Guy Mcloughlin
Forum Replies Created
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Yes, the link you posted is for the SanDisk SDHC card that I was mentioning, and it’s a pretty good price for a SanDisk card.
The Patriot IRIS cards can be bought from https://www.newegg.com:
Patriot Iris 32GB Secure Digital High-Capacity (SDHC) Flash Card : $90 each
Other cards to check out:Delkin Devices 32GB eFilm PRO SDHC Memory Card : $108 each
Hoodman 32GB RAW SDHC Memory Card : $190 each
I am curious about the Hoodman card, as I’ve heard that they are very good cards. ( I’ve never had a chance to try one out )
…As far as telling which cards are good quality, I look for a few things:
– Always benchmark a sample memory card to see what the real speed of the card is. With the Patriot IRIS card, it benchmarked as 18 MB/sec WRITE speed, and 20 MB/sec READ speed. The SanDisk Extreme cards claim 30 MB/sec speed, which you can achieve for READ speed if you use one of the SanDisk high-performance card readers, which will ONLY accelerate SanDisk Extreme cards. ( other brands of SDHC cards read at standard speeds )
– Try and buy from companies that manufacture only one type of product. Patriot is mainly a memory manufacturer, that is pretty much all they do, so they should be pretty good at building memory cards.
– Try and buy from companies who have been around for a while, and have a reputation of selling a good product.
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…I think the whole “check card” issue is entirely due to people buying low-quality SDHC cards. I’ve been shooting with my HMC-150 every week for the past year, and I have never had any problems with SDHC cards.
I have standardized on the Patriot IRIS SDHC 32GB cards, which are designed for professional video work, and come with a 5 year warranty. ( if money was no object I would buy the SanDisk Extreme SDHC cards, but I’ve had no complaints with the Patriot IRIS cards )
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If you are using Sony Vegas Pro 9 ( latest version is 9.0e ), you should use the “Device Explorer” interface ( found under VIEW, or press CTRL + ALT + 7 ) to import your videos because it will automatically stitch longer multipart AVCHD sections into one single file when it imports.
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Have you tried using Divergent Media’s ClipWrap utility?
I am not Mac based, but I’ve heard good things from other FCP editors using ClipWrap to import their AVCHD clips on their Macs, without being forced to transcode to ProRes right away.
Another software to try is Cineform’s NEO SCENE software, which will transcode your AVCHD video to a .MOV file encoded with the Cineform CODEC. The big advantage to using the Cineform CODEC is that the exact same file will be editable using both Mac and PC based video editors. I use NEO SCENE so I can share files I edit with Sony Vegas Pro on the PC, with Final Cut Pro editors working on the Mac.
– Guy
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To get around the limited audio range of the HMC150 ( about 60 dB ), I use a Sound Devices MixPre mixer ( runs all day on 2 AA batteries ) and feed the tape out to an Olympus LS-11 digital recorder ( runs for 20+ hours on 2 AA batteries ), and have been very happy with the quality of the audio. This also gives me the option of feeding the LINE LEVEL audio from the MixPre mixer to my HMC150.
I really wish that Panasonic would fix this noise problem, because there is no reason why the sound on the HMC150 should be worse than the HPX170. ( I sometimes wonder if the noisy audio was intentional )
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You might want to take a look at Cineform’s NEO SCENE software, which will transcode AVCHD videos to the Cineform CODEC.
The Cineform CODEC is a 10-bit 4:2:2 editing/archiving CODEC, that is designed to retain all of the detail of your original AVCHD video, even after many generations.
It’s also about the only editing CODEC that is completely cross-platform for the Mac, so the exact same files that you create on the PC can be opened and worked on with Final Cut Pro WITHOUT having to transcode to the ProRes format. ( both platforms will have to have the NEO SCENE software installed )
You can download a trial version from:
Cineform NEO SCENE
https://www.cineform.com/neoscene/– Guy
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The Sennheiser G2 / G3 EW100 system costs about $600, and then you will want to add a good quality lav mic to it.
My favorite general purpose lav is the TRAM 50, which has good sound, and does not pick up much room noise. The TRAM 50 kit for Sennheiser costs about $250.
Yes, $850 is not cheap, but it’s definitely worth it for the quality of sound it captures.
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>>>Yeah the P2 cameras have larger chips and better codecs generally.
Not when you are comparing the chip size of the HVX200A / HPX170 / HMC150 cameras. They all use the same imaging assembly that uses the same 1/3″ sized sensors.
>>>Of course a P2 camera shoots a somewhat better picture, but does that justify the higher price?
It depends what you mean by better picture. According to Panasonic Prosumer guru Barry Green, the HMC150 produces a sharper image in 720P mode because the AVCHD CODEC stores the full 1280×720 image, while the HVX 200A / HPX170 prefilters the image down to 960×720 when it stores the same image, thus footage shot with the HMC150 in 720P mode will look sharper.
DVXUSER Thread: “Happy camper – 200 to 150”
In side by side tests that I’ve looked at the images produced by the HVX200A / HPX170 / HMC150 cameras are almost identical.
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>>>I am curious if a camcorder using a P2 card produces a broadcast-quality image that is better than one using SDHC memory ?
Actually, they are almost identical, with the AVCHD camera ( HMC150 vs HPX170 ) producing a tiny bit more detailed image because of how the video is stored by the different CODECs. The P2 card cameras have better color ( it’s 4:2:2 color-space vs 4:2:0 ), but again the difference is generally very slight. If you put footage shot by both of these cameras side by side, they essentially look the same.
>>>Are there any differences between the two types of solid state memory that make one format better than the other other than the size and cost ?
P2 cards are built to a much higher standard, but this standard might be over-kill for most shooters. ( 1200 Mbps transfer speed, with bit perfect error checking )
P2 card will definitely be around for the next 5 years, beyond this, I have no idea.
I’ve never had a problem with SDHC memory cards, but then I am very picky about which ones I buy. ( I have standardized on the Patriot IRIS Class 6 cards, which are made for pro video work, are very fast, and come with a 5 year warranty. You can buy them from NewEgg.com a 32GB card costs about $93 )
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…Sorry about the link f*ckup, here’s the link I was trying to post:
In the Field: Panasonic AG-HMC150