AC160 Upgrading from HMC150 to AC160 or HPX250...

Barry_Green said:
1) I'd use AVCI-100. No reason not to use the best format.

2) Yes, 24pN @ 60fps. No need to conform anything, just drag and drop onto the timeline, it'll already be slow-mo.
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Okay. It's official, I'll be using an HPX250 in my shoot. Shooting at 720/24pN @60fps to get the natural slow-mo on a 23.98 timeline, how many minutes will I get off a 32gb card? 32? 40? 80?

Again, I apologize for the rather basic questions...I know 720/24pN gives me 80 but I didn't know if the adjusted 60fps changes that.
 
Yes, shooting a different frame rate will change the amount of recording time you'll get, in proportion to the frame rate. So shooting 60p instead of 24 (a 2.5x increase) means that you'll fit 2.5x less footage on the card. So instead of 80 minutes you'll get 32 minutes.
 
Okay...my learning saga continues.

I have in front of my all 3 cameras now. Trying to match them up look wise is not easy as you mentioned but I'm working on it. I don't really have a monitor though so I'm basically color/tone matching on the LCD screens which I know is not ideal but its all I got. The HPX is where I have most of my questions as I'm more used to the AC160/AVCHD workflow since I own two HMC's. I don't mean to post the same question in two threads so I'll stick to this one until I'm through with this weekend's shoots.

1) Most importantly, now that I have the HPX250 in front of me, I see the settings. The Rec Signal is blued out and set on Camera. Is that normal and supposed to stay like that for what I'm trying to do (shoot entire wedding at 60p for 40% slowmo (WITH audio) on a 23.98 FCP timeline)?

2) Because I shoot everything at 720p60 on the AVCHD cams, now that I have the actual HPX250 in front of me, do I set the "System Mode" to 720-59.94p, "REc Signal" to Camera (wouldn't know how to chg it anyway) and then "Rec Format" to AVCI-100/24pN? Is that how I do it to get the same resulting slow-mo (with audio) on my 23.98 timeline? (I conform footage on my HMC's but I know you said it's not necessary with this workflow). I feel like when it's set up this way it's not REALLY shooting 60fps. Plus I get 43 mins on a 16gb card, where if I switch to AVC-I100/60p it goes down to 17mins which is more "proportional to the frame rate" like you mentioned in your last response.

As you can see I'm all turned around and confused on the record FORMAT and MODE being set to different things (one to 24pN and one to 59.94p).

3) It seems that the EVF Detail is on on the HVX but I don't see a button to turn it off. I guess I'm good with having the extra detail but "is" there a way to turn it off.

4) Do you recommend turning down or off any settings off hand to closer match a HMC camera? Skin detail? etc.

Not sure if these cameras have updated firmware but that's less of a concern for me at this point. I'll search the forum to figure out how to check & update that.

Thanks!
 
Matching off the LCDs is basically pointless. You have to run the camera outputs into the same monitor, to minimize variables. The LCD is not the same on those cameras. If you can't get a monitor you might as well just set everything to the default F1 settings and cross your fingers.

1) yes.
2) no, because you need audio, forget 24pN, just go with avci @ 60p.
3) EVF DTL on the hpx250 is enabled in the menus, not by a button.
4) I have never tried to match those so I don't have any suggestions in particular.
 
I'm just curious... Why do you edit/deliver 24p rather than 30p? The 30p look is not so different, and likely less juddery since the 60 to 24p conversion has to "concoct" frames in a way they 60 to 30p does not...
 
ullanta said:
I'm just curious... Why do you edit/deliver 24p rather than 30p? The 30p look is not so different, and likely less juddery since the 60 to 24p conversion has to "concoct" frames in a way they 60 to 30p does not...
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I guess I just always used 24p from the DVX days on to get the film look. Plus I like the extra 10% of smooth slow-mo that I get going to 24 instead of 30 and its never seemed to be too juddery to my eyes. Cinema tools seems to do a great job of making it look real smooth. Just habit I guess would be the answer. :)
 
Barry_Green said:
Matching off the LCDs is basically pointless. You have to run the camera outputs into the same monitor, to minimize variables. The LCD is not the same on those cameras. If you can't get a monitor you might as well just set everything to the default F1 settings and cross your fingers.

1) yes.
2) no, because you need audio, forget 24pN, just go with avci @ 60p.
3) EVF DTL on the hpx250 is enabled in the menus, not by a button.
4) I have never tried to match those so I don't have any suggestions in particular.
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I'll cross my fingers. I'll also shoot at avci100-60p now since I do need audio. Wasn't really sure if all settings included audio but I'm glad you told me that.

So then...What is the point of System Mode? There are only 6 choices. Is it that you basically just set to 720-59.94p whenever you shoot in 720 in the US (no matter what the frame rate) and set it to 1080-59.94i if you are shooting in 1080 in the US (no matter what the frame rate or whether you want 1080/24pN or 1080/60i)?

I can't find how to turn EVF DTL in the menus, but that's okay. I'll get over it and it probably helps anyway.

Thanks again SOOOO much for all your help this week.
 
Yes, that's what system mode is for. You set the overall operational type (1080 or 720, in 50Hz or 59.94). Then you choose the timebase of your footage using the record format, either 24pn, 25pn, 30pn, 50 or 60.

EVF DTL is in the display setup settings, there isn't one overall on/off, but you set the frequency level and magnitude there.
 
Perfect. Thanks again Barry. I'm currently in the middle of running tests to try as much as possible to match the looks of HMC and HPX250/AC160. Going through every scene file. Not sure if things like "THIN vs. MID vs. THICK" matter but I'm working it over now. Also, testing to make sure it all works out at AVCi-100 60p for slow-mo on a 23.98 timeline. Once I got that, I'll feel good enough to go.
 
