As someone coveting an upgrade to HVX, I was in the local digital video specialty shop and the dude behind the counter said he's still selling LOTS of DVX's but not so many HVX's. He suggested broadcaters will often not "accept" HD shot on cams like the JVC HD100 or HVX. I emphasize, this guy is a SALESMAN and not necessarily a filmmaker, broadcaster, professional videographer, or whatever, and so the validity of this opinion is unknown to me. What do you think? Do broadcasters who want HD accept HVX HD just as well as they accept any other HD as long as it "looks good"?
HVX hungry
- Thread starter sean90291
- Start date
dolph2000 said:
ha ha ha ha ha hah ahahahah
thats one of the best posts of the day.
Sounds like he has a bunch of SD cameras on the shelves. Look around and search, the HVX is being used in broadcast everyday. Look at this Pana press release. This station bought 85 HVX200's.
http://www2.panasonic.com/webapp/wc...6110706501&surfModel=Content04212006110706501
http://www2.panasonic.com/webapp/wc...6110706501&surfModel=Content04212006110706501
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BobDiaz
The Professor
I've had salesmen feed me all sorts of lines. If I could put some of those lines on my front lawn, the grass would be a lot greener.
The main objective from a salesman is selling, if the truth is tossed aside to make the sale, there are salesmen more than willing to do it.
In all fairness, I've also known of some salesmen who refuse to BS me, they are the ones who get my business.
Bob Diaz
The main objective from a salesman is selling, if the truth is tossed aside to make the sale, there are salesmen more than willing to do it.
In all fairness, I've also known of some salesmen who refuse to BS me, they are the ones who get my business.
Bob Diaz
Barry_Green
Moderator
I had a lot of people come up at the NAB VFR workshop and talk about what they're doing. One stuck out in my mind -- he was the director of photography on a certain extraordinarily popular show on the Discovery channel, and had been for four years. They just went HD last season. They're using F900's for the main show, but for crash-cam stuff and car-mounted footage they needed little cameras, and the only ones that were available were Sony Z1's. He said that for broadcast usage, especially for car-mounted stuff, they'll never use them again. HDV compression didn't hold up, and especially the Sony suffers in high-frequency vibration circumstances. He's getting rid of all the Sony HDV gear and replacing it with HVXs, and further said that Discovery and other networks really don't want anything to do with HDV, they'll only accept a tiny percentage of footage from HDV. And since he works in that circle he knows a lot of networks and shows that are doing the same thing.sean90291 said:
Big networks still want big cameras producing the majority of the footage, but the HVX is having no trouble at all being adopted.
Ralph Oshiro
Veteran
I met a crew yesterday in Los Angeles from Seattle (or was it Portland?), covering the daytime Emmys. They were from an ABC affiliate (not an O&O, I don't think), and to my surprise, he was shooting with an SPX800! Actually, that's the the first SPX800 I had ever seen in the field!
Jan_Crittenden
Veteran
sean90291 said:
He may be telling the truth on his experience of selling DVXs, the rest of his story is that the broadcasters are in transition. Many have grabbed up an HVX or two, but at this point they may not be using them in HD. Time will give us all of the answers on this one, but if the HVX answers your purpose, buy one.
Best,
Jan
thebman18
Member
I had a similar conversation with a salesman over at the B&H booth at NAB2006. He claims that many customers are canceling their orders for the HVX200 after seeing it and playing with it at NAB2006. He says that many are gearing more towards the Canon XL H1 because of recording time and HD-SDI out for better editing and T.V. production capabilities. This got me thinking, is the HVX200 missing something? What do you guys think?
I guess if you could shoot with the XL H1 in a studio hooked up to an HD deck or editing system going HD-SDI out that would be great.
HDV better editing?? I guess they have not sat down at an edit bay and compared HDV to DVCPRO HD. If you have any doubts I would say go to a local rental house and compare. The rental houses usually have better tweaked cameras than they would at the trade show. And I would not trust that a salesmans word is the last word.........
HDV better editing?? I guess they have not sat down at an edit bay and compared HDV to DVCPRO HD. If you have any doubts I would say go to a local rental house and compare. The rental houses usually have better tweaked cameras than they would at the trade show. And I would not trust that a salesmans word is the last word.........
