HD For Indies

This week I'm trying to get the HVX200 in front of a variety of different users to get their first hand impressions of the camera, while I sit there figuring it out with them.

As usual, first off, thanks so very much to Allan Barnwell and David Fry of Omega Broadcasting Group for being kind enough to loan one of their brand new, just-as-they-got-it models to us, with extra P2 cards and batteries. These guys do sales and rentals and should be on your potential vendor list.

First up is Luis Caffesse that I mentioned from Pitch Productions.

What follows is the write-up he sent me in it's entirety, unedited. I usually quote in italics, but that'd get boring to read.

So all below is his impressions of the camera:

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First off, a quick summary about my experience so you have some idea where I'm coming from. I've been shooting and editing for the past 10 years, working as production director in both radio and TV. The last 5 years I've spent working on my own shooting local and regional commercials, corporate videos, as well as post work on both narrative and music video projects. The bulk of my shooting has been in DV, with a few projects here and there done in HD (both on HDCam and DVCProHD). I've shot extensively with the DVX100, and virtually every other 'prosumer' type cam out there. On the post end I've worked with both Avid on PC and FCP on the Mac. As of now 99.9% of my cutting is done on the Mac. A lot of my interest in this camera comes from it's tapeless workflow and ability to deliver numerous format options. Also, seeing as we didn't have the ideal setup for critical examination of the image, most of my time was spent examinging the efficiency and intuitiveness of the ergonomics and setting on the camera.

When Mike first asked if I wanted to come by and check out the camera he mentioned that I should try to get a hold of the manual. We couldn't find the manual online before the camera was delivered, but I wasn't too worried seeing as I figured the HVX would be very similar to the DVX. I assumed the manual would be overkill, and that we'd be able to figure out the cam no problem by just picking it up and fiddling around. Well, I was both right and wrong.

Upon seeing it out of the box my first thought was that it looked exactly like a DVX, just larger and fatter. Picking it up it felt very well balanced, much like a DVX but with a bit more mass. Personally I liked the feel of it, the added weight should help in making smoother handheld shots.

Just glancing over the layout of the controls I felt right at home. If you've ever shot with the DVX then you shouldn't have any problem figuring out where everything is. The major controls are all in the same place, with just a few minor layout changes (i.e. FireWire port is now near the back, the preset wheel is on the back left and recessed, etc). But all in all, the controls felt very familiar. It also felt much more robust than the DVX. I think I made Mike nervous at one point when I said the HVX felt like we could drop it on the floor without hurting it. Don't worry, we didn't test out that theory.

Flipping on the menu things again felt very familiar. The menu structure is exactly like the menu layout on the DVX (1. Scene File, 2. Camera Setup, etc). This is where things started getting interesting. Playing around with the menus it became clear that although the camera felt like a bigger DVX, it was actually much more complicated than that. There are quite a few different and new menu options, and I suddenly found myself referring to the manual that came with the camera quite often.

Menu navigation felt a little smoother than the DVX, if for no other reason than the buttons used to navigate the menu are more solid and easier to use. Luckily Panasonic did away with the little 'joystick' button we all grew to hate on the DVX (at least I know I did). It's a good thing they did too, because the menus on the HVX are a bit more extensive. I found myself having to scroll down whole pages of menu options in some cases. It would have b een great to have a 'page down' function in the menus, or to see a better structure to the submenus. But, I figure they wanted to keep the menu structure as close to the DVX as possible. So instead new menu options are lumped in with the old ones. This means that now the 'RECORDING SETUP' menu has about 3 pages worth of things to scroll through. It would be nice to see them break these up in future releases, maybe putting 'format options' in one menu and 'audio recording' options in a separate menu. This camera has so many different recording opportunities that it seems a bit crowded to put just about everything involving 'RECORDING' into one menu.

After fiddling with the menus a bit I got right to recording some clips. We had two 4GB P2 cards in the camera. I'll say that I never even stopped to think about the fact that I was shooting on P2. The beauty of tapeless recording only became clear to me when we switched over to DV tape for a minute. Seeing the tape transport pop open, waiting for the tape to load up, and then waiting for it to get up to speed to record really made me appreciate how robust and immediate P2 technology really is. While I'm glad Panasonic gave us the option to still shoot on DV tape, I really think that once anyone picks up this camera and shoots on P2 they will never open that tape transport again. After only about 15 minutes of shooting on P2, shooting on DV tape already seemed really archaic to me.

