Hpx500 with Nanoflash

lawriejaffa

lawriejaffa

Veteran
Hey guys - im going to try and to a test relatively soon with the hxp500 and a nanoflash!

I was wondering what your own thoughts are in relating to the possibilities offered by the device with video aquisition.

What kind of advantages might it confer in relation to the limitations inherit with the hpx.

Ideally, if someone already uses a nano - hpx500 combo it would be great to see the results, as im looking to attempt this due to a lack of any test material out there looking at this.
 
As a Nano user... I don't really know what you could expect to improve on what you've already got. The big thing about the Nano is that it takes HDV or AVCHD long-GoP 4:2:0 camcorders and lets you record higher-bitrate higher-quality footage. But the HPX500 isn't one of those. It's already got 4:2:2. It's already got a high-bitrate intraframe codec.

So what could the Nano do for you? Maybe give you a tiny bit higher res footage (because it would record 1920x1080 instead of 1440x1080 for DVCPRO-HD 1080), but even then, that doesn't matter much because the chipset in the HPX500 only delivers about 1440x810 anyway.

I don't really see that the Nano is going to give you much, unless you want to do 720p stuff. There the Nano would have an advantage, in that it would record a full 1280x720 instead of the 960x720 of DVCPRO-HD. And you could record to CF media instead of P2, if you find that more affordable and don't mind not getting the reliability/workflow benefits of P2.

Or, well, I guess another thing is that you could get instant-edit files on a Mac, since the Nano records in Quicktime files, if that's important to you.

But other than 720p, I wouldn't really expect to see much in the way of better-quality footage. If you do see something, please let us know as that would be quite interesting!
 
Hey there Barry sure thing, we have a 2nd hpx500 coming in from an old client (instead of $$$) and rather than get more p2 cards im interested in that possibiltiy, along with any advantages it might offer! However i think your answer here will be useful to a good few users who might be interested in what the nanoflash could or couldnt do. I'll confirm when i get to borrow the flash and will confer again for any requests with the test :)
 
I agree with Barry. I have been using this setup for two years. Here are the benefits I see:

1) Nice to work in full raster, image and editing wise
2) Much more affordable than P2. (quite frankly, the Nanoflash made it possible for me to consider the HPX-500 as I shoot a lot of live stuff)

Negative would be that it is not in-camera. You can trigger recording with a P2 card by chasing timecode or start recording from the unit. This is not a show stopper for me as I often am shooting for long periods of time. I have it mounted on the battery plate on the back of the camera with permanent cables to the SDI & power ports.

I use Edius and the files have been drag and drop on the timeline from day one. Really easy to work with.

So I have been using an HPX-500 for two years and I do not own a single P2 card. I saw it the Nano as a better investment as I can use it with any SDI capable camera, P2 or not.
 
Oh hey Bassman maybe you can save me a test sourcing one hrmph - would you consider posting a couple of stills with your settings from 1080?

Might be interesting to see!
 
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