HPX370 in broadcast use

J

Jacquesstar

Member
At first, I was skeptical about my HPX370, but I have noticed it being used in broadcast shooting, mainly local news stations. I have also seen it used on some reality TV shows, such as Operation Repo, alongside the newer HPX3100's. I have used the HPX370 alongside my friends HPX3700 Varicam on two camera TV shows as well, (we matched them up by tweaking the same scene file a little bit beforehand) with great results.

I use the 370 for most of my broadcast, corporate and web work. I am progressing to more two-camera shoots, and might add a 2nd camera, either an HPX3100, or the HPX3700 within a year or so, but we will see. I will be shooting and editing a weekly newsmagazine shoot very soon, I am planning on adding a 1/3 inch wide angle lens to my rig. It will work fine for the start of the show, which will be 3 minute segments on another show, but it will eventually turn into a full 30 minute show, so I might move up to a 2/3" P2 rig with a wide angle.

I used to use Sony Betacams, but I am really getting into the P2 workflow.

Who else out here is using the 370 as a main camera for broadcast TV work?
 
The 370 is considered a good news camera. However, you will not find in in the studio or used in production work at the O&O or network level. It is good for local stations on a budget.
 
I have actually come across some network level O&O's that use the HPX300. FOX Sports Southwest, all their staff photogs have HPX300's. Also, reality shows such as Operation Repo uses the HPX370, so I have actually seen it being used.
 
I have used my 301 and 371 on all sorts of broadcast material from news to features and sport in HD and SD, I have also done indie productions and commercials for the cinema.
 
Cool! Despite some factors, I think that the 370 is a great camera for the money. Gary, so you use a 301 and a 370? I am assuming that you do a fair share of two camera stuff or have another camera and shooter if you are double-booked?

I am looking into doing this in the future, and was thinking that the HPX3100 would be a good camera to pair up with the 370, I have had pretty good luck matching scene files between the 3700 and the 370 for two-camera shoots. Has this been working well for you?
 
Yes the 3100 and 370 will make a good combo as they both share the same body form and will grade well together as they have similar pixel count sensors.

At times it's hard to tell the 3100, 3700 and 370 shots apart on the edit monitors.
 
We currently use the HVX200 for all of our shoots. We are a local origination station and we record football, wrestling, basketball, parades, etc. I'm looking at purchasing two new cameras for our production truck and I'm not sure if the 250 or the 370 would be a good fit. I've read info about the 370 having problems in lower light or fast moving sports with blurry video. Any suggestions from anyone using either or both of these cameras?

Thanks for your help!
Larry
 
larryz22 said:
We currently use the HVX200 for all of our shoots. We are a local origination station and we record football, wrestling, basketball, parades, etc. I'm looking at purchasing two new cameras for our production truck and I'm not sure if the 250 or the 370 would be a good fit. I've read info about the 370 having problems in lower light or fast moving sports with blurry video. Any suggestions from anyone using either or both of these cameras?

Thanks for your help!
Larry
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In my experience, the 370 doesn't really have problems in low light, it just has a typical S/N ratio for a 1/3" cam. The problem is that most 1/3" cameras typically don't have a 10-bit 100mbps codec that does a wonderful job of rendering the noise floor instead of smoothing it over with compression. The 370 also has the same amount of skew as any other CMOS-chip camera, and is supposedly better in 720p mode than the Sony EX1/3.

The 370 may have problems with motion if you have the noise reduction filter active; but set a high frame rate + shutter speed and motion looks very good. This camera shoots really crisp and noise-free 720p, but 1080p isn't quite as good-looking IMO, which is kinda odd since this is a 1080p native camera.

Another camera to look at in this price range is the PMW-320K; it costs a bit more, but it will also likely be better "out of the box". It took me a lot of tinkering and setting up and getting to know the camera before I got what I wanted out of the 370.
 
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I just finished this promo yesterday and I can't complain about the 370. I prefer a large sensor camera but if your going for a ENG look the 370 is great. The camera is very sensitive but can get noise if you gain up.

 
Erik,

Nice footage. I use a 250 and I like it. I am still learning the camera. I am curious as to what format you shot the promo in and what camera settings you used if you would not mind sharing the info.

Sincerely,
Bill
 
EDV said:
Erik: Were all parts of this promo shot on the 370 or is it mixed with Varicam footage? The Olympic moments almost look too good!
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The primary camera used for shooting our talent was the Panasonic HPX-370. The tail shot is a Panasonic AF-100 with the awesome Voigtlander 25mm.
I used a GH2 for the time lapse shots.
Normally I would shoot with the AF-100 but I wanted more snappy lens action for this spot so I opted for the HPX-370.
Color grading with Magic Bullet Colorista II and Magic Bullet Looks.

The Olympic footage came from NBC.
 
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The HPX-370 is to me an upgrade to the HPX-250 w/ better lens and shoulder mount capability. 1080p CMOS sharpness definitely is there. But there's very few "richness" to the picture when intercutting w/ other 2/3" cams such as the HPX-3100 & HPX3700. Richness is the extra colors popping out and pristine clarity only exist when a real HD lens with triple CCDs w/ 12-position independent color matrix control are used. In other words, you can see fine detail of the heat waves, subtle misty water vapors and all other very fine details that the HPX-370 can't capture. Most of the times they do look similar because of the sharpness. But majority of the times, 2/3" HPX2000-3000 series (excluding the entry level HPX-500&600) camcorder kicks **** the HPX-370 & HPX-250 out of its league easily. Complete functioning 2/3" body at ~$30K is a considerable amount of $$$ for any cam these days. A new HD lens will be another $30K-95K. So average of $65K-70K total per camera is a considerable expense to get that extra 10-15% of quality fr the rest of the under $15K camcorder (body & lens). Most common practice for most budget-conscious network producers is to have the main cam & EFP 2/3" lens to be of the best possible money can buy while 2nd camera and beyond with a cheaper HPX-250 or HPX-370.
 
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Bought 2 HPX 300's with stock and Fuginon Th13x3.5BRMU lenses for final two seasons of "Good Eats" with Alton Brown for Food Network.
Used the camera in seasons 13 & 14 plus 3 one hours specials before Alton retired the series. Still available on Cooking Channel.
Switched over to HD in season 9 and used Varicam 27F & 27H before switching/buying to HPX 300 due to budget cuts at network.
Quite a bit of the shooting was on Alien Revolution "Steadicam" rig so both cameras were modded with Panasonic's blessing to allow removal of top handle and viewfinder.
Usually had no time for post color correction so I used a Panasonic Video AJ-RC10G Remote Control Unit through a 164ft (50 meter) control cable to tweak setting on the fly. Also had a full Preston wireless FF/Iris/Zoom config as the shots would move from extreme CU to extreme wide.
Due to network rules at the time we did not record in camera but used a 1200a deck for tape masters and backed up using a Panasonic AG-HPG20P P2 HD/SD Reader/Recorder.
Since the show is no longer in production I have decided to sell all this gear but it treated me well.
Here is a shot of the rig we used for much of the shooting.
SM01.jpg
Here are the last episodes from season 13/14 and the specials.:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBF92C46180066536
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0E92A681A3A908F8

 
BillinSC said:
Erik,

Nice footage. I use a 250 and I like it. I am still learning the camera. I am curious as to what format you shot the promo in and what camera settings you used if you would not mind sharing the info.

Sincerely,
Bill
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probably Erik slips out this post
or no?
:)
i'm nosy, too
 
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