[Jan Crittenden livingston]

Sorry for the delay in getting back to the list about this. It isn’t my product to manage and thus was at a shortage of information. So here is the response I got this am about the interface:

The PCI-e card that ships with the unit is the only Panasonic certified method of connection to a PCD-35 on Mac or PC. That being said, for MBP users, we have tested a 3rd party EX34 to PCI-e adapter from Magma systems, and found that the PCD-35 driver communicates to the PCD-35 as if it were connecting directly to the PCI-e card.
Additionally,looking at the available Raid cards at Cal digits website, they appear to be physically incompatible with the TDP 18 Pin Male to Male cable used to connect the PCD-35 to the PCI-e card.

PS: If Helmut absolutely needs PCI-e expansion, he may want to look into the Magma products. His Cal Digit Raid setup is expensive, and so are Magma’s solutions, but they have product to get around the 4 card limitation of a Mac Pro Tower.

This is from our P2 Product Engineer.

Best,

Jan

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

[Jan Crittenden livingston]

My suggestion would be that you take one set of number, like perhaps those above and put them into every file on the scene file knob and save each one into the camera. That way regardless of the position of the switch nobody can say, “oh I thought you said we were working with #3 not #4. Since you won’t have the opportunity to work with each camera and set it up, put together a scene file that does this, and make it a requirment that they load it before shooting. They can always go back to the factory preset when finished. Make sure you take the time to name the files so that in the VF the shooter can see that he has your file loaded.

Hope this helps,

Jan

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

[Jan Crittenden livingston]

Do you have the Dynamic Range Stretch on? Some folks think this is something you leave on all the time and it is not. If the scene doesn’t need it, it should be turned off.

Hope this helps,

Jan

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

[Jan Crittenden livingston]

[Dave Po] “IoLA adds 7.5 IRE, but they said if the video is already at 7.5 it shouldn’t double it up to 15IRE. So I don’t believe this is the problem. Another reason to believe that the camera isnt the problem is that I used FCPs color bars for printing to tape. They would measure my black level of 15 IRE from the color bars, right? not the video that comes after the color bars?”

Hi,

Turn of the IO’s 7.5. Record to DVCPRO50. It will be fine at that point the machine they are playing it back on is set up to add 7.5. So you add 7.5 and they add 7.5 then you have 15. Turn it off on the DVCPRO50 recording. It should never have it. The broadcaaster adds it for all the analog TVs out there, Digital recordings should never have it.

Now if you have 15 on the tape, boy I don’t know how you did that as the 7.5 setting on the camera is only for the analog output.

Hopes this helps,

Jan

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

[Jan Crittenden livingston]

[Mark Shepherd] “I recently saw footage from the Panasonic HDX300 (African blue sky) and made tests with the camera under low light tungston conditions and found high levels of noise in both examples. I was told to don’t worry, but wait for the “firmware update” on the real 300 cameras that have serial numbers, not demo cameras…”
I repeat that again. The camera that was in Africa was a prototype camera. Wait to make full judgement.

Thanks,

Jan

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

[Jan Crittenden livingston]

Do you have the Dynamic Range Stretch on. If you don’t need it, the function will still be working and it can make your footage noisy.

Best,

Jan

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

[Jan Crittenden livingston]

[Tony Gordon] “What I would like to know is WHAT FORMAT the Major Broadcasters are adopting in Europe, Japan, Germany, Netherlands, USA, Australia has Gone with Panasionic for ABC and the commercials are going XD Cam. “

NBC O&O Stations, CNBC, Telemundo are Going P2, Fox Network has gone P2, last number I saw was something like 350 stations have gone P2 in the US. There 100,000 P2s in the world and 50,000 are in the US.

[Tony Gordon] “However The XD 700 does NOT have VFR and Panasonic is CCD not CMOS (which I prefer the sublties of CMOS as opposed to CCD which is edgy and has sharp lines very VIDEO looking)”

We just introduced the AG-HPX300, it is CMOS, it will deliver at the end of March, 2.2 million imager, with AVC-Intra, DVCPRO HD DVCPRO50, DVCPRO, and DV, it is a shoulder mount camera. And to your comment about CCDs looking very videoish, I think that is more dependent on the design philosophy of the DSP and the inter-relationships of how the detail circuits, the color, and the gammas work together. The Panasonic cameras have never bee accused of looking videoish out of the box, however you can tweek them that way.

[Tony Gordon] “SO THE QUESTION IS

Who makes a Shoulder Mounted Camera that HAS VFR up to 120FPS”

No one.

[Tony Gordon] “Uses CMOS Chips 2/3 2.2Million Pixels or better”

AG-HPX300

[Tony Gordon] “AND Has a Codec that is almost Uncompressed.”

Best codec on the market that is in a shoulder mount design today is AVC-Intra. Take a look at the articles in the Jan-Feb issue of the SMPTE journal.

