OK, I know that this has potential to be starting a new religious war and I defintely don't want to do that. I try to keep this to objective observations without being too judgemental. To all the proud owners of the HVX200, this is not meant to disparage your camera, it's just the my point of view based on a recent experience.

On Saturday we shot the first episode of "2nd Unit TV". The shot was rather simple but we tried to make the most out of it. We had 3 HD100, camera 1 and 3 where shooting opposite medium close-ups of the two people talking, camera 2 did the master shots. The topic was "lighting for film and video" and the speaker was funny man and cinematography guru George Spiro Dibie, ASC.
George has an contagious passion for his craft and he literally invented lighting for modern TV. Go to http://www.2nd-unit.tv to see a short bio about him.
He also has the gift of being able to talk non-stop for 40 minutes straight. We had 3 cameras pointed at George and nobody dared stopping him.

When preparing for the shoot, a few day before, Jonathan and I agreed on using tapes. We could not get 3 firestores ready in time and, besides, the quality of recording to Hard Disk is no different than using the tapes. Plus we had a crane shot, a shoulder-mounted shot and the added bulk of the hard disk would not help. We would have opted for that if that meant the difference from 4:2:0 to 4:2:2 but the firestore would only give us the convenience of not transfering the tapes.
So we used tapes. We didn't know how long each take would go. We didn't have the knowledge before time.

So, I loaded the tapes, used the header rec feature (thank you JVC!) to initialized them with bars, tone and black and then we started shooting.

After the first segment of the interview we realized that we had 50 minutes of footage. Time to load another tape.
Now, if I had the P2 card I would have to change card every 8 minutes. In the situation that I just described that would have been unaccepable. Just the intro shot, George and Jamie walking into the Lite Panel's office, with 3 takes, would use all the time available in a P2 card.
During the interview we would have had to stop the speaker and tell him to wait until we "reload". I tought that digital was supposed to free us from that!
People say that the P2 card have to be thought as digital "film magazines" and not like storage. I thought that we were trying to move away from that situation. One of the advantages of digital film-making is that we can keep recording without having to worry about cost, storage etc.
This way of working is subtly transforming the visual medium because now we can capture spontaneous performances that were lost when using film, because of the cost associated with film and the need to stop and reload.
The high cost of P2 cards and their limiting running time, IMHO, outweight the benefit of quick acquisition via PC. Especially because hard-disk recording is a much simpler and economical alternative.

Kudos to JVC for disigning a storage system that allows us to record progressive High Def footage, at full 1280x720 resolution, onto a inexpensive and long-lasting medium that you can buy at your local Circuit City, Best Buy etc. In a real life situation this makes a huge difference.

So we used tapes. We didn't know how long each take would go. We didn't have the knowledge before time.

So, I loaded the tapes, used the header rec feature (thank you JVC!) to initialized them with bars, tone and black and then we started shooting.

After the first segment of the interview we realized that we had 50 minutes of footage. Time to load another tape.
Now, if I had the P2 card I would have to change card every 8 minutes. In the situation that I just described that would have been unaccepable.

There's something to be said about having tape backup available for archiving the original footage too.

From the time I first heard about the Panasonic P2 card approach I felt that for some documentary, and most event shooting, and a good deal of nature videography as well, the P2 card medium would not be a very workable way to go. It seems better suited to narrative or other situations where things can be tightly controlled and broken into short takes. But now that the Firestore 80 for the JVC is available, the big advantage of being able to record and transfer without capturing is given up. You can say what you want about compression, but I think that right now the JVC has the edge over the card system alone precisely because it has tape capability.

While I am sticking with the JVC, you could shoot in 720P Native and have 32/40 minutes. Of course that would require two 8-Gig P2 Cards. Wouldn't have to stop the interview as long as you had a P2 store or laptop with you. Again more money.

You would have to have 3 P2 stores or 3 laptops there to handle the video from three cameras. There would not be enough time to transfer 3 8GB P2 cards. If you did shoot 24p or 30p at 720 well then you might be able to get by with two P2 stores or 2 laptops. Of course you would have to hire somebody to keep running back and forth between the 3 cameras in order to offload the cards. Your shooters shouldn't do it because they could miss a shot or something.

During the interview we would have had to stop the speaker and tell him to wait until we "reload". I tought that digital was supposed to free us from that!


