HPX250: Off Camera Recorders

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indigo

Well-known member
I'll be completely honest here and admit that my current knowledge on the subject is NILL.

Can anyone point me to an internet resource that could lead me to making an informed decision about the pros/cons of using an off camera recorder with the HPX250. I've tried to speak to a couple of dealers but I've not really got too far in understanding the issues.

HPX250 shoots AVC-I yet these recorders record in PRO-RES.... am I losing quality? what are the issues?

Atomos Ninja/Samurai and the Black magic HyperDeck Shuttle look good??? but I just don't know!

Any help pointers greatly appreciated :)
 
We offer Ki Pros for rent, I have used the Ki Pro mini and Pix 240(really like the latter), but to me, the great thing about the HPX250 is NOT needing an external recorder. ProRes 422 and AVC-Intra 100 are similar, except for compression ratio, with ProRes having milder compression. What I really like about AVC-Intra 100 is being able to record Native frame rates in 1080P, whereas the HD SDI output(or HDMI) is progressive over 1080/60i or Psf.

I personally do not believe that ProRes 422 or even HQ is enough of a quality difference to be concerned about compared to AVC-Intra 100, be it with our HPX250 or HPX2700.
 
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If there was ever a camera where an external recorder was completely pointless, it'd be the HPX250. You're getting onboard 10-bit 4:2:2 at as high or higher quality than any external, at lower bitrates than external recorders. There's pretty much no point, so don't bother. External recorders mean extra equipment, extra connections, extra batteries, and none of them is going to do a better job than the P2 card will.
 
Agreed Barry. External recorder equals hassle and less reliability. Transferring ProRes on set is slooooow. I'm used to our Panasonic MSU10 media storage unit, it transfers a 32Gb P2 card in 7 minutes to an internal HDD or even faster with an SSD.

Our clients often have requested the combination of an EX1 and Ki Pro for green screen shoots. The HPX250 does just as good a job for less money and hassle.
 
Barry_Green said:
If there was ever a camera where an external recorder was completely pointless, it'd be the HPX250. You're getting onboard 10-bit 4:2:2 at as high or higher quality than any external, at lower bitrates than external recorders. There's pretty much no point, so don't bother. External recorders mean extra equipment, extra connections, extra batteries, and none of them is going to do a better job than the P2 card will.
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Thanks Barry, have to admit I was somewhat confused by the need for huge uncompressed files that these recorders provide BUT part of the attraction is that SSD's are hugely cheaper than P2 cards. A 128GB Kingston SSD card is like $220 yet the same size in 'E' series P2 would be $1250 (Yup, I know that some of this advantage would be negated by the file sizes with the off camera recorders)

Anyway thanks again for adding clarity to this issue.
 
Jeff-
Have you had a chance to try the Atomos Samurai yet? Now that it is is finally available at about $1,600, would you buy the MSU10 again for about $2,500? Not to mention the HDD and SSD trays for the MSU10 are about $165 a pop vs. about $10 for the Atomos.
If you've got to hand off the media from an all day conference to an out-of-town client at the end of the day, I think he'd prefer ProRes HDDs to the cost of SSDs or P2s (especially if you've backed up those HDDs with a simultaneous recording on your P2s). So in those instances when you're not in control of the media throughout the workflow, I can see where these off-camera recorders could be worth their cost.
 
BerkeleyBob said:
Jeff-
Have you had a chance to try the Atomos Samurai yet? Now that it is is finally available at about $1,600, would you buy the MSU10 again for about $2,500? Not to mention the HDD and SSD trays for the MSU10 are about $165 a pop vs. about $10 for the Atomos.
If you've got to hand off the media from an all day conference to an out-of-town client at the end of the day, I think he'd prefer ProRes HDDs to the cost of SSDs or P2s (especially if you've backed up those HDDs with a simultaneous recording on your P2s). So in those instances when you're not in control of the media throughout the workflow, I can see where these off-camera recorders could be worth their cost.
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Bob, we use the MSU10 primarily for film style shoots, especially when moving around a lot, using multiple cameras, no power available, etc. We have used the MSU10 for back of the room shoots and just sent the tray/HDD with the client to be sent back a couple of days later. One could always yank the HDD out of the MSU tray and give it to the client to buy/keep. It's just four screws.

