The Panasonic G1HD | GH-1 Video Mode : A Real Video Mode

dougspice said:
squig, kholi, the question I was asking about the lens on a jib isn't answered by autofocus. Do I care if it's in focus if it's not framed right?

Likewise, if you're the sort of director I am that doesn't like to shoot my own stuff, this output issue becomes pretty major. It might be useful as a B or C camera, but I do like to see what is being shot.

I'm inclined to agree with Dan here: this camera will be terrific in certain applications, but not all that many. But then again I never really expected it to be the second coming. Should be cool to play with for experiments, small shoots, maybe documentary stuff.
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for the money you save on a red one you could hire a cherry picker.

but seriously you can rehearse your shot before you record through the composite out
 
puredrifting said:
I don't know Kholi. Your comments about the codec being fairly easy to break is flashing me back to my first experience with HDV and the Z1. I wonder if the G1HD/GH1 (which is it?) ends up taking it's place next to the 5D MKII as a cool toy that is useful in a few situations but that's about it?

No external monitoring during shooting means not really useful on jib or dolly. Easily breakable 17MBps AVCHD codec isn't really exciting. Slow lenses available now with a 2x crop with Nikon or other 35mm lenses are great for telephoto shots but for wide angle with a large aperture, doesn't sound like a lot of affordable glass is available. Audio at this point is an unknown but I don't think it will be very impressive.

Seems like a cool toy that some will use because they cannot afford RED/EX1/HPX type cameras with an adapter. I am sure that there will be some impressive stuff shot with it but operationally, it sounds like nothing more than a step in the right direction, just like the 5D MKII was. But it doesn't sound so far as if either are a complete tool.

Dan
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Well, I'm back from an all-too-brief visit to the mountaintop, and as usual Dan has pretty much divined the tea leaves from afar. :happy:

By that I mean he's possibly "got it" just about right.

Unfortunately, I only got to stand in the same room (in fact a very nice small studio in SW Portland) with Hunter's shiny new GH1 for about an hour.

There I witnessed Hunter and his colleagues perform stringent scientific tests upon the GH1. Tests which were so gory I will only describe them here in the most general, fleeting terms.

In fact I won't describe the result of the primary scientific test at all; rather I'll leave that to Hunter. After all, it's his camera. :laugh:

Myself I'd need (and very much would like) _much_ more time with the cam so I could shoot some scenario tests with "actors", tripod, lights, mics, etc. There wasn't time for that today. So sad.

However, what little (very little) I got to see was encouraging, but not conclusive.

My current feeling at the moment is that the GH1 is maybe 90%-95% of the way "there" where I want an under-$2K HD camcorder to be. _So_ close, but maybe not close enough for me. I need to think about it a bit more, and see more footage, data, tests.

- Peter
www.peterdv.com
 
Kholi said:
Don't shoot car material. The avchd really falls apart in this scenario. At least wide footage, left to right. I'm gonna try it with the tokina 11 on the 11 end to see how it fairs.

The compression doesn't actually break too much easier though. It takes something high motion to crack it. Like Anders Ex1 and leaves test.

I still can't figure out this aliasom thing by it pops up at the weirdest times.
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can always hire a hmc/hvx for car shots. the hague should help though. 24Mbps petition!
 
blocking a scene still requires a monitor in most cases. i'd much rather be able to monitor everything on something larger than 3.5inches. i want to sit down, analyze and look at my scene rather than hunching over to look at the lcd attached to the camera. that's just preference. if the trade off is a bad ass camera for under $1500.00, well yeah, I'd gladly make the trade. just prefer it. also, another issue I had with the d90, hoping the gh1 will succeed, is the noise you couldn't see on the camera's lcd but rather you could later in post...bugged me.
 
Peter J. DeCrescenzo said:
My current feeling at the moment is that the GH1 is maybe 90%-95% of the way "there" where I want an under-$2K HD camcorder to be. _So_ close, but maybe not close enough for me. I need to think about it a bit more, and see more footage, data, tests.
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man, i had no idea there were so many HD cams under 2k that have interchangeable lens, almost academy size sensor, manaul control...psht, i'm living in the stone age.
 
