My new HMC 150 just arrived! but..

[Bob Lange]

When I tip it forward and back, it makes a sound, like a flap inside is open/closing. It also sounds a bit like something moving forward and back. Mostly like a plastic flap.

It only does this when tilting, forward and back. Never when rotated on its horizontal.
As soon as I power it on, it stops doing it.

It this normal?

[Edward Carlson]

This is the optical image stabilization. It works by physically moving a lens to counter the movement of the camera. When the camera is powered off, the mechanism disengages and is free to move around. Most cameras with OIS do this, and it is normal.

[Bob Lange]

Thanks, its not an issue I was just curious.
I appreciate the explanation.


Here are a few initial comments on the 150. Ok I may be a bit excited.

This is not unlike a Miata with a small blown V8. Think Boxster S turbo.

I love the balance and weight. Best in class. Great LCD. Great adaptability to my needs.

So many usable features, the joystick is a bit to get up on but it works.

You need the big battery. Transend 16gb speed class 6 works so far real nice.

Wow... major bang for the buck.
I'll be a lurkin.

Bob

[Steve Wolla]

Congrats on your purchase, it is an aweesome little cam. I bought mine about 2 months ago, and really like it, especially its exceptional low light, low noise performance.

[Martin Duffy]

Hi Steve, How do you find it works in editing. I run a pretty quick dual core 3 system with Edius 5.

Also to come clean I have just bought a Sony FX1000 and well are a bit disappointed, especially with footage taken in SD. It seems footage on the FX1000 in SD is not as good as say a VX2000 or my old Panasonic DVC62 (DVC30)

Can you tell me what mm lens the 150 is as I film alot of sport and would like to run a 52mm 1.4 tele on it.

Gee i loved my old DVC62, though it was 4:3 and the audio limiter was crap as well as the 2.5 LCD.

How is the 150 looking once it goes to DVD?

What bitrate do you record to and how much do you get on a 32 gig card.

Thinking seriously of selling my FX and going Pana again.

If you tell me my old CGA-54S batteries will work on this camera well then I am in!

Regards


Martin
Australia

[Jeff Harper]

Martin, have you shot in HD, edited in HD and then rendered out to NTSC 720x480 widescreen? If your shooting 16:9 the FX1000 looks great when downconverted in post. If your shooting in 4:3 then I would expect to be disappointed. The sensors are best at 16:9. That would be like shooting 16:9 with a VX2100, its not optimal.

If you were to capture HD footage from your cam with Neo Scene and then render out to NTSC 720x480 widescreen you would probably be blown away if footage was shot in decent lighting.

[Martin Duffy]

If you were to capture HD footage from your cam with Neo Scene and then render out to NTSC 720x480 widescreen you would probably be blown away if footage was shot in decent lighting.[/QUOTE]


Jeff, I thought I could sneak on here and you wouldn't know. Here I am a Sony owner in Panny land and you catch me with out my pants down!!

What is Neo scene? I usually use Edius.

ps By the way I am PAL here in Australia.
pps i am moving house at the minute and once set up again will sit down and look at things with "fresh eyes".

[Jeff Harper]

Cineform is a brand, Neo Scene is the product (cost around $100). It is not an editor, but it is for capturing and converting HD footage, that is all.

It is for capturing HD footage like from the FX1000 but it give you much higher quality and more manageable .avi files, instead of the M2Ts. The files are much larger, however.

I have not used it yet, but it is very popular. Lots of Vegas users swear by it. I have yet to do another job for awhile, but I will be trying out the Neo Scene. There is a demo but I let the trial run out before I could try it.

I do know from my experience, which is limited, I admit, that it seems best to shoot HD, edit in HD and render out to desired format. I've done it both ways and this seems much better.

This is all not appropriate in this thread, and I didn't mean to hi-jack this thread, my apologies, but I wanted to make sure you have tried all options before selling cam.

The Panny sounds amazing and I would love to play with one, but the difference in quality from what I have seen in comparisons is not significant and comes down to taste more than anything.

Think about it Martin, you're shooting SD with a HD camera. Try shooting in HD then using the footage as I recommend and you'll see the difference.

Let me emphasize I respect the Panny and would like to have one. Unfortuntely I chose the Sony before learning about it!

[Steve Wolla]

Originally Posted by Martin Duffy

Hi Steve, How do you find it works in editing. I run a pretty quick dual core 3 system with Edius 5.

Also to come clean I have just bought a Sony FX1000 and well are a bit disappointed, especially with footage taken in SD. It seems footage on the FX1000 in SD is not as good as say a VX2000 or my old Panasonic DVC62 (DVC30)

Can you tell me what mm lens the 150 is as I film alot of sport and would like to run a 52mm 1.4 tele on it.

Gee i loved my old DVC62, though it was 4:3 and the audio limiter was crap as well as the 2.5 LCD.

How is the 150 looking once it goes to DVD?

What bitrate do you record to and how much do you get on a 32 gig card.

Thinking seriously of selling my FX and going Pana again.

