Scott Auerbach
Forum Replies Created
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It did have 60i and 60p when it shipped, Sam. But for any clients (i.e., 99% of US clients) who want either 29.97p or 23.98p, you’re screwed. Nobody wants to have to process the footage just to get to 29.97p, and getting to 23.98p is impossible without it looking like utter crap. And who the hell is willing to accept interlaced? NONE of my clients. So you have a choice: shoot 60p, be completely unable to monitor it on any conventional broadcast monitor on-set, and have to process it in the edit suite to get to 29.97, or shoot 60i and have it look like 1993.
Meanwhile, Panasonic STILL has tons of advertising material online stating that the firmware fix to provide 30p, 24p and 25p will be available in March of 2014. It’s not available, even now. I’ve had to hire lawyers just to get Panasonic to take the steaming shit-pile back, and Panasonic is fighting me on it, saying I should just happily continue to wait. I’ve been waiting for FIFTEEN MONTHS. I’ve barely been able to use the camera in that time. 70 hours in 14+ months. The financial cost has been outrageous in terms of paying for rental gear and/or lost work. Their response: “Too bad. Even though we promised it in widespread official advertising as being available almost a year ago. Tough luck.”
It actually meets Federal Trade Commission definitions for false and misleading advertising. But they accept zero responsibility. So this means war. I now own the domain name https://www.varicam35.com I’m sure they’ll be thrilled to see how much traffic I can drive there, letting potential Varicam buyers know just how badly they treat customers.
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I agree that the Varicam appears intended as a very serious camera. I’d be quite interested in it if it weren’t for the bitter taste in my mouth. But I have almost zero faith left that Panasonic will treat their customers fairly, or deliver features in a timely fashion. And this is coming from a decades-long Panasonic customer who loved the look of the HPX-2000/2100 and used to have a good feeling about the company. But I’ve been thoroughly burned by the way I’ve been treated in this disaster.
The PX5000 might have been designed with a particular Japanese network in mind (though I’ve never heard that), but it was marketed worldwide and sold with a reasonable expectation that it would be compatible with non-Japanese broadcast standards (frame rates that have been on every Panasonic camera for 15 years or more) soon. It was, after all, their top-of-the-line, flagship broadcast camera. If the firmware coders were overworked, it would be perfectly reasonable to expect that this camera would be fast-tracked. They did just the opposite. They sold the camera, then ignored it for over a year, leaving who knows how many customers with a virtually useless camera.
In my book, that’s just despicable business practice.
Scott Auerbach
DP, Sputnik Pictures
HD and RED Epic digital cinema production -
Will do… might be a day or two before I can post it. When I’ve checked, I haven’t been maxing out any of the cores. Seq is 29.97. At most, there might be one short bit of 23.98 media on the timeline. I’ve had it happen on sequences without mixed framerates, so that’s definitely not it.
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Hi Brian –
Most of the pros and cons are well-discussed already. That said, I’ll add these:The HVX (I own a 200 as well as the HPX2000) really doesn’t deliver that great an image compared to the newer cameras like the Sony. It was revolutionary when introduced, but the mini-HD world has moved on. It’s a very noisy image, and not especially sharp (as it’s not a true HD sensor).
I find the ergonomics of the Panasonic to be vastly superior to the Sony, personally. Like many (nearly all?) reviewers, I found the balance of the EX1 and EX3 to be downright bizarre — uncomfortable and exhausting to hold for more than a couple of minutes.
The Panasonic color palette is a bit warmer and richer… perhaps less true, but also more pleasing to the eye.
The Panasonic viewfinder and flip-out LCD screen are so low-res as to be nearly useless for judging critical focus without the Focus Assist feature. I believe the Sony has better specs on that. However, at the wide side of the lens at typical apertures, nearly everything is in focus anyway.
The smaller the sensor, the harder it is to control depth of field. The difference between 1/3″ and 1/2″ isn’t vast, but every little bit helps. Basically all the small cameras look like Kodak Instamatics… everything from 3′ to infinity in focus.
The EX3 interchangeable lens option is nice, though I’m not sure how often it will actually be used by most buyers.
The SxS cards are cheaper, and you’re always going to end up wanting to buy one more card… And they fit directly into the current MacBooks without an adapter.
The problems with Long GOP encoding are well-documented and worth considering.
Finally, anything you buy will be effectively obsolete within 3 years, so make sure it makes financial sense.
Best of luck with your decision!
Scott Auerbach
http://www.sputnikpictures.tv