As a quick side note I should point out that both Mike and I were a bit impressed with how robust the P2 cards felt. Each came packaged in it's own case, just like a tape would. On top of that there are caps which protect the connectors. The cards themselves are surprisingly heavy for their size. "Fragile" is not a word I would ever use to describe these things. It really gave me the impression that if you dropped it you'd have nothing to worry about (of course Mike didn't want me to test that out, but I couldn't blame him for that). Other than the fact that they cost much more, I wouldn't feel like I had to be treat these things with any more care than you would a tape on set. In fact, they feel like they can take more abuse than a tape would.

When it came to shooting we shot a few short clips in every possible format. After taking a minute to wrap my head around all the menu options, it became pretty easy to switch from one format to another. Just like the DVX, the format options are all buried in the 'RECORDING SETUP' menu. While it would be nice to have control over the format with an on camera wheel or button, I guess it's just not feasible when you have that many choices. All in all, it's not that big a deal to go into the menu to switch recording formats, seeing as you probably won't be switching from 480 to 720 to 1080 in the middle of a shoot.

While recording it became apparent that Panasonic made a great choice by keeping the LCD on the HVX at 4:3 instead of opting for a 16:9 LCD design. When shooting 16:9 all the display information is laid out in the black bars at the top and bottom of the screen, so you always have a clear view of your entire shot edge to edge. I know that's a really simple idea, but it was a nice change not seeing my shot cluttered up by display information. The only thing which bothered me about the display was that by default it did not show you which format you were shooting in. It is possible to see additional info by hitting the 'DISPLAY' button on the side of the camera, but otherwise the information on the LCD all looked the same whether I was shooting 1080, 720, or 480. It may be possible to leave the format information on the LCD at all times, but it's not that way by default. I found myself double checking the format settings a few times until I became more comfortable with the camera.

Shooting in the various formats was straightforward, even though there are quite a few of them. It's only when trying to shoot variable framerates in 720 that things got a bit complicated. In order to overcrank or undercrank the camera you have to adjust the settings in TWO different menus on the HVX. First, in the "SCENE FILE" menu you must set the cam to "Film Cam" mode (as opposed to 'Video Cam' mode). Then you set your frame rate from one of the many options (12fps up to 60fps). Then you must exit that menu, and go down to your 'RECORDING SETUP' menu. In that menu you set your timebase - meaning what framerate you want the clip to play back at, either 720/24PN or 720/30PN (not to be confused with 720/24P, or 720/30P). This will tell the NLE to treat the clip as a 24fps or 30fps clip when imported into the computer.

The thing that bothered me about this was the need to go into not only one but TWO menu options. Shooting variable framerates is something that many people will want to do in the middle of a shoot, and it seems like there is a lot of opportunity for setting up the camera incorrectly when making these switches. With as much trouble as many seem to have already between 24P and 24PA on the DVX, the options on the HVX will definitely open the door to a lot of workflow mistakes. But, this shouldn't be taken as a slam against the camera itself. My point is that to properly use the HVX will take a bit of learning on the part of the shooter. This isn't just a point and shoot operation. Once I got it down I had no problems, but I did have to go back to the manual a few times before the logic of the variable frame shooting made sense to me. Expect to spend some time testing out your shooting modes with this camera.

If there was ever a reason to use the F1-F6 customizable preset wheel then variable frame speed shooting is it. It seems like the best thing to do if you plan on shooting slow/fast motion stuff is to set up your presets before the shoot. That way there would be no need to fiddle with the menus on set. Set up F1 as your "base" set up (either 1080/24P or 720/24P), and then use F2-F6 for your variable frame settings. That should help alleviate any menu missettings on set. Want to shoot 60P for 24fps playback? Just flip to F2, 12P? Just flip to F3. Proper set up and testing should make it painless. I just wouldn't leave those decisions for 'on set'

One thing that's really nice is that when shooting 60P for 24fps playback (720/24PN mode) the HVX will playback the footage at 24P. This means you can shoot, and then immediately watch your stuff in slow motion. Switching over to 'VCR' mode is nearly instantaneous, and the thumbnail view made it very easy to scroll through clips. The clip controls weren't completely obvious at first, but once you figure out the navigation it's amazing how quickly you can review shots. My only complaint on the thumbnail view is that it only allows for LEFT and RIGHT navigation when going from clip to clip. This means if you have to scroll through every thumbnail to get to the clip you want, instead of just scrolling up or down past entire rows of shots. Not a big deal, just a slight annoyance.

