HMC150 vs JVC HM100 (or perhaps something else?)

M

Mark Turner

Active member
EDIT 2: Discussion moved onto something I find equally important - the best editing system for the HMC150.

...................

I am moving to Haiti soon, and looking to buy a camera which I can both use to take documentary footage of life there, and also use as the basis of a small business.

I have found myself steered towards these two cameras - and am attracted by the solid state, as it seems the obvious way things are all going (though haven't completely ruled out tape yet.)

The HMC150 obviously has lots of positive reviews, but I am also attracted by the HM100, due to its small size and native FCP. (and then there is the Mkii, of course)

A couple of questions:

- How significant is the quality difference? Clearly the 1/3" sensors will be better for low light, but does it go significantly beyond that?

- I am looking to buy a MacBookPro and FCP for editing, but is this a sensible solution for the HMC150? Or might I do better going with PC and a different editing system?

- Comparing the two, the HM100 seems a lot smaller and convenient for low-key work, say in a Haitian slum. How easy have people found the HMC150 to use in more difficult environments?

- Are there other cameras people would suggest instead of these for my purposes?

- How good is the HMC150 for getting that more filmic quality, something I would be interested in achieving for documentary work. Can I achieve a satisfactory shallowness of field by playing with the iris and tele?

- I am thinking of purchasing over the next few days... but am well aware sometimes new things come out that change everything (including price). Any major surprises in this bracket I need to be aware of?

- How would either of these cameras compare to going the DSLR route? (Mkii)

Thanks!

EDIT Just found this thread in a different section http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=175158
 
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A couple of questions:

- How significant is the quality difference? Clearly the 1/3" sensors will be better for low light, but does it go significantly beyond that?

Haven't used the JVC, but 1/3" will also give you some more control over depth of field. I would also expect a sharper image.

- I am looking to buy a MacBookPro and FCP for editing, but is this a sensible solution for the HMC150? Or might I do better going with PC and a different editing system?

FCP + HMC works fine. It does involve transcoding, but the resulting ProRes clips are easy to work with.

- Comparing the two, the HM100 seems a lot smaller and convenient for low-key work, say in a Haitian slum. How easy have people found the HMC150 to use in more difficult environments?

I think you have to make your own mind up on this, there is the HMC40 of course.

- Are there other cameras people would suggest instead of these for my purposes?

- How good is the HMC150 for getting that more filmic quality, something I would be interested in achieving for documentary work. Can I achieve a satisfactory shallowness of field by playing with the iris and tele?

To some extent, but it's never going to have the shallow depth of field of film.

- I am thinking of purchasing over the next few days... but am well aware sometimes new things come out that change everything (including price). Any major surprises in this bracket I need to be aware of?
 
studio1972 said:
FCP + HMC works fine. It does involve transcoding, but the resulting ProRes clips are easy to work with.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your answers.

With the transcoding, I understand I will be getting large file sizes... and I guess the process all takes a fair amount of time. IN practice, would this be faster or slower than capturing from tape?
 
With the transcoding, I understand I will be getting large file sizes... and I guess the process all takes a fair amount of time. IN practice, would this be faster or slower than capturing from tape?
Click to expand...

Faster, even on a MacBookPro... i have a 2.4 and it's faster than real time! the new one is even faster
 
The file sizes vary significantly depending on the frame rate and resolution of the footage and the type of Pro Res you select.

If you opt for Pro Res LT and have 720 24p footage the file sizes are quite manageable.
 
If you're considering the HMC150 vs. the HM100, perhaps your ideal camera would be the forthcoming HMC40. It's the same size as the HM100, but half the cost, and it's a "little brother" to the HMC150 with many (if not most) of the same features, the same gamma curves and menu settings, etc.
 
- Comparing the two, the HM100 seems a lot smaller and convenient for low-key work, say in a Haitian slum. How easy have people found the HMC150 to use in more difficult environments?
Click to expand...

This is a tough problem to solve, because in a slum, you don't want to advertise "expensive camera here... come attack me...". Safety and security become important. Logic says the smaller camera won't stand out as much.

The other side of the coin is low light, if filming during the day, not an issue, but at night, this could be a big issue. Thus the larger cameras with the bigger chips and better low light capacity are important features.

Not to complicate things, but if you can wait for the HMC40 to come out, it might be worth the wait. At this point in time, we don't have any real hands on tests of the camera, but in general most of the cameras produce a good image. Other than possible low light issues, I don't expect the HMC40 to look any better or worse than other similar cameras.


