New for NAB
I received a call from a Panasonic rep (for the first time ever) yesterday, checking to see what my plans were for new equipment. I told him that I was waiting for a small form-factor camera that would record high-quality 1080p 60fps, and he said that he hadn't heard of anything in that size category coming soon. He also said that he didn't have any definite information, but that something in the way of a shoulder-mount 1080p 60 fps camera might be unveiled at NAB. I know that this is only a rumor, but I thought it might be worth sharing.
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Re: New for NAB
Interesting. I'm waiting for a contender for the Sony 350 EX camera, an updated HPX500. This maybe it?
Otherwise, I'm expecting to see an AF100 update... |
Re: New for NAB
According to one of my sources there has been little noise coming from Panasonic about new product for NAB. Doesn't mean anything for sure. I see lots of things they could be doing but I often am wrong at how fast things change and my expectations from Panasonic are low this year. They are not like Apple which can announce the new iPad one week and release it 12 days later.
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Re: New for NAB
AVC-Ultra could make a comeback if this indeed comes to fruition. This may be the year broadcast 1080p60 becomes introduced if BDUs provide more powerful set-top boxes, or a new revision of the ATSC standard would be introduced and put into practice.
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At the moment Panasonic seem to have two very distinct ranges with the 2000 and 3000 series. The 2000 series are based around a 1280x720 chip, but do have slo-mo capability in 720p. The 3000 series are true full-res 1080 - but with linited or no variable speed, and no 720p mode at all. The obvious "hoped for" product is a true 1080 capability with the ability to overcrank to 60fps at 1080. From what I hear it had better come soon. The obvious competitor is Sonys PMW500, and whilst that doesn't offer full slo-mo in 1080, it does offer a full 1080 mode, together with a 720p mode with slo-mo. That seems to be selling very well, and is already becoming something of a standard - Panasonic COULD trump it with full res 1080 slo-mo - but they need to do it very soon. If such a thing does come about, I don't see it being cheap - not the HPX500 successor Sanjin hopes for. A far as an AF100 upgrade goes, then don't underestimate the task. When Panasonic developed the AF100, it was in response to DSLRs, and was basically putting a stills chip in a video package with more optimised processing than DSLRs had at the time. A good idea in principle, but it could never hope to be as good as a camera with a large format chip purpose designed for video. And unfortunately for Panasonic, that's exactly what Sony announced even before the AF100 was in the shops. With the C300, Canon rubbed the point home. An AF100 upgrade could be fairly simply done by using the GH2 sensor in place of the GH1 - GH2 users are already reporting better results than the AF100 gives. But it would still leave a lot lacking compared to the FS100, especially in terms of sensitivity. Would it be worth it? The real solution, to really answer the critics, is a purpose designed chip - but that takes time, is expensive, and very unlikely to happen yet. (Unless it was already being developed alongside the AF100.) It also raises the question of what size to purpose design it to? S35 or four-thirds? Given the AF100, four-thirds must seem the obvious choice - but S35 is the traditional standard, and it's what both Sony and Canon have gone for. Compared to four-thirds, S35 has about twice the area, and that translates to a stop advantage in sensitivity and depth of field control. It's one thing to cheaply make use of an already existing sensor, but if you're going to the expense of purpose designing one, do you really want to do it in the full knowledge that it will still be second best to the competition? (Even if getting over most of the flaws of it's predecesssor?) |
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So I say bring us an improved AF100. Panasonic usually makes a revised model, don't they? So the notion of an updated AF100 with the GH2 chip isn't so far fetched (along with some other improvements). And with all the special offers that end just before NAB make this IMHO even more possible. I personally never liked the IQ of AF100. It looks like an DSLR. And I especially dislike the purple/blue hue that I saw on a lot of videos made with the AF100. Don't know if this is CA or not, but if it is CA it's all over the place. Regarding the supposed upcoming shoulder mount camera I agree with you David. Sony is really rocking it with the PMW500! I wonder what are they thinking at Panasonic?? And I never understood why they didn't include 720p in the new HPX-XXXX models! I think that this was/is a mistake from Panasonic. |
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So what is the right price? Both the FS100 and the AF100 offer operational advantages over DSLRs - XLR inputs, form factor etc. But the FS100 also offers significant image quality improvements over DSLRs - the AF100 doesn't, it's a DSLRs innards in a video camera box. (Witness all the reports of the GH2 IQ being a little better.) In that case, don't you think people are now feeling it expensive compared to a DSLR, rather than cheap compared to such as the FS100? If you are going to pay a lot more than DSLR money, why not go a bit further still? In that respect, nearly £3,000+VAT (body only) still seems too high to me. I'd say around £2,000-£2,500 would be more realistic. Quote:
