HPX300 Preview - In Africa!

Seriously?

XDCAM-EX is based on 20-year-old MPEG-2 technology. It uses a long-GOP frame structure. It uses 8-bit color depth. And it uses 4:2:0 color sampling. It's a beefed-up version of HDV.

AVC-Intra is vastly superior in every conceivable way. It's based on the very latest codec technology in existence, H.264/AVC. It uses intraframe compression, the same as every professional format ever developed. It uses 10-bit color depth, for 4x as many shades of gray or color (1024 vs. 256). And it uses 4:2:2 color sampling, so there's twice as much color resolution.

Let's put it this way, there's a ladder of HD format quality. Sony ranks their formats like this, from lowest to highest:
HDV (long-GOP 25mbps 4:2:0, prefiltered to 1440x1080)
XDCAM-HD (long-GOP 35mbps 4:2:0, prefiltered to 1440x1080)
XDCAM-EX (long-GOP 35mbps 4:2:0, full-raster 1920x1080)

(Panasonic's equivalent format to all the above would be AVC-HD)
None of these formats are accepted by Discovery for editing or mastering, as far as I know.

Then, the next level up include:
XDCAM-422 (long-GOP 50mbps 4:2:2,full-raster 1920x1080)
HDCAM (intraframe 140mbps 3:1:1, prefiltered to 1440x1080)

Panasonic's equivalent format here would be either DVCPRO-HD, or AVC-Intra50.
HDCAM and DVCPRO-HD are certified for post and mastering by Discovery.

Then, the premium level of codecs, the best in the world, the ones that Hollywood uses to master major feature films, include:
HDCAM-SR (440mbps intraframe H.264)
HD-D5 (270mbps intraframe)
and
AVC-Intra 100 (100mbps intraframe AVC)

AVC-Intra has been certified Gold by Discovery, and received a technical achievement award from the Hollywood Post Alliance. There's never been a codec of AVC-I quality available in a camcorder before; the closest you could get was an HDCAM-SR deck chained to a camera head. But now you can get it built-in on any camera in Panasonic's AJ lineup, and also in the HPX300.
 
Barry_Green said:
Seriously?

XDCAM-EX is based on 20-year-old MPEG-2 technology. It uses a long-GOP frame structure. It uses 8-bit color depth. And it uses 4:2:0 color sampling. It's a beefed-up version of HDV.
Click to expand...

Get your point here Barry, but in my experience the EX codec is very solid indeed. Again understand what youre saying, but I dont think its quite that bad. That is until you edit with it. Anything, and I mean anything, takes a lot longer than on an I-Frame codec. Interestingly though, the HDV from the Canon A1 was faster to work with, not sure if thats because the A1's HDV is less complex.

Barry_Green said:
Seriously?

AVC-Intra is vastly superior in every conceivable way. It's based on the very latest codec technology in existence, H.264/AVC. It uses intraframe compression, the same as every professional format ever developed. It uses 10-bit color depth, for 4x as many shades of gray or color (1024 vs. 256). And it uses 4:2:2 color sampling, so there's twice as much color resolution.
Click to expand...

Ive had limited experience with this codec, but what I have seen really is gold. And there is no argument that its better than anything else out there. The truth in Barrys statement here is that (referencing the 300), you really are getting twice as much color resolution - its full raster.

Id rather work from DVCProHD any day of the week over XDCam-EX codec not because I really think the end output is better, just because its damn faster, and at the end of the day in most cases you can just hand over your edited / non edited DVCProHD footage with having to mess about. But, the argument remains that DVCProHD doesnt record full raster and thus what you make up for in color resolution evens out as you end up negating that somewhat in overall resolution. Bring in AVCI on full raster and that argument is gone.

Not sure what the point of this post was - just stating an opinion.
 
Noel Evans said:
Get your point here Barry, but in my experience the EX codec is very solid indeed. Again understand what youre saying, but I dont think its quite that bad.
Click to expand...
It's way better than HDV, that's for sure. I'm just saying that it's not in the same class, league, or ballfield as Intra.

Interestingly though, the HDV from the Canon A1 was faster to work with, not sure if thats because the A1's HDV is less complex.
Click to expand...
60i? Or 24F? I would expect 24F to be a lot less complex for the computer to work with, 24 progressive-encoded frames have to be a lot easier to manipulate than 60 interlaced fields.
 
Advanced pulldown

Advanced pulldown

Just had my hands on an hpx300 and could not find advanced pulldown in the menus, does this camera offer it or am I confused about what it is for (actually the answer to that last one is yes)...
 
Barry, how does this camera compare with other interchangeable lens HD cameras as far as the need to adjust back focus for different environments?
 
joe hedge said:
Just had my hands on an hpx300 and could not find advanced pulldown in the menus, does this camera offer it or am I confused about what it is for (actually the answer to that last one is yes)...
Click to expand...
The menus are different, and the way it operates is different. If you were using AVC-Intra, there is *no* pulldown. The whole concept of pulldown doesn't exist, it only records the active frames, so 1080/24P is recorded as 1080/24pN, for example.

If you set the recording format to DVCPRO-HD or standard-def, then yes you can select advanced pulldown (or normal pulldown).
 
Kenn Christenson said:
Barry, how does this camera compare with other interchangeable lens HD cameras as far as the need to adjust back focus for different environments?
Click to expand...

I know you asked Barry...but, the back focus control is in the lens and Im assuming regardless of the chip size, will work like any ENG lens.
 
Noel Evans said:
I know you asked Barry...but, the back focus control is in the lens and Im assuming regardless of the chip size, will work like any ENG lens.
Click to expand...

Right. Just wanted to know if there was any more or less need to adjust back focus, compared to, say a HDW-900.
 
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I know im not the first one to ask this, but can we pleaseeeee get some HD files of this shoot? maybe some 720p quicktimes or even some 1080p quicktimes....

this could really help people in decisions of buying.
 
I don't have any way of exporting AVC-Intra files out of FCP. I can bring them in but I would have to convert them to something else on the way out which I think would degrade them some.

Barry has a copy of all the footage I shot so maybe he can export something.
 
We shot some 720/60p slow-mo stuff, and some occasional 1080/60i things, but yeah, mostly it was 1080/24p.

I think Kevin exported everything as DVCPRO-HD. I do have lots of snippets of clips in raw AVC-Intra format. I used the P2 Portable to extract little portions of clips. But it would still be massive to host any files of any length; we're talking about something like 14 megabytes per second for the source footage...
 
Yep, FCP won't export AVC-Intra. Hopefully they'll make an announcement soon on a new version that will.
So, my only option is to export it as ProRes422HQ or DVCProHD.
 
Just read the entire thread and can't help but saying this is the best forum out there.
Thank you Barry and the rest for the excellent writeup and all the comments.
You are the best!
 
I think Kevin Railsback could handle any lion. I'd bet on Kevin in that fight. :thumbsup:

But -- no, I was far more worried about the elephants and the rhinos. The lions seemed very content to do absolutely flat nothin'. They were just like housecats, content to laze around. Now, I wouldn't get out of the van and go hootin' and hollerin' at 'em, but they weren't much of a worry.

A herd of Rhino blocking the road, and one that was spooked -- that seemed like a lot more worrisome situation. And, of course, when a huge bull elephant flat-out charged our second van, and another huge bull elephant was walking around behind us, kind of making a sandwich -- yes, we were concerned at that point. :)
 
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