Glad I bought an HPX301 five years ago!

GaryNattrass

GaryNattrass

Veteran
Ok so in the UK there are some new local TV services starting up next year and they will all be SD based with fast turnaround so I am very happy that I can flip my HPX301 and 371 to SD DV load up my BBC SD profile and off I go.

My trusty powerbook G4 can also be put to good use for location news editing with it's PCMIA P2
slot and final cut version 5:0:4 with a firewire 400 drive for media.

These have been superb cameras for SD and HD use and have done everything from news thru UEFA champions league sport to doco and full HD drama production so they will still be shooting for several years with a tried and tested workflow and superb on board audio facilities!
 
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Gary - in the UK, I'd strongly suggest making sure you're working in DV mode, *not* DvcPro. Both as regards camera and editing presets.

The big difference (not the case in the 60Hz world) is the colour space. For 576i, DvcPro is 4:1:1, whereas DV is 4:2:0 - in most other respects they're the same 25Mbs and so on.

It's highly likely that your eventual signal will get coded into a 4:2:0 transmission path, and if you start off with 4:1:1 the eventual result will be an effective "4:1:0" - quarter chroma resolution horizontally, halved vertically.

(If anyone is interested, when DvcPro was first conceived, the VTs were seen very much as digital islands in an analogue world, with A-D/D-A conversion most likely route on input/output. For such, 4:1:1 made more sense than 4:2:0, it coped with interlace and multigeneration better. As more general use of digital video techniques increased, and end output was less likely to be analogue NTSC/PAL transmission, 4:2:0 made much more sense if the signal stayed in the digital domain. Same reason why consumer DV equipment in the PAL world stayed with 4:2:0 - sometimes it's an advantage to come along later!

This is why 4:2:2 has had more significance in 60Hz countries. Move to 4:2:0 for transmission or to burn a DVD and you do have 4:2:0 - not "4:1:0".)
 
harddrive said:
Gary - in the UK, I'd strongly suggest making sure you're working in DV mode, *not* DvcPro. Both as regards camera and editing presets.

The big difference (not the case in the 60Hz world) is the colour space. For 576i, DvcPro is 4:1:1, whereas DV is 4:2:0 - in most other respects they're the same 25Mbs and so on.

It's highly likely that your eventual signal will get coded into a 4:2:0 transmission path, and if you start off with 4:1:1 the eventual result will be an effective "4:1:0" - quarter chroma resolution horizontally, halved vertically.

(If anyone is interested, when DvcPro was first conceived, the VTs were seen very much as digital islands in an analogue world, with A-D/D-A conversion most likely route on input/output. For such, 4:1:1 made more sense than 4:2:0, it coped with interlace and multigeneration better. As more general use of digital video techniques increased, and end output was less likely to be analogue NTSC/PAL transmission, 4:2:0 made much more sense if the signal stayed in the digital domain. Same reason why consumer DV equipment in the PAL world stayed with 4:2:0 - sometimes it's an advantage to come along later!

This is why 4:2:2 has had more significance in 60Hz countries. Move to 4:2:0 for transmission or to burn a DVD and you do have 4:2:0 - not "4:1:0".)
Click to expand...

Thanks for that I haven't done a lot of direct to SD on these cameras yet but good to know that DV will be the better option and I now understand why as most of the UK has been DVcam anyway.

Just did the workflow tests from camera to edit and it all works very well so thanks again for your advice and I learn something everyday about this camera, I edited the original post to DV based on this advice so not to confuse anyone who may also be shooting for the new local TV networks and just reads the first entry.
 
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The only other thing that occurs to me is whether you may be better off shooting HD and then doing the downscale afterwards?

I appreciate that may not be as straightforward, but software downscaling may give better quality than in-camera, and let you have an HD master?
 
I take your points guys and I normally do shoot HD and then down convert for SD and have done it that way in the past but for these new local TV services they need fast turnaround and location editing so having the powerbook G4 with it's PCMIA slot for direct ingest is a quick solution. It is quite amazing what an old G4 can do with around 1gb of RAM.

It also gives me lots of card capacity and very quick ingest to the edit working direct in DV and also allows me to just hand over a hard drive if needed for them to have without any extra codec worries, I can also use older 8gb cards as I do not need huge on-board capacity and I feel more comfortable having lots of lower cost 8gb cards and assigning one for each job.

If in time there is a request to do it HD to SD I will do it that way with a macbook pro but as said it is speed of total workflow that is important here, besides they are not paying top dollar so they get SD all the way and it allows me to use older legacy hardware and software, it also does not tie up my HD resources leaving them free to do HD work.

I could get a DSR450 off e-bay for £2k to do all this but it is back to tape and that is not an option due to workflow time restraints, some low cost 160gb bus powered firewire 400 drives that I have will also allow a lot of items to be kept in archive till transmission with a data DVD back-up of each job for keeping on the shelf once time allows.

This is very low budget fast turnaround but I want to keep the workflow efficient and up to date but the V/O's will be done with an RE50/N/B mic straight into the powerbook G4 so you can appreciate that we are not talking major HD production workflows here.

Having said that the G4 also has an older version of Pro Tools on board and with an mbox-2 I can even do location audio dubbing if required and not a lot of current HD news operations have that capability. :happy:
 
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That's more or less the answer I was expecting, and I think I'd probably go the same workflow.

If you did want to go the DSR450 route, then I could supply you (very cheap! :) ) with a firestore that's gathering dust in my cupboard, if that's of any interest? (Complete with powering and camera cables and mount!)

As I see it, the advantages would be 2/3" over 1/3" (with all the dof, sensitivity etc benefits that brings) and the fact that best quality SD comes from SD native chips. When I used it with a DSR500, I also ran it together with tape - normally the tape was then just a backup/archive and it was the file copy I worked from, but it did save having to actually worry about archiving material. Downside is maybe extra complexity and weight - and remembering to turn it on when you turn the camera power on!! (Yes, I did have a few "accidents" at first, but after a while it became second nature, and there was always the tape backup to turn to.)
 
Thanks but the HPX301 is sat here ready to do the job and I doubt if there will be much need to do anything artistic for this local TV content, the 301 is nice and light too and if I do get called to do an HD job for SKY etc I just have one camera in the car.

I miss my Z7 and S270 though as the ability to do tape and CF card was a bonus for news and jobs where the client needed a tape to take away but the downside was HDV and problems with sony plug-ins for FCP whch needed Clipwrap to give a stable import for the edit.
 
Ha ha and here I am in 2020 and have just bought another HPX371 as it was as new and going very reasonable at £1400.

Still love this camera and it works great in the pandemic of producing on-line video etc.

Also got a P2 USB reader for £50 and now using this software to transcode all my media to ultra fast SSD : https://www.divergentmedia.com/editready

Video and editing back to being more of a hobby now as I am a staff sound supervisor at SKY TV in the UK but still enjoying shooting with my two HPX and plan to do more community and charity TV projects when I retire from full time broadcast.

Hope all good with everyone and take care!
 
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