Barry Green
Forum Replies Created
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Well, thanks for such nice comments! Yes I did the DVX DVD as well. That was a long time ago… 🙂
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Get the most from your DVX camera. The DVX Book and DVX DVD are now available on ebay and at Amazon (https://www.fiftv.com/db) -
Download the new P2 Card Formatter tool for the Mac from Panasonic’s website. It lets you format on your computer and name the cards, and the name survives a format so you can free yourself from “no name”. Unless you format the cards in-camera; at that point the cards will revert to “no name” but if you format from the computer via the new P2 Card Formatter, you won’t see “no name” again.
Also, if you offload your cards to a P2 Store, the name of the card transfers to the P2 Store so you’ll never see 15 volumes of “no name” again!
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Get the most from your DVX camera. The DVX Book and DVX DVD are now available on ebay and at Amazon (https://www.fiftv.com/db) -
HVX shoots either 16:9 or 4:3 SD, your choice. Both methods are created by downconverting the internal 1920×1080 image to SD and then writing that to tape.
HVX will be one stop slower than the DVX when shooting 24p/30p, and two stops slower when using 60i. Also, 480/60i on the HVX suffers from excessive aliasing and stairstepping.
For 24p/30p, if you have enough light, the HVX produces a better 4:3 picture than the DVX, and a way better 16:9 picture. For 60i, I’d go with the DVX instead.
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Get the most from your DVX camera. The DVX Book and DVX DVD are now available on ebay and at Amazon (https://www.fiftv.com/db) -
That’s the way it works. You’re not missing anything. That’s all the FireStore can do, and the HVX can’t pass an HD signal from its firewire input out its component outputs. Doesn’t happen.
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Get the most from your DVX camera. The DVX Book and DVX DVD are now available on ebay and at Amazon (https://www.fiftv.com/db) -
[Michael Alberts] “What is the suggested post workflow when editing material in FCP shot on the Panasonic HPX-3000.”
FCP *requires* you to transcode to ProRes. Not all editors do; EDIUS edits AVC-Intra natively. But if you want to use FCP, you’re going to have to transcode.
Download the AVC-Intra codec from the Panasonic site, then you should be able to use the same Log & Transfer option to edit AVC-Intra on FCP.
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Get the most from your DVX camera. The DVX Book and DVX DVD are now available on ebay and at Amazon (https://www.fiftv.com/db) -
[Mark Suszko] “If the SD tape is a letterbox in a 4:3 that’s kind of bad for me and my needs, because it artificially shrinks the picture that much more.”
The downconvert is done as anamorphic 16:9, not letterboxed 4:3.
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Get the most from your DVX camera. The DVX Book and DVX DVD are now available on ebay and at Amazon (https://www.fiftv.com/db) -
There are new P2 drivers and updated software on the panasonic site. One of the new products is a P2 Card Formatter for Mac.
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Get the most from your DVX camera. The DVX Book and DVX DVD are now available on ebay and at Amazon (https://www.fiftv.com/db) -
EDIT: I just remembered — how are you supposed to even use a mattebox with this thing? The LCD/mic sticks out over the top of the lens by about two inches! Remove the lens shade and look at it — what are you going to do? I’ve owned a CAVision, Chrosziel, and currently have a Vocas (aka Century) mattebox and I know for sure the Vocas won’t work — you can’t even physically move the mattebox in to mate to the lens, the mic/LCD sticks out so massively far. How would you use filters? Sure, the EX1 makes sharp images, but… you can’t handhold it, you can’t use conventional matteboxes, you can’t quickly check footage… sorry, they missed the boat on a lot of things. Overall I found it frustrating.
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[Pat McGowan] “I understand Matt. The problem is that more than one response on this thread has commented on the superior detail in the Sony image compared to the (slightly soft focused) Panny. To my eye, this is even apparent in the test chart grab but I could be wrong.”
I wouldn’t argue that at all, the EX1 can deliver a noticeably sharper image especially on a static shot. In 720p mode they’re very comparable, in 1080 mode the EX1 pulls significantly ahead in terms of sharpness — as long as the camera isn’t moving. In motion the resolution drops off a lot, and they end up being about the same on a pan. I don’t understand the exact reasons why this happens (although I have my suspicions) but it’s not something I’d blame on MPEG-2; it happens on the live output. In fact, it happens on the cam’s own LCD — go to 100% wide angle, turn on peaking (especially in yellow) and shoot some trees, etc. You should see a sea of yellow peaking. Now pan side to side, and all your peaking disappears until you stop moving. That doesn’t happen on an HVX or, well, any other camera I can think of, but it happens on the Sony.