I am sure u know this - P2 offers hotswap - you don't need to STOP the shoot to switch them..! with 2 cards in the slots - u cud just pull one out.. and the camera records to other card without blinking... dump the other card.. and put it back... with 3-4 cards u can shoot for a long period in studio environment...

I am sure u know this - P2 offers hotswap - you don't need to STOP the shoot to switch them..! with 2 cards in the slots - u cud just pull one out.. and the camera records to other card without blinking... dump the other card.. and put it back... with 3-4 cards u can shoot for a long period in studio environment...

How close would one be, to being able to purchase another HD100, if you had 4 8gig cards?

How close would one be, to being able to purchase another HD100, if you had 4 8gig cards?
That was exactly my point. The cost/benefit ratio is way off. It's not that the technology is not good. The idea of small form factor and solid state recording is defintely cool. I just think that it would be much better to provide an interface to a small-size hard disk, remember, an iPod can carry 60GB, with 4:2:2 recording. At *that* point I will consider going away from tape.

That was exactly my point. The cost/benefit ratio is way off. It's not that the technology is not good. The idea of small form factor and solid state recording is defintely cool. I just think that it would be much better to provide an interface to a small-size hard disk, remember, an iPod can carry 60GB, with 4:2:2 recording. At *that* point I will consider going away from tape.

I have a feeling that by then JVC will have a new BLUE-RAY DVD camera like the XD-HDCAM.

I am sure u know this - P2 offers hotswap - you don't need to STOP the shoot to switch them..!

That's true, but there are the issues of bumping the camera, making noise and just generally causing a commotion that could distract the talent and interviewer whenever you make those switches.

That's true, but there are the issues of bumping the camera, making noise and just generally causing a commotion that could distract the talent and interviewer whenever you make those switches.

In practise changing film mags on an interview was never a big deal and interviewers often made good use of the break to gather thoughts with the interviewee, or change tack when it restarted. Often a producer would add points that had been missed.

The main worry was that the camera was going to run out of film just as the interviewee was expressing a key point (often an emotional one) extremely well. Of course, the same thing also happens on video at the end of a tape... these things always happen as you're about to run out.

Just because you can talk for longer without a break in the shooting doesn't mean it's any better. Often it's not.

Just because you can talk for longer without a break in the shooting doesn't mean it's any better. Often it's not.

No, but if you had the choice between reloading every 10 minutes and every 60 minutes while getting similar quality results I have a hard time believing anyone would actually choose to reload more often.

(I'd argue the HD-100 beats the HVX in quality too, but that's another thread)

Just because you can talk for longer without a break in the shooting doesn't mean it's any better. Often it's not.
That could be but that is not the point of this post. When we finished shooting, because on 2nd Unit the choice of video camera is a constant topic of discussion, I thought about the invitable comparison: how would this be if we used the HVX200. The Panasonic camera was initially, my first choice when I was considering an HD camera. When I looked at the specs and cost of the P2 card I thought that it was not making sense. In fact I re-read the specs several times in order to be sure that I didn't misunderstood anything. That is when I started looking at alternatives and when I "discovered" the HD100.
The occasion of this shoot simply raised issue again I thought how much simpler and cheaper our workflow has been because of the HD100. Again, an issue that is very close to "2nd Unit" goal of helping indipendent filmmakers.
It turns out that our speaker can indeed talk for 30-40 minutes without loosing focus (no pun intended). In that situation the ability to record full HD resolution on inexpensive tapes was a bonus. If we had to use two or four P2 cards per camera, as has been suggested, multiplied for three cameras, the investement would have been quite substantial. With tapes, it wasn't even on the radar.

No, but if you had the choice between reloading every 10 minutes and every 60 minutes while getting similar quality results I have a hard time believing anyone would actually choose to reload more often.

(I'd argue the HD-100 beats the HVX in quality too, but that's another thread)

I'm happy with every half hour, people (the crew) tend to be falling asleep if interviews go on for an hour non stop. However, give the choice between shooting it on film or video, the film wins every time.

My concern about P2 is the cost of the cards and how it fits into the workflow on location. You can hot change which is OK, but there's the problem of downloading etc. It's also easier to give a client a tape, the use of laptops could get messy unless they're set up for it.

All the tests I've seen so far have given the HD 100 the edge on the quality. Variable frame rates are the HVX's main advantage.

That's true, but there are the issues of bumping the camera, making noise and just generally causing a commotion that could distract the talent and interviewer whenever you make those switches.


Exactly -- and if the camera were on a jib, who's going to get on a stepladder and carefully swap cards.

