Panasonic announces new HC-X1 4K camcorder

dnavas said:
FWIW, I found the technical discussions in http://www.dvinfo.net/article/acqui...vx200-43-sd-to-4k-fixed-lens-camcorder.html/2 to be useful -- dynamic range and resolving charts in particular. Are the "fast-scan" resolving numbers for the DVX-200 a reasonable proxy for the smaller sensors on these cams?
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No possible way to know until we see the actual units. Every sensor design is different. There's no guarantee, nor any reasonable reason to expect that any of these units uses the same sensor as the DVX200, since it's a 4/3" type and these units all use a 1.0" type, so there's no reason to assume that the DVX200's numbers will work for these new cameras. Heck, there's no reason to even assume that these cameras use the same sensor (i.e., UX90 may be different from UX180, which may be different from HC-X1). Although I would expect it reasonable to assume that the X1 and UX180 would use the same sensor, there's no way of knowing that they perform similarly until we have the units in hand. They may be better, they may be worse, no way to know until they're tested.
 
B&H prices:
UX90 is at $2,095 and the UX180 is at $3,495. HC-X1 still $3,199.99.
I guess this proves that the chips should be all the same. Much better pricing and makes it less confusing when comparing it to the HC-X1. Still, as Barry Green pointed out, there could be a difference in warranties. UX90 and 180 will most likely get a 3 year warranty and who knows what it'll be for the HC-X1. Could be either 1 or 3 years. Hopefully 3.
 
In the UX180 thread Terry Nixon from Texas Media Systems stated the UX180/90 and HC-X1 all have a one year warranty.
 
My AC90 had a 3 year warranty. I'm surprised that Panasonic would give all 3 camera just 1 year.
Still, the warranty for the battery is probably 10 days like it is on my AC90 which really freaking stinks. The battery casing on mine is falling apart. I have it together with electrical tape. Tried to get it replaced but was told by a Panasonic rep that the battery that came with the AC90 only had a 10 day warranty. What????
 
One other interesting I noticed from the brochures about the UX90 vs. UX180 sensors. The UX90 brochure says it has a "1.0-Type MOS Sensor for High-Precision, UHD 30p or FHD 60p Recording" whereas the UX180 brochure says it has a "1.0-Type (Effective Size) MOS Sensor for High-Precision, High-Speed 4K 60p/50p Recording." In fact, throughout the UX180 brochure, pretty much everywhere it mentions a "1.0-type sensor" there is a note either with an asterisk or parentheses mentioning that this is the effective sensor size (rather than the actual size). The UX90 brochure has no such qualifications about its sensor.

This leads me to believe that the UX90 is using a true 1-inch sensor, but that the UX180 is using a larger sensor (perhaps a 4/3 inch sensor), but only using a 1-inch sized portion of the sensor. And obviously the built-in lens is only designed to cover a 1-inch sensor area (allowing it to have a 20x zoom range while still weighing less than the DVX200's 13x lens).

Some other evidence to support this (as been mentioned by others):
  • The UX90 has 17.78 effective megapixels in HD mode. Many of the 1-inch sensors currently in use are 20 megapixel sensors with a 3:2 aspect ratio (this includes the sensors in the Sony RX10 I, II, & III, the Sony AX100, PXW-X70, & PXW-Z150, and the Panasonic ZS100 & FZ1000). 17 MP is about what you end up with if you do a 16:9 crop of a 20 MP 3:2 sensor.
  • The UX180 has 9.46 effective megapixels in 4K (4096 x 2160) mode. This is about what you end up with if you take a 1-inch sensor sized crop (13.2mm x 8.8mm) of a 20 Megapixel 4/3-inch sensor (17.3mm x 13mm).

For what it's worth, the HC-X1 brochure also describes its sensor as an effective 1.0-type sensor with the same effective megapixel numbers as the UX180.
 
The effective pixel in UHD for the Z150 etc is 3840x2160 or 8.29. Of course the Z150 does not do 4K ( 4096 x2160 ) which would be a little bigger. So marketing words may be at play here. I think we will have to wait for some more information.
 
