Panasonic: AJ-PX270 Update Information Nov.30,2017

gkantziper

gkantziper

Esteemed Member
I don't use the 270 much anymore, but it still has its place in certain productions. Today I installed the new firmware and it allows the camera to record AVC-I200 1080/60P onto SD cards. That is amazing. (P2 is dead for this camera - just dual record to cheap SD cards for safety/redundancy?)
 
Nice to hear Panny is making this move, but they are late to the party. This move would have really helped the sales of this cam when it was introduced, but I suspect they were trying to protect their P2 program. Don't get me wrong, I really like the P2 system and it has never let me down. Since I have ample P2 available, I wouldn't go with SD cards instead. At this point, I don't think this will make much difference to users that already have enough P2 for their workflow. I suppose for folks in very long form recording or needing to hand off recordings straight from the cam, this could be useful. Would anyone buy this cam today because of this upgrade; probably not. What really pissed a lot of people off was the slow roll out of the long-gop codecs by Panny after the cam had been introduced. Though a 1080 cam, this cam still has a lot of great features and may be the ultimate handycam evolution of the DVX, HVX and HPX cams. I haven't yet had a (corporate) customer who gave a rats ass about delivering in 4k.

Side note: I have seen several of the 270 series being used (in frame by other organizations) on CNN and MSNBC recently.

Grant
 
I have used the PX270 a ton over the four years I have owned. A great little money maker if you do certain types of work. I probably will not use the All-I format as the longGOP has been just fine but happy to see the support from Panasonic. Now about that 1" P2 camera...
 
The release notes state they did this due to customer demand and that they don't guarantee the results. Another way to say YMMV.
 
My DVX200 records reliably to SD cards at up to 200 Mbps, so I don't see why the PX270 shouldn't be able to do the same. I already have a sufficient number of microP2 cards for my PX270 and have no reason not to continue using them, but going forward, this makes them seem like a dead-end technology. I probably won't buy any more as long as there are no serious reliability problems with the new SDXC implementation.

Although it would have been even better to have this capability from the beginning, I think it's encouraging that Panasonic is still producing valuable enhancements for a three-year-old camera design, and that they were willing to put customer demands and convenience ahead of the profit they must make from selling those expensive P2 cards.

- Greg
 
To be fair, SD cards were not as developed when the camera was being designed as they are today. P2 was the way to get the speed. The PX270 has always been able to record onto SD cards for the long GOP codecs including 1080p60.
 
I'm following this old thread because i recently had a need/opportunity to try my brand new Panny V90 SDXC cards (from my EVA1) in a client's PX270. I immediately got a "[REC IMPOSSIBLE] (slot number) error. Later, checking an online manual this is the explanation for the error message:

"An SDHC/SDXC memory card is inserted into the microP2 memory card slot.
Recording to the SDHC/SDXC memory card is disabled."

So I guess that the Nov 2017 firmware update fixed this?

Baseman2003: I am not sure what codec the camera was set to, as we were run and gun with no time to fiddle, but I can tell you that it was set to 1080/60i.
 
I have not played around in this area. I remember when I first bought some non P2 cards back in the day they had to be U1 or the camera would not format. So I purchased some older Sony Class 10 SDXC cards at 40MBps. These cards work great in all modes. They were $35 for 64G and are great second cards for long shoots.
 
I saw no difference in 200mbs vs 100mbs when I had my PX270s. Those were the last of my non-4k cameras. Got rid of those a couple years ago.
 
Jarek Zabczynski said:
I saw no difference in 200mbs vs 100mbs when I had my PX270s.
Click to expand...

Agree. Seems like I-200 was available on the 270 for B-roll when the A-cam cam could make use of the higher bit-rate like the 5000 model. The 270 has in same brain as the 5000, but in a handycam form with small sensors.

Grant
 
Panasonic make very strange choices when it comes to bitrates on cameras. The UX-180 has a 200mb mode for 1080p, yet 4k is limited to 100mb. Those extra 100mbs would better suite the 4k. What good is 200mbs fullHD limited to 4:2:0 8bit?
 
The 200mb is intraframe only, the 100mb 4k is long-GoP. The compression on the 100mb is much more efficient and vastly more processor intensive. It is not a case of the 1080p getting "more" than the 4k, there is much more going on than just the bitrate difference.
 
Barry said: "The 200mb is intraframe only, the 100mb 4k is long-GoP. "

Just to clarify, that is for the UX-180. I-frame @ 100mb is available on the PX270. Correct me if I am mistaken, the Intra-100 codec on the 270 produces 10bit 4:2:2.

Best Regards,
Grant
 
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