We're singing to the choir boys!

I still argue all the time with someone that bought the HVX because they were doing a lot of compositing and they did not like the HDV format.

I of course went for the HDV format and I am extremely happy that I did.

Tom

Paolo- The only way I could think of to cover that type of shoot, using those P2 cards, is to stagger the swap between 2 or more cams. While cam 1 is swapping disks, cam 2 covers the shot. When cam1 is online again, cam 2 would swap out. And you would have one intern, their sole purose, is to dump and save that footage as fast as they can!

I would rather run cables back to either a switcher, or straight into some raids. It is just an interview, right? No cops, guns, explosions, car chases,right? Not really a whole lot of movement on the operator's part.

Basically, to summarize, the HVX200 sucks for long form recording.

Basically, to summarize, the HVX200 sucks for long form recording.
Well, actually I wasn't talking about the camera but about the specifics of the P2 system. I can't comment on the camera since I didn't work with it. It's just that the workflow imposed by the P2 doesn't fit my way of working and I think it creates un-necessary problems. If the HVX200 had the same encoding to tape as the HD100, I think it would be much more convenient.

OK, I know that this has potential to be starting a new religious war and I defintely don't want to do that.
Troublemaker :)

(But, at least you never mentioned the dread P2 "corrupted card error" issue :))

People say that the P2 card have to be thought as digital "film magazines" and not like storage.
How do people even come up with this analogy? You would have to be comparing the HVX200 with 35mm film (400ft. load). I can't believe that anybody would actually think there is even a minutely close comparison.

Not even the Panavision Genesis compares with 35mm film at this point in its evolution.

A more reasonable comparison would be to 16mm film (S16 aspect), but even there, it's not going to hold its own in any area you want to compare except workflow, and workflow never takes precedence over quality in commercial film making (plus, a 400' load lasts ELEVEN minutes).

Even if the quality was in the same ballpark, the HVX200 is nowhere near a production camera. How are you going to pull focus to the same mark every time between the camera rehearsal and the take, or do a precise, repeatable rack focus? What if the DP also wants to adjust frame during the shot (adjust focus and tighten frame)? How can you mount it to a pro fluid head and give the operator (who is acclimated to shooting from the left side of the camera) enough room on the dolly? How do you do the same off of a gear head?

The HVX200 is fine for "funny shots" and some digital holds, and I use it as a DV Polaroid occasionally, but even if it had the promised cross compatibility between the P2 system and tape ("and/or", which didn't happen), it would never make a decent production camera the way commercial film crews work because of its consumer orientated uni design.

Here are a couple of photos I shot a little bit earlier this evening showing a professional crew at work on a current production, and another of the HD100 mounted on a dolly. You can easily see that the HD100 would make a good production camera, and as soon as JVC gets off their butt and makes an extension for the split eyepiece, it will more than likely make an excellent production camera.

http://www.enzogiobbe.com/production_stills.htm

My two 'pence worth...

How do people even come up with this analogy?

I know some reviewers like the DP from 24 made that comparison in terms of workflow. They say, "Hey we're used to loading film pretty often and P2 is similar to that. If you're used to shooting film then P2 will be no problem".

They aren't comparing picture quality of the HVX to film.

I know some reviewers like the DP from 24 made that comparison in terms of workflow. They say, "Hey we're used to loading film pretty often and P2 is similar to that. If you're used to shooting film then P2 will be no problem".

They aren't comparing picture quality of the HVX to film.

Yes, that's true. But we use 35mm film for its high resolution and very wide latitude, and in choosing that recording format for those qualities, are restricted by the physical limitations of the film stock (and forced to use practical 400', 500', or 1000' loads because of it).

Since the P2 format dosen't offer the same advantages, it should'nt demand the same limitations.

Troublemaker :)



A more reasonable comparison would be to 16mm film (S16 aspect), but even there, it's not going to hold its own in any area you want to compare except workflow, and workflow never takes precedence over quality in commercial film making (plus, a 400' load lasts ELEVEN minutes).


...

When people compare the HVX to 35mm, I believe they are specifically referring to workflow and nothing else.