It comes back to is such an upgrade worth it? If the extra price it can command is not that much, then taking into account development costs and losses from having to sell off old AF100 stock, I'm not sure it would be. An upgrade to a "designed for video" chip is a different matter. Yes, a lot more to do, but then it can start to command a bigger premium, and seriously look at rivalling Sony and Canon. Quote:
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But still they will always have the problem of the m4/3 size. If they will create a digital cinema camera it really should be an s35 and not an m4/3. I don't think that m4/3 would get accepted in the movies crowd nearly as well as an s35 format - so coming from this perspective it wouldn't be wise for Panasonic to push the m4/3 format in the C300, F3, scarlet price range. Although scarlet is a true digital cinema camera compared to the more broadcast oriented C300 and F3... We'll see what happens. I think that they should keep the m4/3 standard but keep it in the lower end 3k price range Where it Belongs and create ans35 format camera in a higher 10k price range where it belongs and just forget about the m4/3 standard. |
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And that's the problem. A strong rationale for future high/low end models to at least share the same size sensor - same glass - and another strong rationale to go 4/3 for the low end, s35 for the higher. And if you do go for a common size, there's a lot of advantage in s35. Developing the AF100 around exisiting 4/3 tech made a lot of sense when there was no competition, but it's given a nasty legacy headache now. Have you seen the thread about Canon making another announcement at NAB? One possibility is a little brother to the C300, and if that's so the competition is going to get far hotter still. The other thing to think about is the likelihood of an inexorable move to 4k. If s35 sensors have a big edge over 4/3 now, that's likely to be even more the case in a 4k world. |
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Panasonic is going to lose a lot of potential customers if they don't bring a better AF camera to the market. I'll laugh if they bring a new AF100A with a GH2 sensor, the same DSP and give it a price tag of 5k (same as FS100). If that happens I'll sell my HPX171 and all it's gear and switch camp -> Sony!. Or Canon if they bring something worth buying (in the 5k segment) to the market... |
Re: New for NAB
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Best, jan |
Re: New for NAB
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So can you answer why, if they do share the same sensor, there seems to be a strong consensus that the GH2 is doing a better job than the AF100, at least in terms of image quality? Maybe the differing DSPs are minimising skew at the expense of other attributes? This does mean that there is therefore no easy simple improvement path for the AF100 then, doesn't it? I don't dispute the AF100 compares well with DSLR video - but is simply nowhere near the standard of the large format cameras with "designed for video sensors"? (C300, F3, and FS100.) And that applies to resolution, aliasing, sensitivity, dynamic range and a host of other factors. I previously said: Quote:
And will it be 4/3 or s35? |
Re: New for NAB
@Jan...Thanks for giving us a decent large sensor camera with proper ND filters, XLR audio, greater than 12 minute record time and other goodies we need for video. Looking forward to the next iteration.
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Here I found a test from Texas media with both the AF and the GH mounted on top of each other. It's all hand held so it's not really good. Panasonic GH2 mounted on top of an AF100 with the same lens on both - YouTube |
Re: New for NAB
The AF-100 does NOT use the GH2 chip, and Jan Crittenden has stated that numerous times.
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A few posts back she corrects me, and says: Quote:
There seems to be pretty good evidence from Phillip Blooms Xmas shootout - http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/new-cano...ml#post1706302 . He shoots on the same lens, same view, from same position with both the AF100 (10min 18sec) and the GH2 (13min 40sec) - and it's obvious the GH2 does indeed have a noticeably wider angle of view. (I'm not prepared to draw any other conclusions from that test - the lighting has changed for one thing.) The explanation provided to me said "It's easy enough to prove all the above if you have a GH2 and AF100. Put then side by side and shoot video with them locked off with the same lens. You will find the angle of view of the GH2 to be a bit wider than that of the AF100, the above theory predicting about 8% wider." I tried to quantify the difference between the images in Philip Blooms examples and I made it to be approximately 6-7% - a pretty good correlation with the 8% that was predicted, given the margins for error. I'd be interested if anybody is able to redo the comparison under more controlled conditions. Quote:
It still won't compete with all the "designed for video" sensors by a long way, but would be an improvement. At least it would mean the quality would be on a par with the GH2. |
Re: New for NAB
Here's an idea I just had: a 4K 2/3" camcorder!
