The Indie Film Blog

Bryan Tanori (the main guy over at The Tanori Group) is a good friend of mine and also the proud new owner of a Panasonic AG-HVX200 P2 based HD camcorder. I consulted with him during the purchase to help plan his camera package and he returned the favor by bringing his new camera up to my neighborhood this past Saturday so we could take it out in the field and get some hands-on experience shooting with it.
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I had to make a very difficult choice recently. Unexpectedly, I received approvals to purchase a new High Definition video camera and had to hastily put together a purchase order for a new camera package. We’re talking about a budget in the low 5 figures, so I had the money to buy whatever I wanted and I was the person deciding what was needed. But, the choice was hard to make.

My HD Camera Dilemma

For the past year I’ve been doing a lot of research about the emerging HDV and low end HD video camera market. I’ve read and re-read all of the whitepapers and sales copy. I’ve attended the DV Expo, the post NAB gathering at Able Cinetech, and various seminars by Sony and Adobe to get more info and put my hands on the technology. I’ve asked questions, read magazines, studied workflows and more to prepare myself to advocate for upgrades at my corporate job. And I fell in lust with the Panasonic AG-HVX200.

When I saw my first demo of the AG-HVX200 (read DigitalContentProducer.com’s review) at DV Expo East this year, I fell in love with the idea of recording directly to digital files on the P2 cards (no more digitizing), having no moving parts on the camera, and being able to record full DVCPro HD footage, at multiple frame rates, on a sub-$10,000 camera. The achilles heel of this camera is that it only records HD to the P2 card and, at full resolution DVCPro HD, it only records about 10 minutes of video on the currently available P2 cards before you have to dump to a hard drive and clear the card (bigger cards will be available in the future.) There is a MiniDV tape mechanism in the camera, but it only records SD video – there is no HDV-to-tape option.

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Panasonic AG HVX205A AG HVX200 Camcorder PRO KIT NEW    US $3,379.99

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My production training was done with film cameras, so I’m used to the idea of breaking up the work into 10 minute chunks – that’s a pretty typical record time for a reel of film. I was fully prepared to adjust my working style to accomodate this limitation. I was expecting to wear a portable hard drive on a belt and dump the footage to disc as I went. But, when I did the math, I realized I wasn’t going to be able to store enough footage on the available portable drives to manage a typical project.

I often spend 2 or 3 days in the field recording interviews and generating anywhere from 6 to 10 hours of footage. Usually I’m working out of the back of a rented mini-van with limited assistance. I would need to have portable back-up drives, a laptop, and power supplies in tow to keep up with the data, plus a robust back-up solution back at the office for archiving. It was just a bad fit.

My HDV Camcorder Solution

The Sony HVR-Z1U turned out to be the best solution for my needs (read DigitalContentProducer.com’s Review.) Since most of my work is interviews, the limitations of HDV compression should not be a problem. The tape stock is cheap, easy to find, and a built-in archiving solution. When they become available, I’ll get a Focus Enhancements Firestore FS-4 HD Pro hard disk recorder for direct to disk recording. I’ll just have to get used to using a tripod for everything and stay away from handheld work – the quick set-up capabilities of the Sachtler tripod I ordered should make this transition less disruptive to my typical run-and-gun shooting style.

I ordered the camera with a full accessory kit (mattebox w/rails, filter set, tripod, HDV VTR, tripod, field monitor, shotgun mike, LCD camera light, travel case, and lots of extra batteries.) Look for an article soon about my experiences setting-up this new kit and shooting test footage. I took lots of photos.

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The Bottom Line

There is a ton of cool gear out there. You can spend all day staring at the features of the various solutions. But, ultimately, it is the needs of your productions that must drive your decisions. I’m sure I’ll use the AG-HVX200 at some point, but it was the wrong solution for this need.

Does anyone out there need a DP for a project that will be on the AG-HVX200? Call me! I’m ready to go.
The Go-To Guy!

I’m preparing myself for the next wave of video production. I decided that it’s not worth my while to invest in any new hardware/software that is not capable of handling HD. While there is still going to be a while before most people can view an HD image on their home TV, I want to make sure I don’t have to buy all new gear when I want to make an indie film with the potential for a film-out or HD projection in a theater.

The first step is to see what’s out there. I’m lucky to live in Manhattan. There are always product demos and seminars coming through town. This week I attended an HDV seminar put on by VASST and Sony, and a Matrox/Adobe demo of the AXIO HD solution.

The folks at VASST were very helpful in explaining the nuts and bolts of dealing with HDV footage. They demonstrated everything with Sony Vegas, which seemed to be a very robust solution for editing. I’ve played around with Vegas, but don’t have much incentive for learning another edit suite. Douglas Spotted Eagle did the presentation and really knows HDV and Vegas. His book on HDV is an excellent resource.

VASST has also created a number of very useful plugins for Vegas. Their Gearshift software is essential if you want to downconvert your HDV to SD for editing.

Mannie and Spot were very helpful and knowledgable. They spent a great deal of time answering questions on breaks and after the session. Thanks.

Earlier this spring I attended an Adobe HDV seminar. They demonstrated the Adobe Video Collection software. In addition to explaining the workflows of HDV in the Adobe software, they gave a number of very helpful tips and techniques for navigating this amazing collection of software. They didn’t need to sell me – I recently upgraded to the Pro Suite. They just made me even more glad that I bought the software.

The demo that I attended today was focused on the Matrox AXIO HD solution that uses the Adobe Video Collection as the software to drive the Matrox hardware. This system is rock solid. They showed some tricky footage and the images were pristine – no color banding or video noise. The performance was also excellent – no latency in the timelines or when tweaking effects settings. Watching 2 streams of uncompressed HD running with effects and 2 layers of graphics was impressive.

The AXIO HD solution is intended to be a turnkey solution, so Matrox doesn’t sell the hardware seperately. You’ve got to work with an integrater to build the system and they only use HP PC’s. This is not a do-it-yourselfer’s system. And, it’s not cheap (it’s also not the most expensive solution by a longshot either.)

The AXIO system can be purchased in an SD version which can later be upgraded to HD. The only change is the Breakout Box (BOB.) One downside is that you have to chose between the HD or SD BOB – you can’t have both at the same time. Another thing that I asked them to put on the wish list was to include HD down conversion with the SD version so that users could take advantage of HDV before they were ready to trade up and buy new decks and monitors. Since the processing cards are the same for both versions, it should be possible to take advantage of the HD processing power without having to buy the more expensive BOB and it’s SDI connectors. Avid is doing this with it’s Express HD + Mojo solution (I just don’t like the rest of the software in their production suite. They just don’t compare to having Photoshop, Encore, After Effects and Audition. I need a very compelling reason to give up the tight integration of those applications with the Premiere Pro NLE.)

The Matrox and Adobe reps were also very helpful and knowledgable. They took the time to listen to my needs and were honest about the capabilities of their system.

I still haven’t made up my mind about what the best solution for an HD suite is. I’d like to try out one of the Black Magic Designs HD cards in conjunction with the Adobe Video Collection. Their top card handles 4:4:4 uncompressed HD i/o with the ability to downconvert to SD for display (and monitor the HD and SD feeds at the same time.) If the performance of this solution is anywhere near the AXIO HD – my next system will be a 64bit Dual Core PC with the Black Magic card and the Adobe Video Collection. I’ll take the money I saved and buy an HD monitor and a few Terabytes of storage.