Why cant Panasonic AJ-HPX3700 record 4:4:4 to onboard media

My HPX2700 has been working non-stop since it arrived, happily. What this camera does that you don't get with the HPX500 is amazing latitude, 10 stops with AVC-Intra. Film-Rec and 3-position DRS is pretty dramatic as well in high contrast scenes. The ability to do frame rates from 1-60 fps in one frame increments is fun, but it's the natural tonality and smoothness, low noise and great contrast handling that really has me impressed.

Saturday's shoot in a beautiful home using the 2700 with a Letus Ultimate/B4 Pro 2/3" relay really highlighted the natural, filmic quality of the camera, especially with the shallow DOF and Panasonic colorimetry. The ability to hold windows from going into the hard clip was a nice bonus. I paid well under the cost of a 3700, no trade-in, viewfinder was included--this is the camera I would rather shoot with and I think it will serve my clients well, but any expensive 2/3" camera investment is a risk these days. As a rental house, I have to depend upon the camera paying for itself in the first year. The time horizon on any HD camera is pretty brief now.
 
Hi Jeff:

Does the 2700 do the VFR in-camera speed ramps like the tape Varicam used to? Also, did you get the 2700 for less than the $30k deal on the 3700 with the trade-in? I agree, I would rather have the VFR in camera with the smaller sensors than the higher density sensors on the 3700 with little or almost no VFR.

Dan
 
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It also all depends on your final destination. Overcranking is only achievable on the 2700 at 720p. Your resolution goes down and falls below spec for a 2K workflow. You can still get away with it in certain lighting conditions with careful pre-planning.
 
I am personally a big fan of 720. Based upon my years of shooting 720p and delivering 1080 HDCAM SR and D5 masters uprezed via my Kona 3 to all of the studios, none ever failed QC because of artifacts and 9/10 viewers could never tell the difference between 720 and 1080 originated shots.

Most of my 5D MKII footage has be downconverted to 720p because 1080 is a waste for most users and I have been often intercutting between it and footage from my 170 shot at 720p.

But the mentality is, "it's bigger so it has to be better".

1080 for projection, yes. For viewing on a 103" plasma, yes. For web, no. For SD DVD, no. Just depends on what you are doing and who your audience is.

Dan
 
Dan,

Yes, you can ramp frame rates in the middle of a take with the 2700. It's just a matter of using the syncro buttons or a user button.

The 2700 has an ASA rating of 500 vs. 400 for the 3700, due to having larger pixels.

I have a 100" screen with 1080P DLP projector and can't tell the difference between 720 and 1080. I have resigned from the "Pixel Counter Club". I am very happy with 720p and AVC Intra records full raster, but it's the 10-bit part that is more impressive to me--not the extra pixels.

The 2700 and 3700 have amazing contrast range, as the ASC/PGA camera tests will attest.

The 2700 lists for $39,950 w/o finder, but comes with $8K in accessories through tomorrow, 9-30. If interested in a B-stock 2700, contact Scott Trupp at MCCOM Inc. in New Jersey. I think he may still have one or two available.
 
tillhavis said:
Just wondering if their is a reason the Panasonic AJ-HPX3700 can't record full 4:4:4 space onboard in 2k or higher resolution.
It has been over two years since the Red shook up the market and Panasonic are still only working in 1K resolution. Even now Red can shoot in 4K 4:4:4 to onbard media or at least their own hard drives. And with the proposed Red Scarlet and Epic we are already looking at recording in 6K with greater DR.

This is just an observation and I feel a fair question to ask. I am not saying Panasonic are bad or poor cameras, the images they product are fine for tv but for digital cinema projection I feel they are some way behind. And this is where this camera seems to be aimed at. Not being able to record 4:4:4 to onboard media seems daft. Please correct me if I am wrong but it seems like the penny has not dropped with Panasonic offering some new and improved features but not a camera that is not in any way comparable to what Red is currently offering, and at a much higher price.
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The RED ONE does its version of 4K 4:4:4 to an onboard drive. But, this is Red Code Raw which is very compressed, has poor color processing and does not have anything close to an Uncompressed 4K HD file which can only be delivered from a film source or a camera like the discontinued Dalsa. So, to put it simply -- Red One has a compressed or fake 4K much like You Tube's 1080p settings whcih are 1080p but highly compressed and low in bit rate. Panasonic Varicam 3700's 1080p or Aari D21's 1080p are virtually the same as a an Uncompressed 1080p 10BIT HD file. I would prefer to work with real 1080p camera, than a fake 4K camera. At CAS 2009 the 1080p HD Camera images looked better and had MORE resolution in appearance than the RED's version of 4K.
 
VictorS said:
Panasonic doesnt want the industry to change. They like charging 100,000+ for a camera that cant do half the things that RED can.
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Since when is Panasonic charging 100k + for a camera? Last time I checked all their cameras are under $60,000. Sony on the other hand....
 
filmstatus said:
The RED ONE does its version of 4K 4:4:4 to an onboard drive. But, this is Red Code Raw which is very compressed, has poor color processing and does not have anything close to an Uncompressed 4K HD file which can only be delivered from a film source or a camera like the discontinued Dalsa. So, to put it simply -- Red One has a compressed or fake 4K much like You Tube's 1080p settings whcih are 1080p but highly compressed and low in bit rate. Panasonic Varicam 3700's 1080p or Aari D21's 1080p are virtually the same as a an Uncompressed 1080p 10BIT HD file. I would prefer to work with real 1080p camera, than a fake 4K camera. At CAS 2009 the 1080p HD Camera images looked better and had MORE resolution in appearance than the RED's version of 4K.
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Red is not that compressed when you think about... they're compressing a Bayer Filtered Image not a full RGB image.

