HVX200 vs. XD CAM HD

eLeventy said:
The main problem with the Ikegami that pops up is a gruelling 17sec startup time. A battery change takes 22secs! For EFP, I can live with that, but for ENG, thats a big nono. Compared to 2 secs for Pana/Sony
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Ouch, thats nasty! I hadn't heard about that before.

eLeventy said:
Ikegami and Pana are mounted as a local drives, and have the speed to match.
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I'm still not with you. XDCAM can be connected as a network drive using the ethernet card. But it can also be connected via firewire using FAM which enables it to act exactly as a local drive. FAM mode is actually slightly quicker than the network option (around 5x realtime for full resolution DVCAM). Although it is still too slow to edit from directly.

eLeventy said:
To be fair, at the moment we're testing the Ikegami and Pana's. The Sony's are comming in in 2 weeks, so we'll know more then.
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Cool. Let me know how you get on with all the systems. It'll be interesting to hear from someone who has been able to use them all in practical situations.
 
eLeventy said:
Pushing him for a pricerange, at my remark " 20% premium", he smiled, and stated "Probably less". If the current SD version is around €23K( no glass), start calculating.
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That's VERY interesting news. And IBC is recent! But I'm a bit confused by your statement . . . A "20% premium" over what? An SPX800? So, are you guessing €23K, which is $27,738 USD, for the body alone, PLUS 20% of that, PLUS a lens? Without a lens, that comes to $33,282, plus, say, $20K for a lens. If I can get this even half-assed confirmed, then I'll feel comfortable ordering my DSR450 tomorrow. For just over $16K, I can get a 2/3" widescreen 24P (albeit, SD) f/11 camera with the DSR450, AND I can stay with my existing workflow. Please clarify. Thanks for the info!

Oh, didn't notice the "probably less" comment by the Panasonic rep. At a 10% premium, that still puts the body alone at $30K USD. I'm still out of the game on this one.
 
Hi and thanks for the feedback eLeventy.


That was interesting but I'm not clear - what was the percentage you were discussing? Was it the fact that the new camera will be minus a tape drum and therefore 20% cheaper on manufacture costs or something else? 20% more expensive than ....?

Thanks.
 
I did say "...add to the confusion..." :cheesy:

I have no idea of current retail prices in the US, but google puts the msrp of the spx800 at around $20.000.

That is body only, no lens.
Add to that 20%, or $4.000, and hey presto, $24K for the HD version

But again, this is VERY unconfirmed info, from a not so well informed Pana sales rep at IBC. Don't come looking for me if turns out to be $34K ( or $14k for that mather). :evil:
 
Barry_Green said:
Regarding the processing power argument -- I think that's probably true. Consider that the newest highest-end deck, HDCAM-SR, uses MPEG-4 compression (but at an astoundingly high bitrate of 440mbps).
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The MPEG-4 compression in HDCAM-SR is, I believe, I-frame only (no GOP) -- hence, the high data rate (and at 4:4:4 it's 880 Mbps). HD-D5 is "only" 250 Mbps at 4:2:2.
 
eLeventy said:
I have no idea of current retail prices in the US, but google puts the msrp of the spx800 at around $20.000. That is body only, no lens. Add to that 20%, or $4.000, and hey presto, $24K for the HD version

But again, this is VERY unconfirmed info, from a not so well informed Pana sales rep at IBC. Don't come looking for me if turns out to be $34K ( or $14k for that mather).
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You are NOT adding to the confusion. I have often had very accurate information "hinted" to me at many past NABs. The US MSRP for an SPX800, no glass, no memory, is $19,500. Jan said the HVX-style shoulder-mount would "most directly compete with the Sony [PDW-F330] XDCAM-HD." Sum this data together, and you can kind of get an idea of what Panasonic may be thinking.

I'm now thinking Panasonic may price this "HVX shoulder-mount" camera at something perhaps only $1K-$2K above what the F330 will price out at. But the big question remains is, what is that price? I think the internet rumor may actually be near the mark--that the F330 may price out at something like $22K-$23K, including a cheap lens. Panasonic will NOT price their camera with a lens--it's too high-end of a camera. I think the Panasonic may price close to the F330, except WITHOUT glass and memory. My final guess? I'm guessing the Panasonic prices out at $21K-$23K without glass or memory, making it seem price-competitive with the Sony, but really much more, when you add a lens and memory.
 
Simon Wyndham said:
The HD XDCAM will retail for $25k inc lens. Sony are on record as saying that.
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Really? I've seen several Sony press statements with the $25K price point published, but they NEVER indicated whether a lens was included or not! Could you possibly post a link to that info? Also, do you know if it's that rumoured auto-focus/manual Canon lens that's going to be the "included" lens? And that's $25K USD, MSRP, right? Street price could be as low as perhaps, $21,500 USD, right? What would your guess be at street price? Thanks for any info you can provide! I REALLY need to know the skinny on this NOW!
 
Here's what one of the French links said in a Google search result for "PDW-F330."

"Elle est annoncée pour avril 2006, à moins de 20 000€."

20,000 Euros = $23,623 USD But still, no mention of "lens included."
 
A bad internet translation of a Dutch site reporting from IBC had this to say, "For something more than the price of DSR-390/400 customers can change on 1080 HD and an ultramodern non-linear workflow, says [Olivier] Bovis, XDCAM product manager."

This suggests, that the F330 may only be slightly more than a DSR400 which has a street price of LESS than $10,000 USD ($9,233 w/a 17x lens)!
 
Yes, the lens is absolutely definitely and unequivably included with the F330. It is a switchable auto focus/manual lens. The same one with the grey colour scheme that is in all the photos of the camera. It is of course a 1/2 lens. You can buy a 2/3 adaptor, but you will lose field of view by doing this. I would prefer to purchase a HD lens for my current XD when finance permits, and then upgrade to a 2/3 HD camera when it comes along.

