new Pannie HPX250 info

[Rob Katz]

the footage i've seen posted has been uninspiring, at best.

but much of what i've seen has been shot by a vendor who was kind enough to take the time to give all those interested a wee bit of a taste.

now that b&h has the camera in stock, i am sure shooters will soon be posting gobs of footage and then and only then can those interested truly start to assess whether the hpx250 is a camera they want for their kit.

i've waited this long, so i'm willing to wait till more footage is posted.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/cont...&A=ShowProduct

ymmv

be well

rob
smalltalk productions

[Sanjin Svajger]

Originally Posted by David Heath

The 250 is undoubtably a big step forward from what Panasonic had at this price point before, but it feels like they're now catching up with Sony and Canon - not overtaking them.

If you ask me Panasonic overtook, just for a few centimetres.

Originally Posted by David Morgan

On top of that, there are S x S express 34 to SD slot adapters cards for 200.00 / 64 gigs. I would like to see Panasonic do this with the PCMCIA slot.

It would be great if Panasonic did that!:)

[Kevin McRoberts]

Originally Posted by David Morgan

Panasonic just recently lowered the cost of the E series cards. Before that they were a lot more than the S x S economy series. On top of that, there are S x S express 34 to SD slot adapters cards for 200.00 / 64 gigs. I would like to see Panasonic do this with the PCMCIA slot.

They do: it's called the AC-160 ;)

But seriously, it's a smidge easier to feed 35mbps to an SD card than 100mbps... and the most reliable SD cards (ie, SDXC UHS) aren't much less expensive than P2.

I'm liking their tiered approach, aside from making my inevitable upgrade choices more difficult.

[David Heath]

Originally Posted by Sanjin Svajger

If you ask me Panasonic overtook, just for a few centimetres.

Well, in terms of codec, they may have caught up with the Canon and yes, overtaken such as the EX, but what about front end? They've caught up there in terms of resolution - all the cameras we're now talking about are true 1920x1080 - but the 1/2" of the EX still gives it a big advantage for such as diffraction limiting, native sensitivity, and dof control.

As far as the XF305 goes, both it and the 250 are 1/3", but the XF305 does have a very good fast lens with f1.6 max aperture. That let's it compete somewhat against the bigger chips of the EX.

So what's the lens on the 250? Strangely, the Panasonic documentation doesn't give any figure for max aperture - which tends to make me suspect it's unlikely to be as good as the XF305. Hence the likely reliance on software noise reduction. I just don't believe the front end comes close to that of the XF305 or EX, and feel that's a more significant factor than codec.

The 250 may have a price advantage at first sight against it's competitors - but for an equal amount of recording time the extra cost of the P2 memory is likely to balance that out. It's a big step forward for Panasonic, but I still believe they fall short of the competition overall.

[Kevin McRoberts]

Its max aperture is 1.6

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/768924-REG/Panasonic_AG_HPX250_AG_HPX250_P2_HD_Handheld.html
I like the 370's performance in comparison to the EX series, and this camera promises very similar performance.

Add in VFR, world compatability, AVC-Intra, the entire gamut of other available codecs, longer lens... on paper, at least, it appears to kick the crap out of the XF305, and for ~$1500 less (which will easily buy you two 64GB P2 cards)... also considering that good reliable CF cards are nearly as expensive as P2, and the availability of AVC-Intra 50, can it really be said that P2 is "too expensive?"

The XF series never really excited me enough to ditch my HVX. This camera does.

[David Heath]

Originally Posted by Kevin McRoberts

.............also considering that good reliable CF cards are nearly as expensive as P2, and the availability of AVC-Intra 50, can it really be said that P2 is "too expensive?"

I've just checked online with one of the main UK dealers, and Sandisk Extreme 32GB CF cards (rated 60MBs - 480Mbs) are £107.50 - so £215 for 64GB.

A 64GB E-series P2 card from the same dealer is £468.95. (More if you want 2x32GB.)

In other words, CF (and I consider Sandisk Extreme to be as relaible as it gets) are well under half the price per GB of P2 - where do you get the "nearly as expensive" from?

Add in that for 2 hours recording time, you need 128GB for AVC-Intra100, 64GB for XDCAM422, the comparative figures are £937.90 for a P2/AVC-Intra approach, £215 for CF/XDCAM422 then it can certainly be said that P2 is a lot more expensive - 4-5x more.