I haven't used the Atomos yet, am very impressed with the Sound Devices PIX240, but it's SSD media is pricey. I know of an AV company that connects off the shelf eSata HDD's to Ki Pros and just gives those to the client vs. recording and transferring to/from AJA storage modules.

Most of the time we transfer data on set and ProRes is just so slow, especially with multiple cameras to deal with. AVC-Intra at 24 or 30P Native is a much lower bit rate than ProRes 422 or HQ. For the long form, back of the room stuff, we often end up recording in ProRes LT which sub-samples horizontal resolution, yet is still pretty bit rate intensive.
 
indigo said:
BUT part of the attraction is that SSD's are hugely cheaper than P2 cards.
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You can get cheap SSDs, but probably not any that would maintain the continuous writing speed in order to reliably record uncompressed HD. You will be very limited in your selection and that limitation will end up costing you more than P2 in the end.
 
I am not worthy to disagree with Barry_Green, but there are occasional circumstances that make an external recorder useful with a HPX250, (but not to improve on video quality). I just shot an interview, and the client wants to edit himself on a Mac, so I connected a PIX240 and recorded in prores, with a P2 backup in the camera. I handed the client the ssd carrier, and waited 5 minutes as he downloaded it to his computer, ready to edit. Also the PIX240 has far more flexibility recording audio, which is a big deal with live music. Normally, my PIX240 is paired with a HMC150 to shoot along with the HPX250, but for single cam I might get lazy and record the 250 to DNxHD... so nice to feed AVID without transcoding.
 
Terry makes a good point, if you absolutely had to have ProRes for some reason, obviously an external recorder provides that.

The Avid point though I don't get -- there's no need to transcode with Avid, you can just drag and drop the MXF files from a P2 card right on the timeline, Avid doesn't need to do any rewrapping and it can work with AVC-Intra natively so there's no transcoding.

Is the PIX 240 living up to your expectations?
 
Gary Huff said:
You can get cheap SSDs, but probably not any that would maintain the continuous writing speed in order to reliably record uncompressed HD. You will be very limited in your selection and that limitation will end up costing you more than P2 in the end.
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We just received a 2nd tray with Samsung 256Gb SSD for our Panasonic MSU10, this is the same SSD that the Sound Devices PIX240 uses. The SSD is around $400, not cheap, but certainly cheaper than P2 cards. Obviously Panasonic and Sound Devices have faith in the Samsung reliability wise. I see that Samsung also offers a 512Gb SSD for around $850.
 
indigo said:
Thanks Barry, have to admit I was somewhat confused by the need for huge uncompressed files that these recorders provide BUT part of the attraction is that SSD's are hugely cheaper than P2 cards.
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This is what I was replying to.
 
I have had many situations where my FS100 saved me from having to start copying P2 cards during shooting because I ran out of time.
There are moments when the file format is less important than the material that is being filmed...
 
Barry_Green said:
The Avid point though I don't get -- there's no need to transcode with Avid, you can just drag and drop the MXF files from a P2 card right on the timeline, Avid doesn't need to do any rewrapping and it can work with AVC-Intra natively so there's no transcoding.

Is the PIX 240 living up to your expectations?
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Barry is correct that you don't need to transcode P2 in Avid. I started doing multi-cam editing with very diverse video sources, and from that experience, learned to take everything to DNxHD first and then edit. The HPX250 is my first P2 camera, and I am an old dog with limited new tricks. Editing complicated multi-cam projects can take a lot of work, and I tend to stay with proven workflows.

