It was torture playing with the new Panasonic HVX200 at the recent SMPTE/New England show and not being able to take it out on a real shoot… Well, finally, the good folks at Rule Broadcast tell me the
they finally got one of these puppies.
I hope to take this camera for a spin very soon. Would especially love to do a side by side comparison of some critical shooting, including doing green screen, comparing the Sony/JVC/Canon HDV cameras vs. Panasonic HVX200 with it’s DVCPRO HD. In terms of form factor, this camera will gain lots of favor among people looking for a small, all-in-one camera.
The key features for me are:
- High definition recording with low-compression DVCPRO HD codec
- Small all in one form factor compared to JVC and Canon competitors, it’s like a chubby DVX-100 in terms of size and weight
- 16:9/4:3 switchable for SD recording, 16:9 native for HD
- 3 1/3″ 16:9 native progressive CCDs with 1080/60p scanning
- CineGamma derived from the Varicam and helps emulate the latitude of film.
- PCM 48K 16-bit audio
- 2 XLR inputs
- 13X Wide angle (32.5-423 35mm equiv) Leica Dicomar Zoom
- optical image stabilizer
- auto/manual focus with focus assist, cam-driven zoom
- Records in several formats, SD: 480/60i, 480/24p, 480pA, 480/30p, and HD: 1080/60i, 1080/24p, 1080/24A, 1080/30p, 720p (variable frame rates)
- Variable frame rate recording: in 720p mode can record: 12, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26, 30, 32, 36, 48, and 60 fps, now that’s delightful!
- records HD in either 1080i or 720p onto Panasonic P2 cards
- also records in DV, DVCPro, and DVCPro 50 formats as well.
- capable of downconverting HD material stored on P2 cards to
MiniDV tapes in the internal tape drive - P2 storage cards are available in 4 and 8 GB sizes
- 8 GB P2 card stores 20 minutes of footage shot at 24p.
- Focus Enhancements will have a Firestore HD drive that this can record to in all but the native 720p format
Looks like this is the ultimate progressive scan HD camera for the money. Some amazing looking films are going to be shot with this. I’ve not been this excited about a video camera since the introduction of the Varicam, at the time I said, “can’t wait to see the technology trickle down to the prosumer camcorder form-factor and price range.” We’ll, many years later, it’s here! But I do need to shoot with it before I allow myself to get too excited.