Check it out, it's on the main splash page at www.panasonic.com

Today is the big roll-out!

By roll out, do you mean it's already shipping?

December 29
http://catalog2.panasonic.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ModelDetail?displayTab=O&storeId=11201&catalogId=13051&itemId=93120&catGroupId=15768&modelNo=AG-HVX200&surfModel=AG-HVX200

December 29. Grrrrrrrrrrreat!

Also, I've noticed they added different purchasing options, with no card, with one 4GB card, two 4GB cards, five 4GB cards, and two 8 GB cards. Great price options for starters.
Also, suggested price for 4 GB cards is $650. This is sooo cool, in a few months, the 4GB cards will cost like $300 and that will be something anyone can afford. Surely the 8 GB cards will drop its price in a year.

GREAT NEWS CHRIS.

ok - games' up - 2x 4g cards for 7 big bills - I think they rethought their marketing strategy in light of the h1. That means , in 6 months , for 6 grand (street prices ) a working hd solution for small feature projects. Absolutely cool. Guess I'll be watching this forum more often !

Some updated pricing info...

HVX200 alone: $5,995
HVX200 plus one 4GB P2 card: $6,645
HVX200 plus two 4GB P2 cards: $6,995
HVX200 plus five 4GB P2 cards: $9,240
HVX200 plus two 8GB P2 cards: $9,995

The two-4gb card bundle is totally workable for dramatic narrative. That's what we used to shoot the demo footage with; I offloaded to my laptop between takes. It took longer to set up each shot than it did to offload the cards. Offloading never slowed us down for a second.

I'm not sure which package is most appealing. I really didn't want to pay the big bucks for the P2 Store, 'cause it's just hard to justify $1800 or whatever for a 60gb hard disk. However, that would mean you'd have 17 cards worth of storage, 2 4gb's and the P2 Store.

On the other hand, for the same money, you could get the 5-card bundle.

I wouldn't go with the two-8gb bundle though; I think the five 4-gb is the much better buy, as you're getting more recording time, more swappability, hot-swappability, and saving $800 or $900 or whatever, and the cards are just going to go down in price the longer you keep 'em.

Hopefully Graeme on the Mac, and some other enterprising programmer on the PC, will come up with a P2-store-like program for a laptop, so you could just pop the card in and it would auto-detect and autorun a quaffing program that would automatically copy (with verify) the card off, and then give you the option to format it... that would be the best way to go, as then you could get the two-4gb bundle and put the rest of the cash towards a killer editing laptop.

have i missed something ??

where's the info on the CCD's
we know they are 1080p ..
so that is ???? X 1080 ... i don't see any PIXEL info ??
what is panasonic saying about em !!!

have i missed something ??

where's the info on the CCD's
we know they are 1080p ..
so that is ???? X 1080 ... i don't see any PIXEL info ??
what is panasonic saying about em !!!

It's a secret, aparently...

I think we're guessing the CCD block to be 960x1080 or 1280x1080, but only Panny engineers know for sure. It may not conform to either of those dimensions exactly as it may be a bit larger (1024x1280, 960x1280, etc..) with the image scanning out of a centralized area. The voices in my head are telling me that the camera is utilizing a scanned area of 960x1080 with a horizontal half pixel shift on the green layer, effectively giving a 1440x1080 image to work with - after all, DVCPROHD in 1080 mode is still encoded at 1280x1080.

Who knows, I may be talking out of my butt.

DEC 29!!! I CAnT wait...actually...i can because i dont have 7k :-(

Any news/ release for the PAL cam?

Thanks.

Carl

now if the panasonic CCD block is a secret ??

well i just find it hard to believe that after all the down/up talk about the sony, canon, jvc blocks that NOBODY is giving LIP to panasonic for NOT releasing that info ..i was under the impression ( or maybe i read it ) from Jan that all that info would be released when the camera was "launched " ... no other camera is getting away without stating info on the CCD block ...

i also find it ??? that you can only VIEW the image on a 17" monitor at DV expo ???? whats with that .. HEY last year sony had their HDV upstairs on a 25ft screen where WE the viewer could see what it looks like HUGE !!!!

well !! i'll be giving panasonic lip about it today at the show !!!