Shooting felt pretty much the same as the DVX, and if anything it was more comfortable. I quickly put the cam into manual mode (the controls are all in the same place as the DVX). The manual zoom felt a lot better than the ring on the DVX, it always felt too loose to me. The HVX zoom has a nice amount of tension on the ring, still fully manual but just tight enough to let you keep your fingers on the zoom ring without moving it. The manual focus ring felt about the same to me as a DVX does. The new "fat" iris wheel is a great little change. It's got a nice amount of resistance to it, and it's wide enough to control with your thumb without having to be in just the right spot to adjust it. All in all, I could hold the HVX exactly the way I hold a DVX and shoot. So once you get familiar with the menus and formats, the rest feels right at home.

Hooking up the cam to the computer took a quick check to the manual. It's not intuitive (it involves hooking up the cam and holding down the 'VCR/Cam' mode button for 2 seconds to get the cam to connect). Once we got that figured out the camera popped right up onto Mike's G5 as an external device. The LCD on the camera has a nice simple display to let you know if the cam is connected (see the pictures). Once we got the footage imported to FCP and played out to Mike's monitor one thing became clear (no pun intended)... FOCUS IS CRITICAL.

In my quick opinion, even with the focus assist feature the LCD screen cannot be trusted for focus on the HVX. The EVF seems much crisper, but until I become more familiar with this camera I wouldn't feel comfortable setting focus with anything other than an external production monitor. Nearly everything I shot seemed just a bit soft. Granted, we weren't shooting in the best of conditions (Mike could use some more lamps in his place), so we were shooting wide open the entire time. But I can't overstate it enough, FOCUS FOCUS FOCUS. Again, this isn't a critique on the camera - the only reason focus is so important is because we're not talking about DV resolution anymore. With great formats comes great responsibility - okay, maybe that's a bit much.... but you get the point. Focus.

Upon seeing the footage I was a bit surprised with the amount of mosquito noise we saw. Again, we weren't shooting in ideal conditions but the thing is you will always have shadows in your frame. The portions of the frame that were exposed well seemed very clean, but once something fell into shadow we saw quite a few 'dancing pixels.' All in all the amount of noise seemed pretty close to what you get at DV resolution on a DVX. So it's really nothing to worry about - people have been shooting great stuff with the DVX for years. But, I guess I was naively hoping for a miraculous 100% noise free image.

One of the only reasons I was really happy to see that addition of the DV tape drive on the camera was for the 720 downconverting dubbing function. Once again we had to dive into the manual to figure it out, but once we got it all set up correctly we were able to dub some of the 720/60P (at 24fps) slowmotion shots to DV tape. It took a little while to get it set up, but once we did it worked like a charm. The menu options in 'dubbing mode' are pretty extensive (see pictures), and the camera lets you choose your pulldown setting when dubbing 720/24P material to DV. So, you can choose either 24P or 24PA pulldown cadence. We went with 24PA, then quickly captured the DV material into FCP and were left with some smooth slowmotion anamorphic DV at true 24 frames per second. It's a nice option for any project shooting DV that might require variable frame speeds. Of course, to be able to do it you need to be able to record in 720 first...which begs the question why you would bother originating in DV...but it's a nice option to have. Though I haven't done any real critical side by side testing, the downcoverted footage didn't seem to be significantly better than what you would get from a DVX100a shooting anamorphic.

Overall I would say I was definitely impressed the capabilities of this camera. As a low cost HD camera it's going to be tough to beat. Many people have referred to it as a $6000 HD camera - which I think is a bit disingenuous. To really be able to capitalize on the functionality of the HVX you need to shoot to P2 or to an external drive solution like the upcoming Firestore or Cineporter drives (I don't think being tethered to a computer for capture is a very realistic solution for most people). That said, I would say this thing is definitely a contender to be my next camera. But personally I would say that if you're hoping to buy the HVX now and just shoot DV until you can afford to get some P2 cards or a hard drive for it then you're probably better of just getting a DVX. Buying this camera for DV only is like buying a Quad G5 because you need to be able to send email. The HVX is not just a 'big DVX' - it's similar enough to the DVX to get you up and running, but you'll quickly realize there is a whole lot more to this camera. If the HVX is the 'big brother' to the DVX (as a lot of people expected), then 'big brother' went to grad school and got a PhD while 'little brother' is still finishing high school. This camera is geared for DVCPro50 and DVCProHD shooting, it just so happens that it has a DV tape drive on it. I won't be surprised if the tape transport is gone in the next version of the camera.

Keep in mind these are all just first impressions after spending about 3 hours with the camera. One thing I know for certain is that after just the little bit of time I spent shooting tapeless - I don't ever want to see another tape again.


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End Luis' comments.