Us Hvx200 Package Available Now

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DIGITALFILMS24P

New member
Greetings:
Our small LA-based production company was fortunate to have placed 2 of the first West Coast orders for the HVX200's after NAB 2005. We received them just in time for a multi-Varicam shoot for a major cable network completed last week. The HVX footage is beautiful and intercuts very well with the Varicam footage at 720 24 and 60P. (Our DP matched settings on the Varicams and HVX200's). As we do not anticipate another major multi-cam HD shoot in the coming months, we have put one camera up for sale on EBAY at a very reasonable price. It is an entire package consisting of camera, extra batteries, fast charger, filters, Hoodman, 4 4GB P2 cards, and carry-on size Pelican case.
If you're needing to avoid a potentially long wait, check it out. We found the 200 to be everything claimed and more. Incredible value for the money.
 
$10,000. With a reserve. I guess that sounds about right.

It is funny they mentioned renting it out because I am in the process of establishing a company to do just that. Hopefully, I will have mine in late February.

PM me if anyone is interested in renting it.

Anyways, this sounds like a good deal, I might have to put it in my Ebay.
 
Number of days used does not mean that much to me, how many hours are on the camera? I'm going to wait for mine -- significantly cheaper, but thought someone would ask. Best of luck.
 
Re: camera hours.
Good question. Difficult answer. The hour meter on the HVX200 only keeps track of hours recorded on tape (time of tape running across cylinder head). In P2 mode, the hour meter menu listing is not even visible. See page 117 of HVX200 manual at ftp://ftp.panasonic.com/pub/Panasonic/Drivers/PBTS/manuals/OM_AG-HVX200.pdf We recorded only on P2 cards, shooting DVCPRO HD 720. If someone knows of a running-time record for P2 in the menu, please advise. (Even after shooting these cameras, we're still in the learning curve.) We shot NO tape, so the hour meter in tape mode shows 0000. Otherwise, we can tell you that we have 60 folders on our media back-up drives, each containing the contents of one card download. That is for 2 cameras. (We shot Varicams as well.) So figure approximately 30 cards full of media have run through the camera at either 24PN (10 minutes per card) or 60P (4-5 minutes per card). This is where the "record time" issue gets tricky. If we had been shooting at 1080, the "run time" would have been less, at DVCPRO 50, more.
At 480i, even more. Welcome to the age of digital cameras containing no moving parts. (Panasonic claims the P2 cards are good for 100,000 passes, but how they came up with that number is anyone's guess.)
FYI, we have found a good workflow to place each downloaded card into a separate folder on the computer drive, as the key folder (labeled CONTENTS) that downloads from the P2 card is what Final Cut looks for to expand the files into QT movies. If you keep downloading into the same folder on your computer hard drive, it will name the files CONTENTS1, CONTENTS 2, etc, which confuses Final Cut when looking for the files. When the HVX200 is running, it is perfectly silent. You have to keep a careful eye on your tally lights to be sure you're recording. Viewfinder very clearly also tells you when you're recording on Card 1 or Card 2. As this multi-camera shoot was exterior, we had a PA assigned to shuttle cards to a download station where our Powerbooks and PCs were located. Our camera operators frequently went back and forth in frame rates depending on anticipated needs for slo-mo. Sorry we can't be more exact. Trust us on this one. We've been in this business on a professional level so long, using every format imaginable, we have nothing to gain from exaggerating low run time on a camera that's only been available a few weeks. Frankly, we heavily debated whether to put one of these on the market. We're still debating it. One word of advice to those considering buying this camera purely to rent: be prepared for a barrage of tech support questions from your customers. As stated in the Ebay ad, this is a tool for professionals. Anyone thinking they can pick one up in the morning and be shooting great footage in the afternoon has a major surprise coming. (Sure you can set everything on "auto", but that won't get you even close to the quality the camera's capable of providing.) We'd advise only established rental houses with highly qualified techs renting the HVX200's, or at least the renter needs to do some major homework and be ready with answers. This is why we opted not to keep this camera for rent. We just don't have the time for the phone support. The first run-through of the menu system is both incredibly impressive and intimidating. This little camera can shoot so many formats at so many frame rates at so many shutter speeds with so many adjustments for gamma, white balance, color, detail, etc ... it's simply amazing.
Sorry to ramble, but this camera has us so excited about the future of affordable HD, we're happy to offer any input we can, particularly since we were so fortunate to get 2 of the first cameras available. We'll try to participate on this site more often. Also, to anticipate what we're sure will eventually be a question, we cannot put any footage up for viewing on the internet. Our contract with the network prohibits it. Suffice it to say it looks terrific, particularly in the hands of an experienced DP who thoroughly understands gamma, detail and color settings. Take care and good luck.
 
