Release?

[Steven Thomas]

Is that for the USA?
I'm not seeing this.
It shows December 2005

http://catalog2.panasonic.com/webapp...odel=AG-HVX200

[Barry Green]

Originally Posted by Tim White

Just checked the Panasonic site and it states First Quarter 2006

Not in the US. The US site says December 2005.

[Mike Medavoy]

Don't you guys think something is (at least A BIT) off about this camera - I mean strictly as far as the release is concerned.

So many unknows: exact and definite frame rates... precise CCDs info... etc. And we are awfully close to December.

Not to speak about the (almost) total lack of any footage. We had some interlaced clips at some presentations... but absolutely NO progressive 1080 which is what people want from this camera.

I am not attacking the camera, on the contrary, I can't wait for it to hit the market, I think I will love it! BUT -- something is slightly wrong here?!...

Maybe Panasonic has some trouble implementing some promised features? I don't know. But it's getting very close to the deadline, and we are not seeing anything we are used to see right before a camera (any camera) is about to be released.

Again, I'm just wondering... that's all.

[Barry Green]

Originally Posted by Mike Medavoy

So many unknows: exact and definite frame rates...

What's unknown? Exact frame rates were posted on Panasonic's defperception.com marketing blog almost two weeks ago. There are 12 total frame rates, being 1,12,18,20,22,24,26,30,32,36,48, and 60.

precise CCDs info...

That's not "unknown", it's undisclosed. Today is the day Panasonic US was supposed to receive their first fully-working models. The major public rollout of the working model is scheduled for DV Expo, around Dec. 8th or so.

Not to speak about the (almost) total lack of any footage.

How much footage of the Z1 was available before its release? None. How much footage of the FX1 was available before its release? None. How much footage of the Canon XL H1? (well, a lot, actually, thanks to Kaku -- but that was about six weeks before its release.) How much footage of the JVC HD100 was available before its release? Very little, and I was involved with shooting some of it at a trade show, and a second organized shoot with the mini35, but that was after the European cameras were already on the market. And that mini35 shoot took place only about two weeks before the camera was released in the US. And the trade show stuff was less than four weeks before release.

Footage before release isn't all that common. And even when it is, it's not from this early out. We're still probably 7 weeks away from the HVX hitting store shelves. There'll be footage at some point, I'm sure. But to imply that there's something wrong seems to be way jumping the gun -- instead, I'd say it seems to be following the same schedule every other camera has followed, and is probably right on schedule.

[Mike Medavoy]

To emphasize once again, I am far from implying anything... I was just wondering.

[Jon Miova]

can't wait to see/buy it.

[Jon Bickford]

Barry, I looked and couldn't find anything about what frame rates were available on the defperception site, any way you have a link to this? if it can come all the way down to 1fps that's awesome! but i'm surprised it's such a big jump from 12 down to 1, i was hoping for 4,6,8 but other than that it sounds perfect.

thanks,

-Jon

[Pete Bauer]

Barry, sorry, but "unknown" vs "undisclosed" is just a word play, and not one that is likely to endear potential buyers to Panasonic. Of course, Panasonic insiders know the particulars -- and the fact that they know, but leave these important and basic facts "unknown" or "undisclosed" to potential purchasers when the camera is supposedly nearly ready to ship is taking its toll.

When we potential customers are officially informed from Panasonic about the details of the CCD block, the specs on the lens, etc (and hopefully can see some footage) THEN we can make educated purchasing decisions. For now, these specs are unknown -- or undisclosed, if you prefer -- to us.

Personally, I'll await further details about this camera before any further consideration of parting with $10,000 for one. Hopefully the public roll out on Dec 8th includes the information that people have been asking for here. If the facts turn out to be as good as the hype, I just might buy one.

[Chris Hurd]

Originally Posted by Pete Bauer

Barry, sorry, but "unknown" vs "undisclosed" is just a word play, and not one that is likely to endear potential buyers to Panasonic. Of course, Panasonic insiders know the particulars -- and the fact that they know, but leave these important and basic facts "unknown" or "undisclosed" to potential purchasers when the camera is supposedly nearly ready to ship is taking its toll.

In all fairness, Pete, Panasonic is not the only party guilty of this poor practice. For example, Canon "chooses not to disclose" the bit depth of the Digic DV II DSP in the XL H1, or the bit rate of its SDI output, two very key specifications. My point is, it's not just Panasonic that does this.

[Pete Bauer]

Chris, true. All manufacturers choose to not disclose some proprietary technical details, and that is understandable. Consumers want all the information they can get, and that's understandable. Canon is getting hammered for not providing more technical details about about how the H1 24F and 30F actually work and what the final output resolution really is. Panasonic is getting hammered for staying mum about the most basic CCD and lens specs, even though they are known (but not disclosed).

So IMHO, Mr. Medavoy's comments remain valid and unanswered: we are talking about fundamental product information any purchaser would expect to have available, and it ISN'T at present.

To put my cards on the table, I am posting specifically to try to help convince the manufacturers that "more facts to the customers" is in their interest. I suppose a few people will spend $10,000 based on marketing, but I'd like to think that most folks want pertinent FACTS. Hopefully the "undisclosed" list will shorten soon.

[Mike Medavoy]

Thanks Pete... I totally agree. And call me Mike not Mr. Medavoy :-)

[Pete Bauer]

Ok, Mike, will do.