If you tell me my old CGA-54S batteries will work on this camera well then I am in!

Regards


Martin
Australia

Hi Martin,
I have had my HMC150 for about 2 months now, and edit on a 2 year old desktop running the CS3 "Master Suite." Great for DV/HDV, challenged when it comes to AVCHD.

The HMC150's lens is equivalent to a 28mm --364mm. I have not had an instance where I really needed more. For sports/event work (I've shot several things for my church, soccer, my daughters school concert, etc) it seems to be very good.

For those occasions where you need more, Century does make a 1.6X tele converter, and 16X9 as well as others will likely have their vesions out soon a well.

I use the Main Concept transcoder downloaded from Panasonics' site, and so far its going OK. Just realize that when transcoding your file sizes can get big--mine are about 1GB/minute.

Quality is really great. Once transcoded, it edits like DV. No special issues at all, it tends to be rather trouble free at that point.

Why are you disppointed with your new FX1000? I saw one at Sony Style Store yesterday and it seems quite capable, a very good cam. I saw the Z5U demonstrated at DVExpo in LA, nice cam to be sure.

FWIW, these cams--FX1000, HMC150, etc....have such a high degree of "tweak-ability" that it may just take some time to learn where the FX's sweet spots are.

The HMC will not shoot in SD. You can however, shoot in HD, use 4:3 markers and when done down convert in-cam to 4:3 using the "crop" mode. That might work.


I have only finishd two productions with the HMC so far. I edited in DVCProHD and output to an MPEG2-DVD file (SD). Results were quite good, indeed. This was of my daughters school holiday concert, lighting stunk, but the HMC did great. Very little noise, no artifacting....and also of a high school soccer game shot at night, again with lighting challenges. But they both look great.

I seem to always shoot in PH mode, 720/60p so I can pull decent slo-mo's off for the soccer games that I shoot. Quality is very very good, 720/60p is to my eye, fully the same as 1080p when viewed on mu Samsung 5053 plasma HDTV.

I have 4 16GB class 6 cards, and at 720/60p I can capture 90 minutes. A 32GB card will be mucho more $$$, but would be able to record 3 hours, at the highest "PH" level.

Unfortunately, the HMC uses its own battery design, so earlier Pana batteries won't work--or so I am told.


Other than that, I like the fact that it shoots in MPEG4. Better motion control as it is Intra-frame prediction, etc. (Note, it is NOT AVC-Intra) and that it utilizes very low noise CCD's that provide great low light performance.

Although I have not tested them sise by side, I would imagine, based upon my current low light experience with the HMC, that the HMC and FX1000 clips that I have seen in various posts, that the two would be very close in low light performance in real world situations.

It's a great little cam. However the FX1000 is no slouch either.

[Dana Salsbury]

I've heard Prores is the way to go if using FCP. Is DVCProHD better? Would file size be the same either way?

It sounds like swapping out two 16gb cards would be cheaper than one 32gb card. Thoughts?

[Melvin Harris]

I love the camera, same as everyone. I edit with Sony Vegas and FCP. Strangely enough, I prefer Sony Vegas. I bought DVFilm's Raylight to edit P2 stuff and when I bought the HMC, and downloaded the Main Concept transcoder, my workflow was pretty much unchanged with the exception of the size of the files. Recently, I found out that Vegas 8.0c on an Intel based system can play the .mts files back at close to real time, native. Honestly, editing the raw files rather than the transcoded P2s yield a stellar looking product. I prefer the look of the native editing although the transcoded files look good- the p2 audio clips sometimes and becomes horribly offset, but it can be dealt with. I think that's a raylight thing. Also, I've had trouble with the transcoder because it works better if you wrap the files directly from the card, not from the hard drive. But all in all, the images this camera gives me are beautiful and the workflow is not so difficult that it is stifling. It just calls for innovation. Now, when I move to FCP, the P2 stuff just cuts and there is no problem, but like I said, I prefer native, and I prefer Vegas.

I also stack 16gig cards... I'm a narrative movie maker and can do that on set!

[Melvin Harris]

I love the camera, same as everyone. I edit with Sony Vegas and FCP. Strangely enough, I prefer Sony Vegas. I bought DVFilm's Raylight to edit P2 stuff and when I bought the HMC, and downloaded the Main Concept transcoder, my workflow was pretty much unchanged with the exception of the size of the files. Recently, I found out that Vegas 8.0c on an Intel based system can play the .mts files back at close to real time, native. Honestly, editing the raw files rather than the transcoded P2s yield a stellar looking product. I prefer the look of the native editing although the transcoded files look good- the p2 audio clips sometimes and becomes horribly offset, but it can be dealt with. I think that's a raylight thing. Also, I've had trouble with the transcoder because it works better if you wrap the files directly from the card, not from the hard drive. But all in all, the images this camera gives me are beautiful and the workflow is not so difficult that it is stifling. It just calls for innovation. Now, when I move to FCP, the P2 stuff just cuts and there is no problem, but like I said, I prefer native, and I prefer Vegas.