The voices in my head are telling me that the camera is utilizing a scanned area of 960x1080 with a horizontal half pixel shift on the green layer.Jeff, over at dvxuser I thought I saw a picture of a slide from Jan C's presentation that actually mentioned a half-pixel shift. I believe it also mentioned a vertical pixel shift, but that may be less severe.

Some updated pricing info...

HVX200 alone: $5,995
HVX200 plus one 4GB P2 card: $6,645
HVX200 plus two 4GB P2 cards: $6,995
HVX200 plus five 4GB P2 cards: $9,240
HVX200 plus two 8GB P2 cards: $9,995

I have to say, even though we know the price is going to go down for storage, ten grand is still an amazing price for what you're going to be getting.

now if the panasonic CCD block is a secret ??

well i just find it hard to believe that after all the down/up talk about the sony, canon, jvc blocks that NOBODY is giving LIP to panasonic for NOT releasing that info

Oh, they're getting plenty of lip. You're just not reading the right forum. Over at dvxuser.com there are threads upon threads about it.

Yes, CCD pixel count used to be a hot topic of discussion. And while they haven't told me what it is, I can at least say this: the HVX is noticeably sharper than the HD100 and the FX1. So whatever the pixel count is, it's "more than enough."

Jeff, over at dvxuser I thought I saw a picture of a slide from Jan C's presentation that actually mentioned a half-pixel shift. I believe it also mentioned a vertical pixel shift, but that may be less severe.

You probably did see this. The half pixel shift is standard fare these days on newer 3 chip camcorders. It makes no sense to not do it and I would be very shocked if this isn't implemented. I've also read some various speculations that having both a horizontal and vertical shift is somewhat counter productive -- so I don't know if it would be shifted in both directions. But I do think the horizontal shift is a given.

Yes, CCD pixel count used to be a hot topic of discussion. And while they haven't told me what it is, I can at least say this: the HVX is noticeably sharper than the HD100 and the FX1. So whatever the pixel count is, it's "more than enough."

Even with the H264 compression issues on the first sample clips, the karate clip definitely backs up your statement. Very sharp/crisp imagery there. I'd love to see an unaltered version. :)

i just can't judge a HD camera using H264 compression ..
nor can i really judge a HD 1080 image on the 17" 720p LCD screens at the dv expo .. nor can i really understand pansonic's statement at the show that
1080p is all you really need to know about the CCD block, that the other number really doesn't matter - it could be any number , and how it is used/processed you really don't need to know .. their standard answer seemd to be "why do you need to know? "...
IMO i saw more of the camera when they had it at resfest - at least there you got to view the HD image projected in FEET not 17 inches ..

it does looked excellent on the 17LCD screens and so does all their other camera's on the 17" lcd screens .. all the tapes shot with it look very good ..

i just hope that other manufacturers don't take up pansonic's new thing .. can you imagine you go down to buy a HD TV , digital camera , computer LCD and they just give you one number and then state why do you need to know the other number ? ...

I think Panasonic will eventually have the information come out. With these highly compressed sequences we can't judge noise or compression artifacts of the source as 264 or WMV will mess with that, yet edge detail and edge enhancement will be preserved. The latest 1080 clips are telling, revealing much lower detail than native 1080p should (which we already knew the sensor would be something lower, otherwise Panasonic would have promoted this.) I placed the image on 24" 1920x1200 display, and yes I bet they looked better on a 17". :) So the speculation will continue.

<snip>The latest 1080 clips are telling, revealing much lower detail than native 1080p should (which we already knew the sensor would be something lower, otherwise Panasonic would have promoted this.) I placed the image on 24" 1920x1200 display, and yes I bet they looked better on a 17". :) So the speculation will continue.

Well, I forsee it coming then; there will be people that compare the $6000 camera's 1080P video to Episode III and poo poo it because it doesn't look as good ;)

I think Panasonic will eventually have the information come out. With these highly compressed sequences we can't judge noise or compression artifacts of the source as 264 or WMV will mess with that, yet edge detail and edge enhancement will be preserved. The latest 1080 clips are telling, revealing much lower detail than native 1080p should (which we already knew the sensor would be something lower, otherwise Panasonic would have promoted this.) I placed the image on 24" 1920x1200 display, and yes I bet they looked better on a 17". :) So the speculation will continue.