Car3o said:
man, i had no idea there were so many HD cams under 2k that have interchangeable lens, almost academy size sensor, manaul control...psht, i'm living in the stone age.
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I'm an impoverished perfectionist so 95% is gonna have to do....beats 66.6% from the D90
 
Peter J. DeCrescenzo said:
Well, I'm back from an all-too-brief visit to the mountaintop, and as usual Dan has pretty much divined the tea leaves from afar. :happy:

By that I mean he's possibly "got it" just about right.

Unfortunately, I only got to stand in the same room (in fact a very nice small studio in SW Portland) with Hunter's shiny new GH1 for about an hour.

There I witnessed Hunter and his colleagues perform stringent scientific tests upon the GH1. Tests which were so gory I will only describe them here in the most general, fleeting terms.

In fact I won't describe the result of the primary scientific test at all; rather I'll leave that to Hunter. After all, it's his camera. :laugh:

Myself I'd need (and very much would like) _much_ more time with the cam so I could shoot some scenario tests with "actors", tripod, lights, mics, etc. There wasn't time for that today. So sad.

However, what little (very little) I got to see was encouraging, but not conclusive.

My current feeling at the moment is that the GH1 is maybe 90%-95% of the way "there" where I want an under-$2K HD camcorder to be. _So_ close, but maybe not close enough for me. I need to think about it a bit more, and see more footage, data, tests.

- Peter
www.peterdv.com
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Doug's, Dan's and Peter's summations are about right. The D90 and Mkii are like 65 percent, the GH-1 is like 90 to 95.

For small work, music videos, shorts, and even people doing run n'gun features (Zak Forsman) this'll do just fine.

If you're not doing extraneous actions then it's beautiful. I'll continue to shoot and do what I planned to do this weekend, see what I get out of it when in an actual narrative environment.

But it's definitely worthy of the 1500 Price Tag and more.
 
squig said:
for the money you save on a red one you could hire a cherry picker.

but seriously you can rehearse your shot before you record through the composite out
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Yeah, but since I'm working with people and not precision robots, that doesn't do much good for me on the actual takes, does it?

Anyway, there's plenty of cameras in between the GH1 and the RED One that can do these things. I'm certainly not upset about having more choices. It would probably be a bad thing, really, if this camera was "the one". I don't believe in such a thing.
 
Barry_Green said:
I lobbied the Panasonic factory guys at NAB to release a version of the GH1 to the broadcast division. That would open up PH mode (720/24p, 1080/24pN, and 24mbps recording). They're listening, but I don't know whether they'll do it.
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IMHO, Barry's post above is possibly the single most important post in this entire thread!

If Panasonic were to ...

- Up the AVCHD data rate to something around 25 megabits/sec; e.g.: noticably reduce motion-related compression artifacts;
- Enable full-time live video out. HDMI would be awesome, but I'd settle for composite video (if it's absolutely necessary to keep the cost down), but only if they also increase the AVCHD data rate, too;
- Allow audio auto-gain to be turned off. An external mixer can be used to set the levels;
- Allow 1080/24pN & 720/24p.

... then the GH1 ("GH2"?) would be 100% of what I want a $2K HD camera to be.

To me, the features above would be well worth paying an extra $500 over the GH1's ~$1,500 price, and possibly completely doable using the tech that's mostly already in a GH1.

Heck, if Panasonic could do the above within the next 6 months, I could do without adding 1080/24pN & 720/24p if that made a big difference as far as what is or isn't possible cost-wise.

YMMV.

- Peter
www.peterdv.com
 
Don't get me wrong, I may pick one up to play with and it is cool that things are getting better. This camera does get it almost over the goal line but read this board, we are a demanding bunch of picky SOBs ;-) We want it all and we want it for almost nothing.

