Hpx300 rumors

Entity said:
The skew on which camera?

How hard could it really be to shoot around CMOS problems also? I have seen so much nice EX1 footage. I've seen skate vids. Specifically what kind of shots can't you do? Just super fast pans right?
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The biggest difference is, the hpx500 is a global shutter CCD camera and the hpx300 is a rolling shutter cmos camera.

Read the following articles regarding the differences.

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=111003

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=151441

Some Footage exhibiting all weaknesses of a rolling shutter CMOS camera.

http://freshdv.dreamhosters.com/mjeppsen/video/ex1_strobe_cmos_rolling_shutter_artifact.mov

http://vimeo.com/1451532

http://vimeo.com/2132665

http://vimeo.com/1451404

http://vimeo.com/2043552


Also, another issue with CMOS sensor is IR contamination. Many Red One and EX owner have been forced to buy new IR filters based on this issue that can cost up to $1170 for a set of Pancro ND+IR filters. Anyone have any report on the IR contamination level with the hpx300 ??
 
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wow...personally...this whole rolling shutter thing is unacceptable to me. It seems like such a step backwards. They should just stick with improving CCD systems until they can perfect a global CMOS shutter system.
 
jls from what I have heard and seem (look at Barry's article on this site) the video is much cleaner than that. I'm wondering if Andy had the gain turned up on his HPX inadvertently. I'm hopefully getting a hands on look at the HPX tomorrow so I'll let you know what I find.

Jester - I totally hear you. However, I think panasonic saw the acceptance by us the consumers of CMOS (look at Red, EX series, HV30s, SI 2k cameras, Phantom) and decided to respond to that acceptance and demand with their own product. For those who prefer CCD we have the HPX-500 and the HPX170. I guess you could make either of those cameras record AVC-I with the HPG20 via HDSDI. But it would be nice to see a CCD option with built in AVC-I capabilities though.

I would love to see a global shutter CMOS chip, but from my understanding of things it just isn't practical at this point in time, hopefully in the future this can be fixed, or a newer imager will come into maturity that will replace CMOS. For right now it seems the realistic choices are the following:
Full raster CMOS at <2/3" for less than 10k,
Full raster CCD at 2/3" or greater for >$25k
or pixel shifted, lower res CCDs at >1/3" for ~$5k
 
The majority of EX1 users are not troubled by CMOS rolling shutter artifacts, most of the time. Sure, long lens, just like Barry stated elsewhere, is a recipe for the skewing. Mounting on the handlebars of a vibrating vehicle? Sure, JelloCam everywhere and the HPX300 will be the same. CMOS is CMOS.

If I buy one, I will definitely be keeping the HPX170 so that I have choices in tools and the right tool for the job. I think that for a large majority of my work, the HPX300 will serve really well since i mostly shoot interviews, b-roll in controlled situations and tabletop. All situations where skew and Jellocam would rarely come into play. But I do shoot movie premiers and red carpets occasionally, the HPX300 would be as big of a diaster at a movie premier as the EX1 is, all of those hundreds of flashes going off constantly. That is where the 170 would come into play.

Vive le difference and thank you Panasonic for giving us choices. I hope that they keep some CCD choices on the menu for a few more years until they get this CMOS issue handled.

Dan
 
evsdan said:
jls from what I have heard and seem (look at Barry's article on this site) the video is much cleaner than that. I'm wondering if Andy had the gain turned up on his HPX inadvertently. I'm hopefully getting a hands on look at the HPX tomorrow so I'll let you know what I find.

Jester - I totally hear you. However, I think panasonic saw the acceptance by us the consumers of CMOS (look at Red, EX series, HV30s, SI 2k cameras, Phantom) and decided to respond to that acceptance and demand with their own product. For those who prefer CCD we have the HPX-500 and the HPX170. I guess you could make either of those cameras record AVC-I with the HPG20 via HDSDI. But it would be nice to see a CCD option with built in AVC-I capabilities though.

I would love to see a global shutter CMOS chip, but from my understanding of things it just isn't practical at this point in time, hopefully in the future this can be fixed, or a newer imager will come into maturity that will replace CMOS. For right now it seems the realistic choices are the following:
Full raster CMOS at <2/3" for less than 10k,
Full raster CCD at 2/3" or greater for >$25k
or pixel shifted, lower res CCDs at >1/3" for ~$5k
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How does RED do it? I know it has some rolling shutter issues as well, but I haven't seen anything that bad out of RED.
 
It's no worse on an EX-1 than it is on a RED. You know how to avoid it, you avoid it. Most of the complaining comes from speculation and little field experience.

I've gotten PLENTY of skew when panning too fast on an 85mm or better.
 
jls4 said:
Some stills I found shipsides.com/hpx300
Some video http://www.vimeo.com/shipsides

Seems kind of noisy. Extremeyl noisy, but I don't know what gain setting the footage was recorded on. But a lot of noise even in the day shots.
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Dont mean any offence to AS (dont know the shooting circumstances), but those shots are horrible, under exposure issues in the early shots, very very unstable for shoulder mount.

I wouldnt be making judgements on what you see here.
 
I think the majority of the users accepted Cmos not because of the resolution- at least on the professional market- but because of chip size and low light. Red, SI-2k are s35 cameras, while the EX series are the first 1/2 cameras to come at the price range. I was expecting Panasonic to up their game and match the EX in chip size, and, of course, I was expecting AVC-Intra, Panasonics major Ace.
With 1/3 cmos, however, it's like Panasonic is deliberately making our options more difficult. I do not know, sometimes I just feel japanese companies have some sort of "pact" to not obliterate each other's offerings...
 
