Put a DVX100, a VariCam, and a handful of memory chips into a blender, and you might get the AG-HVX200P (www.panasonic.com), a hefty little $5,995 handful that shoots 4:3 and 16:9 DV on tape as well as standard-def DV and DVCPRO50, and high-def DVCPRO HD in both 720p and 1080i flavors on P2 memory cards. In 720p, the camera offers 11 frame rates from 12 fps to 60 fps, and solid-state recording makes true single-frame, prerecord, loop-mode, and intervalometer capabilities affordable for the first time.
The camera's abandonment of tape for high-bitrate recording requires new thinking about workflows, but basic operations and image rendering controls will be instantly familiar to DVX100 users. Of more concern is the camera's use of 960 x 540-pixel CCDs, which limit fine detail rendering and can show distracting aliasing.
Configuration and handling
The chunky, black HVX200 looks like a retro-military DVX100 that wouldn't be out of place on the set of Forbidden Planet. At 5.5 pounds, it's nearly 2 pounds heavier than the DVX100 and it's side-heavy, with its center of gravity 2.5 inches offset from the handgrip. After holding it a while, I found myself Dutch-tilting it rightward to better balance the load. Like other heavyweight HD handhelds, the HVX200 is happier on a tripod, body brace, Steadicam, or other support system than it is in your hand.
The built-in 13 X zoom has a bayonet-mount 16:9 rubber hood with press-fit lens cap —gone is the finicky and self-detaching lens cap from the DVX. The hood incorporates the rectangular antireflection baffle that was lens-mounted on the DVX, making lens cleaning much easier. Removing the hood reveals 82 mm filter threads.
The servo focus ring is a full inch wide for easier access. It free-spins, but as with the DVX's, within the 270 degrees of rotation from near to far it's completely predictable and repeatable, so precision focus pulling is both possible and practical. The mechanical zoom ring, with focal lengths marked, rotates only 90 degrees between 4.2 mm and 55 mm. It's very responsive, though that sensitivity makes slow zooms with gentle eases challenging despite the smooth, viscous damping of the control. A slide switch engages power zoom, but power zooms lack both speed (the fastest zoom takes 3.5 seconds end to end) and finesse (slow zooms are over in a mere 30 seconds, with noticeable jolts starting and stopping).
The left side of the camera is remarkably free of clutter, resulting in fewer fumbles in the field. Auto and manual focus and ND filter switches sit side by side, with a beefy Focus Assist button above the focus switch and a Push Auto (focus) button below. The HVX's Focus Assist, which only works in 720- and 1080-line modes, enlarges the image two times within a blue-outlined center region, leaving the periphery unzoomed so you can maintain framing (although horizontally the periphery zooms slightly, cropping it to roughly the 90 percent safe-action area). Focus Assist is available while recording, thankfully, and it leaves the analog and FireWire outputs undisturbed.
A fat iris thumbwheel sits in front of the standard three-position gain and white-balance switches, and a push button switches the wheel between manual control and auto exposure override. The wheel has no detents, but apertures adjust in quarter-stop increments. The white-balance button is on the front of the camera as it is on the DVX. Holding the button down triggers black balance.
Buttons below the 3.5-inch LCD toggle on-screen displays and provide three user-defined functions. A slide switch enables full-auto operation, and you can program how much auto you want in that operation. Behind the LCD are buttons for shutter speed (including slow shutters and Synchro Scan), color bars, timecode display, zebra, and optical image stabilization, as well as per-channel audio selection switches for internal mics versus XLR input, and phantom power (line versus mic selection uses switches beside the two XLR jacks on the right side of the body).
The playback control and menu selection joystick of the DVX has migrated to a set of push buttons on the camera's top plate. Their orientation makes sense while watching the side-mounted LCD, but they are rotated 90 degrees when operated from behind the camera. After a month of use, I still frequently push the "left" button in place of the "up" button.
The camera's right side has dual XLR inputs, RCAs for composite video and audio, Y/C video, and a miniature, locking D-shell connector for analog component output (it's compatible with the Canon XL H1's connector and cable). Plugging in the component cable disables the Y/C and composite outputs. Down-converted video is always full-screen anamorphic, as there is no letterboxing option.
A headphone jack, 4-pin FireWire, mini-USB, remote-control sockets, and an SD card slot for saving camera setups all lurk beneath covers behind the handgrip. The handgrip itself is the tape-loading door.
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Two P2 slots (one in use); audio, DTL, and mode controls; and the sideways-mounted battery. |
The rear of the camera has two P2 card slots behind a flip-down cover, audio level pots, and the six-position scene file (custom preset) dial, mode-selection switches and buttons, and EVF DTL to add an anemic amount of viewfinder peaking (it works fine in bright, con-trasty conditions but is otherwise insufficient, though it beats not having peaking at all). Peaking and zebra display simultaneously. The supplied 2-hour battery slides in sideways, as does the battery eliminator plate for AC usage. Batteries and chargers interoperate with their DVX100 counterparts.