FWIW, I'm also viewing the clips on a 24" 1920x1200 display. I think the latest 1080p24 clip is showing superior detail vs the FX1/Z1 and HD100 -- just as Barry has said. And that's even after it's been recompressed and delivered online. I won't argue that we're dealing with less detail than a true 1920x1080 censor array could deliver, but this is a camera that sells for less than $10K (I'd claim less than $6K, but that won't make it usable for HD). I'm still waiting for raw footage samples to play with, but that latest clip with the guitar seems to be rivaling the resolution and detail level of the Varicam, although it's still limited to the FOV, DOF and other optical characteristics of the 1/3" CCD block combined with the fixed lens.

So far, I'm very encouraged and the camera looks to be a bargain. If it still doesn't meet your needs, then I guess you can always rent a Varicam with the lenses you need. Or why not just rent CineAlta and go straight for 800Mbps HDCAM SR. Hehe... For the price and features, the HVX200 looks like Panny has another winner just like the DVX100.

Also keep in mind that DVCPROHD at 1080 is being encoded at 1280x1080, not the full 1920x1080 HD bandwidth. So even if there's enough base resolution with or without pixel shift to accommodate 1280 horizontal pixels or more, you will still have to scale the image horizontally by a 1.5X multiplier to fill a 1920x1080 image. 720p is encoded at 960x720. So I'm sure that this plays a role as well in what we're seeing.

I placed the image on 24" 1920x1200 display, and yes I bet they looked better on a 17". :) So the speculation will continue.
David, did you view the h264 version, or the .WMV? The h.264 was encoded wrong, and it shouldn't even be looked at -- it's been scaled, it has interlaced pulldown in it, and it's just wrong wrong wrong. If you're basing your statement on the h.264, then I certainly understand what you're saying, but if you're basing it off the .wmv, then I'm very surprised. The .wmv is a much more accurate representation of what the 1080p footage looks like.

Barry,

I saw the WMV, so no it didn't have any horrible scaling like the first 264 sequence (which I also saw.) I did have the benefit of viewing the image on a 1:1 pixel display, both at full motion and a frame at a time, allowing the subtle blemishes to appear. The overall image as characteristics of a mildly sharpened 1280x720 good quality up-scale. There are the signs of the pixel shift of the green sensor (which I'm guessing it to be horizontal only.) Look in the cream "rope" of the guitar strap, so well see subtle green and magenta/red patches, this can happen due the aliasing of high frequency detail (in this case the rope braids/strands) with the position of the shifted green sensor. The image looks like the long speculated 960x720 sensors with a horizontal pixel shift. The horizontal shift will allow 1280 and 1440 (PAL) images to be generated for the 1080 mode, but no more vertical detail can be obtained. 960x720 design will be a good low noise sensor, and simplify the requirement for the optics, but it take the gloss a little of the 1080 modes. The only real value of the 1080 modes over 1280x720 HDV solution (they have the same resolving power), is the reduced compression. Of course I could be wrong, it will be nice to view some source data. It also would have nice if Panasonic sent CineForm camera or at least raw data (every other vendor has.)

the prices changed again
http://catalog2.panasonic.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ModelDetail?displayTab=O&storeId=11201&catalogId=13051&itemId=93120&catGroupId=15768&modelNo=AG-HVX200&surfModel=AG-HVX200

David,

If I understand you correctly, you are postulating that the 1080/24p mode is a supersample from 720p and placed in a 1080i stream.

If this is the case then it leaves room for extra scaling to take place - in theory it should be possible for chroma aberrations (CA) to be excised by smart chroma scaling - the limited footage I have seen so far looks good in respect of CA and I wonder whether it has been 'digitally tuned' in camera - if so it would represent a more cost effective solution than an expensive optical one.

It also would have nice if Panasonic sent CineForm camera or at least raw data (every other vendor has.)
I don't know that I would expect that anytime soon.

