and I'll have to spent 20.000$, optics, movie tripods ($5000) and still need to buy negative and lab and transfer at a cost of $500 every 11 minutes.
And here in Ecuador we have no lab, so $500 more for every trip to transfer to Miami.

That cam it's free after shooting 200 minutes of footage.

And you guys still say that $9900 is pricey????
 
Wow, can't believe it !

Bravo Panasonic !
Thanks Jan !

When will it be available ?

I was dreaming about such a powerfull but lightweight camcorder...
It is reality !
 
Everything sounds great to me, accept one thing so far. I shoot mostly action sports and go hand held quite often. I can get a steadier low angle if i hold the camera from underneath with my left hand. I will do this also when doing some "follow cam" following along with the athlete on a skateboard. When you're doing this you're kind of shooting blindly with a wide angle adaptor, hence no monitoring your shot. So here's my worry: THE USER BUTTONS!

Anyone see how sloppy a situation this will become? The user buttons look almost unavoidable if your holding the camera from below. I can't wait to hit that "fade to black" preset on one of them and not know it.

PUT THEM BACK PANASONIC!!! This is VERY placement for anyone who shoots on a split second notice (and everyone does). Maybe you could include a "lock" button to disengage them?

Excited to get one, kind of scared to use it. . . for now!
 
What a piece of puff and fluff junk! Jan is clueless and Panny is...wait...hmmm...where and to whom do I place my advance order?! !@@! ...at a 15% discount, of course...

;-)
 
Well, I got up close to the camera as well, but I couldn't find where we got "hands on" with the camera, they just had the camera in a glass case on display. Maybe I missed the 4:00 meeting? I don't know, but at least I've seen the thing and there's always tommorow! But just to give you a good idea of how the HVX200 footage will look, I will reference the footage shown off for the new JVC. Imagine "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" or "Angel", that's about how good the JVC looked on 720/24p to me, not so good but close anyway. I figure you add in the advanced color space, the less compressed footage, all the added fine details, and you have something amazing!

I "piloted" the Varicam setup they had there and I must say, that camera is the best of the best that I saw today. A lot of the time, when I looked at the footage, the only differences I could notice were fine details, such as cracks in wood or stone rock detail, and color accuracy. Maybe there's too much thought going into resolution and picture quality?

By the way, judging from the XL2 footage I saw, some incredible stuff could be done with that camera. I don't think people have set the camera up right somewhere, because the XL2's on display at the Canon booth looked really filmlike and some of the demo footage they were playing looked very close to something along the lines of "Friends" and "Sex and the City". I don't know if it was lighting finesse or what. I don't think we should write Canon off yet, there's still some potential in there, even if it's in the SD domain.
 
I understand how P2 cards loom large in the future -- but this camera isn't shipping for maybe 6 months. Meanwhile, has there been any word at NAB about Panasonic's supposed release of their new AJ-SD225 deck? A ship date for this deck?

With component ins, and the abliity to record HD50 (and DV25) in the field, it would work nicely with the HDX when it DOES come out, and meanwhile it would make for great green screen work with any camera capable of component output. Like an old betacam...


According to Panasonic's February Press release, this new portable deck (retails for about 5k) will be able to accept component level signals. Since the HDX apparently has component ouptputs, it looks like this would be an alternative to cards till they get cheaper, that would also allow relatively inexpensive archiving of HD50 footage.

Anyone at NAB willing to check on this? Google searching for AJ-SD225 just brings up Panny's 2 month old press release!

Thanks!
 
Barry or Jarred, would this workflow work for the new camera? Say a person rent the AJ-HD1200A DVCPRO HD deck/vtr. Footage is transferred from the camera to this deck, then the deck's firewire connection sends the files to a G4 or G5 running Final Cut Pro HD for editing. Your G4/G5 is loaded up with 4 inexepensive (under $150) 250GB maxtor drives or 1 terabyte of storage. Theoretically, this workflow should work for this camera? I know this isn't ideal for mobile run and gun type shooting, but it could be ideal for the filmmaker shooting dolly, static, crane shots and even some handheld. It would be a lot less cheaper than buying the P2 cards and storing High Def files won't be a problem. Can you ask the Panasonic reps if this is doable. Many thanks.
 
RyanF said:
Anyone see how sloppy a situation this will become? The user buttons look almost unavoidable if your holding the camera from below. I can't wait to hit that "fade to black" preset on one of them and not know it.

PUT THEM BACK PANASONIC!!! This is VERY placement for anyone who shoots on a split second notice (and everyone does). Maybe you could include a "lock" button to disengage them?
Click to expand...

