Re: new Pannie HPX250 info
 

Well, a 64GB card is enough for about 72 minutes of recording time in either 1080p25 or 720p50. You get a little less time in NTSC modes (30p/60p) and more time in 24p. With two 64GB cards you'll get about 140 minutes.

Re: new Pannie HPX250 info
 

Hah! That's what my friend thought! Trouble is that to the sort of person who might be tempted to nick them, a laptop is a laptop, period.
But then isn't this sort of defeating what must be one of the main pluses for this sort of camera - the inbuilt fully approved codec? AVC-Intra 100 is, AVC-Intra 50 isn't.

Up against the XF305, then with each at the same 50Mbs datarate, the XF305 has a fully approved codec, the 250 doesn't - and CF cards are cheaper than P2 per GB.

And the XF300 has that true manual lens - the 250 has a servo lens. However good the 250 may be (and yes,it's a lot better than the 171) I can't really see why I'd want to buy it in preference to the XF300?

Re: new Pannie HPX250 info
 

Folks that have lots of batteries, P2 cards and other accessories for the HPX170 are probably on the fence for the 250.

Has anybody seen if the 250 has inproved in the highlights? Is the red chroma still clipping to soon? I was disappointed with the AF100 in this regard...

Re: new Pannie HPX250 info
 

I use AVC Intra 100 for broadcast and AVC intra 50 for corporate or jobs where I don't need the full 100 codec but may need more space.

Never run out of card space anyway and if I were to do a full broadcast production that required more space I would just buy some more cards!

Re: new Pannie HPX250 info
 

I would agree, AVC-i 100 is overkill for a wedding. If I were an event videographer and weddings were a big source of my income, I would look at the AC130. It's basically the same camera as the 250, same lens and chipset, but records to AVCHD. It uses much cheaper SD cards and it's priced about $1,500 less than the 250. If you don't need a broadcast-level codec, or HD/SDI out (like the AC160), it makes a lot more sense to go with the AC130.
And let's not forget the Sony NX5U. It's been a proven performer for event videography.

As far as choosing the HPX250 over the XF300/305, you can't go wrong with either camera, especially at the broadcast level. I don't know if the 250 has been approved for full acquisition by the BBC HD or Discovery HD, but since the HPX370 already is, and the 250 uses the exact same chipset and codec, I would expect the 250 to get approval. The AVC-i 100 codec is 100mbps, 10-bit, 4:2:2, and all this for $2,000 less than the XF305. That's amazing.
Again, if the 250 had been available when I bought my XF305, I might have gone with the 250. In my case, I already own P2 cards, so it would have made better economic sense. A $2,000 savings is, for me, a lot of coin.
When I looked at the video of the 250 at 12db, I thought it looked as clean as comparable XF305 footage. This is in no way scientific, just a quick observation based upon my prior experiences with my 305, and I fully admit I could be wrong. A side by side comparison is needed.
This in no way takes anything away from the XF305, which is an excellent camera. The 250 has to be very good to match the performance of the 305.

Re: new Pannie HPX250 info
 

Fair point - I was basing my comparisons on buying a complete package from scratch.
You have to take the BBC list with a bit of caution - it used to signify "suitable for everything" now it's "passes the bare minimum". Hence the 370 (amongst others) may be allowed for some work, but frowned upon for other purposes. That said, I suspect they may be far less interested in the 250 now than they might have been a year or so back. They've bought a load of XF305s, and I don't see why they'd want to confuse matters by going onto another type of camera as well unless it offered a significant step up - and in the case of the 250 most aspects are comparable, but the servo lens is a significant step DOWN from the XF305.

They've also recently bought a large number of PMW500s, which together seem to show a preference for the 50Mbs XDCAM422 format.
I'd be a little careful for reasons mentioned earlier in the thread. The best guess is that it uses the same or similar chipset as the 370, and the "noise ghost" issues are well documented. Do you know what the noise reduction profile was set to in camera? The concern would be that noise is being minimised to look better at simple viewing - but give rise to other issues (the ghosts) that grab you further down the post chain. That said, the specs seem to imply it should be comparable to the XF305 for low light performance - but both to be trumped by the EX.