This sounds outrageous at first, but this should be quite doable, considering that with modern advances in sensor design (gapless micro-lenses) it would have about the same pixel pitch as a 1/3" camcorder... when Canon released the the 1D4 a while back, it was claimed as having a higher resolution over it's predecessor (16mp vs. 10mp), but with the exact same pixel size on a same-sized sensor. There aren't many 2/3" lenses that could provide the sharpness needed to make use of 4K, but the extra resolution can allow for over-sampling to 2K/HD until optics catch up. Edit: while I'm on a roll, would it kill to also ask for some sort of log/linear gamma? I know there's more DR available in these cameras than the software allows for. Low-contrast settings (Cinelike D, low knee, master ped 0 etc.) look like what you'd get from a stills camera with the contrast turned up to 11. |
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This two things are a lot more important to me than 50 more lines of resolution. I'm sure that I'm not the only one in this matter. Anyway, there must be a reason why AF100 uses a lesser amount of the chip area than the GH2... |
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Hence each photosite must be only about one tenth the area (very approximately) to that on the F3/FS100 - is it really a surprise that highlight handling is not as good as the "designed for video" sensors? Quote:
So the 648 of the AF100 is still a significant improvement over the 612 it would have been initially. (And if anybody does still have any doubts, these calculations show that it definately does have the GH2 chip, it wouldn't be able to get to 648 lines with the GH1 sensor, with the processing used.) |
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Off course, ditching P2 and going the CF road or even SDXC as you suggested would be an general improvement. P2 is to expensive to be in this lower end market segment! It's that simple. Remove it. But as we've been through this legacy issues I won't go through them again. Quote:
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It's funny that all this time we thought that the AF100 uses the GH2 chip!:) There's actually a lot of people walking around wishing that Panasonic would introduce a revised AF100 camera at NAB this year that would feature the GH2 chip!:) |
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I honestly liked the original design of the Scarlet better than what it is now. Mainly, the $6,000 target price. I'd have been very happy with a 2/3" chip, fixed lens and 4K resolution. I'm waiting for the eventual reviews of the forthcoming HMQ10 to see how close JVC comes to the original Scarlet concept. I work with EX3s all the time, and I don't feel crippled with the 1/2" chip size. But I'll admit, my FS100 has spoiled me with its Super-35 sensor. |
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And the economics are such that even two C300 parallel recordings still work out much cheaper/minute than a single one on P2! Quote:
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This is one of the reasons why using a sensor primarily designed for stills is highly unlikely to give as good results as one primarily designed for video. And going for four/thirds (approx half the area of s35) exacerbates the problem. Quote:
As far as "typical camcorders", then with the EX as an example, it's sensors are each about 1/8 the size of a four/thirds sensor - but it has about 2.2 megapixels each compared to the 18 of the AF100. As 2.2x8=17.6, I'd therefore expect the EX photosites to be (if anything) a bit larger than those of the AF100. Photosite size may not be the only factor regarding DR - but it's a big one. |
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3x P2 costs $1905 at B&H (SxS is a bit more) and 3x CF cards (Sandisk EP 64GB) is $1,110... ok an $800 difference? I know there are cheaper CF cards, but I probably wouldn't want to use those for anything worthwhile. Considering the useful life of the product, and the likelihood it'll buy itself back, $800 is moot by any standards. Any camera sporting P2 isn't likely to be used by penny-pinching hobbyists. Quote:
If Red isn't using some secret sauce in their cameras, then I don't know what it is. The RED camera has been tested and proven to have the exact same DR as the Alexa, if they didn't label the step chart I couldn't tell which was which. |
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The point I'm making is that I'd rather spend that $1,350 on a better camera - not more expensive memory. If I've got $6,000 to spend, I'd rather it be a $5,500 camera and $500 of memory than a $4,000 camera and $2,000 of memory. This is especially true if you compare something like the HPX250 with the XF305. In many ways comparable, but the 250 is considerably cheaper - until you factor in memory cost when they become similar in price. But the XF305 is better in respects such as the true manual lens (the 250 is servo for iris and focus) Quote:
As far as this discussion goes, then most of the competition to the AF100 are s35 - not four/thirds - and that gives them an advantage to start with. (Twice as big photosites for the same count per chip.) It doesn't surprise me that Panasonic used the GH2 chip in their first camera for reasons of speed and economies of scale, but if they are going to seriously compete from now on, they are going to have to come out with a designed for video chip. And the really big question will be whether it's s35 or four/thirds. Go for s35 and it's all change for lenses, everything. Stay with four/thirds and it will always struggle against all the s35 rivals in so many ways, always be a runner up. It's a tough decision. And the news of the FS700 has ratcheted up the stakes considerably. |
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A slightly updated AF100 won't do much now. They must come out with a brand new S35 camcorder! Have you seen the new Sony PDW 680 ENG type camcorder? What are they doing at Panasonic? |
Re: New for NAB
Here is the big annoucement for NAB. Some surprises.
http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/digital-...-ccu-more.html May not be enough to make people happy with Panasonic but some good ideas |
Re: New for NAB
Finally! HPX600 is here!:) Can't wait to get my hands on one. Wonder if there will be a stock lens to go with it? Same as the pmw350K has a stock lens...
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