Weeks ago I started a thread by the title "Is the 4GB P2 card dead?".
But now I think the 4GB is a short term winner, because you can buy four 4GB cards (that's a total of 16 GB) for $2,600 while a single 8 GB card costs $2,200.
Ok, you don't have the extra $400... well you can always buy three 4GB cards (12 GB) for $1,950. And you would have the hot swap ability for continuous recording.

Exactly -- the 4gb is a way better deal than the 8gb. Two 4gb's cost $1300 MSRP, or almost $1,000 less than a single 8gb. And you can do hot-swapping and perpetual recording with two 4gb's, whereas with a single 8gb you couldn't do that.

And you can do hot-swapping and perpetual recording with two 4gb's, whereas with a single 8gb you couldn't do that.Putting aside the danger of jostling the camera while hot-swapping, I believe, unless I am mistaken, that you need at least three cards to do "perpetual" recording. Because it takes about as long to offload a card as to fill it, one must be offloaded and erased while one filling up: one actively being recorded to, a freshly erased one awaiting switchover, and one offloading. You should probably have a spare, too. So, yeah, the bundle with four 4-GB cards seems the best for indefinite continuous shooting with P2. But, boy, I'm sure the frequent swapping and the extra care not to jostle the camera could be nerve-racking. I think some HDD solution would be better for longer shooting.

I think some HDD solution would be better for longer shooting.There are (or rather there will be) at least two different HDD options available to HVX200 shooters needing long-form recording. One is the FireStore FS-100 which connects to the camera by FireWire; the other is the CinePorter CP-2 which connects via the P2 card slot. Both offer at least 100GB of uninterrupted recording for less than the cost of two 8GB P2 cards, so take your pick.

I've also read some various speculations that having both a horizontal and vertical shift is somewhat counter productive -- so I don't know if it would be shifted in both directions.Looks like a half-pixel shift in each direction. In "Another Reader Report from DV Expo; more info on Panasonic HVX200" (HD for Indies (http://www.hdforindies.com/)), poster Kevin Shumacher reported from DV Expo West: "To clarify a couple of things regarding the HVX-200; I also attended Jan Crittenden Livingston's demo, where Jan did not indicate the resolution of the CCD's but did state they used both a vertical and horizontal 1/2 pixel offset 'to enhance luma resolution.'"

I'm a little confused. Wouldn't that mean a CCD with an active pixel count of 960 x 720? Yet in this dvxuser post (http://www.dvxuser.com/V3/showpost.php?p=313052&postcount=4), Jan seems to debunk the 960 x 720 figure. Also, wouldn't a half-pixel shift both horizontally and vertically reduce color sampling below 4:2:2 in the 1080p/i modes?

I'm a little confused. Wouldn't that mean a CCD with an active pixel count of 960 x 720? Yet in this dvxuser post (http://www.dvxuser.com/V3/showpost.php?p=313052&postcount=4), Jan seems to debunk the 960 x 720 figure. Also, wouldn't a half-pixel shift both horizontally and vertically reduce color sampling below 4:2:2 in the 1080p/i modes?

I suppose it could be both a horizontal and vertical pixel shift. I'm not sure I understand the reasoning behind Panasonic's secrecy over the CCD block. I would guess that it's because their censor is lower res than what the competition is using, but the first few clips seem to show excellent detail. IMO, the "karate" clip and the good 1080 "guitar" clip, even though edited and recompressed to make them web-manageable, still show many aspects that are superior to what I've seen from HDV cameras.

Panasonic has claimed that their CCD "scans natively at 1080p". So if it doesn't have 1080 lines of vertical resolution, then they could get into a little trouble for claiming that. It may be a grey area, but that would be pretty slimey to claim 1080p scanning if they need a vertical pixel shift to achieve the equivalent of such.

There are (or rather there will be) at least two different HDD options available to HVX200 shooters. . . . Both offer at least 100GB of uninterrupted recording for less than the cost of two 8GB P2 cards, so take your pick.The FireStore FS-100, at least, will cost significantly less than than the current price of one 8-GB card (which, I believe, is $2,250). From a Focus Enhancements press release (http://www.focusinfo.com/corporate/pr_new/IBCWrapUp091905.htm): "The FireStore FS-100 for the HVX200 is expected to be available in March 2006, and price will be less than $2,000."

Right, point being, if you need this option for long-form recording, it's there for you.