But for weddings I agree that the 130 is likely to be a more sensible choice than the 250 - in many respects they are the same or similar, but the 130 is cheaper to buy, and memory costs become far less of an issue.

Re: new Pannie HPX250 info
 

I thought the 370 "noise ghost" was fixed with a recent upgrade?

And I'm not suggesting the BBC will go out and purchase HPX 250/370 cameras, but will allow independent producers to submit projects shot with these cameras.
And agreed, the XF300 lens is incredible.

Re: new Pannie HPX250 info
 

I believe the "fix" was to offer an option of using less software noise reduction - effectively going back to something like the HPX300. The knock on is obviously that a "fixed" 370 is then noisier than a "ghostly" 370!

Since the 370 was introduced to counter complaints about higher than desired noise levels and the low light performance of the 300, I'll let you draw your own conclusions!! :-)

Re: new Pannie HPX250 info
 

Yeah, the P.A.P. filters, Type 1 and Type 2 and the "micro-jello." I was hoping Panny had ofered a more recent upgrade, but apparently not.

Re: new Pannie HPX250 info
 

50mbps long-gop is equal to 100mbps I-frame because the data is spread over several frames instead of a flat amount for each. In some circumstances (definitely not weddings, but who knows?) this plays an important role in compression because if there is too much change between frames (such as often happens in nature or if flash photography is involved) the first frame may get overloaded with information, and will leave about 10% of the data rate for the rest of the frames in the group.

Cash city my friend, how I'd like to live there, but $25k is too much for anyone but a network to consider.
...And that's only for the body.

Don't knock your heads too much about the issues surrounding the 370, it works great for what it is, I mean it's not like you're trying to capture a blockbuster on the darned thing, otherwise you're looking in the wrong section of the forum. With -3db and good light I can barely see some noise in the shadows, and on a typical HDTV with typical network compression you can't see anything until much higher gain levels are used. Don't be too critical of footage on a 27" 2560x1440 monitor from a foot away, it'll look awful.

Re: new Pannie HPX250 info
 

This shouldn't be the case, and isn't with any good long-GOP codec.

The allocation of bitrate to ref frames and difference frames is dynamic, so the situation you describe shouldn't happen. On a static scene the diff frames don't get allocated much data (they don't need it), but with a lot of movement the ref frames get allocated less, the difference frames more.

Imagine two extreme cases, one with NO movement, the other basically a succession of random images frame by frame. If 25fps, 50 Mbs, and a GOP of 12, you could allocate the bitrate in two (extreme) ways

1. Allocate 25Mbs to each I frame, (two every second), and none to the difference frames.
2. Allocate 2Mbs to EVERY frame - difference frames getting the same as I frames.

1 would (theoretically) be optimum for a completely static scene, 2 would be optimum for the succession of unrelated images. In practice, real life situations fall between these two stools, but the underlying principle holds good. Less movement =less bits to diff frames. More movement =more bits to diff frames (and less to I frames)

It follows that for the same bitrate, and all else equal, a long-GOP system MUST be better in terms of quality than an I-frame only one. The debate starts when bitrates aren't equal - at what ratio can the qualities be said to be "equivalent"? The generally held figure is about 2-3x - that's why the equivalence between XDCAM422 and AVC-Intra 100 shouldn't come as any surprise - in spite of the 2:1 bitrate difference.

Re: new Pannie HPX250 info
 

To me, it is highly questionable as to whether or not the HPX250 is an improvement over the HPX170. Panasonic could have chosen to dominate the ENG camcorder field by upgrading the three-CCD imaging block and the global shutter of the 170 to a true 1080p array, but chose instead to substitute its already-developed MOS-rolling shutter imaging block for the 250. Very disappointing, although good for those on a limited budget who aren't doing fast action video. Neither the new Canon C300 nor the Scarlet have incorporated CCDs or global shutters. Panasonic has missed a great opportunity here. Maybe they should consider an HPX350 at up to an $ 8500 price point with the aformentioned quality imaging block. Until then, I'll stay with my HPX170 until side-by-side tests demonstrate a rolling shutter without significant problems in fast-action shots.

