HMC150 questions answered...

Does Panasonic provide a native MTS viewer too? I know there is supposedly an DVCPRO HD viewer.
 
Barry,
How do the sharpness and overall picture quality compare to the XH A1? Picture aside, which aspects of the 150 are better or worse than the A1?
 
Everts said:
From earlier posts I had the feeling you had the cam with you.
So is there a book coming out after the release of HMC 150 ?
Or a dvd:)
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I'm looking at doing a book on it, since it's very similar to the 170 it shouldn't take long. Undecided on a DVD yet.
 
ullanta said:
Can you take a stab at answering how good the 6mbps mode is when the end product will be downrezzed web video? Does it seem like the types of artifacts seen will be mitigated by downrezzing?
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It all depends on the shot, and on what size you're planning to downrez to. Give me some specifics and I'll see if I can give you some files.
 
R.Lang said:
How does the 21-24mb handle quick moving objects or pans? Is the AVC HD compression noticable? as compared to a 200a (really what I want to know)?
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In 720p/24 it looks basically uncompressed. The higher up the scale you go the more you run into the *potential* that the GOP could become overloaded, just like with HDV. But even when it gets to its worst, it never ever looks anything like as bad as HDV can. If you remember the ship stuff from the Pirates of the Caribbean on the Sony and JVC HDV cameras, it was hideously mega-macro-blocky. The worst I've ever been able to extract from AVC-HD is a little bit of sparkly blocking at about a 2-pixel level, vs. the huge lego-sized bricks that can hit HDV.
 
shrigg said:
No Mac version yet... *sigh*
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You shouldn't need any additional software for the mac if using final cut 6

use the log and transfer functions and the icon in the upper left of the window to point to a folder containing the files and folders that would be present on the SD card. The computer will then give you thumbnails to look at and allow you to transcode into AIC or Prores 422.

works perfectly on the three files available from videomaker live

past that their is probably a way to get imove to do the same thing
 
john deaver said:
You shouldn't need any additional software for the mac if using final cut 6

use the log and transfer functions and the icon in the upper left of the window to point to a folder containing the files and folders that would be present on the SD card. The computer will then give you thumbnails to look at and allow you to transcode into AIC or Prores 422.

works perfectly on the three files available from videomaker live

past that their is probably a way to get imove to do the same thing
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True but I was hoping for a faster way to transcode.........
 
Barry_Green said:
It all depends on the shot, and on what size you're planning to downrez to. Give me some specifics and I'll see if I can give you some files.
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For my immediate needs, I'm thinking of classical recitals - from soloists to orchestras - on wood stages with a fair amount of grain/detailing. No super-fast camerawork, but likely some slow panning across very-high-detail scenes (i.e., orchestras), and some zooming (to closeups of performers' hands, etc.). We'd want fairly good detail of performers' actions, of course... lighting is ample, tending towards the high-contrast.

Also, if you'r really bored, and have a chance to line-in some high-dynamic-range classical music, with a decent amount of headroom, I'd love to check out the resulting audio!



Thanks,
Barry
 
i like the prospect of loading all my sd cards up onto the computer in thiere own little folders and telling final cut to transcode them all at once and walking away from it while it does it's thing.

this will be a whole lot better than babysitting a machine and having to swap out tapes all day. I shoot mostly weddings and if i come home with 8 tapes (very easy to do on a multi-cam shoot) its another days work just to load the dang tapes. this will let me come home from a wedding, copy over my sd cards and set it up to transcode, and go to bed. How sweet

o... and save me about 5 grand a year
 
Barry,

If you were shooting well lit scenes with slow to medium camera movement in PH mode would you get better results in 720 24p or 1080 24p? Would it look as good as an HVX 200a in 1080 24p?

Mucho Thanks
 
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Barry_Green said:
The core image is basically the same. The operation is basically the same. There are lots of features the 200A/170 have that the 150 doesn't (like standard-def, or time lapse, or variable frame rates, things like that.

To a lot of folks, that'll matter. But I think a whole lot more people will look at the $3495 street price, and the dirt-cheap memory recording times, and say "that's all I need."

AVC-HD right now is a lot more work than P2 is to work with in post. For broadcasters and people making their living with the camera (other than longform event shooters), it's HPX170 all the way. For indie guys who can't afford $900 for a P2 card and $5200 for the camera, and who have more time than money so transcoding in post is no hassle to them, well then: the HMC150 comes about 80% of the HVX200 for thousands less. And it looks like it'd make an excellent "B" camera to a 170 as well.

Let me put it this way: when Panasonic put out the DVX, they also put out a lower-cost DVC80 which had the same imaging chips, same lens, same body, they just took out a few features to lower the price -- they took out 24p and cinegamma! Totally wrong move, and the DVC80 flopped. Well, with the 150 they took the 170 and took out a few features to lower the price. I'd say that probably 90% of our DVXUser members are going to be thrilled with what they left in, and won't miss what was taken out.
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That's awesome but is the difference in colour space apparent? I remember when hdv came out you pretty much proved it can be.
 
here is a 1920x1080 bmp frame grab from one of the videomaker clips, deinterlaced by nero... i uploaded it to one of those free image hosting sites, i hope that is o.k. under forum rules?? one of those videomaker clips looks like it's way out of focus, and they all look kind of overexposed on my crt monitor:

 
john deaver said:
i like the prospect of loading all my sd cards up onto the computer in thiere own little folders and telling final cut to transcode them all at once and walking away from it while it does it's thing.

this will be a whole lot better than babysitting a machine and having to swap out tapes all day. I shoot mostly weddings and if i come home with 8 tapes (very easy to do on a multi-cam shoot) its another days work just to load the dang tapes. this will let me come home from a wedding, copy over my sd cards and set it up to transcode, and go to bed. How sweet

o... and save me about 5 grand a year
Click to expand...

John makes a valid point here and represents our thoughts too on the solid-state workflow. We love using solid-state for immediate DTE without a battery or cables to deal with and the result on our commercials with solid state delivery has actually allowed us to shoot, edit, and deliver, in the field. Most recently we shot a commercial, re-shot a bad scene, edited it again, and uploaded to the network and after visiting with the client for about an hour and then waiting for accounting to cut the check, the commercial aired on the lobby monitor. With tape only we would have spent a lot of time digesting and logging while with the Compact Flash we were transferred and edited in what would have been the digitizing time while having a tape as back up just in case. Moreover, with our plans to add one Red camera and it's use of solid state Compact Flash the media inventory will be greatly reduced financially.

Solid state without the battery and cable of external drives is THE WAY TO GO.
 
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