HPX500 and HPM110 the best this camera can possibly offer?

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Nick Harris

Active member
I'm in love with my new HPX500 setup. We just did a pickup day for my film 'Donut Shop Hero (trailer here: http://harrisfilms.com/WordPress/?page_id=9), and I must say it performed incredibly. Lighting setups went up lightning fast and it was just a dream to work with.

Now that I've seen what this camera is capable of, I'm aiming for what's next... Until I can get my hands on a 2700 or 3700, I'm wondering if you can take advantage of the AVC-Intra encoder in the HPM110 unit through the HD-SDI out on the 500.

Will this give me 10 bit encoding? Will it make a vast improvement over the already stellar picture, or is the recording capability of the HPM110 recorder limited by the camera it's receiving the feed from? I guess I'm asking if this is a possible way to effectively get AVC-Intra out of the 500 without dropping 28K on the 2000 and the intra board.

Cheers,
Nick Harris
harrisfilms.com
 
The HPM110 would give you some picture improvements, but the HPX500 only outputs 8 bits of data on its HD-SDI so you wouldn't get the full benefit of AVC-Intra. You would get noticeably higher resolution in 720p mode because you'd have 1280x720 AVC-I instead of 960x720 DVCPRO-HD, so it'd be cleaner, less compression, and higher res.

In 1080 mode there will also be higher res than 720, but probably not as much of a difference as there would be in 720 mode. Did that make sense? Let me try again: I think in 720p mode you'll notice more of a boost going from in-camera to AVC-I, than you will get from using 1080 mode in-camera vs. AVC-I.

Both should show some improvement because you're using full-raster recording and the best 2008-technology compression. But, the chipset of the 500 limits its ultimate resolution, and I don't know how much it'll be able to take advantage of beyond DVCPRO-HD's 1280x1080. Maybe some, maybe up to around 1440x1080, but I certainly wouldn't expect it to be night 'n' day.

Now, if the 500 offered 10-bit output, that'd give you even another reason to go with the P2 Mobile/HD-SDI route. At NAB Panasonic was offering that as a recommended upgrade path for VariCam owners, as it gave VariCam owners three major upgrades:
1) P2/tapeless recording
2) full-raster 1280x720 instead of 960x720
3) 10-bit recording

But that's because the VariCam's HD-SDI outputs a full 10 bits. The HPX500 doesn't. So of the three potential benefits, you already have one, you wouldn't get the third, so the second is the only one you'd really be taking advantage of. Is that worth it to you? Only you can decide.
 
The new Convergent Designs SDI recorder might be different approach.

It uses 4:2:2 Mpeg-2 (long GOP or I-frame) 8-bit full raster.

This might add some detail to the HPX-500 image along with affordable CF cards to record on.
 
Thanks Barry! Yeah, it seems then, that I might as well keep my $12K and apply it toward one of the two new Varicams. Maybe by the time I can afford one the 3700 will have an upgrade allowing 60P in 1080...
 
Barry_Green said:
The HPM110 would give you some picture improvements, but the HPX500 only outputs 8 bits of data on its HD-SDI so you wouldn't get the full benefit of AVC-Intra. You would get noticeably higher resolution in 720p mode because you'd have 1280x720 AVC-I instead of 960x720 DVCPRO-HD, so it'd be cleaner, less compression, and higher res.

In 1080 mode there will also be higher res than 720, but probably not as much of a difference as there would be in 720 mode. Did that make sense? Let me try again: I think in 720p mode you'll notice more of a boost going from in-camera to AVC-I, than you will get from using 1080 mode in-camera vs. AVC-I.

Both should show some improvement because you're using full-raster recording and the best 2008-technology compression. But, the chipset of the 500 limits its ultimate resolution, and I don't know how much it'll be able to take advantage of beyond DVCPRO-HD's 1280x1080. Maybe some, maybe up to around 1440x1080, but I certainly wouldn't expect it to be night 'n' day.

Now, if the 500 offered 10-bit output, that'd give you even another reason to go with the P2 Mobile/HD-SDI route. At NAB Panasonic was offering that as a recommended upgrade path for VariCam owners, as it gave VariCam owners three major upgrades:
1) P2/tapeless recording
2) full-raster 1280x720 instead of 960x720
3) 10-bit recording

But that's because the VariCam's HD-SDI outputs a full 10 bits. The HPX500 doesn't. So of the three potential benefits, you already have one, you wouldn't get the third, so the second is the only one you'd really be taking advantage of. Is that worth it to you? Only you can decide.
Click to expand...