Street price for an F330 will probably be around $23-24k I reckon. A colleague of mine recently bought a PDW-510P and two lenses, a Canon J17 and a J11. He managed to pursuade the company he bought them from to give him a certain trade in price if he was ever to upgrade. Perhaps if you got a 450 or a SDX900 etc you could try the same thing to make sure you aren't left high and dry when a decent 2/3 HD camera comes along in the same price range?

At the moment the cost of the optics is the huge stumbling block for upgrading to HD no matter how low a price the camera body might sell for. I'm not sure I am convinced by the F330 because it doesn't offer an upgrade path or transferable optics for any 2/3 camera that comes along.

Until the price of optics comes down, IF it ever does, HD can never be bought for SD prices no matter what any of the companies literature might say along those lines.
 
Thank you, Simon. Excellent article on your "ten-day feature." Looks like we have similar goals and aspirations. In my case, I'm looking for speed (light sensitivity) and depth-of-field characteristics (oh yeah, and dynamic range). This camera purchase is SOLELY destined to shoot my personal creative projects (narrative shorts/features). The DSR450WSL offers all of that in a $16K, out-the-door, SD package. And, it's got a full-sized widescreen 2/3" imager. Awfully tempting. Is a 35Mbps, disc-based, HD camera with only a 1/2" imager worth $6-$7K more than the 450? Damn, they set those price points EXACTLY right. I don't know.

Good point about the glass. Problem is, 1/2" SD glass is just expensive as 2/3" SD glass at the low end. And, by the way, I have no problem putting SD glass on an HD camera, I really don't believe the differences are that dramatic. Have you ever done a side-by-side SD/HD glass comparison on the same camera?
 
Thanks for the kind words about the article. Unfortunately the project fell apart due to 'creative differences' shall we say. Although on the footage that did get shot the camera held up superbly despite the extremely high contrasts of a sunlit forest.

A 450 or an HD XDCAM is a tough one. The 450 uses the same head as the 530 and 510 I believe (the settings are totally interchangable). So I can vouch that the sensitivity is supreme. Although then again the Panasonics also have very high sensitivity.

The 450 has a slow shutter that goes all the way down to a 1/2 sec exposure. However, the HD XDCAM blows that out of the water by allowing roughly a 2.5 second shutter! For timelapse I bet thats pretty incredible.

The one big drawback with HD XDCAM at the moment is that until it is released we won't know which NLE's will accept the MXF files produced by it. And the camera won't be released until after NAB AFAIK.

As for the glass, there is a big difference between HD and SD.
 
Well, thanks, Simon, for all your help on this decision. It seems you're one of the few that understand my dilemma. I am really torn over the DSR450/PDW-F330 decision (now that I know that is THE decision), and what's going to push it over the edge for me, I think is, CCD size. I just can't resist the depth-of-field characteristics I'm going to get with a full-sized 2/3" CCD. Nevertheless, the F330's better-than-HDV HD signal and optical recording media are HUGE attractions, but that 1/2" chip . . . I just don't know.

Anyway, I've been reading some good things about professional upconversion. I checked a local post house and it runs about $600/hour.

If I buy the DSR450 tomorrow for $16K, and the PDW-F330 comes out next spring for $19,500 from B+H, I'm sure I'll be kicking myself, regardless!
 
Yes. The 1/2" chip is the one thing that would stop me going for the F330. Not because of DOF, although that is one reason, but because of overall sensitivity and the limited use for 1/2" HD lenses on any future camera upgrade.

It is also not clear what other functions and adjustments are possible with the 330. I know it does 1080 PsF, but I haven't been able to find anything about its gamma curves (ie does it have film gamma curves like the 510/530, and 450).

There is also the NLE compatibility question. Difficult descision. HD is looming for sure. But I also know that I can acheive shots with my 2/3" SD camera that I could never achieve on any 1/3" camera HD or not purely because of the precise control I have over the image settings, and more importantly the precise manual control I have over the lens. It is hard to guage at the moment just how fickle the industry is going to get with regards to HD and SD footage.
 
Simon:

By the way, do you have the optional Sony 24P board for your PDW510? If you do, do you notice any DECREASE in sensitivity when you switch from 60i to 24P mode?
 
The PAL version of the PDW series can't use the 24p board as it already has 25p built in. The NTSC version has 30p built in, but can accept a 24p pulldown board. The DSR450 has both 24p and 24pA built in I believe.

As for sensitivity decrease, no. But that depends on the shutter speed. When you are using the camera in progressive scan mode you need to shoot with the equivilent of a 180 degree shutter in order to get the film style cadence. Eg when I use the camera in 25p mode I need to use a 1/50 shutter. for 24p you need to use a 1/48 shutter.

By default the camera has the shutter function turned off which for the PAL version is a 1/25 in 25p mode. This gives a more smeary like motion, so you need to turn the shutter on. When the shutter is switched to 1/50 the camera is of course less sensitive. There is no technical way around this. Progressive scan with the shutter switched to be the equivilent of a 180 degree shutter on a film camera will always be less sensitive than interlaced using its standard shutter speed no matter how good the camera is.

In actual real world use this hasn't been much of a problem because the camera is so sensitive in the first place. Gain can be put up quite a way before any real noise enters the picture too. Gain of around 3db or 6db if you want to will more than make up for the difference between interlace and progressive modes, and it won't introduce any noticable grain into the picture because the signal/noise ratio on the camera is so high. Alternatively you could just turn the shutter off. This will give a more video like look to things, but in shots without much movement in them you can get away with this. Actually many programmes on TV seem to be shooting this way these days.
 
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