Re: new Pannie HPX250 info
 

It's a nice wish, but think about it. What you want involves shrinking the size of the 170s pixels by a factor of well over 4 (well over, because of the guard spacing), if they'd stayed with CCD, what do you think the noise, sensitivity etc would be like? (The 170 is not exactly the most noise free camera in the first place.)

Basically, the choice was go to CMOS, develop bigger than 1/3" chips, or stay with 960x540.

As more and more displays become "full HD" (1920x1080) the differences between the 170 and cameras like the EX were becoming more and more noticeable - have you seen the two intercut? Hence the last option (stay at 960x540) gets ruled out. You'd need 2/3" to keep the pixel size the same and go to 1920x1080 - which becomes hardly practicable in this size and price of camera.

Hence CMOS.

Re: new Pannie HPX250 info
 

So David, if I understand correctly, the increased sensor size necessary for a full-frame 1080 3-CCD camera would be too large for an HPX 170 sized or slightly larger camcorder, because the CCD sensor subunits are considerably larger than the CMOS subunits ? Or is it that with the rolling shutter, the CMOS chip doesn't need a full set of sensor subunits - instead, the same subunits are re-scanned slightly later with a different portion of the frame ? Sorry for the basic questions, but my knowledge of the detailed workings of an image block is rather limited.

Re: new Pannie HPX250 info
 

Just one more slightly off-topic question, David. Several manufacturers are now making CMOS sensors with global shutters. Do you see this as the next major advance in the field of prosumer and professional video cameras ?

Re: new Pannie HPX250 info
 

Mark - the fundamental issue is that matters like sensitivity and highlight handling etc are heavily dependent on the size of individual photosites. Pack more onto a chip of the same size, and inevitably they become smaller - hence a compromise between resolution and sensitivity.

The only way to improve one without compromising the other is to move to a larger sensor or change the technology. The HVX171 is not the most sensitive of cameras as it stands - going to 1920x1080 and keeping 1/3" CCDs wasn't an option. Hence - bigger chips, or CMOS.

Bigger chips (you'd need 2/3" to keep the photosite size the same as the 171, whilst moving up to 1920x1080) mean bigger, heavier, more expensive lenses. Not really practical in a camera of the form factor/cost we're talking about here. Hence CMOS.

I'm not aware of any cameras currently that have CMOS/global shutter - do you have any references? Is it "the next major advance"? Probably depends what you do - some people get very disturbed by the effect, other people find it less of an issue. Even if not a global shutter, differing cameras have different readout times - mobile phone etc video shows it far worse than a true camcorder, even if both CMOS.

It will be interesting to see what the new Canon C300 is like in this respect. It uses a simplified readout compared to standard deBayering, which may make it relatively fast and hence may mean lessened rolling shutter effects. (Their readout method - see the C300 thread - is not new, what is new is that it's being applied to a sensor with the optimum pixel count for the technique, twice 1920 horizontally, twice 1080 vertically.)

Re: new Pannie HPX250 info
 

Who is making global shutter cmos Mark?

Re: new Pannie HPX250 info
 

Two companies came up quickly on a Google search, and I believe that there are others as well. The first one, Teledyne DALSA is producing Falcon high-speed cameras with CMOS chips and global shutters (www.teledynedalsa.com), and the second one appears to be a chip distributor named Viimagic (CMOS image sensor, Imaging sensor). They are advertising a HDTV sensor chip that is CMOS with a global shutter, Apparently Kodak labs wrote some papers on CMOS with global shutters back in 2003, but the technology has been slow to come to market.

Re: new Pannie HPX250 info
 

The Panny looks like a great buy for those who've already taken the plunge with P2 cards. Not so good if you don't have them. Having said that, the card prices are not as bad as they were, and there seems to be a decent resale value in them.

