Panasonic’s opinion on HDX-900 used as playback deck?

[Pat Mcgowan]

Seems to me tha lack of machine control for the firewire interface will be the biggest deterent to using the camera as a feeder. I’d venture a guess that a lot of folks who are going to be renting these cameras will want to use a firewire capture of some sort.

[Jeff Merritt]

Hi John,

You ask a very good question. Although I’m not at liberty to disclose the ingredients of the “secret sauce” of our Service Department, I can tell you, as I stated before, that with years of experience with DVCPRO camcorders there is an expected number of head hours on a machine given the age of the camcorder. We know the age by tracking the serial number. For sure this is but an average. But something flagrant is suspect and something I’m sure our Service people will likely question if the devise is still under warranty. And they will do everything possible to satisfy the customer.

In short, renting a playback VTR if necessary for a few days costs a whole lot less than replaceing the head drum assembly in a camcorder.

Thank you for asking.

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

[Sada]

My feeling is that if the client can’t afford a deck rental then its a client I don’t want.

[Peter Corbett]

Still, if I wanted to buy this camera now and get a playback deck a few months down the track, what would be the problem of using the camera as a playback device? I have a PRO50 studio deck in our edit suite and I could rewind the HD tapes in that. Without doing any shuttling or pauses on the 900 transport, I could use the camera as an interim measure while I acquire funds for a 1400/1200 deck. Some of us can’t afford new edit decks and cameras all at once and for light continous playback into into a NLE, I may have no other choice in the short term.

I’m more interested in the quality. What sort of downcoverted SDI output am I going to get from the 900? Will it be worse than a studio deck DC?

Peter Corbett
Powerhouse Productions
Australia
http://www.php.com.au

[Smokey Forester]

Dear Jeff and John,

I read with interest your thoughts about using the HDX-900 camera as a playback device for loading NLE.

And I was surprise to find this “feature” in Panasonic’s page about the camera!

Built-in IEEE 1394 digital output helps lower the cost of HD production by allowing you to directly transfer HD video to nonlinear editing systems or other VTRs

Found on page:

https://catalog2.panasonic.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ModelDetail?displayTab=O&storeId=11201&catalogId=13051&itemId=97602&catGroupId=14616&modelNo=AJ-HDX900&surfModel=AJ-HDX900

Sort of sounds like Panasonic is supporting this use!

Best wishes,

Smokey Forester
smokey@smokey.com

[Andrew Fraser]

My read on that statement in the HDX-900 documentation was in regards to capturing directly to an NLE or other VTR (or Firestore) DURING acquisition, not afterwards by recording off tape.

-Andrew