HVX200a vs. Sony EX1

[Noah Kadner]

I looked at an HVX200A this past week at a Trade show- it’s tight. Definitely very little noise at full gain and close to the EX1’s low light performance. Again I think these are two evenly matched cameras. The EX1 gives you full 1920×1080 imaging but at 35 megabit long-gop. The HVX200’s chips are native at 1280×720 but it’s full 100 megabit DVCPROHD with a more proven and battle-tested workflow. I’d get a demo of each to be sure.

Noah

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[Jan Crittenden livingston]

The HVX200 as well as the A has 24P and 30P in 1080. It makes a segmented progressive frame,like HDCAM, and lays it over two fields.

The noise on the HVX200A is much quieter. You should take a look.

Best,

Jan

Jan Crittenden Livingston
Product Manager, HPX500, HVX200, DVX100
Panasonic Broadcast & TV Systems

[Stephen Hoyal]

Jan,

But 1080 is still not 1080 p and the resolution of 1920×1080 of the sony camera is bigger. It seems that the sony camera might be the better camera right now. The problem, I like panasonic and don’t like to change my work flow. I just bought the hvx 200 five months ago and like it alot except the noise features. I had the dvx100 before that. And the panasonic hvx200 needs real 1080p and 3 half chip senors instead of 1/3 chip. It really bugs me that I might have to get another camera because the panasonic camera is not doing the job. I might get the 200a though.

[Jan Crittenden livingston]

So from your interpretation, Progressive Segmented Frame recording is not 1080P? Then make sure you tell all of the producers in the world that the CineAlter F900 is not 1080P. Okay? That does the very same trick of recording half of the fram on one field and the other half on the next field. But of course it is progressive, and for the rocord, the even our DVX100 does progressive in the very same way.

I would say that most certainly the Sony CMOS image does start with mor pixels, but it is the nature of the rolling shutter and the Long GOP that may get in the way of all of that beautiful resolution. Of cours if you are shooting slow moving objects or interviews they will look consistantly stellar, a little too video-ish for my tastes but it will look very clean and sharp. But move the camera so that there are lots of changes, tall buildings during a pan, uncontrollable flashes of light.

See resolution isn’t everything it is the pictures that are and if those pictures are consistant, it is much easier to sell. Pictures that lose too much during a pan and snap back when the camera stops are weird to look at. Pictures that have tilting buildings and two exposures durin the same frame are weird. CCDs do not have these issues. CMOS does.

I actually have a shot where the camera is not moving but the babbling brook running through it is. The HVX200 shot, and I am not talking the 200A, is sharper and has more resolution. But this is due to the Long GOP 35Mbs codec. Do not discount too quickly the power of an I-Frame codec at 100Mbs. And do not for get that DVCPRO HD is a 4:2:2 color space.

Oh and the 200A has about the same lowlight capability as the EX1, so then it is a matter of resolution differences and as I have pointed it is the pictures that you make that sell your work. If your work is inconsistant because the imager is inconsistant, how do you expect your customers to feel about your work.

Best,

Jan

Jan Crittenden Livingston
Product Manager, HPX500, HVX200, DVX100
Panasonic Broadcast & TV Systems

[Gary Adcock]

[Stephen hoyal] “But 1080 is still not 1080 p”

Actually Jan was correct — the format is called Psf and all internal captures follow that format in 1080. Currently only a very few cameras capture true P in 1080 and everyone of them records that signal to an external device and not one of them is less than 100k (and no red is not in this mix)

gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows
Inside look at the IoHD

[Stephen Hoyal]

I do a lot of interviews. More interviews then action. I also like the film image better. I use the Red Rock Micro Unit adapter a lot. But you never know when you need to film action. I do not understand the Sony CMOS image problem. They have more resolution but because of the rolling shutter and the Long GOP it may interfere with the image. What do you mean by this? I just want to learn. I am actually probably going to upgrade to the 200a if the noise problem is better. Also, I have been told that the 720p is better to shoot then to shoot in the 1080 mode on these cameras. And that it would be better to up convert from 720p to 1080p in post and that I would get as good as a picture this way. Is this true?

[Stephen Hoyal]

This is my situation. If should I go and get the 200a or should I wait for the HPX170. Will the HPX170 have more resolution then the hvx200a. Will it have a larger ship set. Will it be less noiser then 200a. If not then I will see about getting a 200a.

I don’ want to invest in a camera only to find out the the HPX170 is going to have higher resolution, a larger chip set and less noise.

[Eric Addison]

I’m in the same spot. I’m looking at moving into HD with a smaller camera, and the EX3 and the HPX170 look like the way to go. I don’t like the GOP frame of the EX3, but if the 170 upsamples the image like the 200a does, then I’m not a fan of that – native 1920×1080 is pretty nice.

Jan, when will more details about the 170 be released? Does it upsample the image as the 200a does?

—Eric

[Lars Fuchs]

Hi. While I haven’t shot with either the EX1 or the HVX200 (Im still shoot SD, dangnabit!), I did a quick search on Pond5 for footage shot with both. Its hardly a scientfic test, but it might help to compare the two with real-world shots. You can check out these two clip bins on Pond5:
HVX-200 and PWM-EX1

These are just a few clips I picked quickly, I didn’t try to find shots that are directly comparable, though that would probably be a cool project for later. When I did a search about the same number of clips came up for each, ~492 for the Ex1, ~505, so it might seem that they’re equally popular.

[Jan Crittenden livingston]

Hi,

The camera does not upsample anything. The part that is pretty frustrating for me is that people say stuff like this and they sound as if they know what they are talking about and then say they are not in favor of it.

Spatial Offset has been a technology that has been used by Panasonic and others for years, although I think the HVX is the first to use it in the horizontal and vertical domains. The technology has allowed chip cameras to exceed any sort of resolution you could get off of a tube camera because it is able to make resolution in the areas of the CCD where there is no photosensitivity, the registers. By offsetting the red and the blue sensors in both the horizontal and vertical domain you can capture resolution that otherwise would not be captured.

After this is added to the signal you are looking at an effective 1.1 million pixel imager. At this point it is captured in the 1080P domain where all of the camera processing is made and then when it is time for the recoding from it changes to that.

Keep that idea and then address the recording algorithm which is intra-frame, each frame stands on its own. Long GOP is not frame independent resolution and when you have a lot of motion and a lot of detail the long GOPs will throw the res away until the camera comes to a rest, where then everything will snap back.

1080 X 1920 is only good if you have an algorithm that can really handle it and so far the only one I have seen is the AVC-Intra or some uncompressed domain recordings. Keep in mind that AVC-Intra is 10 bit and the load on HD is 1.2Gbs in the uncompressed domain so with the compression that brings it to 100Mbs. Quite the feat and it still looks gorgeous, regardless of motion or details.

Lastly the HVX200A and the HPX170 share the same imager.

Best,

Jan

Jan Crittenden Livingston
Product Manager, HPX500, HVX200, DVX100
Panasonic Broadcast & TV Systems