Satis 2005 (paris) - little report

[hvpz]

Nothing really new under the sun.

The HDV armada (Sony, Canon : the XL-HD1 was there, JVC) was there and of course Panasonic with several cameras.

As usual, Panasonic France did strange things. The HVX-200 was not
connected to HD monitors so we have only seen the picture through the camera lcd so it was difficult to have an opinion...
(but we liked what we saw : the lcd picture was sharp with good colors. it looks promising)

The sales representant just said that the ccd are about 1 millions pixels.

The delivery date in France Will be on february.

(Several others Pana HD cameras was there too)

Some pictures... (Thanks to Slimane for the digital camera )

The Beast was there (tapie dans l'ombre !!)

Don't you remember ?

Of course, each year we're going to see the Viper.
Always an impressive picture quality delivered...

The doors were almost closed and the guy with the "steady-crane" was still there and was trying to control it.

 

[MovieSwede]

"about 1 million pixels" that could be 1280*720 but on the other hand its better to wait until you get official confirmation before we try to speculate.

 

[alpi69]

did u here anything about the framerates in the PAL model? only 25 and 50 fps or more?

 

[hvpz]

"about 1 million pixels" that could be 1280*720 but on the other hand its better to wait until you get official confirmation before we try to speculate.

I bet between 900.000 and 1.000.000 so 1280*720 (921.600 pixels) match perfectly.
But you're right we have to wait.

I asked about the possibility of a "dvx100 ccds' pixel-shifting" solution for the HVX and he said : "of course not !?". So Panasonic hides the real specs for another reason !!

did u here anything about the framerates in the PAL model? only 25 and 50 fps or more?

I totally forgotten to ask about framerates. :embarasse . Sorry. He mentioned several differents frame rates but he didn't detailed them.

On the documentation it's written : "All 1080,720, and 576 signals support 25p and 50p frame rates"

 

[MovieSwede]

I asked about the possibility of a "dvx100 ccds' pixel-shifting" solution and he said : "of course not !?".

Well its not DVX100 ccd they gonna use. They gonna use 16:9 shaped ccds so DVX100 is out of the question. But they gonna use pixelshift.

 

[hvpz]

Well its not DVX100 ccd they gonna use. They gonna use 16:9 shaped ccds so DVX100 is out of the question. But they gonna use pixelshift.

That sounds logical ! But everything is possible even to reshape the picture into 16/9 before reccording.

To be honest, I don't understand why Panasonic is hiding the CCD's specs so speculation starts and imagination too...

When you see that canon made the XL-HD1 and they have used HDV, you can imagine everything.

 

[MovieSwede]

That sounds logical ! But everything is possible even to reshape the picture into 16/9 before reccording.

Yes, but its already been stated that its 16:9 shaped CCDs.

 

[mmm]

...On the documentation it's written : "All 1080,720, and 576 signals support 25p and 50p frame rates"

Hey?? 1080p50?? Surely not. Do you mean 50i?

 

[hvpz]

Yes, but its already been stated that its 16:9 shaped CCDs.

As we said in french : "Autant pour moi". It could be translated by "I didn't know this fact. Sorry"

 

[hvpz]

Hey?? 1080p50?? Surely not. Do you mean 50i?

I can scan the doc, if you want.

 

[MovieSwede]

As we said in french : "Autant pour moi". It could be translated by "I didn't know this fact. Sorry"

As we say in swedish "Det är OK" translated to "It´s OK"

Besides I could still be wrong until we se it on an official Panasonic press relese.

And yea mmm it must be 50i in 1080P or else the PAL version of the HVX will kick ass.

 

[mmm]

I can scan the doc, if you want.

If you can post a picture of it, then yes please. I thought you had mis typed...weird.

Can DVCPROHD even support 1080p50? P2 could support the data rate, so hopefully, but I reckon it is a mistake by Pany.

 

[hvpz]

 

[Barry_Green]

Hey?? 1080p50?? Surely not. Do you mean 50i?

The brochure does say 1080/50p, yes. And the brochure is wrong. It will be 1080/25p and 1080/50i, regardless of what the brochure implies.