Enzo- At least you don't have to send those P2 cards out to be developed ;)

Enzo- At least you don't have to send those P2 cards out to be developed ;)

But you don't have film for the archieve either. :)

Enzo's point is well taken. For the very significant advanges of film, folks will deal with the short (compared to tape) running time. But to shoot with a camera that up-scales "wide PAL" CCDs to "HD" -- fuuggeetttabout it. :)

Oh, believe me Steve, you don't have to tell me about the downside of the P2s. When I first heard about them, I thought it was a cool thought, but it really missed being practical. It's almost like the old days of PCs, trying to save huge programs on a stack of floppies. Just like that in fact, only completely different ;)

[...] the HVX200 is nowhere near a production camera. How are you going to pull focus to the same mark every time between the camera rehearsal and the take, or do a precise, repeatable rack focus? What if the DP also wants to adjust frame during the shot (adjust focus and tighten frame)? How can you mount it to a pro fluid head and give the operator (who is acclimated to shooting from the left side of the camera) enough room on the dolly? How do you do the same off of a gear head? [...] I find this comment rather amusing, I've done a lot of shooting with both the DVX100 and HVX200, and I've manage to do repeatable focus pulls. The focus ring might turn continuously but you can in fact do repeatable focus pulls, it goes back to the same place when you move the focus ring. And if you want the creature comforts of a follow-focus they are available. I don't get the comment regarding fluid heads and room on the dolly at all. Hey, don't get me wrong, I like the ENG form-factor of the JVC H100, which I've also used, but come on, the HVX200 can do most anything the H100 can do, practically speaking. Maybe I'm missing something here? Seriously, help me understand how it is that I can't do things that I've actually done. I'm in a twilight zone here...

Troublemaker :)
(But, at least you never mentioned the dread P2 "corrupted card error" issue :))

:) The reason I posted this is because I'm constantly amazed that the P2 system is presented as an advancement in workflow. As a "Good Thing"(tm) when I think it's really a bad idea. It's incredible how marketing can makes us believe the darnest thing.

As Steve pointed out, at least with film you can save the original negative. You have an archiving medium. With P2 it's like you obtain an DI by destroying the negative. It's just a bad idea and an incredibly expensive one. It's surprising to me that it didn't cause a public outcry and a product recall.

Anyway, just MNSHO ;)

FWIW I think P2 is an excellent basic idea but - like so many good ideas - it's great in theory and lousy in practice. The price of the cards (after all 4 x SD cards in a fancy case) is absurd in my opinion as is the current capacity limit for most practical purposes. I'm sure most or all acquisition will be tapeless in the not-too-distant future but for most of the filming you'd be likely to try on a low budget camera like the HVX, P2 is pretty silly in terms of logistics. If you're planning on making a feature on a huge palmcorder (which I find strange in itself) then I'm sure P2 makes a bit of sense but if you want to use it for anything else you're cutting off your nose to spite your face. The HVX could have been a viable competitor to the Z1, which must be selling like hot cakes.

And where are all the DVX/HVX evangelists? I'd have thought they'd be all over this thread by now...

Since the P2 format dosen't offer the same advantages, it should'nt demand the same limitations.

Exactly, that's part of the reason I sold my HVX and bought an HD-100... which squares with Paolo's initial post. For the pain P2 is in actuality it ought to offer a lot better quality to counteract that. It offers portable 60p for the moment. Other than that Panasonic has done an amazingly good marketing job IMHO.

@AntonyMichaelWilson:
The evangelists probably stick to HVX friendly boards. I'd be really curious to hear HVX vs. the competition sales numbers. I think the HD-100 got a boost after the HVX information really got out there.

The evangelists probably stick to HVX friendly boards. I'd be really curious to hear HVX vs. the competition sales numbers. I think the HD-100 got a boost after the HVX information really got out there.

I'm really glad they are sticking to the dedicated board. It's a pleasing surprise that the 'religious war' hasn't started yet. I agree that the HD100 must have had a boost after the HVX finally appeared. All the same, the HVX - coming out so much later with more time for improvement/development and having a far superior codec with a similar form factor - had the potential to challenge the Z1 head-on and steal from some of the HD100 market as well. It could have been a cracker but I suppose it is seriously hamstrung by the higher end cameras from Panasonic. We should be grateful that JVC does not produce popular, serious contenders in the middle and high range because it means that they can include all sorts of professional features that would be unthinkable for Sony and Panasonic at this price point.

We were ready to purchase the HVX.

However after we saw the JVC and the images from it, we made the switch.

