Test of the HPX 2700 now online

[Noah Kadner]

HPX-2700- wow I’ve never even heard of that one. What are the specs?

Noah

My FCP Blog. Unlock the secrets of the DVX100, HVX200 and Apple Color and Win a Free Letus Extreme.
Now featuring the Sony EX1 Guidebook, DVD Studio Pro and Sound for Film and TV.
https://www.callboxlive.com

[Dale West]

Was shown at NAB. Going to be 2 VariCams. The 2700 is in very general terms the VariCam on P2. 1-60 fps, flip out monitor, avc intra, 10 bit and a bunch of other stuff. 720 progressive.

The 3700 is 1080 1-30 frames p and 60i. 422 10 bit as well as dual link 444 and a host of other features. Dont quite have a grasp on why the 1080 camera does not do all of the frame rates but I assume the explanation would make my eyes galze over anyway. Both have 5 P2 slots.

The link Denise gave was very interesting. There is also a piece on the 3000 as well. Both pieces actually helped me understand the huge difference between 8 bit and 10 bit.

P2 still makes me itch a little but so did betacam when it first came out in 80-81. Time marches on as that grey headed stranger in the mirror tells me every morning.

best

Dale West Video
North Miami, FL
305-892-1201

[John Sharaf]

Hi Dale,

Unfortunately the 3700 does not do 60 either i nor p. I was told at NAB that Panasonic could not make (or find) an imager of 1920×1080 spec that did not overheat at 60p. To exclude 60i is insanity, as it makes the camera useless for networks like CBS and NBC who use 60i at least for live shots and news footage. Furthermore, without 31-60fps the camera should not rightly be called a “Varicam”.

Many other folks like myself who were disappointed that Panasonic did not make a 720/1080 switchable camera capable of 4-60fps registered out complaints with many of the Panasonic personnel there.

Again it seems like the marketing people are in charge of product development; for them to thing that loyal Varicam owners will replace their tape based units with two different cameras is crazy. First of all it’s a hard sell for P2 right now, and secondly whichever camera (2700 or 3700) we buy, clients will inevitably ask for the other one. we’re screwed either way.

I have my doubts that the 3700 will actual appear in the market place unless they can fix this 60i problem.

JS

[Dale West]

John,
Went back and re-read the stuff on the 3700 and I stand corrected. Apparently I ass-u-med it was 60i. How the camera builders come up with some of this stuff boggles my mind. At NAB I had dinner with one of Panasonic’s VPs. Really hit him hard on the issues that owner operators who mostly hand over footage had with the P2 workflow. His words were we hear you but his solutions for dealing with it told me he wasn’t hearing. It always seems to come to adding a person to deal with transfer. Thats not the world I live and work in. My clients want more for less. Can’t recall the last time I got a raise.
Best

Dale West Video
North Miami, FL
305-892-1201

[Noah Kadner]

Thing is many of the Panasonic personnel in the US- i.e. the folks you met at NAB- have little influence over the actual camera engineering. All they can do is sell it and service it.

Noah

My FCP Blog. Unlock the secrets of the DVX100, HVX200 and Apple Color and Win a Free Letus Extreme.
Now featuring the Sony EX1 Guidebook, DVD Studio Pro and Sound for Film and TV.
https://www.callboxlive.com

[Chris Bell]

I hope Panasonic realizes there are a large number of users who require tape based acquisition. P2 is great for local ENG, and in-house production. However, those of us in network and commercial production require media we can hand off to the client, immediately. They don’t want P2, they want a tape. I think Panasonic would be well advised to continue development of a high-end tape based camera. I own 2 varicams, and I see no value in the new “varicam” models.

Chris Bell

[Noah Kadner]

I see what you’re saying and I suspect there will continue to be tape-based offerings in Panasonic’s lineup for the foreseeable future. But they’ve made little secret that their development efforts are focused on a tapeless workflow. I suspect everyone else will continue to catch up at some point in the future, however long it takes. Not that I speak for them of course just a logical observation.

Noah

My FCP Blog. Unlock the secrets of the DVX100, HVX200 and Apple Color and Win a Free Letus Extreme.
Now featuring the Sony EX1 Guidebook, DVD Studio Pro and Sound for Film and TV.
https://www.callboxlive.com

[Jan Crittenden livingston]

[john sharaf] “Unfortunately the 3700 does not do 60 either i nor p. I was told at NAB that Panasonic could not make (or find) an imager of 1920×1080 spec that did not overheat at 60p. To exclude 60i is insanity, as it makes the camera useless for networks like CBS and NBC who use 60i at least for live shots and news footage.”

Hi John,

The AJ-HPX3700 will do 1080/60i(59.97), doesn’t do 60P, but most definitely does 60i.

Hope this helps,

Jan

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

[Dan Geller]

The funny thing is that “tapeless” winds up being taped to archival media such as LTO3, at the very least.

We just bought the HDX-900 because we needed the flexibility of tape, because shooting long-form documentaries on location is not P2 data wrangling territory, because some clients need a tape at the end of the day, because it’s way less prone to on-location wrangling errors, because we don’t want to pay for another person on location to handle data wrangling, because we don’t want to spend tired nights ourselves wrangling data off P2 cards. If the HPX-3000 or the new Varicam 3700 had tape, we’d have bought it. I’m not thrilled with the 900’s imager, but it’s a trade-off we had to make versus the gotchas with P2.

–Dan

[Noah Kadner]

But with 5 32GB P2 cards you can literally shoot for many many hours- way more than you could on a single tape. Someday in the near future tape will seem incredibly limited compared to tapeless. P2 cards will simply get more and more vast- 64GB is next.

https://dvinfo.net/articles/p2misc/p2cardcaps.php

Let’s see- 5 x 32GB P2 cards loaded for 720p/24p=~ 6 hours 40 minutes continuous recording. I don’t know of a tape that long…

Noah

My FCP Blog. Unlock the secrets of the DVX100, HVX200 and Apple Color and Win a Free Letus Extreme.
Now featuring the Sony EX1 Guidebook, DVD Studio Pro and Sound for Film and TV.
https://www.callboxlive.com