Bob Diaz
 
AFAIK, FCP does not support AVCHD natively, this is why all FCP users are giddy about the XDCAM EX used in the new JVCs.
 
HMC40 is also attractive - but it depends when it comes out. (This suggests August - http://syphaonline.com/SYPHAnewsitems2009/SYPHAnews20090729-01.html )

I am leaving end September (and need everything by then, as Haiti wont have much support for me) but also want to spend a good month or two getting as familiar as possible with my set-up, in case I need to buy bits and bobs here in NYC.

Any updates on when the HMC40 comes out?

Also with 1/4" sensors, I imagine that it will suffer the same low light issues as the JVC.

Re haiti slums - actually, it may go both ways. Discrete and small is useful, but there is something about a camera that says "press"... rather than "tourist".
 
AFAIK, FCP does not support AVCHD natively, this is why all FCP users are giddy about the XDCAM EX used in the new JVCs.
Click to expand...
FCP doesn't support any tapeless file formats natively, they only support Quicktime.

JVC has made their product record quicktime.

FCP does support some codecs natively, but no camcorder file formats. *

So on the one side you have pretty much every editor supporting every file format from every camcorder on the market. And on the other side you have a program that supports a grand total of two JVC camcorders. Bah.

*And unfortunately, as of now, you are correct: FCP doesn't support the AVCHD codec natively -- although it does support H.264! So if you rewrap using the forthcoming ClipWrap 2 software, you can apparently use AVCHD files directly (although, of course, you have to rewrap first, because you're using FCP.)
 
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Barry_Green said:
FCP doesn't support any tapeless file formats natively, they only support Quicktime.
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Right. I meant QuickTime, not XDCAM EX wrapper. My bad.

Funny that Steve Jobs himself recommended Panasonic HDC-SD1 when it came out, but for iMovie.
 
"Also with 1/4" sensors, I imagine that it will suffer the same low light issues as the JVC." Not necessarily. This is an updated pixel structure....they are tiny, I think Barry did the math in a different thread...but there are a LOT of them:) Give it a chance, for sure. And keep in mind, the jump to 1/3 is almost 3 times the price with media (P2 or SxS) (170/200a Sony, Canon, etc.)....and not a WHOLE lot more to write home about in low light(ing) situations:) Another plus...SDHC is much cheaper and probably readily available in most countries.

Don't concern yourself with the workflow. AVC can be handled in FCE or FCP via ProRes. You will spend half the time repackaging and acquiring your footage than using tape. ProRes will not lose you any quality and storage is cheap.

The new Panasonic is a worthy contender....and I would send you the way of Specc (just look around the site and you'll find him), who I've purchased my Panasonics through. He generally has them as quick as anyone and is Awesome at camera support. You could also ask him about Haitian support....another country, but awfully close to America:) If you do go tapeless, ala 40 or 170, the warranties are significantly longer without the tape (mechanical) concerns. I think my 200a only came with year, but the 170 is 5!

Good Luck, sounds like a VERY interesting project. Stay Safe
 
Barry_Green said:
So on the one side you have pretty much every editor supporting every file format from every camcorder on the market. And on the other side you have a program that supports a grand total of two JVC camcorders. Bah.
Click to expand...

Hi Barry,

I've noticed you ranting about this quite a bit lately.

It is true that FCP re-wraps or transcodes footage into quicktime for editing. From my point of view, this is a very quick process (even transcoding avchd) and it enables me to filter out the clips or parts of clips I don't want and to mane the ones I do want. It doesn't seem to add any time to the process.

For example, I ingested about 6 hours of 1080i HD footage yesterday, it took me about 2 hours to select and name the clips (the process was going on as I did this) plus a half an hour afterwards to complete the transcoding while I did something else. Apart from the half hour at the end there would have been no advantage in being able to edit the original files.

However, the advantage of now having the footage in Pro Res is that it's very easy to edit compared to an inter-frame codec. The footage can also be opened in any software that is compatible with quicktime, including 3rd party software such as real player etc. You can even play the clips in the finder.

I would imagine that this might be an advantage from a licensing point of view, and it may also make developing software easier as it all relies on Quicktime instead of reinventing the wheel for each app. I don't know the workings of Steve Jobs' mind of course, but I would imagine that the decision to do things this way was a practical one rather than a malign one.

