HPX170 - A Second Look

[David Shawl]

jstunzi, I think a bus powered firewire port would provide power for devices like external hard drives. So that would mean self-powered hard drives (with no AC adapter) would not work with the 6-pin port on the 170, which is understandable.

 

[Joseph Stunzi]

jstunzi, I think a bus powered firewire port would provide power for devices like external hard drives. So that would mean self-powered hard drives (with no AC adapter) would not work with the 6-pin port on the 170, which is understandable.

However, there's no real way to transfer footage to self-powered drives right now from within the camera. That's what the P2 Genie is for right? The camera cannot stream data to any ol' hard drive. It has to be a firestore or a capture solution.

 

[puredrifting]

But is there really a need for bus powered? The camera has it's own batteries. There's no way that Firewire could power the camera on its own. So... bus-powered firewire is a pretty useless feature. Right? I may be wrong here.

Most HPX-170 owners would be thrilled if the FireWire output on the camera was bus powered because then we could bring small bus powered pocket drives to dump footage to in the field. It has nothing to do with powering the camera.

Dan

 

[Jay Rodriguez]

This might be possible and might have been discussed a zillion times on the forum but I haven't seen anything regarding it so I'll ask:

Can you shoot directly to a laptop with the HPX? If so, how is this done? Do I need any special software or any special adapter or anything?

I'm thinking about buying a used g4 laptop from my friend because I don't think I'll be able to afford a second P2 card.

Thanks,
Jay

 

[manglerBMX]

you can shoot directly to a laptop but using your editor's capturing method to capture the footage live.

 

[shoook]

I'm sure this has been discussed as well but what is the benefit of using Firestore over a P2 card other than more capacity?

 

[Jay Rodriguez]

I don't think there is any other benefit to be honest with you. Maybe cost to storage size?

 

[Joseph Stunzi]

From my firestore experience I must agree with Jay.

It's noisy. It's finicky. It's a pain to use. You can accidentally yank out the firewire cord. And it's not solid state. Therefore it can't run optimally in weird conditions like blazing heat or freezing cold.

Go P2. ALL THE WAY!

 

[Barry_Green]

Thanks, jstunzi... Gotta plead ignorance here: does this mean I can capture to NLE and get still get full color sampling?

You can already do that. The 170's recording format uses 4:2:2 already.

The reason I ask is because I'm trying to choose between 200a and 170, so...

There is no difference in the recorded footage between those two.

 

[Barry_Green]

will the HPX allow for displaying just TC on an external monitor? there's been more than a handful of occasions on set where the script sup. wanted to see timecode and i had to send them everything (which a lot of the time i have up) with the HVX.

All or nothing. So if the only thing you have displayed is TC, then that's what'll show up on the external monitor.

also, does the focus assist output to a monitor now?

Only the Focus Bar goes out to a monitor.

how about the waveform? can it be sent to an external monitor?

Nope.

 

[Barry_Green]

(I believe HVX200 was $5999 at first and then settled at $5199)

The HVX200 was introduced at $5995, and is still $5995 almost three years later. The MSRP never changed. The street price fluctuated with supply and demand, of course, but the MSRP has been consistent. The HPX170's MSRP is actually lower, at $5695 (USA prices quoted).

 

[Barry_Green]

However, there's no real way to transfer footage to self-powered drives right now from within the camera.

??? Of course there is. You can use the HVX200 or HPX170 to control an external hard disk and copy the P2 card files directly onto that external hard disk.

The camera cannot stream data to any ol' hard drive. It has to be a firestore or a capture solution.

Ah, live streaming, no. Record to the P2 cards and then export the contents to a hard disk, yes. But record directly to a hard disk? No, not unless you use a special-purpose hard disk (like the FireStore) or you have a computer inbetween (running something like OnLocation).

 

[Barry_Green]

Can you shoot directly to a laptop with the HPX?

Yes, of course.

If so, how is this done? Do I need any special software or any special adapter or anything?

Plug in a firewire cable, and run some manner of capture software on the laptop. Avid, EDIUS, and FCP all support live firewire capture of HD footage. Premiere Pro CS3 doesn't, but CS3 includes the best capture utility of them all, OnLocation. Or use something like ScopeBox or HD Monitor Pro.

 

[Barry_Green]

I'm sure this has been discussed as well but what is the benefit of using Firestore over a P2 card other than more capacity?

Benefit of using the FireStore, other than capacity? Nothing. I can think of lots of drawbacks to using the FireStore instead of P2, but as far as benefits it's pretty much capacity and cost-per-gigabyte.

 

[David Saraceno]

Here's a great solution.

One of the netbooks with some FW connection and onLocation. Problem being that the netbooks don't have FW, and the graphics cards won't support it

But a dual Atom processors, and some other revisions to the net books and bingo

 

[MediaMovie]

Read the review of the hpx170 written by Adam Wilt.

http://provideocoalition.com/index....w_panasonic_ag_hpx170p_1_3_3ccd_p2_camcorder/

He wrote in his article that the hpx does have the same old LCD as the hvx before.
(No resolution improvement - as I understood him right)

This was one important issue for me to switch to the hpx. How can this be? Barry tested a pre-production model which had built in a very improved LCD and now Pana gives us with the final product still the old one? The curious: Adam tested a pre-production model too, so what is going on with this LCD?

Does anyone know the solution of this mystery?

Best wishes

Jurgen

 

[MediaMovie]

Adam Wilt wrote:
... Evenness of illumination is a bit worse than on the HVX200; wide open at wide angle, there’s a gentle falloff of more than half a stop at the edges of the image compared to the center, and even at telephoto the edges are a bit darker than the center. This sort of thing is only visible on the waveform monitor, though; visually it’s not at all apparent. Stopping down to f/4 or more flattens the illumination except at the very corners of the image ...

Did you detect the same on your review model, Barry?

Thank you very much in advance!

Jurgen

 

[Barry_Green]

He wrote in his article that the hpx does have the same old LCD as the hvx before.
(No resolution improvement - as I understood him right)

That's what I said as well. The LCD appears to be the same model. However, the processing that goes on with the LCD, and the HUGELY improved peaking/EVF DTL, make the LCD infinitely better for judging focus. You have to see it to see how much better it is.

 

[Barry_Green]

Did you detect the same on your review model, Barry?

What he detected, keep in mind, was from a preproduction non-QC'd model. And yes, he probably had the same camera I did, and I raised the same question with Panasonic, and they told me the same thing: "this isn't a final version, don't worry about it, we know about it, this is a hand-built prototype." And, even so, as Adam said it's nearly undetectable in real-world footage, so I didn't stress too much over it.

Keep in mind that I got that model back I don't remember how many weeks ago, three months ago? And production HPX170s still aren't shipping (although they really should be arriving any day now, I would expect). They've had plenty of time to address it.

I've found bugs and issues with nearly every preproduction review unit I've received, from nearly all manufacturers. I never report those unless they also show up in the final end-user units. I'll report them to the manufacturer, of course, and demand that they look into it and fix it, and if they do, then all is forgotten. If they don't, and the unit ships to end customers with an issue, then if the issue has a legitimate effect on the end user, I raise it.

 

[atlfilmguy]

It was my understanding that the camera is smaller.
It appears that it is only smaller in weight not really size.

According to the instruction manual available for both cameras the sizes are:
HVX200= 15 3/8 x 7 1/16 x 6 5/8
HPX170= 15 3/4 x 7 1/8 x 6 1/8
Sizes are LxHxW

Am I wrong?
It appears the HPX is longer and thinner than the HVX.
Sort of breaks even in the size department.