Hpx300 + HPX500 + HDX900

B

Big Brother

Carbonite Member
Yeah i had these three cams on one shoot. when i see them back to back i see... all were using DVCproHD50i

1. HDX900 footage is very crisp tack in color
2. HPX500 & 300 are bit grainy & footage is not so crisp when comparared to HDX900

Question what & why makes the images so different ??? 300/500 looks so crappy against 900 footage :(
 
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Just throwing out some thoughts.

The HPX500 uses pixel shifting (same as HVX200)
The HPX300 is a 1/3" chip camera & 3MOS (the other two are 2/3")
The HDX900 does not use pixel shifting

Plus it depends on the scene file settings for each camera. Poor settings would result in poor video quality.

Jim
 
Well, let's see...

HPX300: $7,800
HPX500: $10,000
HDX900: $27,000

Yes, the age-old adage of "you get what you pay for" still rings true.
 
Thx for satisfying me with your thoughts on the subject :)

but typically speaking in any good setup with HPX300 or 500 i am bound to get grainy footage with lack in tackyness of clean sharp footage.
 
The HPX300 is going to produce sharper imagery than the HPX500, and should be sharper than the HDX900. However, there's more to video quality than just sharpness, and everything else should go in the HDX900's favor.
 
Because the HPX300 has 4x as many pixels as the HPX500, and its recording format records 50% more pixels than the recording format of the others.
 
The thing I like most about the HDX900 and even more so the HPX2700 is the tonality vs. the 500, which looks more contrasty. It has to do with gamma, but also digital processing after the analog CCD. I'm amazed at what a big step the 2700 is over the 900, due to Film Rec gamma, DRS 1-3, and 10-bit codec.

The look of the original Varicam, and to some extent the 900 and definitely the 2700 is a smooth, subtle tonality that makes these cameras more filmlike. The 500 has a tendency to look very videoish/cartoony when highlights go into hard clip in a way that the 720p native higher end cameras don't. It comes down to a more sophisticated sensor and processing.

The last 300 I saw looked pretty quiet to me, better than the first 300's I saw. I just can't stand that 1/3"DOF. In my opinion, the best deal around is a used HPX2000--especially if it has the Intra board. A 2000 with Intra, great viewfinder, for under $14K is hard to beat. Just hard to find, but worth it over a 500, IMO.
 
500 : less sharp then 300 & 900
900 : Overall The Best
300 : Sharp but still lacks the punch of HD look. It has great colors but stil its grainy & bit pixelating in black areas ... all shooting in DVCproHD mode

Personally i like 900 then any other but still Shoot + Play to dump for edit process = Tape (which i hate now)
 
If you were comparing the 300 to the 900 in DVCPRO-HD mode, you were slightly handicapping the 300, in that it oculd have been recording 1920-wide 10-bit, but you only let it record 1280-wide 8-bit.

And of course a 300 doesn't look as good as a 900! The 900 costs 3x as much! Heck, the lens on the 900 probably cost 3x as much as the entire HPX300 package including lens.

Put a thirty-thousand-dollar lens on the hPX300 and compare again. And it still won't be as good as the HDX900. Why should it be? The HDX900 costs 3x as much, of course it's better.
 
I suspect people still focus a little to much on the 300 being a native 1080p 10bit camera. Both the 300 and 500 are very good for what they are, but against the higher end HDX and Hpx models they fall short in every possible way, may be apart from sharpness...but even a small consumer camcorder can do super sharp video. Overall image quality is a lot more than resolution and codec features.

Yes the 300 offers things that's almost unheard of in it's price range, but the higher end models don't carry a higher price tag for fun...
 
:( they should start mentioning on such sub-grade (often misreffered as HD) 300/500 corder as to not true HD quality products though they just match the frame size of a HD frame.

Love HDX900 for what it outputs but felt bad to see what 300 gave in output in darker areas. the camera has more fall back then to boast of any such claimed features. yeah i know get for what you pay but companies shouldnt be so loud mouth about HDquality on such tommies.

i hope Legendary SONY's new offering CMOS 2/3" sensor PMW350 does gives excellent results as against the much talked & tauted feaures like panny.
 
But what's true HD? Is it based on numbers, bits and bytes or overall image quality?

To me the 500 was the best alternative about a year ago. A decent compromise to get a 2/3" ccd hd camera, with much better dynamic range and low light ability than the 300 or Sony Ex's are capable of, and on a budget.

The 300 is a compromise to get 1080p and 10bit on a budget, in a good formfactor.

Sony PMW350 looks good, but also this has it compromises. 35mbit 4:2:0 mpeg2 and cmos, cmos ain't an option for all users. Ofcourse you could add a nanoflash, but that adds 2500$ to the pricetag and one more thing to go wrong in the field.

All cameras will be some sort of compromise, and we who end up buying the more budget minded camcorders usually know we have to compromise unless we have unlimited founds. At the moment I hope not that the next 2/3" panasonic camera will be a cmos based camera with rolling shutter
 
I would bet it will be a CMOS chipped camera.

I know I will get flaming arrows for this but I think the HDV & Rolling Shutter era will be looked back upon as time that a lot of the equipment was "almost there" from a long term perspective.

Not being able to use cameras in all situations and this phrase of "the right camera for the job" is evidence to me that the industry is just getting models out the door to have something to sell.

Think back before the HD craze and if sombody would have come out with a DV cam that had jello and the world went diagonal when you panned the camera would have been laughed at.

But now since the quest for resolution is so strong, the makers feel like they can get away with offering products that are somewhat compromised for the professional shooter.

I know, think of the great things that are possible now. And I like the images I can create now, but I am also aware of how much techno junk that needs to be thought about in today's environment. And how each camera seems to have this thorn that seems to have been planned to be there.

The video forums are loaded with disagreements and people fighting over codecs, color space, memory and who knows what else.

There just seems to be a lot of angst since the HVX-200 hit the market.

For me this has been just like this thread. Dissapointment with an $8,000 camera and the next best option being a $20,000+ setup knowing that one needs to shoot in 16x9 and HD now or in the near future.

So which camera is better? I would say the one you can afford to buy and not take so much of a loss on when you want to upgrade in a few years...
 
Best compromise is a SONY PDW335 - 35mbps True Acceptable HD (in terms of quality, resolution in sub 15000$ camera set) its CCD 1/2 size
 
I'm heading to the States on a holiday and buying a Canon 7d.. and a few prime lenses...

Seems like you can get a hell of a picture for not much $$$...

I like the idea of double heading it... I'm kinda sick of being lumped with audio and video...

I like my 302 and 172... and I can't justify $50k on a camera package right now..

So going to play with some depth with the 7D sensor...

Just my 2c...

Cheers

I'll take it back.. the T2i has been released at $799... crazy pricing... just when I had my mind set on a 7d.. had my order just about in at B&H...
which way to go now.... ???
 
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