The carrying handle has a stereo mic at the front, an accessory shoe, the usual start and stop button and fixed-speed zoom rocker, and a much-welcomed 1/4 x 20 threaded socket at the rear that's ideal for adding accessories. The camera comes with a front-mounted mic clamp, too, although a mic to clamp in it is optional.
The daylight-viewable LCD and the EVF can operate simultaneously. They resolve a bit over 200 TVl/ph. Both Focus Assist and EVF DTL are necessary if you don't have off-board monitoring for focus. Both displays show the full image area, the way a professional viewfinder should (thanks, Panasonic). Data displays are fully customizable with focus and zoom readouts (the former in meters or feet if you'd like), aperture, white balance, audio meters (with -20 and -12 dBfs indicators), shutter speed, two zebras, level metering, safe action and 4:3 areas, and more. With all data overlays displayed, a single button push removes all except timecode, transport status, and time-remaining info.
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The HVX has an uncluttered set of controls. The menu shows gamma settings in Scene File 1. |
In P2 playback mode, the camera shows an array of clip thumbnails, selectable with the left and right navigation buttons (you can move 12 thumbnails at a time with the Page +/- buttons). Playback is instantaneous, and slow-mo, single-frame, and fast scans are possible in both forward and reverse. Clips of different frame rates and formats can be intermixed on a card, but only clips in the camera's current frame rate and format can played back. As with digital still cameras, you can select multiple clips for common operations: deleting them, recording them to tape as standard-def, or tagging them for later viewing.
Performance
The HVX uses three 1/3-inch 960 x 540 progressive-scan CCDs using both H and V pixel shift, resulting in resolutions, as measured on test charts, of around 540 TV lines in both H and V directions. Although pixel shift provides a higher MTF approaching the single-chip limiting resolutions, aliasing still sets in at 540 lines. The Sony FX1 and Z1 cameras with their 960-pixel chips also start aliasing around 540 TVl/ph horizontally, but the HVX aliases vertically too, much like the Canon XL H1 in its 24f and 30f modes or the Sonys in Cineframe modes (though the HVX image is much smoother than the Sony's field-doubling).
Detail past the limiting resolution aliases noticeably. The lens is clearly capable of providing contrast well past 800 lines and whatever optical low-pass filtering the camera has is insufficient. In real-world pix, this aliasing can appear as subtle, spurious detail-near-vertical edges may flicker or stairstep, or a delicate moire may appear over finely textured moving areas. See this issue's Technical Difficulties for a more detailed discussion.
The 960-pixel scan lines nicely match 720p DVCPRO's native 960-sample recordings, but fall short of what 1280-sample 1080i DVCPROHD wants. The 1080-line recordings are sharper than 720p recordings, but only by about 10 percent, rather than the 33 percent you'd expect if the camera delivered full-bandwidth detail. The HVX's HD images look rather a bit sharper than up-converted 480p images, but slightly softer than true 720p- or 1080i-native images.
This is not to say the HVX isn't capable of gorgeous, detailed imagery. It clearly is. It's perfectly crisp in 4:3 or 16:9 SD, and it's a fine B camera for 720p VariCam work. It just looks a trifle unfocused alongside a CineAlta or a Canon XL H1.
The HVX200 is a little bit faster than comparable camcorders (up to 2/3 stop; see "Four Affordable HD Camcorders Compared," [May '06 DV]), but it's a little bit noisier, too, and its picture noise increases more visibly as gain is boosted. Maximum gain is +18 dB in interlace, but only +12 dB in progressive, or 0 dB at slower shutter speeds and frame rates. Practically speaking, it's a wash: the HVX's slight speed advantage is offset by its higher noise and its gain limits.
The HVX200 has eight different gamma settings, including black press, low, high, cine-like_d, and cine-like_v settings to match other Panasonic cameras for plenty of control over the tonal scale. Most gammas also let you select high, medium, low, or auto knees. The combinations are too numerous to describe, but DVX users will know whereof I speak.
Panasonic cameras have a reputation for natural, unforced color rendition, and the HVX continues that tradition. Four color matrices are selectable in addition to the usual color saturation, phase, and temp (warm/cool) settings. Detail level is variable from "none" to "way too much" (I shoot mostly at -3 or -4), and while you can't change detail frequency, which is set rather low, you can vary H/V detail balance, and coring.
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Shooting a test image with the four different matrix settings reveals their differences on the vectroscope (display monitor was not calibrated, so only relative differences are significant, not overall pattern shape). |
In 720p, you can shoot at 12, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26, 30, 32, 36, 48, or 60 fps. If you're shooting in 720/30PN or 720/24PN ("native") modes, only the unique frames are recorded to P2, and the resulting overcrank or undercrank effect can be played back immediately. Read that again. Not only will this camera shoot slow-mo and fast-mo, your off-speed footage can be reviewed right away, and it will look just like it should, no rendering required. This is quite simply too cool for words. One of the first things I shot with the HVX was a ball bouncing in 2.5 x slow motion (720/24PN @ 60 fps). I played it back immediately—no waiting—and was grinning uncontrollably the rest of the evening.