What really sold us were all the similarities that the JVC had to a film camera. (We are old film guys)

Tom

FWIW I think P2 is an excellent basic idea but - like so many good ideas - it's great in theory and lousy in practice. [...] And where are all the DVX/HVX evangelists? I'd have thought they'd be all over this thread by now... I'm not an evangelist for any one camera, but I'll come to the defense of the HVX200 here. To argue that one camera is better than the other is to fail to understand each was designed with a different design points and attempting to solve a different set of problems. I've shot with BOTH the JVC H100 and the Panasonic HVX200 and I think that each camera is perfect for a specific set of needs.

Shooting a narrative and want a small, self-contained camera that offers variable frame rates? The HVX is perfect. Long event? Of course the HDV tape format wins. On the other hand, I don't see anyone getting very excited about doing green screen with the bit-starved MPEG-2 HDV format, while pulling clean mattes from DVCPRO HD video is a snap. And what about variable frame rates? 60p? The small form-factor of the HVX? The convenience of quick ingest in terms of news and commercials? The folks at NY1 are using the HVX and love it as a news camera. I've used it in both narrative and documentary situations and I love it too.

I spent the weekend before last shooting for 12 hours straight (not rolling for 12 hours but catching B-roll of events and some short interviews, a total of 2 hours of footage) with the JVC H100, and the HVX would not have worked in that situation. Let's see, that would have been 6 8GB cards at 720p/Native (20 minutes of recording capacity per card, less than 8 minutes to download each), hmmm, come to think of it, those cards can be amortized over one or two years of work and for the quick-turnaround stuff that I was shooting, faster than real-time ingest might have been nice... so it all depends on the context of the sutation whether one tool or the other shines.

I've noticed owners have a tendency to be very biased and find it hard to see the other side of the story, regardless if they are JVC H100 fans or Panasonic HVX200 fans... I'm glad I own niether and I'm free to choose the tool that's right for each job, there are so many GOOD cameras out there....

Sony 1/2" XDCAM HD camcorder (great look, cheap media, variable frame rates),

JVC 1/3" H100/HDV (great image quality and performance, limted HDV media),

Panasonic 1/3" HVX200/DVCPRO HD (small, variable frame-rates, good image quality, P2 controversial media),

Panasonic 2/3" Varicam/DVCPRO HD (real HD camera, a joy to shoot with, real DVCPRO HD tape media),

Sony HVR-A1 (tiny little thing handy for doc, HDV media)..,

etc.

I'm not an evangelist for any one camera, but I'll come to the defense of the HVX200 here. To argue that one camera is better than the other is to fail to understand each was designed with a different design points and attempting to solve a different set of problems.
David, I agree with you but if you look at the original post, and title of this thread, I'm specifically addressing the P2 storage system and not the camera.

Peace :)

At last - a spirited defence of the HVX!

David, I completely agree with you. But - like Paolo - I was attacking the P2 workflow in practice as it stands with the current cost/capacity problem. This alone is the major problem with the HVX - and other P2 cameras for that matter. It's not the camera per se but the P2 workflow it depends on that is the problem. The cost/workflow has no sensible relation to the cost of the camera. I definitely see the advantage of the far superior codec (I mentioned this in my first post) and of the form factor and variable frame rates. The problem is purely that all these great things are severely limited in practice by P2 as it stands. The real-world useability of the HVX (and other P2 cameras) is not good. I think that P2 is particularly bad for the HVX because most people who want a palmcorder style camera at the HVX price point are not trying to shoot feature films or commercials and they need a long record time without spending a fortune and needing an assistant and a laptop. These people are buying Z1s at the moment in great big batches and I'm sure Panasonic could have had a share of that pie. In fact, I'm very happy with our HD100 but the HVX would make much more sense for us all-round IF we could record HD for longer periods. Of course, an external HDD device is one option but my experience of these is thoroughly negative so far.

Of course, the only reason Panasonic was able to offer the HVX at a low price is by limiting form factor, lens, sophistication of the CCD block and not including a higher end tape mechanism. These limitations decrease production cost and mean there is little or no adverse effect on sales of their more sophisticated units. JVC does not have this 'problem' and can offer us all sorts of pro features with impunity. It's just a shame we have to put up with such a lousy codec.

I never even mentioned the HD100 in my first post. Of course the JVC has its fair share of issues, which we all know and hate, I'm sure, not least of which is its own specific workflow problem that few decent NLEs acually support HDV1 at 24/25/50 fps!

David, I agree with you but if you look at the original post, and title of this thread, I'm specifically addressing the P2 storage system and not the camera I understand. Antony Michael Wilson asked where the HVX evangelists were so I had to chime in (though I'm not an HVX evangelist, I can play one here).