Most everyone who is using HDV cameras are using an intermediate codec for editing. HDV native is a terrible performer. The argument against HDV should not really factor in native HDV editing as a drawback at this point...at least on a PC. If you can justify spending thousands of dollars on P2 cards then $500 on the great Cineform software is a no brainer for HDV.
Having said this in favor of HDV folks I must also state I am using the HVX myself. But I am not completely happy with the resolution and started looking into other options too. The truth is when I view well shot, well lit HVX200 footage on my big screen HDTV it seems to not even be in the same ballpark as Broadcast HD. And when I download HD100 clips and H1 clips in native .m2t HDV format they hold up so much better! It is making me doubt the HVX somewhat. Sure the colors are there and curves rock. But when shown to "average" joes (family +friends) they all go "wow" over the other 2 cameras and not the HVX. They expect HD to look like what they see on broadcast. While none of these "affordable" cameras are that good, apparently the HD100 and H1 look closer to the average joe than the HVX.
I know resolution is not everything but don't kid yourself into thinking it isn't important at all. It sure would be nice if there was one of these cameras that di everything right.
Having said this in favor of HDV folks I must also state I am using the HVX myself. But I am not completely happy with the resolution and started looking into other options too. The truth is when I view well shot, well lit HVX200 footage on my big screen HDTV it seems to not even be in the same ballpark as Broadcast HD. And when I download HD100 clips and H1 clips in native .m2t HDV format they hold up so much better! It is making me doubt the HVX somewhat. Sure the colors are there and curves rock. But when shown to "average" joes (family +friends) they all go "wow" over the other 2 cameras and not the HVX. They expect HD to look like what they see on broadcast. While none of these "affordable" cameras are that good, apparently the HD100 and H1 look closer to the average joe than the HVX.
I know resolution is not everything but don't kid yourself into thinking it isn't important at all. It sure would be nice if there was one of these cameras that di everything right.
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Barry_Green
Moderator
I think he has a lot of Canon XLH1's in stock, and no HVXs. Remember B&H has been saying "out of stock" on the HVX for months now. So if he can't sell you an HVX because he doesn't have it, and he happens to be sitting on a stockpile of Canons, what would you expect him to say?thebman18 said:
Barry_Green said:
With all due respect Barry, isn't it remotely possible that maybe some people prefer the XL-H1 to the HVX200 and that is why he mentioned that? I realize that a sale is a sale.....but your post seems to imply the only reason one would recommend the XL-H1 to the HVX200 is if the HVX200 is out of stock. I own an HVX and for the most part I am happy with it. But there are things about the XL-H1 that I'd love to have too.
Barry_Green
Moderator
Of course the XLH1 has its benefits. It has unique capabilities that none of the other products offer. It has higher resolution than the others too. I'm not doubting that at all.
But B&H has been "out of stock" for quite a while on HVXs, whereas it's no secret that XLH1's are in stock anywhere you go. Any dealer who carries the XLH1 has unsold boxes sitting on the shelf. There's no such thing as an XLH1 waiting list, just dealers who've spent their cash to buy inventory and are now paying carrying charges on that as-yet-unsold inventory.
In my business a lot depends on knowing what's actually going on out there. Not just what the "internet buzz" is, but what product is actually moving off the shelf... I spend a lot of time talking to resellers to find out who's actually selling what. When the XL2 came out, I paid a lot of attention to the sales statistics -- if it sold a lot of units, the XL2 Book/DVD would have become a reality. But it didn't. So I passed.
With the HDV offerings, I originally pre-ordered a Z1 because I intended to do a book/dvd on it as well, but after spending a week with the FX1 I decided it wasn't a product I was interested in, and left that market to DSE.
When the JVC came out I was first in line to get one, but by the time it arrived I'd been able to do plenty of market research and find that it just wasn't selling (regardless of whether they claim 12,000 units sold or not). The SSE and other issues had left it fairly dead in the water. Even though it had no competition as far as a progressive-scan 24p high-def product, dealers were still selling 10 DVXs (standard-def DVXs!) for every Sony Z1&FX1, and they sold four FX1/Z1's for every HD100. So I was stuck with a product that had very little market acceptance, and generally had issues, and mine in particular was a lemon among lemons. So I sent it back. Didn't want to, I really wanted to believe that this was going to be the breakthrough product. But it wasn't. Seems like it has picked up somewhat in the last couple of months, but it was DOA for a long, long time.
