[Chris Cardno]

Does the HPX500 have the Pre-Record function? If so, and that was on, that would explain the additional recorded time.

Chris Cardno
Visual Edge Productions
Bethesda, MD

Chris Cardno
Visual Edge Productions
Bethesda, MD

[Chris Cardno]

So…there’s a little bit of time in post to get it set up correctly but it does mean that we could shoot with the CineAlta, record on the P2 Portable to AVC-Intra 100 and the client can end up with 24p footage at the end of the day.

I think I just gave all the folks on the Varicam forum more tapeless ammunition. 🙂

Chris Cardno
Visual Edge Productions
Bethesda, MD

[Chris Cardno]

There’s no way to tell the P2 Portable what frame rate it’s recording, so I guess it can see the frame rate that is being output from the Panasonic cameras (which are always shooting 60 anyway, so it’s the flagged frames it’s seeing) and the CineAlta must do that differently. What does surprise me is that the Portable was tested with the F900R (it’s even mentioned in the manual) and yet there’s no mention of it not being fully compatible with all the functions of that camera.

So, here’s the next question: if you record the 59.94 signal can you turn that into 23.98 in post?

Chris Cardno
Visual Edge Producitons
Bethesda, MD

[Chris Cardno]

Nope, AVC-Intra 100 can’t see it either. The HD-SDI outputs from the camera are spitting out the frame rate to which the camera is set, be it 23.98psf, 24psf, 29.97psf or 59.94i. There’s no recordable signal, though, if you have the camera set to 23.98 or 24.

Chris Cardno
Visual Edge Productions
Bethesda, MD

[Chris Cardno]

I suppose this forum got quiet because the tape cameras don’t cause kernel errors, the FireWire cable has never dropped out while recording to an external hard drive and the client’s never called in a panic having deleted the MXF files…

🙂

The HDX900s and Varicam are still going strong for us even though we have bought into the whole tapeless revolution with the HPX2000 and (hopefully this week) the HPG20 P2 Portable. And, all kidding aside, I think it’s a testament to the quality of the tape cameras that these forums ARE so quiet. To take a quote from an ad campaign in the UK: it just does what it says on the tin. Job done.

Chris Cardno
Visual Edge Productions
http://www.visualedge.tv

[Chris Cardno]

Nope. It was a brand new laptop and I was loading up the basics first when the boot issues started. After the reinstall I figured I should load things in one at a time and see if I could replicate the problem. While the start-up issues didn’t happen, the kernel panic did.

I’ve used Macbooks before for offload without FCP as it’s not something all our clients ask us to do, they’re happy just having the raw data transferred to a hard drive or two and then they can do what they want with it. Plus, to be honest, I prefer that as it’s one less step in the field that can draw questions after the fact.

Chris Cardno
Visual Edge Productions
Bethesda, MD

[Chris Cardno]

No, after performing a complete OS erase and reinstall I only loaded on ShotputPro. The computer would boot up correctly but suffered a kernel panic during offload using the Duel and Shotput.

Chris Cardno
Visual Edge Productions
Bethesda, MD

[Chris Cardno]

Gerret, Dan at Imagine Products (the folks that make Shotput) said they were seeing the problem with cards that were over 16GB in size. I don’t know if that INCLUDES 16GB cards, though. If you were having the problem with 8GB cards then this may be a more reaching problem than previously thought.

I’ll be posting later today with some more info, after I speak with Dan, and I’ll let you know what we discuss.

Best,

Chris Cardno
Visual Edge Productions
Bethesda, MD

[Chris Cardno]

Yeah, it’s not small or particularly light but what it offers makes up for that in my opinion.

Ernie, list is $5,295 and I believe it’s due out now. If it were a Sony product, that would mean first quarter of 2010…

It’s not listed on B&H yet, but my guess would be around $4,700-$5,000 street price. Of course, you then need some P2 cards so all in you’re probably looking at $8,000 for (2) 32GB cards and the unit. Still, it beats shelling out $25,000 for an HPX2000 and it gives you a LOT of options for your clients.

Here’s a link to the page on Panasonic.com:

https://tinyurl.com/b8noa8

Cheers,

Chris Cardno
Visual Edge Productions
Bethesda, MD

[Chris Cardno]

Ernie, the new P2 Gear, the HPG20, will:

* Take an HD-SDI input.
* Have 2 P2 card slots for recording.
* Convert your footage from ANY HD camera into whatever Panasonic HD flavor you’d like in real time as you shoot.
* Allow you to dump to a hard drive AND verify the date on the drive with real time playback.

We ordered ours the minute it was announced, it should extend the life of our tape based HD cameras and also gives us the ability to give a client a tape archive and digitized footage at the end of the day. Effectively, it turns our F900R into a 3700, our H series Varicam into a 2700 and our HDX900s into HPX2000s.

Oh, and Jan promised a bracket to attach this box onto the back of your camera, enabling hand-held work, albeit at a 5lb weight cost.

What’s funny is that this box actually makes the discontinuation of the tape based Varicam a bit of a mistake — Panasonic has created a way to extend the life of the product and allow us to placate clients with both a digital and “hard” copy of their footage at the end of the day. Plus, like I said above, our H series is now a 2700 so we’re not in the market for that anymore. Ummm…oops?

🙂

Chris Cardno
Visual Edge Productions
Bethesda, MD