 

[Monglane]

I was at SATIS today. The guys at Panny France have a well-established reputation for incompetence, and they lived up to it once again. The HVX was sitting on a table and looking forlorn. I played with it for a while, waiting for someone to come over and answer my questions... no one came.

I found the camera very fat but well balanced. The outside looked very cheap plastic, the blueish color amateurish, and on the whole much less convincing than the DVX... but then, it probably was not a genuine pre-production model... more like a working mockup. I'd have asked, but again, no one was there to answer questions.

The Canon looked fabulous. There were plenty of Canon people in the booth, ready to answer questions with big smiles on their faces. The XLH1 was a real, final production model. I also played with it for a few minutes and my immediate first impression was that it's terribly off balance, even when using the shoulder pad--so much so that the back of my right hand hurt after maybe 30 seconds. It wasn't hooked to a monitor either, so no way to ascertain the quality of the image. One thing's for certain, the zoom does have a lot of pumping. No hard stops, no feeling of any real interaction with the inner workings of the lens when you move the rings, and the autofocus seemed veeeery slow... It's a gorgeous cam, easily the best looking of them all IMO, but very disappointing to handle.

 

[stephenlnoe]

We'll see, but I'd be surprised if they break the 1000 pixel barrier on a single 1/3 inch chip. Sony couldn't do it, JVC couldn't do it. If the horizontal resolution is more than 1000, I wouldn't be surprised if they used the 2 chip scenario (a la JVC and Sony).

The Canon looked fabulous. There were plenty of Canon people in the booth, ready to answer questions with big smiles on their faces. The XLH1 was a real, final production model. I also played with it for a few minutes and my immediate first impression was that it's terribly off balance, even when using the shoulder pad--so much so that the back of my right hand hurt after maybe 30 seconds. It wasn't hooked to a monitor either, so no way to ascertain the quality of the image. One thing's for certain, the zoom does have a lot of pumping. No hard stops, no feeling of any real interaction with the inner workings of the lens when you move the rings, and the autofocus seemed veeeery slow... It's a gorgeous cam, easily the best looking of them all IMO, but very disappointing to handle.

My observation as well about the canon. It is very heavy. I was informed there is a very nice harness available for the camera that takes the weight out of the camera and puts it in balance. I have not tried it though. The canon is a handsome camera.

 

[hvpz]

I was at SATIS today. The guys at Panny France have a well-established reputation for incompetence, and they lived up to it once again. The HVX was sitting on a table and looking forlorn. I played with it for a while, waiting for someone to come over and answer my questions... no one came.

I found the camera very fat but well balanced. The outside looked very cheap plastic, the blueish color amateurish, and on the whole much less convincing than the DVX... but then, it probably was not a genuine pre-production model... more like a working mockup. I'd have asked, but again, no one was there to answer questions.

I saw 2 persons dedicated to the HVX-200 Wednesday.

Those guys too met Pana sales rep at the SATIS and they made an interested report about the price drop of the P2 :

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?p=374499#post374499

 

[stabwound]

From above post and link:

>>>I was really surprised when I heard about the cost of the P2 cards. The rep said that the P2 4 gb card would cost 200 euros (240 dollars) and the 8 gb card around 800 euros (1000 dollars). I got him to repeat those figures! That's a huge drop from the 1700 dollars for the 8 gb card just a few weeks ago.
It's also good news because it shows Panasonic are really looking to make this camera as affordable as possible by not keeping P2 prices at the high levels they are now. <<<<

Prices for the P2 cards sound too good to be true!

If it is true, I'll probably skip the Firestore and get two P2 cards.

It would be nice if someone else can confirm this...

 

[Cees Mutsaers]

Maybe Jan C.-L. can confirm these price for the 4Gb P2 card (220 euro/240 US$) and the 8 Gb P2 card (800 euro/1000 US$). That would be terrific :thumbsup:

 

[Jaime Valles]

Oh, man! Heck, you can get FOUR 4GB cards for the price of ONE 8GB card at those prices!!! That means for less than $2000 I get 32GB of P2 cards!!!!!!!!

I really hope those prices are accurate. This camera just keeps getting better and better! I'd much rather shoot to P2 cards than to a fragile hard-disk solution like the Firestore. Too much can go wrong.