And I should add here too that Barry didn't get the moniker "Barry Wan Kenobi" by accident; he has tremendous technical expertise and his support of the digital video community is outstanding. As we all should, I have the highest respect for him and his efforts. On this very small non-technical issue on this very ordinary day, we happen to have different perspectives. I just want information like everyone else!

[Mike Medavoy]

Oh, I don't think we could even call these "differences". I bet Barry would also love to have more info before the camera hits the market. He was just making a compairison with what happened before, with the other cameras.

[Barry Green]

Originally Posted by Jon Bickford

Barry, I looked and couldn't find anything about what frame rates were available on the defperception site, any way you have a link to this?

It's in one of the responses to one of the articles. I don't remember exactly where, but if you click on the "comments" section it's in there.

if it can come all the way down to 1fps that's awesome! but i'm surprised it's such a big jump from 12 down to 1, i was hoping for 4,6,8 but other than that it sounds perfect.

1 is for single-frame/interval recording. The slowest running frame rate is 12. They said that they were "having trouble with the noise floor" on frame rates slower than 12.

You can probably easily simulate 6p, providing that it has a slow shutter speed of 1/15. Just shoot 12p at 1/15 and play it back at 200% speed, and it'll give you an exact simulation of 6p (at least, we can do that on the DVX to get frame rates of 3,4,6, 8, 12, and 15 fps; surely the HVX will offer at least some of the same functionality... but that is a guess, not any confirmed info).

[Barry Green]

Hey Pete,

It's not that we disagree, it's that this question has come up a hundred gazillion times, and there's simply no answer for it. The only people who have the answer will not divulge it.

The thing that gets to me about it is, the pixel count is frankly a very potentially misleading statistic. If someone were to hear "it's a 1/3" native 1920x1080 chip", well, uninformed people would say "fantastic! I'll buy one today!" And in reality, the video it would produce would be awful, extremely noisy, with horrible latitude and terrible sensitivity. Sure it'd have high resolution, but the actual picture would look pretty bad -- at least, as compared to what it could have looked like.

If, on the other hand, someone was to hear that the chip count is something really low, like 600x400 or something ridiculously low, they might say "bah -- it's useless, I'd never buy that." Yet what if the footage was fantastic, mind-blowingly awesome, Varicam and Cinealta-caliber. Would that be enough to change someone's mind? Would a low pixel count really be something to make a purchasing decision on -- even if the footage looks better because of the low pixel count? Would someone truly, honestly, look at the output and say "well, yeah it's fantastic, but I won't buy it because they didn't use the number of pixels that I think they should have used." Especially when the average consumer cannot possibly be expected to make an informed decision about the wisdom that dedicated camera engineers used when designing one of these systems, right?

It's like in audio -- let's say you have two different audio sampling circuits, one that samples at 48khz and the other that samples at 96khz. Which one is better? Obviously everyone would pick the 96khz, right? But wait -- there's more to the equation! Since the data rate for these samplers is constant, the 48khz system produces 16-bit samples, but the 96khz one can only produce 8-bit samples. So now which is better -- as in, which one actually produces better-sounding audio? See, it isn't so simple. The bigger number doesn't always win.

JVC has a native-pixel-count 1280x720 chip. Sounds great on paper. But the dreaded split-screen effect is (according to JVC) a direct result of them making a native-pixel-count chip. Had they stuck with under 1,000 pixels across, there would have been no split-screen issue ever. So which is more important -- bragging rights to say you have a high-pixel-count chip? Or actually reliable good-looking footage that you can trust without having a weird split-screen effect?

Bigger isn't always better, especially in CCDs, where you have two competing factors for image quality. The smaller the pixels are, the higher the resolution can be. But, the bigger the pixels are, the better they are at gathering light -- and that means better sensitivity, better low-light performance, better signal-to-noise ratio, better latitude, better everything -- except ultimate resolution. The two are directly in conflict with each other -- optimize for one, you compromise the other. So which is more important?

I gave up worrying about it -- I say the final footage is more important, and I really don't care anymore how they accomplish it, because frankly I'm not qualified to second-guess the career camera engineers that they are employing, and I doubt many of us are.

And CCD pixels don't have a direct correlation to frame pixels anyway. CCDs are analog devices, which output a voltage signal that gets sampled by an a-to-d converter. There is no direct access to the pixels on the CCD; instead they get read out by rows and converted to an analog voltage signal. A microphone translates air pressure waves into voltage signals; a CCD translates photon impacts into voltage signals. Then it gets sampled into the target format. For audio, that might mean sampling that voltage signal at 32khz into 12-bit samples. Or it might mean sampling that same voltage signal at 48khz into 16-bit samples. For video, it might mean sampling the CCD's voltage signal into a 1280x720 pixel array. But do you ever hear someone asking "hey, is that microphone 16-bit"? No, because microphones are analog devices. Well, CCDs are analog devices too. Yes the pixel count affects the resolution the chip can deliver, just like a microphone's frequency response affects the overall fidelity of the signal it delivers. But there's no worry about "16-bit" microphones, so why such a hangup on "native pixel" CCDs? Either the microphone delivers great sound, or it doesn't, and that's pretty much where the discussion ends. So why isn't it the same with the CCDs?

Native pixel counts sound great in marketing brochures, but they do not necessarily lead to better-looking video. Especially when you start talking about a 1/3" high-def chipset, where each electron well is so absurdly tiny (as many as 366 per millimeter). A tiny increase in the electron well ("pixel") size can make a huge difference in the sensor's overall quality.