You effectively have a 1024 x 512 Red image, a 1024 x 512 Blue Image, and a 2048 x 1024 Green image. This is two-thirds the amount of data compared to a full RGB image coming off something like a 4:4:4 Sony camera.

AVC Intra is compressed nearly 300 times compared to uncompressed 1080p. HDCAM SR is about 4 times. Compared to the native image coming off the RED. It's only about 67.5MB per Blue and Red Channels and 125MB per Green channel; or around 260MB uncompressed for Red footage. So Red is about 5-7 times compressed.

With all the processing (Debayering) taking place outside the camera, you don't need to compress the image like a RGB image.

So the answer to the original question is bandwidth... P2 cards don't have the write speed to handle the nearly 3Gbps of uncompressed 1080p.
 
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3xm said:
Guys, I am a big fan of Panasonic......but I have to tell you...once you shoot with RED in a raw format it's extremely hard to go back to the old ways.....the amount of freedom you have for color corrections and image manipulation is awesome....not to mention the awesome results you get for keying.... And I don't know what workflow issues you are referring to....I can drop native r3d files in any of my editors (Finalt Cut, Premiere, VEgas and AE CS4 etc) just like I would with MXF.... I have to aggree that the AJ-HPX3700 is geared toward cinematic projects just like RED...but in my opinion the pana cam is actually inferior to the RED but yet costs way more...
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agreed
 
P2 cards are NOT the limiting factor for recording 4:4:4 color space. P2 cards are capable of 640Mbps, higher than HDCAM SR. It's the Panasonic codec that is the limiting factor-AVC-Intra 100 is only suitable for 4:2:2 color space at 10-bit, I-Frame structure.

Once AVC-Ultra is developed, 4:4:4 recording will be no problem with P2 cards.

As far as the ability to shoot all kinds of projects in all kinds of conditions with ease, I'll take an HPX2700 or 3700 any day over a RED One.
 
Dino said:
P2 cards are NOT the limiting factor for recording 4:4:4 color space. P2 cards are capable of 640Mbps, higher than HDCAM SR.
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Well, yes, but it's actually quite a bit better now... the old P2 cards were 640mbps; the newest cards are 1200mbps.

It's the Panasonic codec that is the limiting factor-AVC-Intra 100 is only suitable for 4:2:2 color space at 10-bit, I-Frame structure.

Once AVC-Ultra is developed, 4:4:4 recording will be no problem with P2 cards.
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Correct -- AVC-Ultra has already been announced to support new modes like 2K, 12-bit, 4:4:4, and/or 3-D. And it will operate at data rates up to 200mbps.
 
Andrew McCarrick said:
Red is not that compressed when you think about... they're compressing a Bayer Filtered Image not a full RGB image.

You effectively have a 1024 x 512 Red image, a 1024 x 512 Blue Image, and a 2048 x 1024 Green image. This is two-thirds the amount of data compared to a full RGB image coming off something like a 4:4:4 Sony camera.

AVC Intra is compressed nearly 300 times compared to uncompressed 1080p. HDCAM SR is about 4 times. Compared to the native image coming off the RED. It's only about 67.5MB per Blue and Red Channels and 125MB per Green channel; or around 260MB uncompressed for Red footage. So Red is about 5-7 times compressed.

With all the processing (Debayering) taking place outside the camera, you don't need to compress the image like a RGB image.

So the answer to the original question is bandwidth... P2 cards don't have the write speed to handle the nearly 3Gbps of uncompressed 1080p.
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Little confused why you say that AVC-INTRA is about 300 times more compressed than Uncompressed HD and is more compressed than RED? I see your point on the color compression going from 4:4:4 RGB to 4:2:2 YUV as is the case with the P2 section of the Varicam 3700 but the data rate for AVC-INTRA on Varicam is 100MB/S where as RED is only 40MB/S (EVEN AT WHAT RED CALLS 4K with RED CODE RAW). :kiss:

Furthermore you have an HD-SDI Out on Varicam 3700 from which you can get 4:4:4 RGB Uncompressed HD. RED however does do better than these other cameras on Price Point for the body and on their amazing marketing campaigns.
 
Uncompressed 1080x1920x23.98p is 199MB/s, AVC-Intra 100 is 13 MB/s, Pro Res is 16.5MB/s. Pro Res is 5.5:1 compression ratio, AVC-Intra 100 is about a 12:1 compression ratio, using dual link HD SDI out of a 3700 into an S Two would yield a 2:1 compression ratio with 4:4:4 color space.

RED Code RAW data rates are 28MB/s, 36MB/s and 42/MB/s for a 4096x2304 frame size. Compression ratios are 12:1, 9:1 and 8:1, respectively.

I watched the CAS(Camera Assessment Series) Blu Ray last night on my 1080P DLP projector and 100" screen. The HPX3700 recorded onto an S Two looked better to me in some scenes than the RED One. Great latitude, shadow detail, color, flesh tones. It even exceeded the latitude of the 35mm film reference in one scene.
 
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