Got my hands on the working HVX at IFP

russc

russc

Active member
Was at the IFP Conference in NYC today... Got to see some footage with Jan from Panasonic. She was very helpful (just as i pictured). 1080 footage that she shot, I guess, in Amsterdam... On an LCD monitor.... She told me she shot it with this working model that is without some of the camera functions that they have not finished tweeking like zebras, etc. Look's real good though!
Didn't have a chance to stay long but, tomorrow she is conducting a seminar on HVX and the whole P2 thing... i'll have a chance to check that out. Should be good.

russ
 
Hey Russ,

Boy do I envy you.

I would love to have had the time to go to either show, but couldn't break away from the office. If you have the time, please post your summary of tomorrow's seminar. I am sure that there are a few here that would love to read it.
 
Russ and guys,

Take a look at my posting near the beginning of the thread "HVX200 footage shown at Resfest" for a summary of my attendance last Friday when Jan gave the same type of seminar. Russ, maybe you can use some of my summary to ask deeper questions!

Regards,

Cre8tive
 
Well I saw Jan's presentation at IFP yesterday.
Not much more to cover than Cre8tive's post. Just a couple of interesting things she touched on... She seemed very excited that Samsung has just developed a 32g SD card bypassing the 16 and 24 stages which (in theory) could accelarate the process of getting a P2 card produced with 128g capacity.

She went over why HD tapes drives could not be considered for a camera this small (too expensive- Too big- Too loud)

She spent some some time going over the tangible, visual results of the difference with HDV and true HD footage. Mainly the softening of of backgrounds with motion and the sudden POP back into clarity when motion stops that HDV produces. And, indeed the footage she displayed on her panasonic LCD screen of the HVX footage after her intinial presentation was impressive...with motion and background clarity.
The reason she displayed the footage on the LCD was the room where she was giving her presentation was just too bright to project a good image.
The footage was typical test set stuff, objects like blankets, candles, still lifes, etc. all varying in color and brighteness. Recorded from the HVX directly to DVCHD tape in 1080i. Plus some stuff she shot out of her hotel room in Amsterdam day and night. No real noise at all in the lowlight nightime footage. I thought it looked great.

She also covered a couple of points about the P2 cards:

Good for 30,000 insertions

There is a write inhibit on the cards (did not know that) as a fail safe for when you tranfser to certain NLEs you don't accidentaly lose footage. Though Apple as one example, has a built in failsafe in that you cannot clear the card with their NLE you can just offload the footage.
The camera will always be the best to "clear the card"

No loss of frames when one card rolls over to the next.

She was also really pushing the Firestore option for more run and gun ...and Doc filmmakers.

When asked if, as a filmmaker, she would work in 1080p or 720p she seemed, because of experience with the Varicam, lean towards shooting in 720. Because it offered more storage run times on the P2, the variable frame rates..etc. She thought that 1080p still had a videoish look to her, She was speaking mainly of the Cinealta but ,quickly noted that she has not yet seen what Panasonics version will look like with their gamma, color set etc. Still leaned toward 720 for filmmakers.
One thing that was interesting was that the 720 variable frame rate footage could be brought over to the minidv tape. Just an interstin note for those shooting minidv or using this as a second on a dvx shoot.

As far as variable frames rates right now she can only confirm the ones mentioned before by cre8tive.

She mentioned the Panasonic proposed deal of $9995 with the cam and two 8g cards but then mentioned a possibility of a $8995 idea with the cam and four 4g cards...just a little more swapping of cards in the workflow. But that was just her thought..no package has been announced.
She also mentioned P+S Tech in Germany will be getting the cam in October to get the specs and testing for their accesory line.

Full working HVX by November- release still set for December- she has already taken two months worth of pre orders...mentioning that 30% of Able Cinetech orders are from Varicam owners.

Tha's all I can think of right now...more if I remember

RJC
 
Hey Russ,

Thanks for the report. The comment about "30,000 insertions" is this based upon the number of write cycles (EEPROM life issues) or is it about a mechanical life expectancy of the form factor? Not really much of an issue either way, certainly 30,000 is a high enough number that no one should really care.

Again, thanks for posting your impressions of the presentation.
 
Not really sure...sorry I 'm not that great a reporter...that answer was left kind of vague.
My own thought was that it was a write cycle issue...though Jan could best answer.

rjc
 
khmuse said:
The comment about "30,000 insertions" is this based upon the number of write cycles (EEPROM life issues) or is it about a mechanical life expectancy of the form factor?
Click to expand...


I seem to remember Jan mentioning in the past that the cards are rated to last for over 100,000 write cycles. I believe she said the 30,000 limit is due to the life expectancy of the connector pins in the P2 cards.

So, even though the cards can be rewritten over 100,000 times.... they are only rated to be inserted and removed 30,000 times. That's my understanding anyhow.
 
The 30,000 insertions is the number of times we feel that you can insert the card into the camera or computer. The number of rewrites is much higher.

Hope that helps,

Jan
 
Thanks for clearing that up Jan...I didn't want to mislead anybody with my reporting.

rjc
 
"Good for 30,000 insertions"

That would make a great P2 t-shirt. :) Thanks for the report Russ. Only good news on the flash memory front--that 32GB SD card sounds great. 128GB P2 cards are going to win over a lot of doubters.
 
I want to be first to get that shirt!

Yeah Jan also kind of covered ground that we are all familiar with as well regarding pricing in the market place for flash media. But it is worth repeating that in a six month span those prices go down remarkably from the intial introduction of higher capacity cards.

Should be all good news when they start coming out.

thanks again for moderating a great site.

RJC
 
something tells me that with Apple eating up all the Flash Memory for the iPod nano, we are going to see huge reduction in price just like we did with 2.5inch and 1inch HD's...

as soon as apple ugrades the iPod Nano to 8GB that will be a very good thing...
 
russc said:
She mentioned the Panasonic proposed deal of $9995 with the cam and two 8g cards but then mentioned a possibility of a $8995 idea with the cam and four 4g cards...just a little more swapping of cards in the workflow. But that was just her thought..no package has been announced.
Click to expand...
WHAT?!?! That's got to be the single best idea I've heard of yet. I think a whole lot of people would be very glad to put up with a little extra swapping in exchange for shaving a thousand bucks off the price. Who wouldn't love that idea? I'm gonna write to her right now and suggest that she offer both bundles, that sounds like a great idea, and most considerate of the fiscal situation of some of our membership!
 
Any chance anyone knowing if this camera (or Jan) making up to the Boston Mass area? I'd love to see it in person. (Jan, too ;o) )

I can hope can't I?
 
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