hpx 300 help!

[Jeff Regan]

That’s great John. I’d love to hear what Panasonic’s diagnosis is. I thought the exterior test clip with the 300 looked good(as well as can be ascertained by a highly compressed file on the net).

Jeff Regan
Shooting Star Video
http://www.ssv.com

[Wolfgang Isenhart]

Hello all,

I just spent the last two weeks shooting with the HPX300. I did some messing around with 720p and DVCProHD but then switched over to 1080 30p and the AVC Intra codec.

The outdoor shots look like a painting. So beautiful and sharp but they have the color that really makes it look like a window. So far when I show them to people they say wow that looks nice. Then, I roll the video and they say “that is video!???” They can’t believe it’s actually moving.

I am ready to go buy one, I hope your problem was just a bad sensor. It must be something like that because the one I have here rocks.

My experience with the varicam and various sony HD cameras keeps me away from the small cameras. I need a full size pro camera.

Wolf in Seattle

Seattle DP/Editor. Varicam Pkg; Final Cut Studio; Kona 2; Dual 2.5 G5; Lacie SATA RAID; Tascam FW-1884

[John d Foundas]

Glad your happy with the cam. Mine was defective. Ultimately, I lost confidence with the product and moved on.
I am very happy with the JVC HM700. The images are razor sharp (which is what I was looking for). I opted for the Canon Lens and slapped a Red Rock Matte box on it. Having the ability to shoot on a QT file for certain clients and the Sony SxS card for others was very attractive. I do realize that the AVC-Intra codec is superior, but my work is not meant for the big screen and you need an absolute flamethrower of a edit system to move that much information around effectively.
The JVC HM700 and the new Apple (quad) i7 w/ Final Cut Studio is hard to argue with.

Happy Shooting

[Jeff Regan]

John,

I’m glad the 700 is delivering the image you were looking for. Did you get any feedback as to what was defective with your 300?

Interesting that pixel shifted SD CCD sensors(700) look sharper than native full raster CMOS sensors(300, EX1/EX3). I have to think this is due to detail circuit settings vs. real resolution. My HPX170 pixel shifted CCD camera doesn’t have the real resolving power of my EX1 CMOS camera.

Regarding AVC-Intra and computer processing requirements, Intra 100 needs about twice the processing power as XDCAM EX. A MacBook Pro laptop has no trouble with Intra 100 editing, so not a big deal. The easiest HD codec I’ve worked with is DVCPRO HD.

Intra was not designed for the big screen, it was designed to be more robust for grading and color correction in post.

Jeff Regan
Shooting Star Video
http://www.ssv.com

[John d Foundas]

Thanks
I am happy with it.
Shot some raw video and posted on Vimeo

https://www.vimeo.com/wvm

Looking forward to setting up some nice interview lighting soon.

Good Luck

[Jeff Regan]

John,

The clip highlights lovely subject matter–I used to live in Northern Virginia, so love the colonial architecture and wooded areas–however, this subject matter, vertical columns, tree branches, highlights two artifacts that ruins the footage for me, namely; horrendous chromatic aberration like I’ve never seen with my EX1 or HPX170 and a detail circuit that is set like a news/sports camera. So you end up with red and blue fringing on edges, and what doesn’t show that color fringing has black overshoot outlines on edges from the detail circuit.

This is as far from film like imagery as I can imagine, but that’s what you’re looking for and the camera does look sharp. JVC needs to catch up with Panasonic and Sony, who have chromatic aberration correction circuits in many of their cameras these days, which is even more important with low end, supposedly “HD” lenses.

The advantage, in my mind, of a full raster native sensor like the CMOS sensors found in the 300 and EX1, EX3, is the ability to be able to turn down(or off) the detail circuit and still have real resolution, much like what a film camera provides. A pixel shifted SD CCD camera like a 700 or HVX200, HPX170, relies on a detail circuit more to make up for a lack of natural resolution.

Any camera can be made to look sharp with detail cranked up, but it doesn’t mean that it’s natural resolution or can resolve very fine detail. The true test of a camera is turning the detail circuit off completely.

In any case, I’m sure your clients will be happy with the images that camera makes, but I do believe the lens is letting the camera down. It would be cool if you could demo a higher end lens to see if it made a difference.

I love the convenience of the QT .mov recording, this is the mode I used most with my FireStores with DVCPRO HD. Great having the choice of QT or XDCAM EX with the JVC.

Jeff Regan
Shooting Star Video
http://www.ssv.com

[Phil Yunker]

Jeff,
from your experience with these cameras (minus the JVC) EX1, EX3 or HPX300 which one would you choose if this was your only camera?