It's so hard to divorce completely the issue of medium and camera. Can I use P2 with the H100? Not without some clever hacking. Can I use HDV with the HVX200? I guess I could use a transcoder and an HDV tape deck just to prove a point. Each has to be thought of as a system, in a speicific production context. My point was simply to chime in for P2 and HVX and suggest that no camera/medium combination is ideal for every situation and it's unfair to make broad-brush pronoucements, especially when it comes to P2 which is an evolving medium.

I still remember the tube vs. CCD and 16mm film vs. video arguments that used to rage on and on, just as we are now discussing HDV vs. P2, and it's good for some fun, thought provoking, conversation. It helps me understand each of the tools better, I strive to understand the nuances of each, why people like them, why they don't. It rarely turns out to be an either/or thing.

If I had to spend months shooting in a far away place, tape is certaily the way to go. P2 excels when fast turn-around is required and you're shooting very low shooting ratios, while tape excels when high shooting ratios and longer ingest times are acceptable. P2 is far from ridiculous, if you look at Panasonic's roadmap for P2, at the end of the year we'll have 16 GB cards (40 minutes of 720pN) and a year later it's reasonable to expect 32 GB cards (80 minutes of 720pN), plus there's evidence this pace may accelerate.

Does anyone remember those huge 1" Tube HD cameras from Sony? I remember seeing that at NAB, people thought shooting HD was a crock, but then Zbigniew Rybczynski (http://www.zbigvision.com/) made some unique videos that could not have been made with any other medium. He found the sweet spot of this ridiculous new technology. Most people waited, as they should. My point: each medium has some uses for which it's well suited.

Today we carry HD cameras on our shoulders (CineAlta and Varicam, etc). That's how to look at P2: it's a new technology that's evolving. Tape is tried and true but on a decline. Remember DAT tape? Once upon a time it was the cats meow for digital audio recording. Compact Flash? Hard Drive? Today they are serious recording tool for digital audio recording (I'm thinking of the Sound Devices 744 on the high end and the M-Audio Microtrack on the low end). Audio is the bellweather of what will happen in video.

Is P2 right for everything? No. Is HDV the answer to all of our dreams? No way with MPEG2 encoding. Which one should we use? It depends on the context. I've used both HDV and P2, I'm not going to take sides, I'll sit here in the swiss alps of medialand and enjoy the view of both worlds. I've been thinking of making a short film about P2 workflow shot on HDV and a short film on HDV workflow shot on P2. Now that would be fun.

At last - a spirited defence of the HVX [...] Someone's got to do it (grin).

[...] David, I completely agree with you. But - like Paolo - I was attacking the P2 workflow in practice as it stands with the current cost/capacity problem [...] Yes, I agree, by the way, with many of the lances that have been thrown at P2. Today P2 workflow is a HUGE PROBLEM to deal with, but I see problems as challenges to be overcome. The challenge is WE HAVE TO DESIGN THE WORKFLOW FROM SCRATCH essentially, we're evolving the workflow as we go, that's the problem, right now you have figure things out, with so many options, challenges, kinks, and opportunities to shoot youself in the foot. No doubt about it, it's a thorny, problematic, dangerous world. Tape is safe and well understood.

But I see the future of MXF file based workflows and I like it. Right now where I'm working we have 20,000 videotapes that we rarely use as B-roll because of the access issue. Videotapes on the shelf do not make an archive. P2 points to a new MXF file based workflow from capture to ingest to editorial to archiving to reuse. And there's value in reuse, especially when you're cutting documentary and news magazine stuff. P2 is only a tiny little sparrow in a huge evolving ecosystem that is the digital studio of the future. We have to see it as component in a much larger machine. Out of context P2 looks like a silly thing that makes no sense compared to the paradigms we're using today.

[...] limitations decrease production cost and mean there is little or no adverse effect on sales of [Panasonic's] more sophisticated units. JVC does not have this 'problem' and can offer us all sorts of pro features with impunity. It's just a shame we have to put up with such a lousy codec [...] This point is not lost on me as I'm sure we all understand that every design is a trade-off between market demand, cost, manufacturability, imagination of the designers, internal politics, engineering processes, corporate agendas, etc.