The 13 X lens has a nice wide 4.2 mm angle, though the 55 mm telephoto is a bit limiting. Its images are crisp and relatively free from chromatic aberration, and the lens does not porthole at telephoto, though maximum aperture drops from 1.6 to 2.8 as you zoom in. It'll focus to the front of the shade at focal lengths up to 20 mm and as close as 20 inches at 55 mm. It doesn't breathe at all.
Auto-focus and optical image stabilization work well. The HVX's focus motor is much quieter than the DVX's, but with power removed the lens clunks just like the DVX's does.
Audio recording sounds perfectly clean in my tests. In DVCPRO50 and DVCPRO HD, four channels of uncompressed audio are recorded—channels 3 and 4 pick up whichever inputs (built-in mic or XLRs) are not selected for channels 1 and 2. Practically speaking, this gives you automatic scratch track recording when the XLRs are busy with specialized feeds. It's more useful than you might think.
Codecs, P2, and compatibility
The HVX200 records SD in DV25 with 4:1:1 color sampling on tape or P2 cards. On P2, you can also select DVCPRO50 with 4:2:2 chroma sampling and a lower 3.3:1 compression ratio—many people consider this an 8-bit counterpart to Digital Betacam quality. Both 4:3 and 16:9 SD pix can be recorded.
HD recording on P2 uses 6.7:1, 100 Mbps DVCPRO HD compression, also with 4:2:2 color sampling, in either 720 (960 x 720) or 1080 (1280 x 1080) formats. The 720 format is always progressive. 480- and 1080-line footage can be shot in 60i, 30p, 24p, or 24pa (advanced 2:3:3:2 pulldown) modes.
Codec quality is superb and free from motion artifacts. Unlike long-GOP HDV, DVCPRO images don't degrade visibly as the motion in a scene increases. The mosquito noise we've all come to know (if not love) in DV25 is present in -50 and -HD recordings, but it's rarely visible in the higher-bitrate formats.
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Buttons on top of the body control menus and playback. P2 cards slot into the rear. |
P2 seems expensive until you consider that a DVCPRO HD-capable tape transport costs $6,000 for the scanner alone, and the HD1200A tape deck starts at $12,000, stripped. For the cost of the scanner, you can buy three 8 GB cards and Panasonic's 60 GB P2 Store Drive—a battery-operated hard disk rigged to suck data off of P2 cards quickly and simply—and have all of your video available as data as soon as the shoot is over. (Yes, it's more complex than that, but space constraints make me defer P2 workflow discussions to a future article.) Think of P2 cards as film magazines, not tape cassettes.
Current P2 cards are 4 GB ($650) and 8 GB ($1,400) in size, and the camera holds two at once. DVCPRO HD consumes 1 GB/minute, so a fully loaded HVX can record 16 minutes without swapping cards. DVCPRO50 and 720/30PN double the recording time to 32 minutes. It takes 40 minutes to fill the cards with 720/24PN, and DV25 can record for over an hour—the space crunch isn't as bad as you might think.
P2 cards can be read in any laptop's Cardbus slot or the camera can be made to emulate a FireWire disk (Mac) or USB disk (PC) for retrieval of clip files. Avid, Final Cut Pro, and Canopus Edius handle the HVX's MXF-format files seamlessly, and other NLEs will certainly follow.
FireWire streaming is available, and even my 12-inch PowerBook captures DVCPRO HD to its internal hard drive without dropping frames. Focus Enhancements should be delivering a 90-minute DVCPRO HD-capable FireStore hard disk recorder by the time you read this, and Specialized Communications is working on a hard disk recorder that interfaces through a P2 slot (www.spec-comm.com).
Conclusion
"One camera to shoot them all, and in the P2 bind them?" No other camcorder lets you record in SD at either 25 or 50 Mbps and switch to I-frame, 4:2:2 720p or 1080i-line HD at the push of a button. Nothing else under $10,000 shoots 11 different frame rates or has a true single-frame mode or offers pre-record and loop modes (download the manual from panasonic.com for all of the details). Nothing else in its price range shoots on P2—and for all of the grumbling, it's very hard to go back to a tape-based workflow after you've worked with P2.
On the other hand, its HD pictures could be sharper, and as an image-quality freak I fret about aliasing—but see Panasonic's explanation at www.dvxuser.com as to why they went with the pixel counts they did, and remember that we've suffered aliasing on the Canon XL1 and Sony PD150, PD170, FX1, and Z1, and nobody besides me seems to mind much.
Baby VariCam or Big Brother DVX? Does it matter? Just pick a frame rate and a format, and go shoot it. That's freedom, isn't it?