PHIL

[Jeff Regan]

Phil,

I haven’t spent enough time with the HPX300 to answer that question. I like the 1/2″ sensor size of the EX cameras, prefer the 300 ergonomics and codec. When I shoot with 1/3″ cameras, the first thing I want to add is a 35mm DOF adapter. Of course I often use a 35mm adapter on my EX1 as well, but there is a shallower DOF and better light sensitivity with the 1/2″ sensor.

I generally prefer the tonality and colorimetry of Panasonic cameras, but with a manually tweaked scene file, the EX1 can look very nice. The EX1 is very impressive for light sensitivity and low noise. I’ve never seen the codec break up in challenging motion situations, I do have CMOS artifact concerns about both cameras. The EX1 is unusable hand held without shouldermount/rods/handles. XDCAM EX codec looks pretty bad in 1080/60i due to 4:2:0, but good in progressive modes.

I like the fact that Panasonic allows its best codec, AVC-Intra 100, to be used with the 300, whereas the Sony and JVC price point competitors are constrained by low bit rate, Long GOP, 8-bit, 4:2:0 to protect the more expensive cameras(in the case of Sony). Even Sony’s new 350 XDCAM EX 2/3″ camera for $20K is XDCAM EX only vs. the HPX300 at $8K with 10-bit, higher bit rate, I-Frame, 10-bit codec, same as the HPX2700 and 3700 high end P2 Varicams.

The 300 can use other Panasonic high end accessories, such as the RC10 and EC4 paint boxes(just got the new EC4 today), studio config. CCU’s, same P2 cards, readers, etc. The EX3 does allow the use of a Sony RMB-150 paint box, unlike the EX1. Not sure about the JVC, I know they had a CCU for the HD250, but it was SD out only.

Jeff Regan
Shooting Star Video
http://www.ssv.com

[John d Foundas]

Thanks

[Larry Grimes]

Maybe it was a defective camera, maybe not. At the end of the day, it’s the OP’s money, and he can buy whatever he likes best for his business.

That being said, I will say that when we were buying three new cameras for our facility back in July 2009, we tested practically everything in the $6k – $12k range. The HPX-300 won in just about every category that we needed fulfilled by a camera. The HM-700 just had too few options, was awkward on the shoulder, had a weak viewfinder (“high-res” viewfinder = NOT HD Viewfinder = hard to check “HD” focus on the fly), and overall picture quality was quite bland. The image that it produced was sharp, however it seemed like it was geared towards people needed less chroma, possibly for tweaking in post, which I found odd because as far as I know, the HM700 records in 4:2:0 color, and only outputs 4:2:2 for live applications via HD-SDI.

The HPX-300 met every one of our needs, even with P2 media being as pricey as it is. We ordered from our regular local place, and the cameras came straight from Japan at a time when nobody else in Dallas could even find the camera. “Out of the box” the HPX-300 (all three of them) produced sharp, colorful, contrasty, beautiful images (even under awful fluorescent light). Had we encountered any problems, our local company would have replaced the product immediately.

I get such shallow depth of field with this camera, that you’d never know it has 1/3″ sensor. The greatest thing is that I have options for shooting. I can make the image look super video-like, or make it look really darn close to film. I can strip out tons of chroma in camera, or completely saturate the image with a simple scene file change. Plus, go figure, it’s an HD camera with an actual HD viewfinder (though I do wish it was detachable)! Overall, it’s a workhorse, and seems built to last for a good while, at least I hope! We shoot a lot of AVC-Intra50 on most everyday projects, and AVC-Intra100 for more important projects, and both produce a remarkable image. We tend to stay away from the DVC-PRO codecs, which was a hard thing to grasp having used lots of Panny gear in the past. We shoot primarily 720 at 30p, with the occaisional 1080i project popping up. Like I said, virtually everything we shoot looks great, including an SD project that came about, which was one of the only times we’ve used a DVC-Pro Codec on the camera.

Anyway, I probably just took up entirely too much space and time, but I wanted to chime in on the subject. For the record, we also have 3 JVC-HD250’s that we use for some live event work, and honestly, I wish I’d been in on the decision to buy those cameras. I’m just not a big fan. Although the image quality is fair, I just find the cameras awkward, and the “high-res” viewfinder and LCD are just plain inadequate for an HD camera. Plus, after 2 shoots, we had to send one of the cameras in for repair when the fan in the back ceased to function, with only around 12 hours of use on it!