Don't take me for a "real" HVX fanatic, after doing some real world shooting with the JVC H100 I'm very impressed with the camera. With good composition, lighting, and sound, the slight image problems of MPEG2 are insignificant compared to everything else, so "being stuck with a bad codec" is not really all that bad, it just means we have to work a little harder (just like P2 makes us work a little harder in terms of workflow, or to be fair, a lot harder). There, we're back to Tape/P2 issues.

Getting back to the original discussion...

One other problem I found whilst thinking about the HVX is camera sync. I do a lot of the 30-60 minute interviews with three cams, and the though of swapping cards every few minutes on each camera in a staggered way makes the idea of syncing up the footage to do a multi-cam switch in post very nasty.

With tape (or, more often, DVRack), I can sync once at the beginning, and then I'm ready to do a mult-switch all the way through. I'm sure I could line things up with timecode with the HVX, but I can't imagine it'd be nearly as easy as with tape.

Of course, I own an Z1, so perhaps I'm mistaken here...

Best,

Benjamin


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http://www.neo-fight.tv [The "Techno-Debate" Video Podcast]

In fact, I'm very happy with our HD100 but the HVX would make much more sense for us all-round IF we could record HD for longer periods. Of course, an external HDD device is one option but my experience of these is thoroughly negative so far.


David is saying much more thoroughly and clearly what I only alluded to in my post in rather vague terms. Each of the two systems is best suited to different shooting domains.

But your comment here Anthony raises a question for me. I had imagined that the availability of HDD devices for the cameras in question might shift the balance of overall utility and ease of use. But from the way the give and take is going so far apparently that is not the case. (And I recognize that this was originally a reaction to the P2 card specifically, so maybe other devices are off topic.) But since I just ordered the DR-HD100 your comment really caught my attention. You have a negative impression of HDDs and others have ignored them in this discussion. What seems to be the problem? I'm a newbie at this and don't understand.

Isn't the argument about P2 media on the HVX one that can be overcome with hard disk recorders (Focus, Citidisk, plus that proprietary jobbie I've seen)? Don't get me wrong, I prefer the image quality of the HD100. Also HDV may not be the perfect codec but in most cases it does a similar job to DVCProHD (although with less colour precision).
David is dead right in that each camera has it's place in the food chain, and they are all a lot better than anything available 3 years ago, but which one do you buy if you can only afford one? Not everyone has the luxury of owning a bunch of different cameras for different roles. I think that may be the real test.
Personally I would always buy the HD100 with as many bells and whistles as I could afford as the ENG factor lends itself to a wider variety of roles (but then I do a lot of different things). You can rent a Wafian for green screen shoots, you can rent/buy a superior wide angle lens, you can shoot for 4 hours in hdv with DR-HD100-80. If I could afford a Varicam/F900/XDCamHD then that might be my choice.

I don't see anyone getting very excited about doing green screen with the bit-starved MPEG-2 HDV format, while pulling clean mattes from DVCPRO HD video is a snap.


I've never seen a side by side greenscreen comparison that showed the HVX was any easier to get a good comp out of even if the HD-100 was going straight to tape.

In the only "sorta test" I've seen the HD-100 shows more hair detail:
http://www.bluesky-web.com/HDVHVX.htm

Walter writes:
"One thing I learned here is that as an acquisition format, HDV does not seem to suffer from some of the problems I keep reading about. It seems to key well, as good as any other format I have used. Had I used Keylight or any of the more sophisticated keying software, I would have not had any problems whatsoever so as I always say, a good key is about how it's shot and what you use to cut the key. ...I would not want to edit in native HDV... I don't capture it as native HDV but rather up sample it to a 4:2:2 color space and keep it as a 10 bit uncompressed Quick Time file using the software HDVxDV. Tape is cheap and when used in a proper workflow, as my testing shows it rivals what others claim is a more robust format. While I wouldn't doubt a camera with a bigger CCD and more electronics behind that CCD would do a better key, all these 1/3 inch prosumer cameras are very similar in size and electronics so they are more on a level playing ground regardless of specs that might sound more robust."

--------

I've owned both cameras and I would recommend the HD-100 over the HVX for keying and compositing due to the true 1280x720 resolution and it's MUCH better lower midtone noise. I'm assuming the conversion to Cineform's codec.

Try comping a dramatically lit HVX greenscreen shot. All that colored noise in the lower mids becomes a much bigger issue all of a sudden. Additionally, if you were really doing a lot a greenscreen you could capture the HD-100 via a AJA card at 4:2:2 at 1280x720 in either uncompressed or Cineform. You get HD-100 at 60P then also. The HVX simply can't compete with that.