If the Canon XLH1 were selling a lot of product, that opens up the possibility of wanting to do a Canon training product -- whether a book & dvd, or a Canon HD Bootcamp, whatever. But the Canon dealers can't give them away. I talked to two major retailers (and by major, I mean MAJOR) who both said they've NEVER received a single call for XLH1's. And both of them are terminating their JVC dealerships because they have a lot of stock and no way to move it, and plenty of complaints. And they're not allowed to compete on price on the Canon, because their dealer agreement with Canon prohibits them from offering even $1 off. Every XLH1 must be sold at full retail $8999, no discounting allowed. So they can't compete with each other, or with the other products out there.
I'm not saying there aren't XLH1's and HD100's out in some users hands right now. But the idea that people are cancelling their HVX orders and moving to the Canon or JVC? That simply does not jive with what about 30 different dealers all over this country and in other countries have told me. A few have moved from the HVX list to the JVC, but not a lot.
When the HVX waiting list at EVS was 260 people deep, yes a lot of people canceled. But did they buy Canon XLH1's? No, they bought HVX's from Lerro and Roscor and ProMedia and other dealers, because the product was available there. They were canceling because of the WAIT, not because of the product! So has B&H received a lot of cancellations on their HVX backorder list? I'd bet big money that they have. Because they've been out of stock for four months, whereas other dealers have them available right now or on short notice.
But I bet you could get an XLH1 today. I bet it's sitting on the shelf right now, sealed in its box. He has it available, and he can offer it right now, and I'm sure that he does advise people to take the product he's got in stock. Does he have HVXs sitting on the shelf in stock? Or is there still a big backorder list? That's an easy one to guess.
Doesn't mean the XLH1 is a bad product, or that the HD100 is a bad product, etc. But the ground truth is that the HVX is going to blitzkreig both of them, the early sales are showing it, and I easily predict that the HVX will sell more, in its first year, than all the Z1s and XLH1s and HD100s combined.
But B&H has been "out of stock" for quite a while on HVXs, whereas it's no secret that XLH1's are in stock anywhere you go. Any dealer who carries the XLH1 has unsold boxes sitting on the shelf. There's no such thing as an XLH1 waiting list, just dealers who've spent their cash to buy inventory and are now paying carrying charges on that as-yet-unsold inventory.
In my business a lot depends on knowing what's actually going on out there. Not just what the "internet buzz" is, but what product is actually moving off the shelf... I spend a lot of time talking to resellers to find out who's actually selling what. When the XL2 came out, I paid a lot of attention to the sales statistics -- if it sold a lot of units, the XL2 Book/DVD would have become a reality. But it didn't. So I passed.
With the HDV offerings, I originally pre-ordered a Z1 because I intended to do a book/dvd on it as well, but after spending a week with the FX1 I decided it wasn't a product I was interested in, and left that market to DSE.
When the JVC came out I was first in line to get one, but by the time it arrived I'd been able to do plenty of market research and find that it just wasn't selling (regardless of whether they claim 12,000 units sold or not). The SSE and other issues had left it fairly dead in the water. Even though it had no competition as far as a progressive-scan 24p high-def product, dealers were still selling 10 DVXs (standard-def DVXs!) for every Sony Z1&FX1, and they sold four FX1/Z1's for every HD100. So I was stuck with a product that had very little market acceptance, and generally had issues, and mine in particular was a lemon among lemons. So I sent it back. Didn't want to, I really wanted to believe that this was going to be the breakthrough product. But it wasn't. Seems like it has picked up somewhat in the last couple of months, but it was DOA for a long, long time.
If the Canon XLH1 were selling a lot of product, that opens up the possibility of wanting to do a Canon training product -- whether a book & dvd, or a Canon HD Bootcamp, whatever. But the Canon dealers can't give them away. I talked to two major retailers (and by major, I mean MAJOR) who both said they've NEVER received a single call for XLH1's. And both of them are terminating their JVC dealerships because they have a lot of stock and no way to move it, and plenty of complaints. And they're not allowed to compete on price on the Canon, because their dealer agreement with Canon prohibits them from offering even $1 off. Every XLH1 must be sold at full retail $8999, no discounting allowed. So they can't compete with each other, or with the other products out there.