I suppose it could be both a horizontal and vertical pixel shift. I'm not sure I understand the reasoning behind Panasonic's secrecy over the CCD block. I would guess that it's because their censor is lower res than what the competition is using, but the first few clips seem to show excellent detail. IMO, the "karate" clip and the good 1080 "guitar" clip, even though edited and recompressed to make them web-manageable, still show many aspects that are superior to what I've seen from HDV cameras.

Panasonic has claimed that their CCD "scans natively at 1080p". So if it doesn't have 1080 lines of vertical resolution, then they could get into a little trouble for claiming that. It may be a grey area, but that would be pretty slimey to claim 1080p scanning if they need a vertical pixel shift to achieve the equivalent of such.


I too suspect the CCD is the smallest pixel count of the current crop of HD Camcorders, hence the secrecy.

They claim "Progressive to interlace conversion, cross conversion and down conversion all start with the 1080p/60 scan." I take that to mean the CCD is bi-directional pixel shifted 0.5 pixels and the analog signal is treated as 1080p and then a scanning frequency of 148.5 MHz is performed - ie it is treated as if it were a 1080p progressive CCD. The game is given away in the small print of the newspaper the guitar man is holding, which is quite soft in concert with the fairly large DOF present in the shot.

Also because everything is derived from the 1080p scan the 720p will not be as sharp as it could otherwise be, but will have a slight noise reduction benefit.

Because it takes about as long to offload a card as to fill it
Well, that depends on what you're using to offload. On the P2 Store, yes it's about the same. But if you were using a fast laptop with a very fast hard disk, you can offload much faster than that -- the theoretical maximum is that a 4gb card could be offloaded in 50 seconds. It'd take a RAID of hard disks that could sustain an 80mBps data rate, but it *could* be done...

For a practical matter, yes it'll take about the same amount of time. Even so, I still think the two-4gb is a far superior solution to the single-8gb. We shot for four days with just two 4gb's, and after one was full I'd pull it and start the offload and the cameraman would continue with the other card. No waiting, no delay. Rinse, cycle, repeat. Had we had just one 8gb we could have shot for twice as long, but then we would have had to shut down the production while offloading. That, I can imagine, would have been most irritating.

But, boy, I'm sure the frequent swapping and the extra care not to jostle the camera could be nerve-racking. I think some HDD solution would be better for longer shooting.
Almost assuredly.

Wouldn't that mean a CCD with an active pixel count of 960 x 720?
No, because CCD pixels don't bear a 1:1 relationship with frame pixels. This is a common misconception, but in simple terms the CCD pixels are not directly related to the frame pixels at all. There's CCD pixels, which get sampled into the internal format, and then that gets processed into the recorded format.

So an HDX400 has a 1280x720 CCD, which gets sampled off the chips and into the DSP at (I believe) 1920x1080, and then recorded on tape at 1280x1080. The chip's resolution isn't directly related to pretty much anything else in the chain.

Resolution is important, obviously, but it's just one component in the whole chain, and optimizing for resolution means compromising on other aspects of the image chain.

CCD pixels are an oft-quoted statistic, but it's tough to figure out what they really mean because the system has no way to access them. CMOS is different -- with CMOS the system can access the individual pixels. But with a CCD, the pixels get sampled into an analog signal, which then gets digitized as it comes off the chip. There is no way to get at the contents of a CCD pixel; it's all output as a continuous stream of voltage, which then gets sampled. Think of a microphone -- it senses air pressure and turns that into voltage; then an audio sampling circuit will go in and sample that voltage stream at a 16-bit, 48khz rate. Yet we don't ascribe "bits" to the microphone, do we? Do we question whether a microphone is 16-bit or not? A CCD is pretty much a "video microphone" -- a microphone senses air pressure and turns it into voltage, a CCD senses photons and turns them into voltage. The actual fineness of resolution with which it can respond would be nice to know, but obviously doesn't bear a direct 1:1 relationship with the digitized signal.

