Looking at hmc-150 yes? Or no?

C

canonforlife

New member
i am finally doing the big switch from tape to digital, and i just wanna start off low budget so i figured the hmc-150 would be the best, just some questions, i use an xl1s now and does the hmc have that tape look? any things i should watch for on my macbook pro with final cut pro 7? just some stuff i have never worked with all digital film, i know you must use certain settings on fcp, what are they? like the sequence settings for 1080/24p, the export settings so i can throw stuff on bluerays/dvds? just lost going in the whole digital hd world. lol. thanks guys.
 
I have no experience with the XL1S or FCP, so I can't help there. However... what do you mean by "tape look"? I'm not sure I understand what you mean... do you mean a more "video" look as opposed to "film"? The HMC150 has a ridiculas amount of tweakability in camera to get the look someone is going for.
 
You're gonna love digital workflow.

First buy Barry's book. http://www.amazon.com/HMC150-Book-Barry-W-Green/dp/B002LL3VEI

Here's a link to a white paper on FCP7 editing with Panny AVCHD - http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBUQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.panasonic.com%2Fbusiness%2Fprovideo%2Fincludes%2Fpdf%2FWhite-Paper-Editing-AVCHD-with-FCP7.pdf&rct=j&q=editing%20avchd%20on%20fcp7%20panasonic&ei=Y-NdTbufC8H98Ab4rOyWDA&usg=AFQjCNHdYync0-KvAREeajcYxaZ4obuUGA&sig2=3zb66OUEq0dysaGpba6t4Q

Here's a little article based on the white paper- http://avstoredave.com/?p=4

Tape look? If you mean hyper res interlaced, you can get that with a 1080i 30 setting, but you'll like the 24p look better...

I made the switch in one day from tape to HMC150 files on my FCP7 and it was painless. You'll wonder why you waited so long. Good luck.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sour...REeajcYxaZ4obuUGA&sig2=3zb66OUEq0dysaGpba6t4Q
 
Before you buy Barry's book (it's like sixty bucks) make sure it doesn't come with your camera - mine shipped with a copy. The book is pretty priceless (I still grimace at those "great for" chapter dividers... my kids saw that and said "wow, that's so gay!") ("Gay" meaning "irredeemably uncool" to teens, "homosexual" means nice dude with great shoes to my girls)... but I digress...

The biggest issue for FCP will be transcoding the AVCHD files; if you've used DSLRs and gotten used to copying the card and batching with streamclip or 5DtoRGB - ya can't. In fact, my Mac won't even open the files.

It's fairly simple to use log & transfer in FCP to transcode to ProRes, and it's pretty quick. (And way better than capturing tape). Plenty of info here & on the web for that.

I keep several FCP projects saved, for transcoding to 1080p or 720p; I transcode the footage, drag it all out of the "capture scratch" file, and put it in the appropriate project folder (in my newbie days I deleted some scratch folders when I upgraded hard drives and lost a lot of work)(Thank god I back up like a freak!). When you drag the resulting ProRes clips into your bin, drop one on the timeline and FCP sets your sequence for them.

After Effects will work with AVCHD natively (at least CS5 will), and I've tested prores vs. AVCHD and didn't really see a speed difference - ya gotta ram preview either way.

The BIG main SERIOUSLY really IMPORTANT thing with the HMC is study all the posts here about noise, and read Barry's book with an eye to low noise. Most say you MUST black balance with every power up (do it every white balance to be safe) and really DO YOUR OWN TESTS for scene files and noise. Sometimes the thing just spits out noisy footage and you really have to watch for it. In fact, with 20" HDTVs going for $250, I'm about to take my edit HDTV and make it stand-mountable (for indoor work). It's not color accurate (though most current Samsungs in the 22" range have a LOT of controls and 1:1 pixel mapping - I've got it dang close with a matrox mini) but you can focus like a mutha with the thing, and really see noise issues.
 
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