AG-HVX200 now “listed” on Panasonic’s website!

[Brian Deviteri]

Thanks for the link! I’m still waiting to see if “DV” means that we will get miniDV tape support, or if this will be a tapeless camera.

[Deleted User]

I notice the Pansonic page says “IEEE 1394 Interface”. If this is true (and not a typo), then I believe this may be the first time this detail has be officially confirmed. (However, I might be mistaken.)

I remember there was some recent discussions here & elsewhere whether or not the new P2 cam would definitely have a Firewire port, so maybe now we know for “sure”.

Of course, the next question is exactly what _data_ they’ll put through that port? DV25 codec only, or ???

The fun begins!

All the best,

– Peter

Just a friendly reminder to all: Please consider filling-in your COW user profile information so we have a better idea who you are, where you’re from, and so forth. It’s the friendly thing to do. Thanks!

[Barry Green]

Actually that’s the first official Panasonic confirmation of practically *anything*! Note it spells out three 1/3″ 16:9 CCDs, which had only been speculated before. And it spells out the firewire port, and CineGamma… sure looks like it’ll be a 16:9 DVX that can also record high-def and DVCPRO50.

—————–
Get the most from your DVX camera. The DVX Book and DVX DVD are now available at https://www.dvxuser.com/articles/dvxbook/ and at Amazon (https://tinyurl.com/54u4a)

[Mike Curtis]

(this is from something I posted over at hdforindies.com, all I said there is below:)

So it’s nice to see this stuff confirmed on the Panasonic site. If I’m interpreting this correctly, and I may not be, I think the formats should break down like this:

DVCPRO HD: -1080i60, 1080p24, 1080p30, 720p60, 720p24, 720p30

The 1080 res will be 1280×1080 pixels to tape. The 720 formats will be 960×720 to tape. These are the resolutions recorded to tape, subsampled from their higher end source. This camera is expected to have a 1280×720 image sensor (see prior report).

The interesting challenge will be figuring out which resolution to record in to get most useful info. I’d previously written that the 1080p24 would be the best way to get full detail – but since the 1280×720 source chip image would be probably blown up to 1920×1080, then downsampled to 1280×1080, I’m not so positive that distortions from the stretching may goof it up. I don’t think you’d be getting a 1:1 correlation between image sensor pixels and pixels recorded to tape, even though they are both numerically 1280 pixels wide (this is different from what I’d postulated before). Or wait a minute, maybe it is, and they’re just stretching in the vertical dimension to get up to 1080 from 720. Argh. Late, tired, too much math for my head right now. I’m thinking 1080p24 WILL be worth doing, that I had it right in the first place.

720p24 mode has quality issues as well – it has been shrunk to 960×720 from 1280×720, so you’ve tossed some data out there, never to be recovered. Your NLE will stretch it back out to 1280 for display, but it’s making up pixel color values for the 960=>1280 stretch, rather than having original, accurate, recorded, non-guesssed-at pixel color values to work with.

DVCPRO 50, DVCPRO 25, DV: 480i60, 480p24, 480p30p – 720×480 pixels, in 4:2:2 (for DVCPRO50) or 4:1:1 (the others) color space

This sounds like a REALLLLLLLY nice camera. If you thought the DVX100a was the s**t, then this is the killer s**t…for probably not much more money.

They’ll spill details at NAB, but when will it ship? Probably not right away…

Mike Curtis
HD For Indies – Hi Def Filmmaking & Post for Independent Filmmakers

[Luis Caffesse]

[Mike Curtis] “They’ll spill details at NAB, but when will it ship? Probably not right away…”

Hey Mike, glad to see you chiming in here.
For those of you who haven’t already done it, bookmark his site, it’s a great resource.

https://www.hdforindies.com

As far as when it will ship…
Well, we know the 8GB P2 cards aren’t slated to be out until August.
And we know the 60GB card reader won’t be out until September.

It’s probably safe to assume that the camera won’t be out until after both of those things are released…. so….

You’re guess is as good as mine, for the next week that is.
After that we’ll know everything there is to know.

Luis Caffesse
Studio 3 Productions, Inc.
Austin, Texas

[Luis Caffesse]

[Mike Curtis] “The 1080 res will be 1280×1080 pixels to tape. The 720 formats will be 960×720 to tape. These are the resolutions recorded to tape”

Not to be nit picky here Mike, but that won’t be going to tape at all.
Tape is dead, remember?
🙂

Luis Caffesse
Studio 3 Productions, Inc.
Austin, Texas

[George Loch]

It looks like the only things left to know are the price and when we can expect it.

This appears to be the camera most of us have been looking for. I am just glad I won’t have to deal with HDDV

gl

[Graeme Nattress]

Thanks for joining us here, Mike!

Yes, the 1080p mode will be interesting. We all know that making good looking 1080i from 720p is very reasonable, given that all interlaced modes need line twitter filtering that lowers their effective resolution to below 720p levels vertically. I’ve got a feeling that the camera might use both horizontal and vertical pixel shift to try and push as much resolution out of the 1280×720 chips as possible, and it’s not unreasonable to expect, if the MTF of the lens allows it, that this arrangement to produce pretty close to the full 1080p resolution vertically, and certainly the equal of 1080i de-interlaced, but with the proper motion blur. It’s a compromise, but a reasonable one given the “low” expected cost.

The 960 v 1280 for 720p is interesting. You’re certainly loosing resolution doing this, but will we actually loose much in the way of actual detail and definition?? I’m happier to have a bit of sub-sampling going on, as this always seems to make for a better picture, even if the resolution is lower, if the sub-sampling allows the data that is left to be recorded more accurately due to more bits per pixel being allocated to it. Obviously, sub-sampling by making a higher resolution, larger CCD is best of all, but we can’t really afford that 🙁

Actually, it’s very interesting to see the various compromises that the 3 main camps (Sony, JVC and Panasonic) are doing.

Sony seems fixated on interlace, to the detriment of everything else, an the marketing belief that 1080i is better that 720p due to 1080 being a bigger number than 720. Their CF modes are a joke, and basically there for the marketting spec sheet.

JVC have learned their lesson and tried to produce, what looks like a camera that addresses all the issues leveled at their first HDV models. They are aiming to do a great 720p, and from the looks of it, they’ve got it. It’s very pleasing to see how they’ve fixed the mistakes of their past.

Panasonic, who’ve always done things “their way”, have decided to make a very brave move into the world of tapeless, solid state acquisition, and used that to do away with the expensive tape deck, and to bring their DVCproHD technology to the masses.

All in all, we now have choice for affordable HD, which has got to be a good thing.

Graeme

– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects for FCP