[Gary Nattrass]

Cost doesn't come into it for me and I would be very nervy about recording broadcast AVC Intra 100 onto a single CF card of whatever quality, P2 works and in over two and a half years I have never lost a single frame of footage on any shoot that I have done.

When I had my Z7 and S270 HDV camera's I lost lots of clips and that was with recommended CF cards so that is why I went to P2 as it is a system designed for broadcast use and is tried and tested! The sony FCP plug in never worked on all my systems and I had to buy clipwrap to do my data wrangling.

Yes it cost me up front for the card investment but as said they have made their money back many times and continue to earn me money and more importantly give me the confidence that I will deliver my media every time.

The sony EX1 barely existed when I bought my first HPX301 and sony were using disc based media for broadcast but it was still only 35mbs, they have now changed to solid state but I am still using the same P2 system that was developed for the HPX500, 2700 and 3700, when I go to a 3100 for the olympics next year I will still be using the same P2 cards to do DV, DVCPro, DVCPro 50 DVCPro HD, AVC Intra 50 and AVC Intra 100 in NTSC or PAL at 50i or 25p with the HPX371 and 3100.

[David Heath]

Originally Posted by Gary Nattrass

I would be very nervy about recording broadcast AVC Intra 100 onto a single CF card of whatever quality, P2 works and in over two and a half years I have never lost a single frame of footage on any shoot that I have done.

When I had my Z7 and S270 HDV camera's I lost lots of clips and that was with recommended CF cards .......

I think we need to separate the media from the system. CF has been used for years by photojournalists in photography, is heavily used for professional sound recording in some systems, and is also used extensively in many video recording systems such as the nanoFlash, let alone the Canon cameras. I'm not aware of any reports that it's intrinsically less reliable than such as P2 or SxS. The BBC has recently chosen the XF305 for their standard camera of this type, and I don't believe they would have done that if they had had the slightest doubt about Compact Flash usage.

I hear what you say about your Z7/S270 experiences - but is it not more likely that was a problem with your equipment specifically? Either the specific system, maybe due to conflicts with recording to tape/card simultaneously, or even a fault within your specific equipment?

Please note that I am not trying to infer there is anything wrong with P2 or AVC-Intra - I'd be surprised to hear if you had had any problems. What I do disagree with are the opinions earlier in the thread that they are essentially superior to alternatives.

And I don't think you can ignore cost. You say you use a 371 - would you really have gone for that in preference to a 2/3" camera if cost didn't come into it? And comparing the costs of any cameras, you need to take account of the memory needed for a usable recording time. Using my figures above, that adds £215 for the Canon camera, £937.90 for the 250 for even 2 hours - a difference of about £725. So for a realistic comparison you need to add £725 on to the capital cost of the 250 to compare with such as the XF305 - more if you need more than 2 hours of recording.

If I thought that the 250 would really give superior results to an alternative camera then this may not matter too much. But going back a few posts, the reports seem to suggest it has a front end very similar to the 371. Hence the first thing I'd want to be checking out is the noise/noise ghosting issue. I've seen that first hand, and according to a colleague it makes for big problems for some post operations, even if not too bad on original pictures. The real issue is that noise processing in camera is not neccessarily a good thing, normally better done in software if necessary, and a real negative if it can't be turned off.

[Gary Nattrass]

Of course cost comes into certain elements of any business but we were talking about media and that is where I have never compromised on cost. Yes a 2/3" camera would be my preference on everything but as rates have stood still for 10 years clients get an HPX371 most of the time and I have had no complaints.

The noise problems on the HPX301/371 were mainly in NTSC land as was the skew but most of it was from people who were dialling in huge amounts of gain or not using the camera correctly.
All cameras have noise but the 371 is BBC approved so that is fine with me and as I don't do stupid things like try to shoot in the dark I never hit any problems.

I know lots of people who have problems with CF in their Z7's so it is not just me but I do take your point that it would be great to have lower CF based costs for my storage but I paid my money and made my choice over two years ago and have no complaints as I was looking at a system that was across all the P2 cameras at that time.

[Gary Nattrass]

Originally Posted by David Heath

Well, in terms of codec, they may have caught up with the Canon and yes, overtaken such as the EX, but what about front end? They've caught up there in terms of resolution - all the cameras we're now talking about are true 1920x1080 - but the 1/2" of the EX still gives it a big advantage for such as diffraction limiting, native sensitivity, and dof control.

As far as the XF305 goes, both it and the 250 are 1/3", but the XF305 does have a very good fast lens with f1.6 max aperture. That let's it compete somewhat against the bigger chips of the EX.