All done! Whew! 3 Weddings in 2 days! :) Used mostly my HMC150's but I mixed in the rented AC160 and HPX250 in there when the weddings overlapped. I set the camera's to look "as close to each other as possible" but I won't know until I start cutting how much work I'm in for in color correction, etc. to make them match.

QUESTION: Is there a way to disable the MANUAL FOCUS INFINITY option? When I'm on the move, some times I have to start with auto focus and then switch into manual focus when I can to keep my focus set, but I kept accidentally moving that swtich too far and it would go into the infinity mode and immediately go completely blurry. I did it about 15 times. Now my guess is that I'll either get better at it from using it over time or keeping it in manual and using the upcoming turbo focus feature would help, but I figured I'd at least ask if there's a way to disable that switch so if I accidentally click that switch too far it won't do anything or at least it won't go completely blurry?

I also set up the HMC150, HPX250 and AC160 all next to each other and shot some late night stuff at the wedding just to see what they look like. I adjusted a few settings and even tested PAP 1 vs PAP 2 thing in low light. Pretty impressive. I'm looking forward to seeing what it all looks like soon when I start cutting.

Thanks again for all your assistance with this...
 
No way to disable that, and yeah, I agree it's a bit perilous to switch the switch down to manual because you just might go a bit too far. Which is why, whenever I was in an event situation like that, I'd leave the camera on manual and use the push-auto button instead.
 
Yeah, that's gonna be my method going forward for sure. Other than that, the cameras were great to use. I love everything about the AC160 more than I thought I would. I wish it had the P.A.P 1 feature of the HPX250...that was really impressive. The size was much bigger, but not "too" much heavier. Noticeable, yes, but still really balanced and easy to use. I look forward to looking at my comparison shots at different settings, gains, etc. to really see how the HMC150, HVX250 and AC160 stack up in my day and night test shots against each other. Thank you Barry for your help the last week.
 
So I just looked at some of the "test" footage in FCP from the AC160 I rented last weekend and I have a few questions:

1) I couldn't play/preview any of the clips from the AC160 (720p or 1080p) in my HMC150. I see the thumbnails but I can't play the clips. Is that normal since they are different cameras, formatted differently, etc.?

2) More alarming was that I couldn't see ANY of the 1080p60 test clips that I shot. It seemed to record fine, but I never actually checked it while I had the AC160 with me. In my HMC150 preview window the 1080p60 thumbnails were blank with an exclamation mark. When I try to play them in the Log & Transfer window on Final Cut Pro, all the 720p clips come up fine, but the 1080p60 clips have names but are blank and cannot play. Any idea what is causing this? Do I need to download a driver or something to make them show up at 1080p60 on FCP? Or should they work? The firmware update seemed to be successful and said it was, but was it bad? Curious.

3) Finally, question about the SDHC cards that I use. I use these 16gb class 10 UHS-I Panasonic SDHC cards. Are these sufficient enough to shoot in the new 1080p60 on the AC160? I've always wondered if I'm mixing things up but the transfer rate on them is up to 90MB/s and the "write" speed is up to 25MB/s. So does that mean that its not enough to use to get the most out of the new 28Mb/s (PS) data rate? Or am I mixing up my bits and bytes or something like that? Please explain.

Thanks!!
 
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1) Yes, normal if you used LPCM audio. The HMC150 doesn't know about LPCM audio. If you recorded in AC3 audio, the HMC150 should be able to play them back.

2) True, HMC150 came out years before there was any such thing as 1080/60p, so it wouldn't know about them. As for FCP, I don't know, I don't use it, someone else will have to weigh in on that.

3) Those are perfect for 1080/60p. Don't confuse megabits with megabytes. UHS-1 is faster than Class 10.
 
ullanta said:
Please tell us that you carefully write-protected the 160 card before inserting it in the 150!
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Yes. :) I did. The "real" stuff I shot with the AC160 I have set aside, but I used a separate SDHC card for the 'testing" footage where I had a 150, 250 and the 160 sitting next to each other at different times of the day at different settings so if I lose it...oh well (although I hope not).

Anyone with any experience with 1080p60 footage in FCP? Any reason why those clips show up as blank (they are labeled in the log & transfer window but have no thumbnails and obviously don't play)? Is there an update or driver or something that I need to see the footage? Or is it another issue?
 
I don't have a 160 to generate 1080/60p... but 1080/60p in AVCHD didn't exist during the lifetime of FCP7... which I assume you are using. So... it might not be supported. Have you tried VLC player? FCPX?
 
ullanta said:
I don't have a 160 to generate 1080/60p... but 1080/60p in AVCHD didn't exist during the lifetime of FCP7... which I assume you are using. So... it might not be supported. Have you tried VLC player? FCPX?
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No I haven't. FCPX may look nice but its not quite ready for professional use as of yet. It seemed to me to be a step backward from FCP bridging a gap between FCP7 and iMovie users, going in a different direction, and frankly, I've been meaning to switch back to PremierePro for sometime. I used to use Premiere and its so similar to FCP yet has so many additional features and plays nice with so many more formats than FCP ever has. I own CS 5.5 but haven't switched back yet...and now with CS6 out, Premiere has leap frogged FCP in so many ways that it's worth crossing back over. One thing that always has been bad about FCP for the last 8-10 years I've used it is the lack of updates. Unlike Apple and their software, Adobe does a great job of actually listening to their users and fixing issues and adding features. I guess if it's true that FCP simply does not support 1080p/60 in AVCHD, it will never support it so its time to switch. It'll be a nice step UP anyway and this is a great excuse to do so.

In the meantime, if anyone DOES have luck with FCP and 1080p60 AVCHD footage, let me know!
 
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