Just set the USER buttons to MODE CHECK and there is no harm done if pressed.
 
Ryan F, I don't think the DVX or the HVX is ment to be held in the way your trying to do. I film a lot of skateboarding and snowboarding...or at least I use to. So I know what your talking about. You should try and hold it by the handle ontop of the camera. But I'm sure you've found that if you do that the camera moves a lot from when you push off to keep up. So I guess you will just have to try and keep it steady when you move. Or try not to hit the buttons on the side when your filming. Also you could try and change your filming style a little and just plan your shots you so you only move a little and you use the zoom and focus to get your shots. But I understand that some of the lines people do go over a long distance and when you follow someone you get an idea of how fast they're going, which can be an important part of what your trying to get. I guess you can have your opinion about the button layout on the new camera but to try and lump everyone together that "shoots on a split second notice" is just your perception. I'm sure many people that shoot on a split second notice hold the camera the correct way.
 
This is a great time.....now more than ever there's no excuse to why not go out there and play with the big boys. People, get your crew, work the story, plan ahead and make a movie!!!!! Im so happy!!!! This fall is going to be GRRREEEAAAT!
 
Ernest_Acosta said:
What kind of monitor will be necessary for this camera and will Final Cut HD be able to work with it?
Click to expand...
First, yes, Final Cut HD already works with it. They had the editing fully integrated before they even announced the camera. Final Cut HD uses DVCPRO-HD.

As for monitoring, well, with the focus assist and the peaking and the full underscan all happening in the LCD, a lot of the reasons why you'd otherwise need a field monitor are at least somewhat covered. But if you do want to monitor, you'll need either a 1080 or a 720-capable monitor, depending on what you intend to shoot. Sony and Panasonic are both introducing HD LCD portable monitors, but I didn't pay much attention to the specs or pricing.

Dell has the 2405FPW flat-panel desktop LCD that has component inputs and 1920x1200 resolution, for under $1000, that could make for a great affordable monitor for 1080p/1080i footage.
 
What about studio monitoring when you're editing? Are there any HD monitors? I'd assume they are VERY expensive!?

Aaron
 
jonahlee said:
I can't believe this camera. If the quality delivers what the features are promissing, I think HDV has just become a completely consumer format, and this camera has completely replaced it in the Pro and Prosumer market.
Click to expand...
Agreed. Which seems like where HDV was always headed, with Sharp on the consortium and Panasonic not. But the JVC HDV/Pro-HD camera sure looks non-consumer, and the Z1 is a nice camera too... but I totally agree, the buzz about HDV is going to change significantly in Q4 2005!

What independent film won't want this camera for their production instead of any other video camera for less than 100,000? WOW!
Click to expand...
Agreed again. Granted there are some who will crave the fully-manual lens of the XL2 or the JVC HD100, but 1080/24p is awfully hard to beat!
 
Ernest_Acosta said:
Barry or Jarred, would this workflow work for the new camera? Say a person rent the AJ-HD1200A DVCPRO HD deck/vtr. Footage is transferred from the camera to this deck, then the deck's firewire connection sends the files to a G4 or G5 running Final Cut Pro HD for editing. Your G4/G5 is loaded up with 4 inexepensive (under $150) 250GB maxtor drives or 1 terabyte of storage. Theoretically, this workflow should work for this camera? I know this isn't ideal for mobile run and gun type shooting, but it could be ideal for the filmmaker shooting dolly, static, crane shots and even some handheld. It would be a lot less cheaper than buying the P2 cards and storing High Def files won't be a problem. Can you ask the Panasonic reps if this is doable. Many thanks.
Click to expand...
You're asking if you can just shoot with the camera, and have it chained via firewire to record on the AJ-HD1200A? Yes that's totally possible. You would then be recording directly to tape. And then yes, you can use that deck with FCP-HD. If I'm understanding your question properly, yes you can do what you're asking.
 
DonDula said:
I was just wondering, if I were to shoot a 2 hour event in 1080p 24p lets say to a firewire HDD, after editing what would be the most optimal form of media to copy the finished product to, that an average consumer would be able to view, because not everyone will have a blue-ray player at first.
Click to expand...
You've just asked the million-dollar question. There is no HD delivery medium yet. About the only way to distribute your work, where people would actually have a way of watching it, would be to encode it using Windows Media 10, in HD resolution, and burn that HD file onto a DVD-ROM, so they could play it back in their computer (although I don't know that Windows Media could compress 2 hours of HD-caliber video to fit onto a single DVD...)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top