I'm not sure I understand the reasoning behind Panasonic's secrecy over the CCD block. I would guess that it's because their censor is lower res than what the competition is using, but the first few clips seem to show excellent detail. IMO, the "karate" clip and the good 1080 "guitar" clip, even though edited and recompressed to make them web-manageable, still show many aspects that are superior to what I've seen from HDV cameras.
Well, there it is in a nutshell. That's been exactly their point. The sensor probably does have a lower pixel count, but the fact is that the resolved detail is definitely higher than the HD100 or FX1 (haven't had a chance to do a side-by-side with the XLH1 yet). So had they announced the number prior to showing the footage, people could have just looked at numbers and decided that one was better than the other. Which would have been an incorrect conclusion to reach. So instead of engaging in what Jan calls "a numbers war", she said they'd release footage instead and let people judge based on the pictures, not the spec sheet.

Maybe once it's been out a while and established, maybe then they'll release the number. But for now she said they don't want to distract from the images.

Panasonic has claimed that their CCD "scans natively at 1080p". So if it doesn't have 1080 lines of vertical resolution, then they could get into a little trouble for claiming that. It may be a grey area, but that would be pretty slimey to claim 1080p scanning if they need a vertical pixel shift to achieve the equivalent of such.
Well, no, because executing a 1080p scan doesn't have a 1:1 relationship with the pixels on the chip. The HDX400 has a 1280x720 chip, yet it scans 1920x1080 off of it. "pixel shift" isn't some sort of photoshop-style uprezzing algorithm. It's a spatial offset technique that leads to actual, verifiable gains in resolution. The BBC says that it's capable of a maximum of around 1.414x gain in resolution, with a more practical maximum being about 33% more resolution.

Barry, CCD's do transfer photosite charge in an analog manner, but you should not confuse that with the 'old world' way of thinking, as in a megahertz type of rating for resolution. I'm not sure that is what you were hinting at. CCD's have a very distinct and effective charge transfer from each and every photosite out to the external ADC. The effective samples may then be stretched and scaled to any size they want, but the native resolution is still what it was. As long as the optics does a good job of , say illuminating only the odd photosites, the resolution is defined by that limit. Of course no optics can do that with 100% contrast between odd and even avalable pixels, but they try.

The edge enhancement 'they' apply to the resized image do make the image look sharper to the eye, but look horrid to film people that are used to looking at film.
This whole uprezing reminds me of the days of cheap flatbed scanners that claimed all kinds of DPI ratings, but they were just interpolating ( resizing/scaling) the data. A lot of BS.

It will all come out in the wash when someone points the cameras at a standard resolution chart with line pair patterns. Up sizing that and then sharpening won't pick up the finest line pairs that the original ccd source didn't capture. Aliasing aside, it's all about the ccd dimensions , the optics, and the compression that it undergoes.

Let's see how some line pair charts look like! It would make a great shootout.
Now only if they saved more that 8 bits/color, that would wipe out the 16mm film cameras for good!

"Also because everything is derived from the 1080p scan the 720p will not be as sharp as it could otherwise be, but will have a slight noise reduction benefit."

from my observations thought 720p had more noise then 1080.
switching to 1080 didn't really increase resolution but maybe a little less noise - now the resolution might be because viewing on 720p monitor ?

from my observations thought 720p had more noise then 1080.
switching to 1080 didn't really increase resolution but maybe a little less noise - now the resolution might be because viewing on 720p monitor ?

this is an example of where theory and practice dont necessary tally - another example is the notion that pixel shift can increase resolution just take a look at the following jpeg

http://rapidshare.de/files/9046674/pixel_shift.jpg.html

it shows the effect of resolution increase in the luma from the co-sited pixels at A, pixel shifted 50% at B and the contribution to the luma of the extra resolution at C. Ok there is a resolution increase but it can hardly be seen and is obtained from a huge penalty to overall image contrast; a bit like 'robbing Peter to pay Paul'

Sony use a horizontal pixel shift but the resolution charts show it has little effect and therefore no practical benefit.

I left feedback on Panasonic's website about updating the message on the HVX200 page about the delivery date, which has been corrected. I also notated my observation that an online Operating Manual is missing. Today, I was grateful to receive a personalized email from Panasonic's Corporate Brand Marketing Department, which stated that it will be added to their site "in the coming weeks."

So hopefully that answers someone's question on this subject.

Cheers!
Bob

Thanks for that update, Robert!