JVC HM700 vs. Panasonic HPX300
 

I'm in the market to buy my next camera. I have a Canon XL2, but too many people are asking for HD. And I could be making more money shooting with it!

So i'm shopping heavily for my next camera investment. But i'm stuck between the JVC700 and the Panasonic HPX300. I went to EVS Camera in Glendale, CA and tested out both cameras.

I gotta admit, the JVC was sexy! It felt great on the shoulder, and the LCD was amazing! Plus, the price benefit of shooting on SD cards is unmatched! Plus, I edit on Final Cut, so it has a great workflow.

The HPX300 has the benefit shooting SD and HD in a variety of widely accepted Codec's. When I was in the store, EVERY camera opp who entered was using Panasonic. Every single operator suggested I not stray from Panasonic. And, in my experience a lot of people in my area shoot using the Panasonic 200a. I've had a lot of producers calm me asking if I own a P2 camera. I hate the price of the cards! But i can't deny that the P2 format is popular, and I could get a lot of work if i had one of these cameras because it would be immediately compatible and compliment a production that's using a 200a as well. Plus, the 300 is a native 1080p sensor, not an up sampled sensor like the HM700.

My only hang up is the jellyvision effect the CMOS sensor on the 300! It's terrible! I would even go as far to say that it was completely unusible for this very reason. I was shooting in 1080p 24p and it skewed like mad whenever i was zoomed in at all.

Any suggestions? I'm torn between buying the JVC for is affordable media and easy workflow and the panasonic for its wide acceptance and SD/HD workflow.

I know this question, I decided to order the HM700,
because a better haptic, the best reason for Finalcutuser
and I like the really sharp and great LCD, also
the cheap SD-Cardprices - similar to tape-prices.

It seems to me you are in a heavy P2 environment. In my opinion the hpx300 is a great camera, bit broadcast oriented. I read somewhere that they produce a 301 version now with many improvements.
If you get your work from P2 environment than maybe the HPX500 is an option too. 2/3 ccd
Here is an "old" article about it.
Field Testing the Panasonic AG-HPX500
P2 card are more expensive but are no comparison with sdhc. Capable of 640Mbits bandwidth they even use them for solid state RAID drives.

The HM700 is a great camera and more cost effective than the HPX300. Gives you great FullHD images, shoulder mount and professional looks. Work flow with SDHC cards is great.

I'm going to play devil's advocate here. I don't see why speed of P2 should even matter. The only time that would be useful is dumping the footage, but I think that benefit would quickly be offset by the hm700's ability to record to native MOV quicktime files.

Andrew you're right, my comment was just for price comparisons. You devil's advocate... :-)

it's probably even worse than that! Remember the DVCPROHD is 100mbs so the XDCAM (35mbs) or HDV (19 mbs) So the bigger files of DVCPROHD combined with having to ingest it into FCP (approx real time) after you tranfer it vs drag and drop quicktime ready XdCamEx/HDV formats at higher resolution but more compressed color in about1/4 real time or faster.... I can't say I'm impressed with P2 workflow on a mac platform in the slightest. Now the color range of the DVCPROHD is quite nice and and the larger chips generally give better dynamic range, though the JVC ProHD lines can give a lot of dynamic range for the 1/3 chips. Probably at least 1 stop maybe 2 more than the Canon and Sony similarly priced HDV line.

but yes.. nothing is faster from shooting to editing in FCP than the ProHD line (excluding tape of course, but who shoots tape anymore??? I just roll tape as backup for my DTE drive) Nothing to sneer at honestly.