I wonder if from a marketing perspective, it makes sense to give it all to us at this kind of price point? If they fixed and added everything here, I couldn't really see much reason to buy a 150 or possibly even a 170 or an EX1. I guess the question is, who will be ballsy enough to break that barrier and really change the paradigm? Don't know if Panasonic will, it seems as if it would be suicide for the lower end pro cameras they sell us. Logically, it should be Nikon or perhaps Canon with the rumored $8k upcoming video camera? It has to be cheap enough that the company sells hundreds of thousands of them but expensive enough so that when they kill off a large majority of their "traditional camera" sales, the profits from the new product make up for that.

Interesting times.

Dan
 
Peter J. DeCrescenzo said:
IMHO, Barry's post above is possibly the single most important post in this entire thread!

If Panasonic were to ...

- Up the AVCHD data rate to something around 25 megabits/sec; e.g.: noticably reduce motion-related compression artifacts;
- Enable full-time live video out. HDMI would be awesome, but I'd settle for composite video (if it's absolutely necessary to keep the cost down), but only if they also increase the AVCHD data rate, too;
- Allow audio auto-gain to be turned off. An external mixer can be used to set the levels;
- Allow 1080/24pN & 720/24p.

... then the GH1 ("GH2"?) would be 100% of what I want a $2K HD camera to be.

To me, the features above would be well worth paying an extra $500 over the GH1's ~$1,500 price, and possibly completely doable using the tech that's mostly already in a GH1.

Heck, if Panasonic could do the above within the next 6 months, I could do without adding 1080/24pN & 720/24p if that made a big difference as far as what is or isn't possible cost-wise.

YMMV.

- Peter
www.peterdv.com
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sure man you can probably pick one of those up on aisle "not gonna happen" located at your local Narnia. i still don't know why this supposed "niche" of indie filmmakers want something for nothing. the demand for these types of cameras already exist, you just need to save the money or get a loan to buy them.
 
I'm sure it could do a lot more than 24Mbps but they might want to save that for a DVX form factor camera with 50-100Mbps which would be a shame because this form factor is ideal.

Doug I have a solution for you, hire a red one for your jib shots. the footage should integrate well with the GH1.
 
aside from the bit-rate so far I'm pretty satisfied. I think any filmmaker who knows their **** should be able to shoot something amazing provided the codec holds up in post.
 
Does anyone want to speculate on what a firmware update might be able to "open up" on this camera if Panasonic were inclined? As opposed to a hardware update.
 
Kholi said:
Don't shoot car material. The avchd really falls apart in this scenario. At least wide footage, left to right.
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Duuuuude - show us! Give us the good, the bad and the ugly. We can handle it.

Seriously - I really want to see where it "falls apart." No more footage of pretty flowers!
 
Car3o said:
sure man you can probably pick one of those up on aisle "not gonna happen" located at your local Narnia. i still don't know why this supposed "niche" of indie filmmakers want something for nothing. the demand for these types of cameras already exist, you just need to save the money or get a loan to buy them.
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I hear you, but my point is that the GH1 is _so_ close to busting open a new market.

There's very little Panasonic would need to change to make the GH1 _perfect_ for many, many shooters. Not all shooters or even most shooters, but a whole mess of shooters at least some of the time.

Importantly, making these few changes might not actually obsolete Panasonic's other cams. The GH1 is a completely different "kind" of camera compared to a "traditional" prosumer camcorder.

Panasonic doesn't need to change the GH1's physical form factor or change a single plug, jack, connector, display, or button to add the features I've listed above. All the changes could be internal, possibly "only" involving how its chips are programmed. Maybe.

By not changing the GH1's external "it looks like a DSLR" appearance, that alone allows their marketing dept. to sell their "traditional" camcorders to whoever wants to buy them. Lots & lots of folks want "normal"-looking camcorders for all sorts of reason.

But some of us would very much like to own a cam very much like the GH1, especially if it were just a _little_ less limited.

Like Dan says above, don't get me wrong, I think the GH1 -- as it is -- is a very cool cam, and it begs for someone to yet demonstrate what it can really do.

But with a few "small" tweaks Panasonic could truly bust open up a whole new market _parallel_ (not redundant) to the rest of its product line, and without butting heads with its higher-priced competition.

- Peter
www.peterdv.com
 
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