Hvx Survey

I love the HVX I'd give it 8.5. I love the image it produces, but I feel the LCD is not sharp enough for HD; even with the focus assist. I would also love to see a physically bigger display say 5-7 inches. I reckon the next revamp of the HVX will do away with the tape mechanism completely, this might allow more room for a larger display and image sensor. Also it's not really suitable for long run hand held use without support. I would love to see a re-designed body and a removable shoulder mount like the XL 2. For me its more an indie camera than run and gun.
P2 is fantastic, no more logging, its just a matter of time until we can dump 4-6 hours to a P2 store in the field. I feel this is the real test for Panasonic and P2; give us a bigger unit like the Cineporter capable of 4 hours or more coupled with an offload function to a self powered cheap hard drive.
Would love to see interchangeable lenses. Adaptors are fine but they need to be set up and can cause delays and problems when shooting. I think when the Red comes out in 2007 you will see Panasonic taking a serious look at this.
4:2:2 is fantastic, variable frame rate is a great plus, reliable codec. I'm sure any issues raised on this site will be looked at in a revamped model prob due towards the mid to end of 2007 (this is only my feeling, not a rumour) !!.
 
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After three and a half weeks shooting a feature documentary in Hurricane Katrina ravaged South Mississippi, I give the camera a solid 7, the Firestore FS100 a generous 4 and the P2 card/P2 Genie combo a 9.5. The camera has issues but with tenderness and an outboard monitor and light meter a properly exposed image is possible. The firewire port comes loose after use, lcds useless, auto exposure inconsistent, often used menu items too buried, terrible in low light, form factor bad for hand-held, optical image stabilizer awesome!!, auto-focus in 24p useless, daylight and indoor well-lighted areas awesome picture, menu buttons terribly placed, auto WB button hard to reach when camera is rigged, headphone output not loud enough!!!!...

Firestore.......oh I give..

P2 cards awesome.....P2 Genie a time-saver and solid.

Don't want to sound like a basher. I own it and will make it work. We learned a lot on this project . Some of the imagery is great, some so so and some horrible and noisy. Not a great guerilla style shooting camera but good for the price.

Don Wilson
AmericanaMediaInc.com
 
Don't want to sound like a basher. I own it and will make it work. We learned a lot on this project . Some of the imagery is great, some so so and some horrible and noisy. Not a great guerilla style shooting camera but good for the price.
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Have you learned how to control conditions to avoid the horrible and noisy imagery? If so, perhaps you could start a new string so that we can share workarounds!
 
I'm going to pretend decimal points don't exist for this. :)

A solid 9 rating. It is near perfect, IMHO. Sure there could be some improvements made but it is just packed with so many features that I cannot complain in the least.

However, some features I would like to see added in the future:

Native streaming via Firewire (so proggy's like "DVC Rack" will work in that mode)

Unlock (legitimately) all those hidden framerates

More robust 1080 support ("Film Cam," Native Mode, variable frame rates, etc) akin to the 720

Better low light functionality

VTR/Menu buttons rotated 90 degrees counter-clockwise

Better LCP

Image flip

And FWIW . . . less noise (not that it really bothers me now)


That's all I can think of right now.
 
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