[Jan Crittenden livingston]

I have seen the lens on the HVX and I think it is very good. We had it in the lab an it is better than the other lenses I have seen on the JVC, which breathes badly and has aberrations, and the Sony which has significant aberrations. The Canon I don’t know as I have not had an opportunity to play with it.

I did and still do think it is odd that the footage that they decided to show was recorded on a DVCPRO HD machine rather than on the HDV Codec. And the rationale was that they wanted to show people what was possible coming out of the HD-SDI port. My reponse to that is, “so everyone that buys this camera is going run right out and buy a $26,000 DVCPRO HD machine to work with it?” Most of the folks I know that have $8000 to spend on the camera would like to see the cameras recording capability.

Best,

Jan

Jan Crittenden Livingston
Product Manager, DVCPRO, DVCPRO50, AG-DVX100
Panasonic Broadcast & TV Systems

[Jan Crittenden livingston]

Hi,

If there is a problem with the camera Panasonic can upgrade the camera on the Panasonic Bench. I have seen the best camera guys have to do a firmware upgrade proceedure twice because they didn’t do it correctly, I cannot see that Panasonic would make that customer process. But if there is a problem with the camera it can be upgraded.

However if the question is, in a few years we come out with the HVX200A, can this camera be upgraded? That is a little more uncertain as we cannot know what the changes would be. As an example, the first upgrade to the Varicam it was possible to change the 27V to a 27F all it took was $5000. (Keep in mind it is a very expensive camera and I believe one or two of the mother boards had to be swapped out) Now we are delivering the 27H, this is not an upgrade that is even possible. So it really depends.

Best,

Jan

Jan Crittenden Livingston
Product Manager, DVCPRO, DVCPRO50, AG-DVX100
Panasonic Broadcast & TV Systems

[Jan Crittenden livingston]

At IBC they told us that the PAL unit would ship Feb-March.

Best,

Jan

Jan Crittenden Livingston
Product Manager, DVCPRO, DVCPRO50, AG-DVX100
Panasonic Broadcast & TV Systems

[Jan Crittenden livingston]

[toke lahti:So really good is not good enough… 😉

??? So if you can make it to any of the RES Fests here in the US you can see it for yourself. Hey I am not quantifying here, I am only saying that it looked good.

>In the spring you guessed similiar schedule for announcing and releasing than with dvx-100 had.

And frankly from the time we showed the DVX to the time we delivered it was about 2 months later, and since this camera is a ‘Little” more complicated it will deliver in December here in the US.

>This timetable has since slipped quite a bit.

And so ….;-)

>Can we have a clear date when hvx-200 is officially released and all the specs revealed?

We will deliver in December and we shall see about the specs.

Best,

Jan

Jan Crittenden Livingston
Product Manager, DVCPRO, DVCPRO50, AG-DVX100
Panasonic Broadcast & TV Systems

[Jan Crittenden livingston]

Hi,

All I can say is the DVCPRO HD footage that I showed the day before in my seminar looked great on that “antiquated” projector which BTW is a very expensive DLP projctor with about 6000 to 7000 lumens. That projector holds its own up against the high end Christies. There may have problems but it was not with the projector. In hind sight, perhaps I should have let the HVX “lab” footage be shown and then the projector would not be taking the hit.

Yes I thought the Canon Camera’s footage looked fairly good. However I did think it was odd that the Canon had recorded its image to DVCPRO HD via the HD-SDI instead of its own HDV drive, so we really don’t know how the HDV algorithm is going to handle the Canon 24F mode, we only know how well DVCPRO HD records it. The DVCPRO HD playback looked fine except for a few stuttering parts, which again I can assure you that it was not a part of the projection system.

Best,

Jan

Jan Crittenden Livingston
Product Manager, DVCPRO, DVCPRO50, AG-DVX100
Panasonic Broadcast & TV Systems

[Jan Crittenden livingston]

Hi Ron,

Thanks for the fun proof read. The camera looked realy good. 😉

Best,

Jan

Jan Crittenden Livingston
Product Manager, DVCPRO, DVCPRO50, AG-DVX100
Panasonic Broadcast & TV Systems

[Jan Crittenden livingston]

Hi,

I have to say that the price of the memory cards discussion is pretty tiresome. I recognize that many say that they are over-priced but that is probably because they do not understand the process. Take the zero defect statement above, add to that the knowledge that it is under 1% of all quantities available. Add to that, the card is constucted like a small army tank, able to withstand 17Gs of gravitational force. On top of that add the LSI and various other components. Add to that that the transfer speed of the individual cards, 20MBps, has a potential of 640Mbps when set up as an array, and at this point in time nothing else in the chain can match the speed, but the card is ready for when the rest of the chain catches up. There is future built into the design.

The point at which prices come down is where the quantity of produced SD cards go up, so that the number of SD cards that become available is greater and those that meet the defect free requirement goes up and thus the cost of the P2 card can go down. As the example with the 4GB card. It was introduced last fall at $2000. Today it is $1750. Later this fall, we will see it take a tumble in price as the manufacturing of 1GB SD cards has hit a quantum that ups the total of defect free cards available.