As a new P2 user, I am quite pleased with the rugged reliability and I actually don't think they are too expensive. The HPX250 /P2 produces the best video that I have ever shot.

The PIX240 is a versatile tool, a little more than just a video recorder.
1) sound devices has a history of over engineering their hardware, and then making continuous feature improvements as they carefully listen to their customers. The PIX240 will certainly evolve with time. For example, it now records audio either form the camera, or its own inputs. A request to record both simultaneously was registered, and it is likely to appear soon. That will lead to 6 audio tracks with the HPX250.
2) Recording to SSDs seems to be the most practical media for the future. P2 cards had to be invented to secure the bandwidth for HD data, and are most successful. But now technology has marched on to adequate SSD memory. Eventually we may see cameras with SSD slots, but not soon.
3) Audio recording flexibility can be important. The last interview I shot was at a Physics Lab (SLAC), and there was a transformer hum that was audible in the room. I used the standard Lav and shotgun setup, but I selected a low end roll off frequency on the PIX240 to improve the sound. Also the limiter is very high quality if you need it.
4) I think of the PIX240 as a small computer with version 1.0 software. The only con is that it takes a lot of power, and can be heavy with two large batteries on the back. I'm never going to mount it on a flash shoe and run and gun, but bolted on a tripod, it becomes a good framing monitor while I run the WFM on the camera monitor.

Now I sit here, lucky enough to have 2 of the most outstanding pieces of video gear just released, but there is one more critical thing I really need to improve the quality of my video work.... Barry's HPX250 Book. Can't wait.
 
indigo said:
Black magic HyperDeck Shuttle look good??? but I just don't know!
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I think the downfall of the HyperDeck Shuttle is that it is uncompressed & the internal battery only lasts 1-2 hours (depending on the hard drive you use & the power it draws). You need 450-550GB per hour of 1080 material you're recording. If you're looking at the price tag of the Shuttle, don't forgot that you're going to need TONS & TONS of storage. Plus SSDs that can write 550GB / hr aren't going to be cheap.

The plus to the Shuttle is that (I believe) it works as a HDMI - HD-SDI converter. And it costs the right price for that. So you get a mini-converter now & a recorder in the future when SSD prices drop 90%.


Personally I think the PIX 240 is the best of the bunch. It is powered via Sony type batteries that are dirt cheap & found everywhere (even used for the Atomos recorders). Plus the PIX records to CF cards or 2.5" SSD / HDD drives & since it is Pro Res vs uncompressed, you need much lower write speeds.

The advantage I see to using an off board recorder with the 250 is just because of the price of P2.

If you need to record 6 hours of content in a day w/o re-using media...
P2: Panasonic AG-MSU10 + 6x 64GB P2 cards = $6,325
Pix 240 + Caddy + 512GB SSD = $3,560

Of course this changes drastically depending on what your workflow is, if you can pause the recording (250 will record w/o stopping by going card to card, Pix you'd have stop & to swap drives if the SSD fills up until they update the firmware to seamless transfer from SSD to CF card), if you have a data wrangler (which means less equipment cost, more labor cost), how much you're shooting in a day, if the client wants to walk away with media, etc.

The nice part of this all is that the more options there are, the better chance there is an option that is perfect for you.
 
I don't think AVC-Intra or ProRes 422 are the best approach for long form or back of the room documentation/presentation videos. IMO, AVCCAM or XDCAM EX excels at this type of application. Having said that, I find myself using our Ki Pro often for this type of thing and spending a lot of time transferring on location, trying to stay up with the work flow and still having to stay an hour or more after the shoot/show.

I'm definitely a fan of the PIX240, but that monitor is very cold, not good off-axis, has no markers or focus assists. I'm sure Sound Devices will address this with firmware soon.
 
As far as back of the room, Intra-50 or even DVcPro 25 will let you shoot for hours on a couple of 64Gb P2s. It's probably just going to DVD without much correction.
 
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