HDX900

[Guy Jackson]

this is great,i’m buying the “H” this week

[David Battistella]

Why?

David

Peace and Love 🙂

[Guy Jackson]

Well

[Chris Bell]

The Varicam is still the superior camera. Wide dynamic rage and variable frame rates are just a few reasons why.

Chris Bell

[David Battistella]

Chris,

I am purely guessing here, but I think the biggest cost in the Varicam comes from the block that does the framerate conversion. That what I have read a lot about here. The 9K HVX200 now does the almost the exact frame rates as the Varicam big brother.

The SDX 900 uses the same chip size as the Varicam and ALSO shoots 1080 so where is the dynamic range arguement when it is capturing to a LARGER frame size than the Varicam.

I seriously doubt that Panasonic put cheaper chips into a new product. If you look at the HDX-900 specs you will see that it has a 14bit output (something Varicam just added)

Sorry. I think that the Varicam is great if you own one, But it looks like between these past two product releases the Varicam is not the wisest purchase at this time, Unless you actually believe it is about 50,000$ more superior picture quality to the HDX-900.

Who is Panasonic trying to kid here?

David

Peace and Love 🙂

[John Sharaf]

David,

With the current $7000 rebate on Varicams, the real street price differance between the two will be closer to $20K! Besides, the HVX900 is not available yet and one could not help but wonder when it rteally will be considering Panasonic’s record with HVX200 delivery.

The main differences between the two cameras are:

Varicam is true variable speed camera; 4-60 fps, like a film camera.

Varicam has superior HD grade prism block, I believe the HVX900 has the SDX900 leftovers.

Varicam has 200-500% dynamic range control, HVX200 has 3 Cine Gamma presets.

Varicam takes “L” version tapes, HVX900 takes the medium size limited to 30 minutes. Varicam has 18 micron heads, HVX900 has 9 micron heads, so tapes cannot be read on older 130 and 150 decks.

HVX900 cannot be controlled by the current EC3 CCU.

In summary, the HVX900 is a great concept and realization, especially at the price point, but it does not replace the Varicam. In truth though it will definately affect future Varicam sales, because despite protestations to the contrary, most capital investments for video gear are economicly driven, and the with current state of obscelesence it makes great sence to buy the cheapest possible solution.

JS

[Jan Crittenden livingston]

[john sharaf] “Besides, the HVX900 is not available yet and one could not help but wonder when it rteally will be considering Panasonic’s record with HVX200 delivery.”

Not sure what you mean by this but, we said we would deliver the HVX200 in the 4th quarter of 2005 and we did. The target on the HDX900 will be in third quarter of 2006, but at this time it is looking like July.

Best,

Jan

Jan Crittenden Livingston
Product Manager, DVCPRO, DVCPRO50, AG-DVX100
Panasonic Broadcast & TV Systems

[Daniel E]

Hey Jan,
Just a little curious why the HDX 900 doesn’t have a couple of P2 slots on it as well. It also would have been dynamite if it could actually work as an NTSC camera in DVCPRO50. I also understand there is another camera coming out early next year which sounds similar but is only P2. I am not sure the model name. Somehow there doesn’t seem to be a big brother to the HVX-200 in the Panasonic Line which has similar capabilities to the smaller camera but has the 2/3 inch sensors on it. Also in someones earlier post they said the cassette size was different from the Varicam while in my experience it seemed to be the same length.

Daniel Epstein
Gold Teleproductions, Inc
New York, NY
http://www.goldtele.com

[Jeff Merritt]

Hello All,

As the Product Manager for the new AJ-HDX900, I want to clear up some confusions. But first I’d like to ask your endulgence to let us all unwind a bit from NAB for a couple of days. The HDX900 was only announced the Sunday before the show opened and very shortly we will have a lot of information on our web site about the new camercorder.

But to answer a couple of quick questions, the HDX900 is built on the same frame as the extremely popular AJ-SDX900 and uses the Medium size DVCPRO cassettes. This yields 33-minutes of record time due to its abiltiy to record in 9-micron track width on tape as opposed to the VariCam which records 33-minutes on Large DVCPRO cassettes in 18-micron track width. The newer DVCPRO HD decks are compatible with either the VariCam or HDX900 tapes as well as all DV tapes.

Make no mistake, the AJ-HDX900 is NOT VariCam Light. It is an entirely new model intended for a different market and thus does not have such capability as to work in the VariCam’s FILM REC mode, although it does have the highly successful CineGama found in most of the Panasonic Digital Cameras. The two cameras share the identical 2/3″ imagers however the DSP processors are different and the VariCam is still regarded by many to have a superior picture quality and picture control when compared to other cameras on the market near its price point. This is not meant to say the pictures are less quality in the HDX900, but the overall capabilitis to control the pictures are different.

So please stand by for more information, and perhaps Creative Cow will need to set up a new site just for the HDX900. By the way, deliveries are scheduled for the end of July and we took a bunch of orders already at NAB for this new camera.

Thanks,

Jeff Merritt
Product Line Business Manager
High Definition Products
Panasonic Broadcast
323-436-3676

[Allen Facemire]

Hey Jeff…I know your decompressing from NAB but I’m having to fast track to HD for a show I do for HGTV. I was all set to go with two Sony HDW730’s because HGTV wants 1080i delivery like all folk (Sans ABC/FOX) but since I work a lot for ABC as well, it’d be nice to go both ways. The announcement about the HDX900 was most fatuitous. In fact it’s a butt saver is what it is.

I need to make the switch in mid season which is in about a two months and in the interim I thought about leasing a couple of HDX400’s to get me up to speed (alhtough I hate having to buy a camera for a rental house which is what you do on a long term rental).

I need two cameras for our show so my hope is to get two HDX’s if they pass muster.

But I would really like to test shoot the HDX900 to make sure HGTV quality control has no problems with it. They accept Varicam so I can’t see a problem but I still gotta submit.

Anybody I can call for help for both the testing and fast tracking two package orders?

Thanks!

Allen S. Facemire-DP/Director
SaltRun Productions,inc.
Atlanta/Norcross, GA
http://www.saltrunproductions.com
770.448.3181 cell 404.374.7131 allen@saltrunproductions.com
Creativity Just Flows Here…