A lot of networks have thier limits set on certain requirements from camera's and do classify them by sensor size. Doesn't matter if the 1/3 inch looks better than the 1/2 inch sensor in another model the rules are the rules. Discovery has made it very clear that all 1/3 inch camera's will stay in bronze. EX-1/3 are silver only due to the 1/2 sensor although barry & kevin's africa screen shots from the 300 look better than the ex-3 IMO.
 
SPZ said:
I do not know, sometimes I just feel japanese companies have some sort of "pact" to not obliterate each other's offerings...
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That is absolutely how it seems to work. Read Akio Morita's book "Made In Japan" (Morita is one of the founding members of Sony). He says in there that the heads of the companies would get together and discuss their product plans, and that you could never do that in the US because it would be an antitrust violation, but in Japan it's done all the time.
 
ChipG said:
A lot of networks have thier limits set on certain requirements from camera's and do classify them by sensor size. Doesn't matter if the 1/3 inch looks better than the 1/2 inch sensor in another model the rules are the rules. Discovery has made it very clear that all 1/3 inch camera's will stay in bronze. EX-1/3 are silver only due to the 1/2 sensor although barry & kevin's africa screen shots from the 300 look better than the ex-3 IMO.
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Has anyone ever produced any documentation to show that the EX1 or EX3 have been rated silver? I've googled for it, and found some forum postings, but nothing definitive from Discovery...

And it remains to be seen whether all 1/3" cameras will continue to be rated bronze. There hasn't been a 1/3" camera like the 300 before, combining full-res sensors with a full-raster recording format.
 
Barry_Green said:
That is absolutely how it seems to work. Read Akio Morita's book "Made In Japan" (Morita is one of the founding members of Sony). He says in there that the heads of the companies would get together and discuss their product plans, and that you could never do that in the US because it would be an antitrust violation, but in Japan it's done all the time.
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Thank God (whichever you believe in) for US companies like RED, then! :)
 
It's listed in thier in house production specs for shows they commission, it's not out in the open listed on a website. If they commission a show through you you'll get the list of thier standards.

Jan has a list and posted it in another thread what Panny camera's are in what category. With the way Disco upgrades thier camera's this could take a couple years. The hpx-500 was the only 2/3 inch hd camera in bronze since it came out and was just upgraded last week to silver.

My sister and bro in law in LA are good friends with the former VP of programming for disco (now promoted to a higher position) so I'll pick his brain at thier next cocktail party that I'm at.
 
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I made a phone call and was told the category bronze was created specifically for 1/3 inch camera's and all 1/3 inch camera's will stay in this category. I was also told other camera's with larger sensors that were considered sub par were also put in the bronze category.

And for the most part all 1/2 inch sensor camera's are silver with the exception of a few with larger sensors that are considered sub par for the gold category. Gold category is 2/3 inch sensor "top dog" camera's.

Here is a list of camera's that Jan posted in another thread and thier category for pannasonic camera's in the discovery channel's categorys. It is also my understanding that the older first generation 720 varicams were in gold when they first came out but have been moved down to the silver category as better camera's have come out.

Gold
AJ-HPX3000
AJ-HDC27F or H, Planet Earth was shot on the tape based Varicam
AJ-HPX3700
AJ-HPX2700

Silver
AJ-HPX2000
AJ-HPX500

Bronze
AG-HPX170
AG-HVX200/A
 
evsdan said:
jls from what I have heard and seem (look at Barry's article on this site) the video is much cleaner than that. I'm wondering if Andy had the gain turned up on his HPX inadvertently. I'm hopefully getting a hands on look at the HPX tomorrow so I'll let you know what I find.
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I was looking at Barry's stuff and it looks great. But I like everyone else, i think needs to see more footage. There are some things Panasonic didn't give us while they did give us a lot. I hear people saying that the noise is less than the HVX200, but I hear people claiming how noisy the HPX200 is. So I'm just waiting to see more - especially people's faces. I mean sorry, but I don't plan to shoot Lions, Tigers and Bears 'Oh My!' any time soon! LOL :)
 
Barry_Green said:
Has anyone ever produced any documentation to show that the EX1 or EX3 have been rated silver? I've googled for it, and found some forum postings, but nothing definitive from Discovery...

And it remains to be seen whether all 1/3" cameras will continue to be rated bronze. There hasn't been a 1/3" camera like the 300 before, combining full-res sensors with a full-raster recording format.
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The Z7U is at Silver level for Discovery Studios and the resulting TLC show I shoot on. That's a new spec for this show. All four units are on the Z7U.

e
 
Disco loves the Z7's, it is the first 1/3 inch camera they have allowed 100% content from (on commissioned shows) and only because they deemed the larger shoulder mount cam's to dangerous to use in most situations for those shows.

Some friends shoot Deadliest Catch, Storm Chasers and Recreation Nation for Discovery Channel and I'll I hear about is how much they and Disco like those camera's and it's almost perfect workflow for those type projects.
 
Hey Erik,

Do they still make you turn the sharpness all the way down or off in camera (for the sony's)?
 
I'll ask one of the assistants. I haven't heard this, but anything is possible now. In fact, we're shooting 24 frame for everything instead of 1080/60i, which surprised me - a lot. So, things are changing to be sure.

Crazy days. Crazy days.

e
 
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