What does the "A" and "B" stand for on the White Balance switch on the side of HPX170

Filmkid2003

Well-known member
What does the "A" and "B" stand for on the White Balance switch on the side of HPX170

Hey everyone. This is a two part question. First, what does the "A" and the "B" stand for on the White Balance switch on the side of the HPX170? I know the "PRST" stands for Preset (3200K or 5600K is set when you push the AWB button on the front of the camcorder).

Second, I shot a day's worth of outdoor day footage with the White Balance switch set to "A" by accident, and didn't realize how brownish everything looked until I got home and watched the footage on my TV. Now, if I set the White Balance switch to Preset and push the AWB button until 5600K is set and then shoot the rest of my outdoor day footage with this setting, will I be able to match it up with the other footage I shot when I do color correction in post? Or will that be a problem? Thanks.
 
Thanks guys. Barry, does that mean that I can have the "A" setting be memorized as 5600K for outdoor day shooting and the "B" setting be memorized as 3200K for indoor shooting? Is that possible? If so, how would I go about doing that?
 
Jrmiller, the white balance wasn't off a whole lot from the 5600K "PRESET" setting when I compared the two. Its just that my footage seems to have much richer colors than the 5600K setting does. But, I don't want the colors too rich because I want a base image for when I do color correction. I was told that if you are going to color correct your footage in post, you want a very basic color scheme in your footage. That's why I am asking if I should just continue shooting on the "A" preset so the new footage matches what I already shot or if I should set the white balance to "PRESET" and 5600K which will look slightly different from the footage I already shot but, will render a more basic colored image for when I color correct in post. What do you guys think I should do?
 
Dealing with the A and B, they are so that you can have two different White Balance and be able to switch between them. To set them up is pretty easy. Say you put it on A, then you can just point the camera at white and hit the small button in the front past the Iris dial AWB. So now A is set for that room or location, now if you wanted you could go to a different place and Set B. Now you can switch between.
 
Thanks, Quickstep. So, I don't have to do anything in the camcorder's menu? I just point the camera at a white card, push the button on the front of the camera and the "A" or "B" is set?
 
the way I have mine set in the menus is that "A" is always where I do my manual white card checks for each room or scene.
"preset" I use for 32 or 56
and "B" for ATW
 
I don't think there's a way to 'hard set' the A and B switches to any specific color temp. I wish there were. At least you can set PRST to one of them.
 
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