So what's the lens on the 250? Strangely, the Panasonic documentation doesn't give any figure for max aperture - which tends to make me suspect it's unlikely to be as good as the XF305. Hence the likely reliance on software noise reduction. I just don't believe the front end comes close to that of the XF305 or EX, and feel that's a more significant factor than codec.

The 250 may have a price advantage at first sight against it's competitors - but for an equal amount of recording time the extra cost of the P2 memory is likely to balance that out. It's a big step forward for Panasonic, but I still believe they fall short of the competition overall.

For info the HPX250 has an f1.6 lens, it's stated on their PDF spec sheet: http://pro-av.panasonic.net/en/sales.../ag-hpx250.pdf

Optical image stabilizer lens, 22x motorized zoom, F1.6 – 3.2 (f=3.9 mm – 86 mm), 35 mm conversion: 28 mm – 616 mm (16:9)

[Sanjin Svajger]

Panasonic cameras (hvx, hpx170, hpx500, hpx371) were always a bit different from the crowd regarding the media and the codec. They always had a strong codec and a reliable media. In this regard they are not for the same crowd that uses SD or CF cards and records in highly compressed codecs (mpeg2 35Mbit, AVC 24mbit). This is the crowd who is willing to compromise by shooting in a highly compressed GOP codec and record to a media that is not "bullet" proof. It is completely understandable that this crowd is going to banter around about the cost of the P2 media. But this is are not the people for whom this Panasonic cameras are aimed at. In my opinion this cams are aimed to a little (just a little bit) more "professional" folks who understand and/or need the robust codec and appreciate the reliability of a professional media that is the P2 system. I am one of those folks, ergo I have a P2 system:)

Sure you can hook an external recorder to an EX1 or an XF300 but still, is it the same as having a strong codec on-board? No, it isn't. And yes having an external recorder does give you some extra options, but you can also hook a recorder to an HPX250...

In my opinion the HPX250 beets (overall) the XF300 and the EX1r. But Panasonic is late, very late to the game and it will be beaten by a new Sony competitor when they'll release it in the not so far away future. Probably way before Panasonic releases an upgrade to the HPX250.

[Sanjin Svajger]

I was just thinking: is the focus on the 250 mechanical?

[Ken Hull]

Looking at a photo in the brochure, the zoom ring has markings. But I don't see markings for the focus ring. The brochure says all 3 rings are manual, but says the zoom ring is a cam-driven mechanical ring. So it's not quite clear if the focus ring uses a servo motor, or is directly linked to focus.

[Mark David Williams]

Originally Posted by Sanjin Svajger

Panasonic cameras (hvx, hpx170, hpx500, hpx371) were always a bit different from the crowd regarding the media and the codec. They always had a strong codec and a reliable media. In this regard they are not for the same crowd that uses SD or CF cards and records in highly compressed codecs (mpeg2 35Mbit, AVC 24mbit). This is the crowd who is willing to compromise by shooting in a highly compressed GOP codec and record to a media that is not "bullet" proof. It is completely understandable that this crowd is going to banter around about the cost of the P2 media. But this is are not the people for whom this Panasonic cameras are aimed at. In my opinion this cams are aimed to a little (just a little bit) more "professional" folks who understand and/or need the robust codec and appreciate the reliability of a professional media that is the P2 system. I am one of those folks, ergo I have a P2 system:)

Sure you can hook an external recorder to an EX1 or an XF300 but still, is it the same as having a strong codec on-board? No, it isn't. And yes having an external recorder does give you some extra options, but you can also hook a recorder to an HPX250...

In my opinion the HPX250 beets (overall) the XF300 and the EX1r. But Panasonic is late, very late to the game and it will be beaten by a new Sony competitor when they'll release it in the not so far away future. Probably way before Panasonic releases an upgrade to the HPX250.

The most important part of the equation is how does the picture look. For me the codec in the EX1 is enough for ordinary filming and even some scenes that need high quality. The only time 100 intra or Prorez 220mb comes in useful is when you want the very highest quality for post work otherwise its not really neccesary although you are guaranteed its all BBC proof and I would probably use the 50mb most of the time. If I was making a film I would go for the prorez 220 and use the atomos samurai when it becomes available. Would be nice to have the 100 intra but it's not as important as it once was precisely because of the samurai's imminent release and cost of P2 media wouldn't be an issue if it was recording an equivelent to Prorez 220 its only an issue because intra 100 is a similar price to prorez 220mb albeit an external recorder but a small one and one that will give the quality advantage in post. I think until we get some 250 100 intra footage saying one camera is better than another is a waste of time.