HVX200 hour meter

HVX200 hour meter

Re: camera hours.
Good question. Difficult answer. The hour meter on the HVX200 only keeps track of hours recorded on tape (time of tape running across cylinder head). In P2 mode, the hour meter menu listing is not even visible. See page 117 of HVX200 manual at ftp://ftp.panasonic.com/pub/Panasonic/Drivers/PBTS/manuals/OM_AG-HVX200.pdf We recorded only on P2 cards, shooting DVCPRO HD 720. If someone knows of a running-time record for P2 in the menu, please advise. (Even after shooting these cameras, we're still in the learning curve.) We shot NO tape, so the hour meter in tape mode shows 0000. Otherwise, we can tell you that we have 60 folders on our media back-up drives, each containing the contents of one card download. That is for 2 cameras. (We shot Varicams as well.) So figure approximately 30 cards full of media have run through the camera at either 24PN (10 minutes per card) or 60P (4-5 minutes per card). This is where the "record time" issue gets tricky. If we had been shooting at 1080, the "run time" would have been less, at DVCPRO 50, more.
At 480i, even more. Welcome to the age of digital cameras containing no moving parts. (Panasonic claims the P2 cards are good for 100,000 passes, but how they came up with that number is anyone's guess.)
FYI, we have found a good workflow to place each downloaded card into a separate folder on the computer drive, as the key folder (labeled CONTENTS) that downloads from the P2 card is what Final Cut looks for to expand the files into QT movies. If you keep downloading into the same folder on your computer hard drive, it will name the files CONTENTS1, CONTENTS 2, etc, which confuses Final Cut when looking for the files. When the HVX200 is running, it is perfectly silent. You have to keep a careful eye on your tally lights to be sure you're recording. Viewfinder very clearly also tells you when you're recording on Card 1 or Card 2. As this multi-camera shoot was exterior, we had a PA assigned to shuttle cards to a download station where our Powerbooks and PCs were located. Our camera operators frequently went back and forth in frame rates depending on anticipated needs for slo-mo. Sorry we can't be more exact. Trust us on this one. We've been in this business on a professional level so long, using every format imaginable, we have nothing to gain from exaggerating low run time on a camera that's only been available a few weeks. Frankly, we heavily debated whether to put one of these on the market. We're still debating it. One word of advice to those considering buying this camera purely to rent: be prepared for a barrage of tech support questions from your customers. As stated in the Ebay ad, this is a tool for professionals. Anyone thinking they can pick one up in the morning and be shooting great footage in the afternoon has a major surprise coming. (Sure you can set everything on "auto", but that won't get you even close to the quality the camera's capable of providing.) We'd advise only established rental houses with highly qualified techs renting the HVX200's, or at least the renter needs to do some major homework and be ready with answers. This is why we opted not to keep this camera for rent. We just don't have the time for the phone support. The first run-through of the menu system is both incredibly impressive and intimidating. This little camera can shoot so many formats at so many frame rates at so many shutter speeds with so many adjustments for gamma, white balance, color, detail, etc ... it's simply amazing.
Sorry to ramble, but this camera has us so excited about the future of affordable HD, we're happy to offer any input we can, particularly since we were so fortunate to get 2 of the first cameras available. We'll try to participate on this site more often. Also, to anticipate what we're sure will eventually be a question, we cannot put any footage up for viewing on the internet. Our contract with the network prohibits it. Suffice it to say it looks terrific, particularly in the hands of an experienced DP who thoroughly understands gamma, detail and color settings. Take care and good luck.
 
dvxnerd said:
Even if it's 40 hours, he was using P2 cards, not the tape mechanism.
Click to expand...

yup, I got that - but the camera was powered on during record and (I would suspect) when downloading the data from the cards . . . which is why I asked how much time was on the camera.

DIGITALFILMS24P said:
Re: camera hours.
Good question. Difficult answer. (snipped for brevity) . . .
Click to expand...

Wow, thank you for such a complete (and honest) answer -- I know it took you some time just to type that. Interesting that there, evidently, is no way (meter) to show how much time is on the camera? Although not in this case, but I suspect that will cause some issues down the road when people wish to re-sell theirs. Again my thanks for the education.

Best.
 
So how's the bidding going... also whats the rental rate on the other camera going to be and how many P2 cards...

I was thinking about renting a camera for a shoot next month but was told they only give you a one card per rental... and since this camera is going up in a fighter jet... it's not like you can fill up the card and land every 11 minutes... two cards would be a lot better...

For the main shoot we're using the Cine Alta...

Actually we might shoot the fighter stuff later on... one of our pilots was the pilot who died in the jet fighter crash in Alaska last week... he was repoing the plane... had trouble picking up the plane... so he got a late start... when a storm was coming he got ice on the planes wings... landed on an island and the owner of the jet was on the island... just happen to be on that island... he gave the pilot more trouble... so he took off again and the ice reformed on his wings... a sad story... the pilot was just 34 years old...

Shoot me a pm about the rates... etc...
 
Sent a PM about renting your second camera for next weekend. Shoot me one back with rates and location if it's available.
 
I live just off of Beach Blvd, pretty close to the police station.

I'll be moving to Los Angeles soon, because I'm here all of the time working.
 
Yeah, you're literally right around the corner, as of now. xD I work in Los Angeles now, so i won't be around there for long.
Sorry for thread hijacking 24p person.
 
Digitalfils24p, any interest in selling two of your P2 cards? If your auction dosen't go off that is?
 
Regarding rental of first camera or P2 cards, sorry, but we decided not to offer any of the gear for rent. We're just not geared up with tech support or tax structure to get into renting. If the camera package does not sell , we will not be interested in selling the cards separately. We will happily keep the second package. We debated offering it for sale at all. Ultimately, as the Ebay ad states, we put it up just in case there was another production company out there sweating a delivery date. If there comes a time when we consider renting, it will be posted here. Thanks again for your interest.
 
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