moving from hpx170 to dvx200?

wgzn

wgzn

Veteran
i'm a long term hpx170 user considering selling and getting a dvx200.

have done a small bit of hands-on with it at demos. and for the most part, i liked it... it seemed like a logical next step forward...

my situation:
mostly corporate and business-profile and business-event (often ENG style) work.
i do very little (not even 10% of my deliverables) "cinematic" or youtube / shorts / indie-feature / music video kind of work.

my typical workflow for a corporate video is shoot the interview(s) on a 5d3. then b-roll (which usually calls for slow, servo-zooms, wildly dynamic sound and other things not best suited to DSLRS) with my hpx170. this works fine. but having to address two completely different camera setups makes shoot days a little clumsy.

my primary goals are two-fold:
1. with the [slightly] shallower DOF of the dvx200 i might be able to eliminate the 5d3?
2. shoot longer events to SD cards instead of having to jockey P2 cards (usually requiring an assistant to offload while i continue shooting)

the 4k of the dvx i'm sure will be handy. but it's not really a selling point. but getting a more up to date camera IS.

QUESTIONS:
1. are folks more or less happy with the dvx? are there features that improve your day? or am i just buying into more headaches?
2. shooting well-lit chroma (internally to cards) will the 4:2:0 of the dvx be truly (NOTICEABLY to the common business customer) problematic compared to the 4:2:2 of the hpx?

i know this is kind of a lazy post. and i could probably find the answers by reading various forum posts. i was just looking to get a "30k' view" without a lot of niggling about.
 
I think a DVX200 is pretty much tailor-made for exactly your purposes, with the understanding that the DOF will never be as shallow as a 5D3 obviously. It is definitely shallower than the HPX170, but you'd need to stop the 5D3 down to about f/9 to approximate the DOF of a DVX200 at f/4-ish.

As for recording times, if you're recording 50mbit, you'll get two hours on a 64GB card, and it has two card slots, so that's 4 hours continuous recording without having to ever touch the cards. If you need longer times or higher bitrates, you can use 128 or 256gb cards, so yes your concerns about P2 cards should be resolved.

Regarding the questions:
1) I think it's a good camera, especially now that the color issues are sorted out. There are always things we could wish were better, I wish it opened up another stop on the lens, I wish it had internal 10-bit 4:2:2, but really at $4195 it's a remarkable package, the bang for the buck is tremendous. Especially with the current promotion where they're giving away a second, longer-life battery and a dual-slot speed charger for free.

2) The DVX200 is much sharper than the HPX170. Even though the 170 records 4:2:2 chroma, you'll probably end up with a significantly crisper picture from the DVX200, even at 4:2:0. And if you shoot in 4K and downconvert in post, you'll end up with 4:4:4 color. Yes, 4:2:2 records twice as much color information in the codec than 4:2:0 does, but you're also talking about 2008-era technology as opposed to 2015-era, so there's been dramatic improvements across the board. My recommendation would be to shoot in 4K/UHD whenever possible, and downconvert for delivery; that way you'll have the crispest, sharpest, highest-color-sampling 1080p possible, while retaining a 4K master for archiving and future revisiting someday (if necessary). Additoinally you'd have the benefits of being able to resize, crop, reframe, extract a single shot out of a 2-shot, or add a pan or zoom in post while still retaining 100% 1080p resolution on the final deliverable.
 
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Totally agree with every point Barry has made. I've been shooting for 30 years with numerous Broadcast and Cine cameras. I owned a HPX170, four cameras ago. Finally field tested my DXV200 Firmware 1.65 today.....for the money Love It, Love It, Love IT! Very impressed by the run n gun versatility. My opinion on the 5D3, keep it.....great back up if your 200 ever goes down. Better DOF when you need it. I used mine today along with the DVX. Find yourself a nice shoulder rig, get a big battery (v mount or Anton mount) and run camera and any accessories off it ALL day. I agree with Barry, that I wish it had 10 bit 4:2:2 internally, but try this cheap trick sometime: shoot a green screen, key the 8 bit 4:2:0, look at the key.....now add 20% chroma in the edit software and key it again, look at the key. Do you know what the 0 is in 4:2:0? Chroma.......buy the camera and make money
 
thanks guys. i love my 170 so much, i forget that its getting to a point where it's old enough technology that it's not always an apples to apples thing when comparing to similar specs of newer cams.
it's still a weekly earning tool in the field. but i fear if i don't move it soon. it may lose too much of its value to be worth moving at all.

barry, i was at the microsearch dvx demo with bernie. i was the guy who asked about whether you could do pseudo-log with a scene file.
i'd intended to introduce myself after the event, but i had family in town that i had to get back to.
 
should i also assume that my bebob foxi and zoe that worked with my 170 will work with the dvx200?
 
bkkcom said:
Totally agree with every point Barry has made. I've been shooting for 30 years with numerous Broadcast and Cine cameras. I owned a HPX170, four cameras ago. Finally field tested my DXV200 Firmware 1.65 today.....for the money Love It, Love It, Love IT! Very impressed by the run n gun versatility. My opinion on the 5D3, keep it.....great back up if your 200 ever goes down. Better DOF when you need it. I used mine today along with the DVX. Find yourself a nice shoulder rig, get a big battery (v mount or Anton mount) and run camera and any accessories off it ALL day. I agree with Barry, that I wish it had 10 bit 4:2:2 internally, but try this cheap trick sometime: shoot a green screen, key the 8 bit 4:2:0, look at the key.....now add 20% chroma in the edit software and key it again, look at the key. Do you know what the 0 is in 4:2:0? Chroma.......buy the camera and make money
Click to expand...

or for those very low light needs!
 
As a long time user of the 170, I loved it. Great run and gun, great second camera for multi cam (HPX2000) shoots. Picked up a barely used Pana HPX250P ($2500) 2 yrs ago and loved that camera even more especially with the 10-Bit AVC-Intra Recording at 100 Mb/s. Not quite as run and gun as the 170 but really a great camera. But still the P2 issue. Over the past year been using a Sony F55 and a GH4 in 4k. Great images, with the F55, but i have to say for my work DSLR's are just too much a pain in the butt. By the time you add lenses, mounts, EFV, focus and zoom attachments why not just get a video camera.

Enter the DVX200. Yes, a low-light issue not a killer, and a not very wide- wide angle but all else so far is very positive. Oh that EFV issue, you learn to live with it. The dual SD cards allow you to shoot 4k and 1080 at the same time and with 128GB cards you can shoot for hours. It's a 170 on steroids. You'll feel at home with all the settings and controls. Actually smaller than the 250. Drawback is batteries/Anton adaptor don't carryover yet. Buy now and great the free upgraded battery and dual charger from Pana. A big plus is the ability to shoot in 12 stop V-Log Cine if I choose and grade later. I've been able to get great shallow Dof. And works great in run and gun news shooting.
I was hesitant and really didn't need to upgrade, but very-very happy I did. I really think it's time for you to upgrade, use the 170 as a second cam. You're going to have to upgrade eventually.
 
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