[Tony Gordon] “Sampling at 4.4.4”

The AJ-HPX3700 has a 4:4:4 output and you could record it to an S2 Solid State.

[Tony Gordon] “And a SOLID STATE RECORDING MEDIUM ????”

AJ-HPX3700, P2, but it doesnt do over crank above 30.

[Tony Gordon] “ANYONE Know of something that comes close ??? “

You didn’t mention your price range. And whether you need 4:4:4 all the time. You also didn’t mention what you do or the types of applications you would be using the camera for. I think the Panasonic cameras offer great flexibility, and a singular customer probably wouldn’t use all of the features in a camera because those features don’t address his usage criteria, but the camera offer many features.

Tell us more about why you want to do with the camera on a day to day. The 4:4:4 with 120fps overcrank might be a rental cmaer if you only need that every 3 months, but need a good shoulder mounted camera the rest of the time.

To sum it up, I don’t see any camera coming with the design spec you have, sorry but rethink how often you need the 2 features that kick out all of the cameras and how often you need them and your selction may become easier.

Best,

Jan

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

[Jan Crittenden livingston]

This unit will only record 50I 1080/ 50P 720, 60i 1080/ 60P 720. It does not do any removal ar all. It takes in the flags, records them and the Frame Rate Converter remove the extra frames.

If you want something that does this in record, please take a look at our P2 Mobile, AJ-HPM110.

Best,

Jan

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

[Jan Crittenden livingston]

[Mark Shepherd] “I had no idea that Panasonic reps would read this blog, .”

Been here for years my friend.

[Mark Shepherd] “but now that you are here I would ask you something. My question to Panasonic is why a company that has such a great history building professional cameras such as the Varicam, SDX-900, HDX-900, HDX2700, HDX-500, (all with IT chips) now start using CMOS, noisy, chips in there new shoulder mounted camera, the HDX300? Are there any other reasons but saving money? Noise, less sensitivity, rolling shutter are not good reasons for using the CMOS chip. The only good thing I have heard about CMOS is less power consumption.”

You need to understand the camera market a little more thorughly to see why we did what we did. We have the HVX200/HPX170 at $6,000 the next step up for us is at $20,000 for the HPX500 with lens. There is a real sweet spot in camera purchasing world at $10000. So how do we make a camera that competes with other cameras in that range? Well with CMOS, yes I do get lower power consumption,in the 1/3″ domain I can’t get more resolution with a CCD, a CMOS can get the camera there. We could have put the HVX200/HPX170 chip in there but our feeling was that would not compete with the Sony EX3 that well, resolution-wise. CMOS also eliminates the streaking from light sources that do indeed happen with CCDs. There is no perfect solution. We couldn’t make a 1/3″ 2.2 million pixel CCD as it just wouldn’t be low light sensitive at all. This is another benefit of CMOS, more low light performance.

Now in that low light sensitivity there is a gain in the noise department but as I mentioned the camera is not yet finished. Yes the rolling shutter is there, but you know CMOS imagers are in a lot of cameras these days, and if it could be used as an effective creative tool then there a good number of manufacturers that wouldn’t be able to sell cameras, starting with RED, Sony, Canon , Grass Valley and Phantom.

[Mark Shepherd] “I rather change my battery more often than have bad quality. Don’t skink on the chips! The HDX-500 is an extraordinary camera (with IT chips) doesn’t downgrade the quality of your product line.”

Frankly I think you are prejudging the camera. The tough part is that in order to make the price point the camera uses CMOS and I do fully believe that it will be very competitive in its market. We are not making it to compete with $20000 cameras, but $10,000 ones. Look at the field of cameras in this price point and I think you will see where we are going with it. The cooll part with this camera is the main competition uses CMOS as well, but this camera uses I-Frame codecs including a Master Quality codec called AVC-Intra, 4:2:2, 10 Bit.

CMOS can be worked with, many do. Technology has driven shooting decisions for the last 50 years, starting with film. Wait till it is a finished camera to make your judgement and if you still feel adverse to the CMOS, then we do have a very nice line up of CCD cameras to choose from.

Best regards,

Jan

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

[Jan Crittenden livingston]

Hi Mark,

I think before you just write off the camera I would give the final camera a shot. The cameras that are out there are 2nd generation cameras, the footage in Africa was first gen. I just got a firmware upgrade and it is quieter.

I am surprised that no one mentioned that it was a prototype, and the final product would only be better. This is true.

As far as working at -3, I am on the fence about this as it take that off the top, so may range is reduced. Back to the noise issue, where was the pedestle set on the camera you shot with and where was the Coring set. The factory was shipping this cameras with the settings at +15 pedestl, a guaranteed noise maker and the coring at 0. We made recommendations to the factiory and from what I see they have introduced them on version 3, and will finish it off in version 4 which will be the final version before serial numbers are affixed.

Wait till you see a serial numbered version before you write it off.

All the best,

Jan

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