Hpx 600
 

Anyone have any idea how Panasonic does a product launch? When do you think we can expect to see some more information on this camera?

Re: Hpx 600
 

How Panny launches it's products? Hmm...
Usually, they casually announce a product without much press and excitement, several months go by while the product is finalized and finally reaches retailers. When it does become available, no one has any idea that it's already out but apparently everyone's already using it the field.

If you're inquiring as whether to sit on the fence and wait for the 600's release, or go with a different option, I wouldn't hold my breath too much. Even Panasonic's own distributors don't know much about the 600 as they haven't even seen the camera yet.

Re: Hpx 600
 

Right now I currently use the JVC HM 700 but would like a little better low light performance. Definitely going to wait till the 600's come out since I am in no hurry. Plus I am worried about the CMOS and shooting fast sports really tight. I guess time will tell. Just wish I had some more reading I guess.

Re: Hpx 600
 

CMOS rolling shutter isn't as bad as it used to be... I can't get my hpx370 to skew at 720p no matter what, so perhaps the 600 will be better overall, 1080p included.

Re: Hpx 600
 

I am at a certain sport event in London but haven't seen any 600's yet only HPX 3100 and 371!

Re: Hpx 600
 

On the japanese site Broadcast and Professional AV Web Site | Panasonic the new brochure is available for download.
First thing I noticed is the use of a single MOS, 2/3" sensor (instead of 3 as usual), and no details about resolution...

Re: Hpx 600
 

So I went over the PDF. Very interesting development indeed, a single CMOS sensor on a 2/3" pro camcorder, now I've seen everything. Panasonic must really have something new up their sleeve if they think it's going to work as well as existing 3-chips... Of course, seeing as high-end film cameras use this setup just fine, it could be that sufficient over-sampling and lack of extra optical elements could make for a picture we've never seen before.

Some interesting points:
* 1080p 1-30fps variable, 720p 1-60fps variable, with upgrade. Smells like a 2-in-1 Varicam to me!
* Love the design/look, very sleek and minimalistic, and the BNCs now point back! The older side-orientation was kind of a pain.
* DRS still doesn't work in 1080/25p, 24p or 30p. Meh. Cine-D looks like what DRS does anyway.
* Don't see mention of Film-Rec
* Built in 2x, 4x digital zoom. That's gotta be it. They're using an 8mp sensor which does 2x down-sampling. 2x mode is probably just 1:1 pixel mapping of the sensor area, while 4x is like is 2x on other cams. In which case this camera can also probably do 4k or at least QHD [/getting ahead of myself].

Looking great so far.

Re: Hpx 600
 

You can learn more about the camera from my article in the current issue of HD Video Pro The AG-HPX600 | HDVideoPro.com

Panasonic couldn't provide me a prototype so no first hand experience but I was able to speak with the product manager and others with Panasonic.

Re: Hpx 600
 

The single sensor was hinted at before but has now been confirmed. It will be interesting to hear more about this 2/3" sensor and how the signal is processed. I would also like to know if the high-res color viewfinder could be used on cameras other than this one.

Re: Hpx 600
 

If true, the idea of a single 2/3" sensor seems strange in the extreme - certainly for a camera of this price, aimed at the news etc market.

It will inevitably have poorer raw sensitivity than a comparable 3 chip design, and that will be of the order of over a stop.

It's now well known from all the single chip large sensor cameras that single chip brings problems with it, not least being that red, blue resolutions must likely be lower than system resolution. That inevitably will give rise to coloured aliasing and artifacting that just isn't present on a camera with 3 1920x1080 chips. We'll have to see exactly what the chip dimensions are......

Single chip makes sense in large format designs for engineering reasons, and makes sense in small consumer cameras for reasons of cost, extreme small size etc. It doesn't make sense in a 2/3" camera of this price. (Let alone the cost of 2/3" lenses.)

Sensitivity will be similar to that of a 3 chip 1/2" camera of comparable technology - yet with the expense of 2/3" glass. Bizarre.

Re: Hpx 600
 

"Thus, customers will be able to record 1080/60p and other frame rates that haven't been easily available in a file-based system."
What? 1080p60 isn't mentioned anywhere in any of the available HPX600 literature, does product management even know what the engineers are doing?

Agreed. Large sensors have the advantage of inherently better light sensitivity to offset the loss from the bayer array. Perhaps with the right downsampling algorithms and enough pixels it might get around the aliasing problem, like on the F65.

The RED dragon sensor will about the same pixel density as a 2/3" cam, but can supposedly pull of 15 stops DR compared to 10~12 stops for 2/3", and it's just a bayer vs. 3 sensors; technology still has a lot of leg room concerning size vs. physics.

Re: Hpx 600
 

So does this camera shoot 1080p60 or not???

Re: Hpx 600
 

http://pro-av.panasonic.net/en/sales.../ag-hpx600.pdf

The answer appears to be "NO".

And neither will it do slo-mo in 1080 mode, only in 720, so no recording at 60 fps in 1080 mode for 24fps playback.

Re: Hpx 600
 

I do recall that when I wrote that article, the specs of the 600 were definitely still in flux and yes, it appears that Steve Cooperman thought the camera would feature 1080 60P. I will follow up with him to see if that is a feature that they are thinking of adding via software/hardware updates. I think that was supposed to be one of the big deals with this camera, that it features an upgradeable architecture. Will report back what I hear from Panasonic.

Re: Hpx 600
 

A while ago I expressed surprise that for a camera of this type, which seems to be primarily aimed at the news etc market they should have gone for a single chip design. Any chance of finding out why they went that route?

I'd also be interested to know what the basic sensor characteristics are. The fact that so little is published seems suspicious. The camera is close in price to the Sony PMW350, it's hard to see how the front end performance is going to be even close when we're talking about a single chip versus a three chipper of the same size.