It'll be interesting to see the camera side by side with the canon, but there is another excellent budget option. The mighty EX1 pops up on Ebay (often with very few hours on the clock) at half price with batteries, SxS card etc. The budget conscious can get a lot of camera for their cash, and even sell the camera on at little loss should they wish to move on to something else.

Re: new Pannie HPX250 info
 

Interesting... Looks like camera making companies will have to make their own sensors - they wont buy it from other companies...

Re: new Pannie HPX250 info
 

That's what I am thinking to. People who are already heavily invested in P2 will definitely be looking at another P2 camera. But it looks like that this is the only reason why somebody would buy another P2 camera from Panasonic. Because as of now they don't have a P2 camera that followed the trends of the market. Excluding the varicam ENG series of cameras.

This troubles me to. I'm also invested in P2 but don't really want to buy the next camera from Panasonic. Give me an AF100 with P2 and you got me sold! Or a reasonably priced 2/3 ENG type cam (cmos I presume...).

Re: new Pannie HPX250 info
 

This is a better link to the Teledyne DALSA site info : Falcon2 Cameras

I was ready to buy an HPX-250, but I now wonder of the Canon XF-300 would be a better choice, or if I should just wait a while longer and see what else comes out. I am very comfortable with the P2 workflow and Edius 6. Switching to a new file system is not something that sounds like fun. I really like the results that I get with my HPX-170, so I may wait a bit and see what others say about the HPX-250.

Re: new Pannie HPX250 info
 

One thing about 50mbps long-gop on the XF300 is that you'll be getting a lot more recording time per GB of storage than AVC-I (depending on noise and scene complexity/motion).

Re: new Pannie HPX250 info
 

I don't know if this has been discussed before: is the lens on the 250 parfocal? This is a big big problem on my 170! Zooming in and out looses focus. I'm never again buying a camera that can't retain it's focus. At least not an 1/3 chip camera with a servo focus ring that can't retain focus... Having a biger chip camcorder with a folow focus is a differnt thing.

But this small chip cameras with their small and useless LCDs and viewfinders and also their awful servo focus rings... I'm just furious as I was just watching some footage from today's talking heads shot where there are some parts out of focus, just because the cameraman zoomed out from a CU to a semi medium CU.

Re: new Pannie HPX250 info
 

Sounds like your lens was not working properly. Just because it is part of the camera doesn't mean it is working as intended. I would ask Panasonic to check it out.

Re: new Pannie HPX250 info
 

A German website published a test on the HPX 250

http://www.slashcam.de/artikel/Test/...-HPX250EJ.html

Actually the first 'real test' I could find so far. Did anybody find another test - or even a comparison with the xf 300?

Re: new Pannie HPX250 info
 

After reading everything I could find on the XF-300, it seems that it produces very sharp clear images at 1080p, but there are reports of markedly degraded performance at 720p. Since I use 720p 60 fps regularly, I have decided to go ahead and take my chances with the HPX-250. Once it arrives I will do some real-world testing of the rolling shutter and report back here.

Re: new Pannie HPX250 info
 

I would really appreciate if you could test the focus between different focal distances - zooming in and out and see if the focus stays on the spot.

Re: new Pannie HPX250 info
 

I might have discovered the combination which seemed to produce the results you talk about. I was playing with the camera today at B+H to see if i wanted to buy one. I was using manual zoom but the camera was in autofocus. When I manual focused the lens but with autofocus on with lens zoomed all the way in and then zoomed out and zoomed in back to the original the subject very was out of focus. I thought this fit your issue. The camera was pretty slow in autofocusing when zoomed in and there wasn't much hunting so it didn't seem like it was in Autofocus. When in Manual Focus the focus held like it should.
I still haven't made my mind up about the camera but I did feel the lens was very sharp and held its back focus if in manual focus. Not so good in Auto focus

Re: new Pannie HPX250 info
 

That's all I needed to hear! Thank you for the info!:)

About the autofocus, my thoughts: if you zoom out the framing changes. To me it sound obvious that the autofocus would change it's focusing point... There could be something in the foreground that you eliminated when you zoomed in or just the change in the composition made it necessary to change focus.