Stu
 
Stu:

Barry and I always bat heads on the lack of native support for both mxf and avchd in FCP.

As to 150, I always recommend transcoding to get to a better color space, I frame, and a pleasant editing, grading and fx/titling experience.

I also get to log my clips as well.

As to p2/170/200a and mxf support, I wish I had an option to import natively, but it really doesn't make a lot of difference to me because I don't rely or use meta data very much.

It's funny, people tend to have allegiance to what they use.

Barry like Edius, and I don't -- having tried both.

But to each their own.

Just glad Barry contributes as he does here.
 
Thanks, David -- very kind of you, considering how ranty I get! :)

And I fully recognize that there's a huge percentage, even a majority, of the video population who loves FCP, and as long as you're happy with what you use, more power to you, I have no problem with that.

I just see great potential in the tapeless systems, and I see Apple's approach as preventing, rather than embracing, what tapeless can do. Two years from now, when 16-core i7 processors are pennies apiece and 16,000-core graphics cards make a dozen streams of simultaneous 3-D PIP real-time AVCHD possible, and you're buying and using 32GB Class 10 cards and storing three hours of footage on them for $10 apiece... FCP users will still be log & transferring. They'll still be turning their 32GB of source footage into half a terabyte of hard disk footage, and taking an hour or two to do it. And hey, if that makes 'em happy, fine -- but to me it flies in the face of what tapeless is supposed to be, so I bristle at it. I mean, seriously -- what's the benefit of a file-based workflow, if your editor prevents you from using those files? Doesn't that just seem... silly?

Look, nobody ever heard me say a word about FCP's implementation before. I even bought a Mac to use FCP with my HVX in early 2006, because it was the best editing tool at that point. But then it all went south... version 6, when ProRes came out, and they pretty much declared "no, we will not support what the users need, the users will do it OUR way." I rebelled at that point.

I guess what I find funniest about it, in a sad way, is that Apple is doing exactly what Avid did. Avid owned the market, and then they decided they were tired of doing things the consumer's way, so they introduced DNxHD and basically said "let's convert everything to our wonderful, proprietary codec, and enforce Avid-ness from sea to shining sea". And you know the history on that one; Apple slaughtered them to the point where Avid was nearly driven out of business. So now, five years later, Apple's come up with this "wonderful strategy" of "let's convert everything to our wonderful, proprietary codec and file format, so that ProRes and Quicktime will rule the world from sea to shining sea." Pot, meet kettle, and watch out to see if history repeats itself. I think it will.
 
As long as people believe in the power of orange knickers... I mean, the power of intermediate codecs, they will find FCP's way to be reasonable.
 
Barry_Green said:
I just see great potential in the tapeless systems, and I see Apple's approach as preventing, rather than embracing, what tapeless can do. Two years from now, when 16-core i7 processors are pennies apiece and 16,000-core graphics cards make a dozen streams of simultaneous 3-D PIP real-time AVCHD possible, and you're buying and using 32GB Class 10 cards and storing three hours of footage on them for $10 apiece... FCP users will still be log & transferring. They'll still be turning their 32GB of source footage into half a terabyte of hard disk footage, and taking an hour or two to do it. And hey, if that makes 'em happy, fine -- but to me it flies in the face of what tapeless is supposed to be, so I bristle at it. I mean, seriously -- what's the benefit of a file-based workflow, if your editor prevents you from using those files? Doesn't that just seem... silly?
Click to expand...

Well:

1. If i7 16 core processors are cheap as chips, then it wont take long to transcode either. 720 25p already transcodes at about 6 x real time (on my 18 month old low end mac pro) into ProRes LT.

2. The disk space issue won't be such a problem then either.

Not saying it wouldn't be nice if the avchd couldn't just be rewrapped as quicktime (assuming that the computer could handle editing this ), but didn't you say Clipwrap 2 would do this anyway? Maybe Apple will introduce this feture in the next year or two.
 
Why not just abandon the "everything must be quicktime" restriction, that no other editor places on you? That's my beef.

Why rewrap? Is there any benefit whatsoever to you, the end user? No. It just makes you take up time and disk space, and results in files that are then incompatible with 92% of the world's computers.

Nothing about the footage gets "better" by rewrapping it, or by transcoding it.

If you don't mind the rewrap/transcode process, then you have no beef with the FCP workflow, and that's okay for you. But I have a beef with it, a 30-pound steak in fact. :)
 
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