And while folks may not fully appreciate the fact that you will never have to buy tape again because they relate it to not having to purchase DV tape. The point is that this is not an HDV camera nor will it ever be. It is a DVCPRO HD camera and as such where the tape price consideration should be steered is towards the DVCPRO HD tape. If you shop, you can get it for $35 for a 30 minute, but if in a hurry, you will likely pay around $45. As I know from my own experience, one production in DVCPRO HD tape can certainly add up, and over the course of about 3 substantial projects you have spent the same amount as the cost of 2 cards. I mean we have one tape that only has 2 minutes of good dialog on it. That 2 minutes is pretty expensive and because it is on tape at the end, and so we had to save all of the bad takes.

Had we done that on P2, we could have erased all but about 2 takes. It took 27 takes to get the script read the way we wanted it. Point being is that the cards will replace tape and you won’t have to buy acquisition tape ever again. Add to that the cost of you sitting in a chair digitizing the footage. With P2, you sit down, review the footage and make edit decisions.

So the cost of memory will always come down and the cost of the P2 card will also come down. You may see that the cost of 4 4GB cards is less than 2 8GB cards. Same amount of time, less money. The reality is that the camera is not here yet, neither are the 8 GB cards and time is on the side of the memory costs coming down.

Hope that helps,

Jan

PS. Thanks, Ron.

Jan Crittenden Livingston
Product Manager, DVCPRO, DVCPRO50, AG-DVX100
Panasonic Broadcast & TV Systems

[Jan Crittenden livingston]

The footage from IBC will not be released as it is not the final picture quality.

As far as specs are concerned, no additional specs were announced. I am assuming you are looking for Chip set specs. Frankly I think to announce that without footage would be silly and in my opinion, I would never release it because most folks think that there is some direct relationship from CCD to HD capability and resolution. While there is some, the signal coming off of the CCD assembly is an analog signal. So it is the rest of the system that also has direct impact, the lens, the Quantizing, the DSP and such, it all has to be designed as a system.

Best,

Jan

Jan Crittenden Livingston
Product Manager, DVCPRO, DVCPRO50, AG-DVX100
Panasonic Broadcast & TV Systems

[Jan Crittenden livingston]

[Brian SaenzDeViteri] “If you don’t mind my asking, why even bother with LSI? Does it have a function that is more beneficial than just preventing users from using only “Panasonic approved” products in the camera?

It really depends on perspective Brian. When working at a broadcast level the camera needs feedback from the device it is recording to so that it “knows” that all is well. The LSI not only initiates the conversation but also directs trafic across a fault free SD raid array. It keeps track of all of the Time Code and Meta Data ans well as making sure that the clip spans the cards and nothing is lost.

>To me, without knowing more about what LSI does right now, it seems like it’s just a limiting factor that is making it harder for end-users to use this camera to it’s fullest potential. It is entirely possible to make a direct to hard drive adapter cable for use with an external hard drive, but if we need a “smart chip” installed on the adapter or hard drive for the camera to talk to the hard drive (which seems like what LSI is), then Panasonic is really blocking this ability of the users. (Sounds like bad Macrovision protection on a camera we will all be using to make our own movies and videos.)

You do need to have a “smart” chip” installed and to say it is because we are “blocking” is one interptretation; rather my interpretaion is that we guarantee results, not “sort of guaranteed” based on your choice of hard drive and such. This is more simply a case of your not being a part of our engineering team and not having a full understanding of what is required. If you wish to contact me off-line and give me your full party credentials as that is what Japan will want to see; as to who you are and what you are proposing to do, I will put you in touch with the Partner Liasion. crittendenj@us.panasonic.com. We are not blocking, we welcome partners, it is just that if you make something that is supposed to work with the product, we need to know that it does indeed work.

>Please understand that I’m not knocking the P2 technology or this camera… I think it has a lot of potential. Right now I’m looking for cost effective alternatives to get more “recording” time onto my own external hard drives – this where all of my P2 data will end up anyway when all shooting is complete… at least for the next few years until P2 prices drop drastically.

I understand that but to accuse us of protectionism is a little off-putting, frankly. Perhaps you didn’t mean it so harshly but that is the way it comes across. Point is, when all is done at the end of the day all of the data has to be there not just enough to be semi-convinced, and find later that a frame was dropped here and there.

>If the proposed Firestore solution was more cost effective and allowed the use of your own external hard drives (just an interface device), then maybe it would be a more attractive option. But as it is right now, the camera can already do DTE recording. We do not need an “FS-4” device to do this… miniDV users went to Firestore because they did not have DTE abilities. With the HVX200, we are getting DTE built into the camera… we should not have to shell out $2000 for, what in the end for all of us is just a hard drive.

You can record to the P2 cards and then file transfer over 1394, but at this time there is a parity conversation between the HD the camera under file transfer. And frankly without this I would be very leary of simple hard drives. 1394 does not parity check; the sending device just sends, the recieving device, if it chokes, it chokes, but the sending device is still sending, not much caring about whether the recieving device is choking, dropping frames or whatever.

Best regards,

Jan

Jan Crittenden Livingston
Product Manager, DVCPRO, DVCPRO50, AG-DVX100
Panasonic Broadcast & TV Systems

[Jan Crittenden livingston]

Hi Brian,

If the P2 card was just memory this theory has a chance of working, but since it is not, then it is probably missing some major components like the LSI that identifies to the camera what has been inserted into the camera. A “conversation” takes place between the P2 card and the camera that makes it a “system.”

Hope that helps,

Jan

Jan Crittenden Livingston
Product Manager, DVCPRO, DVCPRO50, AG-DVX100
Panasonic Broadcast & TV Systems