I'm not saying there aren't XLH1's and HD100's out in some users hands right now. But the idea that people are cancelling their HVX orders and moving to the Canon or JVC? That simply does not jive with what about 30 different dealers all over this country and in other countries have told me. A few have moved from the HVX list to the JVC, but not a lot.
When the HVX waiting list at EVS was 260 people deep, yes a lot of people canceled. But did they buy Canon XLH1's? No, they bought HVX's from Lerro and Roscor and ProMedia and other dealers, because the product was available there. They were canceling because of the WAIT, not because of the product! So has B&H received a lot of cancellations on their HVX backorder list? I'd bet big money that they have. Because they've been out of stock for four months, whereas other dealers have them available right now or on short notice.
But I bet you could get an XLH1 today. I bet it's sitting on the shelf right now, sealed in its box. He has it available, and he can offer it right now, and I'm sure that he does advise people to take the product he's got in stock. Does he have HVXs sitting on the shelf in stock? Or is there still a big backorder list? That's an easy one to guess.
Doesn't mean the XLH1 is a bad product, or that the HD100 is a bad product, etc. But the ground truth is that the HVX is going to blitzkreig both of them, the early sales are showing it, and I easily predict that the HVX will sell more, in its first year, than all the Z1s and XLH1s and HD100s combined.
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stevenblatter
Well-known member
Panasonic sells more because they talks much more than JVC or Canon! Sony don't have to make a BIG talks about there products because everybody trust's them! Anyway I still love the Panasonic products more than the others and I think, like some other's, I love nice product brochures!
TedRR
Well-known member
Like Barry, I'm not saying the other cameras are garbage.
But I had several dealers try and sell me off the HVX and onto something they had in stock. Funny thing, a couple of those called and changed their tune when they finally got the HVX in stock. I made it clear that by pissing on the HVX and now saying it was awesome convinced me they were not worthy of my money.
But I had several dealers try and sell me off the HVX and onto something they had in stock. Funny thing, a couple of those called and changed their tune when they finally got the HVX in stock. I made it clear that by pissing on the HVX and now saying it was awesome convinced me they were not worthy of my money.
Camera's are definitely a personal thing, ranging from their colorspace and ergonomics to their workflow and economics of operation.
But the funny thing is, is that I purchased my camera from B&H on the show floor at NAB on Tuesday with no problems, no backorder issues at all. The salesman was talking to three separate customers at the time I showed up and he seemed to be indicating to them that the Panny was the way to go compared to the JVC and Canon which were right next to HVX. As of today the HVX is in stock at B&H on its own or in packaged configs. The only thing they don't seem to have is the 8GB cards.
I attended the HVX bootcamp a few weeks ago in Los Angeles to help make my decision. That pretty much clinched it, but I figured I would always wonder if I made the correct decision without comparing it to the Canon and JVC. So I went to NAB and discovered that both of them appeared sharper than the Panny, but it appeared like sharper video. What was also interesting is that the footage that I saw at HVX bootcamp looked sharper (not in a bad way) than what Panasonic was showing in their booth. Go figure.
Maybe Barry can shed some light on it.
But the funny thing is, is that I purchased my camera from B&H on the show floor at NAB on Tuesday with no problems, no backorder issues at all. The salesman was talking to three separate customers at the time I showed up and he seemed to be indicating to them that the Panny was the way to go compared to the JVC and Canon which were right next to HVX. As of today the HVX is in stock at B&H on its own or in packaged configs. The only thing they don't seem to have is the 8GB cards.
I attended the HVX bootcamp a few weeks ago in Los Angeles to help make my decision. That pretty much clinched it, but I figured I would always wonder if I made the correct decision without comparing it to the Canon and JVC. So I went to NAB and discovered that both of them appeared sharper than the Panny, but it appeared like sharper video. What was also interesting is that the footage that I saw at HVX bootcamp looked sharper (not in a bad way) than what Panasonic was showing in their booth. Go figure.
Maybe Barry can shed some light on it.