My theory is that they’re doing some aggressive noise reduction algorithms, averaging frames together to bring the noise down, and moving the camera averages out that fine detail. It results in great-looking static shots but the shots go softer in motion. (btw, this actually helps the MPEG encoding, so I’m not saying it’s a bad design decision, but just be aware that the super-sharp frame grabs you’re going to see from this camera don’t necessarily translate into super-sharp motion footage).
But yes, it’s sharper and clearer than the HVX; the grain level looks to equate out to the HVX at about 6db to 9db. Note though, adding gain really sucks out your resolution on the EX1, probably for the same noise-averaging reason. At 18dB it’s a snowstorm (as you’d expect, and as is fair for any camera at 18dB) but also all the fine detail disappears. This also affects the recording. 6dB is fine, looks like an HVX at 0dB. 9dB is fine too. 12dB might be pushing it, and 18dB is right out.
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[Don Greening] “The workflow is pretty simple, actually”
Well, here I’d disagree — I think the HVX, workflow wise, blows the EX1 into the weeds. So many annoying little things about the EX1’s SxS implementation… it’s like they didn’t figure out all the things that make tapeless so cool. They totally missed the boat on that. I’ve been using an HVX for a couple of years so I’m very familiar with how people work with this, and the SxS system is extremely limiting in so many ways.
For example: on the HVX you can jump from camera mode to playback mode in about 2 seconds, maybe less. Pop over, play back a clip, review footage, pop back to camera mode, all effortlessly. On the EX1, it takes 14 seconds. Think about that for a second — or, better yet, count it out. Count out 14 seconds. That’s how long it takes before the camera reboots and you can play a clip back. You could play back footage faster in a tape-based camera!
Okay, another thing — on an HVX, if you’re in playback mode and some action starts that you need to catch, you just press the “record” button — the camera automatically toggles back to camera mode and starts recording, all within about two seconds. On the EX1, it won’t do that. You have to actually push the power switch through “off” and over to “camera” mode, and then you have to wait about 11 seconds while it boots up, and then press record. Sorry, by that time your shot is *gone*. Or, actually, it can get worse — let’s say that you think you’re done shooting so you push the switch over to playback mode, and three seconds later you realize “oh crud — I need to be shooting!” Push the switch back to camera mode, and wait for 25 seconds! Because it has to fully finish booting up in playback mode, even though you’ve already moved to camera mode! And once it finishes that 14-second process, then you have to wait while it re-boots itself into camera mode. This isn’t the kind of thing that’s going to show up on a res chart, but it’s the kind of thing that’s going to make you want to drop-kick it like a football when you’re waiting close to 30 seconds before you can roll!
Tapeless should be about instant access. Not only in shooting, not only in playback, but also in post. I use Sony Vegas, version 7.0 on my laptop, using Raylight and I also tried it on an FCP system. On the Windows system with Vegas/Raylight or Premiere Pro, I take an HVX P2 card, plug it in, and edit the footage instantly. The SxS system made me go through a file conversion “export” process before I could drag the files into Vegas. Why? Don’t know; maybe that’s fixed in Vegas 8. On FCP we had to go through two steps, there was the Export to MXF and then there was a second process that had to be run, I think it was some manner of clip importer (I’m not an FCP guy, but when I use FCP I drag the MXF files right to the timeline using Raylight).
The EX1 had some definite bonuses; the manual focus was nice, but as a practical matter it really wasn’t any more effective than the HVX’s, and the manual zoom was fundamentally identical. The iris ring was a nice touch though, as was the colored peaking and the sharper LCD. But it had some big negatives too; the rolling shutter artifacting was pretty bad, it’s impossible to use handheld unless you can devote two hands to it, it has a nice sharp picture until you start moving and then the res drops dramatically (watch all your nice colored peaking just disappear whenever you move — it’s because you lose hundreds of lines of resolution whenever the system is moving, and that’s *not* due to the codec, I’m talking about the live uncompressed output here!)
All in all, the EX1 does have reasons to justify its higher price tag. It has that “looking through a window” high-def look that the HVX doesn’t quite have. It’s sharper and clearer with less noise, and it is (splitting the difference) about a stop more sensitive. And it has a 10-bit HD-SDI output port. But the workflow sucks eggs, actually working with the unit was irritating because it was so slow, and the rolling shutter ruins shots (weddings? press conferences? red-carpet events? I wouldn’t trust it). P2 blows away SxS. There’s no metadata! There’s no clip information at all, other than a shot marker. Heck, we had shot markers on tape! I dunno, I shy away from crass words, but the only term I can think of that appropriately describes the EX1/SxS approach to solid state memory recording is “half-assed.” They left a lot on the table.
If you need crystal-clear imagery with that looking-through-a-window HD “look”, and you’re not going to get screwed over by the rolling shutter, then yes the EX1 offers a lot at a modest price premium (about 30% more expensive). But I think the workflow and usability of the HVX is much better than the EX1.