My running assumption has been that the sensors were custom because of the difference in description between the HC-X1 and the HC-X1000 -- the latter had "gross pixels" as well as "effective pixels". I have since learned that the situation with the sensor in the DVX-200, in whose specs I also can't find mention of "gross pixels", is complicated. http://www.dvinfo.net/article/acqui...vx200-43-sd-to-4k-fixed-lens-camcorder.html/2
not a single scanning format on this camera is pixel-for-pixel native (when I asked, Panasonic preferred not to divulge the actual scanned image sizes, but confirmed that every output format on the DVX200 is oversampled at the sensor and downsized for recording and output
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As Ron says, the output pixel count for UHD is 8.29M. In the DVX-200 the UHD/60 mode is stated as "effective" 8.71M, while the HC-X1/UX180 is "effective" 8.79M. I don't know what the extra pixels are for -- maybe it has something to do with the IS system (there are differences noted for the OIS between the 200 and the X1 in comparison to the same AC160). But the point is that Panasonic is clearly just not revealing the details behind the sensor, so assumptions based on the lack of stated information may not be wise. I'm certainly tossing mine.

That said, the calculations based on 3:2 and 4/3 sensor sizes are certainly evocative. How do you (davedv) account for the huge difference in effective pixels between FHD and UHD in the UX90? Is UHD being seriously cropped on the UX90 (the difference in widths on the lens spec certainly suggests it *)? The UX180 shows none of that, but starts out with less than half the number of pixels in FHD. Meanwhile, the DVX200's numbers are literally all over the map. If that hot mess** can also be rationalized, that would be great :)


*: 17.78 * 24.5 ^ 2 / 35.4 ^ 2 = 8.51, so an assumption of cropping seems reasonable.
**: "It’s also the case that the Megapixel numbers Panasonic gives for the various formats don’t match up with the relative scanning raster sizes shown in my test." - above linked article
 
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The Sony PXW-Z150 claims 14.2 million effective pixels from its 20 MP sensor. Mentioned on this page:
https://pro.sony.com/bbsc/ssr/micro...shtml?PID=I:prosite_hp:pxwz150_landing_page#2

Also in the Specifications section here:
https://pro.sony.com/bbsc/ssr/micro-xdcam/cat-broadcastcameras/product-PXWZ150/

Now Sony also claims that the Z150 does a full pixel readout, and a 16:9 crop of a 20 MP 3:2 sensor should really be more like 17 MP, so it seems there may be some additional cropping from the full sensor width. Perhaps this is for image stabilization purposes. I've never used the Z150, but at least on the Sony X70 there is small additional crop on the wide end when image stabilization is enabled.

This oversampling of the sensor is presumably how the Sony Clear Image Zoom feature works (up to double the zoom range in HD and 1.5 times the zoom range in UHD). Which would make sense if they are doing a progressively smaller sensor crop toward the end of the Clear Image Zoom range.

Sony's Clear Image Zoom seems similar to the Panasonic i.Zoom feature, which is notably only available in HD mode on the UX90 and UX180 (not available in 4K/UHD). It's possible this is because of some processing limitations, or it could be because a 1:1 pixel readout (or close to it) is being used in 4K/UHD, in which case there are no extra pixels to use for this kind of zoom.
 
davedv said:
Sony's Clear Image Zoom seems similar to the Panasonic i.Zoom feature, which is notably only available in HD mode on the UX90 and UX180 (not available in 4K/UHD). It's possible this is because of some processing limitations, or it could be because a 1:1 pixel readout (or close to it) is being used in 4K/UHD, in which case there are no extra pixels to use for this kind of zoom.
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The DVX200 works the same way -- it's using a 1:1 readout in 4K/UHD mode, so there is no oversampling available for doing the i.Zoom. In HD, there's much more resolution available and tremendous oversampling going on, so it can crop in on the sensor, creating a visually lossless zoom feature. Seeing as this is established process, I would expect comparable functionality on the UX180/HC-X1 at least; I don't know what to make of the UX90 yet. The FOV change does imply that it is perhaps using a different sensor, or different processing, so I wouldn't know what to presume about i.Zoom yet.
 
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