Barry,
How does slow-mo work when using the Varicam with the HPM110 ? is the HPM that you set slow-mo through of is it in camera? I don't really understand how that works since for example several cameras out there recod slow-mo in very different ways.
 
The VariCam flags the duplicate frames on its SDI output, and the HPM110 knows how to strip out those duplicate frames when recording. So if you set up a 24P recording and you feed it a 720/60P signal with 48 flagged frames, the resulting recording would be 48fps @ 24P, or 2:1 slow motion. But it's all done instantly and automatically so you just record on the 110 and then play back and it's already slow-mo.
 
so then the 110 can only recod slow-mo from cameras that have the slow-mo feature. So 110 can only record from the F900, SDX900, HPX200 and so forth what those cameras can deliver and nothing more?

So its not the 110 that records slow-mo, it's the camera. This is confusing to me because the SDI out when going to a monitor doesn't show slow-mo when slow-mo is being recorded. Do you see why that sounds contradictory to me?

where can I see an instruction manual for this unit so can try and digest the technicals before considering buying it?

I felt burned by the HPX when I bought it and found out no slow-mo in 1080 despite the misleading literature on it. So this time I want to know EXACTLY what this device does and doesn't do.
 
The 110 can record from any device that supplies an HD-SDI signal. If you want it to do frame-rate conversion, the camera originating the signal has to obviously be capable of scanning at different frame rates and flagging those frames.

So its not the 110 that records slow-mo, it's the camera
Click to expand...
The camera is the one that changes the frame rate. The 110 can record either as displayed (which is not slow-mo) or it can do an on-the-fly frame-rate conversion, stripping out the duplicate frames and creating a file that plays back in slow-mo (or fast-mo, depending on your frame rate).

despite the misleading literature
Click to expand...
I don't know what literature you're referring to; no Panasonic product does slow-mo in 1080 (unless you want to use 1080/30p as mild slow-mo in a 1080/24p timeline). I don't know that there's anything anywhere that says anything to the contrary, is there? Not even the top-of-the-line VariCam 3700 does slow-mo in 1080 (except, as previously stated, up to 30fps).

As for a manual, almost all Panasonic products have their manuals downloadable in PDF format. For the 110, it's at ftp://ftp.panasonic.com/pub/Panasonic/Drivers/PBTS/manuals/OM_AJ-HPM110.pdf
 
By "misleading", I meant that when teh HPX came out the literature on the site stated it did 1080 and it did slow-mo. It didn't state those in the same line. but it also NEVER stated that it DIDN'T do slow-mo in 1080. Many people, not just myself, felt misled by that. It's that specific type of creative mis-information that concerns me when buying future products.

Like that old saying goes,"fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me"
 
Barry,

so does that mean that if I hook the 110 to a red and set the red at 120 frames the 110 will record that and play back a 120 frame slow-mo?

has anyone done this?
 
No because the SMPTE specification for HD-SDI is limited to 60 fps. I don't know quite what the Red would do for monitoring 120fps on the SDI output...
 
No 4:4:4 recording on the P2 Mobile. It will only take in a single HDSDI input. The only Panasonic product that I know of to record 4:4:4 is a D-5 deck with a Jpeg2000 encoder. Pretty cool stuff but not exactly portable. Hopefully there will be something like the HPM210 that does 4:4:4 so that the 3700 has something to record to.

The VFR mode on the 110 requires input from a Panasonic camera to work.. it watches the for flagged frames on the 720 signal to determine what to record. As Barry said this maxes out at 60fps.

Andy
 
not that mr. shipsides doesn't deserve to shut it down with his conclusive and comprehensive explanation (and hes good looking folks)......is the upscale process in camera the same as the upscale process in a 110, e.g. would hd-sdi 720 from a 2700 to the 110 upconvert to the same quality 1080 in the 110 as comes out of the camera? does that makes sense? is there any way to use the 110 to get a cleaner 1080 out of a 2700 with native 720 chip than can be had from the 2700 in cam? would it matter if you recorded directly in 1080 or into 720 first then upconverted card to card?
 
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