The myth that the HVX is better for effects (other than 60P) is a just a myth. On paper it seems like it should be better, but that's where it ends.

I think the killer camera will be the HD-250. And then there's Red. (I'm saving my penny's). Add all that up and I see a bleak future for Panasonic's proprietary P2. Investing in it now and banking on future price reductions in P2 as if the rest of the camera world won't be innovating seems risky.

I own and use an HVX but P2 is not for everybody. My biggest issue with the workflow is the lack of a true master. You can get away with swapping cards, it is not that big a deal. The problem is that the workflow is expensive and despite what the fanboys say, it is risky to have footage stored on moving platters and there are still bugs with many workflows.


ash =o)

it is risky to have footage stored on moving platters

That's true and that's what RED will be doing too as I understand it. I'm not sure what the solution is.

[...] despite what the fanboys say, it is risky to have footage stored on moving platters and there are still bugs with many workflows [...] there are bugs in the workflow, yes, but I'd say rotating storage is not so risky when you're storing the media on XServe RAIDs and backing that up with LTO-3 tapes, the blinking lights are so much cooler than tapes on a shelf :-)

Of course, that's out of the budget range of indie-filmmakers, and the energy usage is high, yet tapes also need a little bit of air conditioning and controlled humidity, but there's also a cheaper alternative to the hardware RAID-5 solutions: You can use RAID-1 mirrored sets of three drives with the third drive in each kept off site after the mirror set is built.

Tape is tried and true, I have to admit, compared to P2. Someday, however, we'll look back on this discussion fondly when we're shooting with 128 GB cards, editing with 12 TB disk arrays, and archiving off to holographic storage.

[...] the lack of a true master [...] A friend shared this story with me once... he was digitizing for the purpose of archiving some of his old video footage that had been shot about fifteen years ago and some of the 3/4" tapes he tried to play had nothing on them... the magnetic patterns had vanished. Some of the other tapes barely played once and the oxide literally fell off the tape. This is what I think about when producers say, "I have an archive of my materials on videotape." The archive problem exists for both the videotape workflow and tapeless workflow. Besides recording things out to 35mm intermediate film stock, I don't know any motion picture archival medium which stands a chance to outlast the person who created the images.

A friend shared this story with me once... he were digitizing for the purpose of archiving some of his old video footage that had been shot about fifteen years ago and some of the 3/4" tapes he tried to play had nothing on them... the magnetic patterns had vanished. Some of the other tapes barely played once and the oxide literally fell off the tape. This is what I think about when producers say, "I have an archive of my materials on videotape." The archive problem exists for both the videotape workflow and tapeless workflow. Besides recording things out to 35mm intermediate film stock, I don't know any motion picture archival medium which stands a chance to outlast the person who created the images.

Well of course glue and plastics technology has come a long way since then. I still have perfect 3/4s as well - it depends on how carefully you store them (humidity control etc).

David can you answer my previous question - can you not record all the formats of the HVX to hard disk which kind of makes the angst about P2 workflow a little off track?

Also I'd be interested to know - Hypothetically, if you only had $10K to spend what camera and accessories would you buy? Sorry you don't have the luxury of buying different cameras for different jobs or higher end cameras...

I think there IS a way to make the P2/tapeless workflow work quite well, it is just VERY VERY expensive.

While no master may be timeless, having one for a week, month, year, etc. is better than deleting when the project is done. For now, most post houses I know are actually backing up.... to data tape... ironic huh? FYI, I have miniDV tapes that are 10 years old and none have failed yet...



ash =o)

FYI, I have miniDV tapes that are 10 years old and none have failed yet...
Right. I just did a transfer from CVHS to DVD for tapes that were 10 years old and have been played a lot. besides the normal degradation caused by the playback the images were there and I was able to transfer them just fine. Cheap, compact VHS from a low-end consumer camera.

I cannot believe that people are buying into this p2 stuff. Spend 8k on a camera and have only 16 minutes of hd per session to show for it. Even if the video was marginally better then the hdv cameras, the cost does not satisfy the needs. Its simply not practical or versatile for the average pro shooter.

IMHO, p2 and the hvx are more of a luxury item then a business tool. My humble opinion will change when p2 memory substantially goes up and prices substantially go down. Like that is going to happen any time soon.

No axe to grind here, I just really wonder how people use p2 as a money maker.

For the record, I am no fan boy. I would buy a sanyo brand camcorder if it fit the bill.