I hope the focus ring doesn't turn endlessly on the 250.

[David Heath]

Originally Posted by Sanjin Svajger

This is the crowd who is willing to compromise by shooting in a highly compressed GOP codec and record to a media that is not "bullet" proof.

A "highly compressed GOP codec"? In very extensive and scientific trials the EBU gave XDCAM422 full approval as an acquisition format, as indeed they did AVC-Intra 100. (But not AVC-Intra 50.) XDCAM422 has been heavily adopted by large sections of the broadcast industry, and maybe one of the highest profile adoptions early on was by the BBC for "Eastenders", which (for those not in the UK) is overall the most watched soap in the UK. Full story in Taking Eastenders HD - theworkflownews-content | TVBEurope Magazine Online & In Print

Following extensive trials and testing, to see if they {the BBC} could break the digital compression system, the combination of the HSC-300 and PDW-700 XDCAM HD422 camcorders were selected. The XDCAM’s were for location work .......

And since then, the BBC have made a huge investment in Canon XF305s and PMW500s for other purposes. Same with many other big name broadcasters. And by all accounts the testing involved cascading codecs and post work, and scientifically seeing how it stood up to the broadcast chain. Does this really sound like "the crowd who is willing to compromise".......? Do you not consider them "professional"?

OK, this is XDCAM422, as used by the XF305, and I'm sure you'll point out that the EX uses the 35Mbs version - not 422 50Mbs. I've said many times that the EX should get the full 50Mbs codec, but the real difference is 4:2:2 v 4:2:0, in other respects they are very similar. In no way can 35Mbs XDCAM be said to be "highly compressed".

Sure you can hook an external recorder to an EX1 or an XF300 but still, is it the same as having a strong codec on-board? No, it isn't. And yes having an external recorder does give you some extra options, but you can also hook a recorder to an HPX250...

No, it's not the same - but why would you want to hook an external recorder to the XF305 (or the 250)? They both have a fully approved broadcast codec as defined by the EBU. As for the EX1, then I would indeed prefer the 50Mbs codec built in - but at least it can be added externally. You can't upgrade the 1/3" chips of the 250 to match 1/2" chips - you're stuck with any issues such as noise ghosting they give.

In my opinion the HPX250 beets (overall) the XF300 and the EX1r. But Panasonic is late, very late to the game and it will be beaten by a new Sony competitor when they'll release it in the not so far away future. Probably way before Panasonic releases an upgrade to the HPX250.

On the first sentence we will have to agree to differ. It's my opinion the front end of the EX1 is , and that is more significant than the codec differences - and an ext recorder can always be used.

As said before, then whilst I don't think the 250 is the overall winner, I do think it's a significant step forward. For the last few years, Panasonic has been left way behind by the EX at this price point, and the Canon camera just emphasised that. The HPX250 does now provide some real competition - but as you say, it's late to the game. It only needs Sony to put the broadcast codec into a 1/2"camera to draw indisputably ahead again.

And this is before we even start to think about sales lost to large format cameras. For varying reasons, I've found the first generation (AF100, FS100, F3) disappointing, but let's see what November 3rd brings from Canon and Red. I wouldn't buy anything before then if I could help it, and that includes the 250.

Originally Posted by Gary Nattress

The noise problems on the HPX301/371 were mainly in NTSC land as was the skew but most of it was from people who were dialling in huge amounts of gain or not using the camera correctly.

All cameras have noise ..........

The 371 I saw was a 50Hz ("PAL land") version, and was before the "fix". I'd read of the noise ghost, and it didn't take long to see what the fuss was about, so it was certainly an issue this side of the Atlantic as well - I can't comment if it was even worse for 60Hz models. It's important to put it in perspective. It wasn't obvious at first sight, but once spotted you couldn't ignore it, and the real problem came as some post techniques exacerbated it. Put it like this - the post issues the noise reduction caused were worse than any advantages the use of AVC-Intra may have given.

I didn't notice the noise as too objectionable at that time - but I'm told that subsequently the ghost "fix" made it worse, hardly surprisingly. It was the noise reduction that gave the ghosts, getting rid of the ghosts meant getting rid of the noise reduction!

Yes, all cameras have noise, but the 371 is worse than such as the PMW320 - which is probably the closest rival in terms of price, features etc.