Re: new Pannie HPX250 info
 

Recording to a format that requires scaling, such as shooting 1080p on a 720p cam or vice-verse will usually result in a degraded image on any camera, or are you saying that the scaling on the XF300 isn't very good in particular?

Re: new Pannie HPX250 info
 

Hey Sanjin,
Your welcome. Of course Auto focus will change to what it thinks you want to focus on. The slowness of the lenses focusing on the center target at the long end of the lens was surprising and completely in contrast to how fast it refocused (usually to infinity according to the viewfinder readout) when zoomed out and nothing was in the foreground. Could make you think the lens wasn't backfocused

Re: new Pannie HPX250 info
 

Hm... Don't know that much about lenses. Is it in any way harder for a lens to focus when zoomed in than in wide angle?

Re: new Pannie HPX250 info
 

Konstantin - I have no personal knowledge of the XF-300, but several owners have expressed concern over the quality of the image in 720p. I believe that some of these reports are on this forum under the XF-300 thread.

Re: new Pannie HPX250 info
 

Downconversion will almost certainly be more difficult than upconversion. The reason is that unless done in a very sophisticated manner, the fine detail captured by the 1920x1080 sensor will act to give aliasing on the downconvert. With upconversion, that's a problem that doesn't exist - but the upconverted signal won't be any sharper than what's present in the 720 signal.

What this means is that 1920x1080 imagers will give sharper (1080) pictures - but worse performance when downconverted to 720. It's quite likely that the 250 will be just as bad as the XF300 - purely down to it also having 1920x1080 sensors.

In the past (with 960x540 sensors) it's not been a problem for Panasonic - since although cameras like the HVX200 first make a 1080 raster, the real definition within that is somewhat below 1280x720. Then do the downconversion to 720 and there is no fine detail there to give the aliases!

Mark - if you're thinking of choosing the camera largely on the basis of 720p abilities, I doubt the 250 will be any better than the XF305. It's more likely to be worse, based on cost and "you get what you pay for". I'd certainly check it out before parting with any money.

Also worth thinking of the EX1, which does seem to be proven to do the downconvert pretty well. Alan Roberts tested it for the BBC, and his report concludes "the downconversion appears to be a little asymmetric, but in an acceptable way.......... It is highly unusual to see such good downconversion in a camcorder." See http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rd/pubs/w...X1-and-EX3.pdf

And looking at the 720p downconvert zone plate, (Fig 6 of his report) I fully agree.

It's worth mentioning that the downconversion may be influenced by such things as detail enhancement settings. Poor performance may be down to setup as well as the camera itself.

Re: new Pannie HPX250 info
 

I can't say I agree with you on that one. My HPX171 aliases much more when set to 720p. I'm actually quite annoyed by this. And it's also the reason why I shoot 720 only when there is a desperate need for tape time...

Re: new Pannie HPX250 info
 

Downconversion is highly likely to cause aliasing - it's a question of how much. Starting with an image with less fine detail is better in principle, that's not to say there won't be any at all. And the 250 will give far more fine detail in the 1080 picture (to most people that's a big advantage for it!), so if the 171 has given problems in the past, it doesn't bode well for the HPX250 in 720 mode. I doubt it will be any better than the XF305.

One thing I did neglect is that whilst the 960x540 chips should give luminance detail up to about 1175x660, DVCProHD only records a 960x720 raster - so the horizontal downconversion is to 960 - not 1280. Hence more likelihood of horizontal aliasing from the downconvert than vertical.

I'm also wondering more about how much the complaints reported about 720p aliasing in the XF305, and Alan Roberts good assessment of the EX1, are down to settings. It does seem Alan may have brought the detail down from factory default - maybe the XF305 users had it set to a higher level? So less a camera issue, more one of bad setup?

Re: new Pannie HPX250 info
 

The HPX 250 is now fully BBC approved for HD production in house and by indie production companies!

Re: new Pannie HPX250 info
 

Is there a report from Alan Roberts?

Re: new Pannie HPX250 info
 

Have asked Alan if he has had a look at it yet but if the BBC have approved it he probably has.