I need your opinions: Panasonic AG-DVX100B or Sony HVR-A1E ??

Hi!

Here's the point: I have a project to shoot some documentary, it will
mostly be made of interviews (studio conditions, with good lightening).
But I hesitate when it comes to which camera I should take for that task.

The documentary will later be released on DVD and, who knows, maybe
there could be some TV broadcasting.

I hesitate between Panasonic AG-DVX100B and Sony HVR-A1E (I haven't
selected the HDR-FX1 because it lacks XLR mikes inputs, and the HVR Z1
is over my budget). Both have, to my point of view, pros and cons:

Panasonic AG-DVX100B
pros: 3-CCD quality, possibility to then use the camera in 24p mode in
order to shoot some "cine-look" short movie, possibility to use a
FireStone FS-100 in DV+HD shooting
cons: We're in NTSC here in Taiwan, might make things difficult to deal
with NTSC --> PAL conversion if I need to release a PAL version for
foreign market.

Sony HVR-A1E
pros: HD shooting that would make things easier for NTSC --> PAL
convertion (assuming that there would only be the need for standard
quality video)
cons: not compatible with FireStone FS100, not really suitable for later
"cine-look" shootings.

So, to your opinion, which one should I take?? I'm really found of
Panasonic, but the NTSC --> PAL convertion makes me wonder if it's the
right choice.

Thanks for your advices
Laurent

 

My personal opinion would be to go with the Panasonic. It's been
around a lot longer so there are a lot of experienced users for advice
and add-ons/tricks/tweaks to help you get the most out of it.
As far as the NTSC-PAL conversion, NLEs like (my personal favourite)
Sony's Vegas can do this for you right from the timeline. It aslso
handles Pansonic's 24p footage easily.

Mike

 

Ask yourself how much SD work you'll be doing with the camera in the future?

If I were you and buying a camera now I wouldn't consider a SD at all.
The future is native widescreen HD in whatever flavour you like. The
A1E will end life as a B camera to your other HD projects of the future.
A DVX will just end up in the bin...

Also HDV down converted to DVD looks far superior to SD -> DVD.

 

I need your opinions: Panasonic AG-DVX100B or Sony
HVR-A1E ??>,

Also, unless you're on a tight schedule and cannot wait until
December, you might want to review the features of the recently
announced Sony HVR-V1U (60 Hz) and HVR-V1E (50 Hz) DV/DVCAM/HDV
camcorders.

Aside from the usual interlaced video, the 60 Hz model also does
23.976p and the 50 Hz model also does 25p.

 

Good point!

There are also 2 canon cameras coming out Oct/Nov that also have 24/25p
capability. XH series are at a similar price point to the Sonys.

Recording progressive frames in HDV is far more efficient for the
encoder too.

 

Mike Kujbida a écrit :

I'm not Windows user, I work with a Mac Powerbook + FinalCut Pro, and
that also makes me wonder if my computer (G4 1,67Ghz, 2MB Ram, external
HD) can handle the HD footage without any problem, even if what I'm to
do is not very processor-stressing -- mainly cutting and color correction.

However my past experiences with NTSC-PAL conversion of DV footage (with
a Sony DSR-PD150 I used to own) were not that great... or maybe I'm just
too picky...

Thanks
Laurent

 

Frank a écrit :

I've just read some infos on the web about these cameras... they will be
far above my budget I'm afrais...

 

I need your opinions: Panasonic AG-DVX100B or Sony
HVR-A1E ??>,

It's tough to compare the progressive modes of the Sony HVR-V1 to the
Canon models because the Sony uses either standard 2-3 pulldown
(HVR-V1U 23.976p) or PsF (HVR-V1E 25p and HVR-V1U 29.97p) while the
Canon models use Canon's unique "Frame" mode.

What encoder? That silly lossy log-GOP MPEG-2 thingie?

Heck, connect the HD-SDI output of a Canon XL G1 to the HD-SDI input
of your favorite Blackmagic Design card, add lot's of fast hard disk
drive space, and you're in business! Great for in-studio work, but not
so useful if you're on the run in a war zone, unfortunately.

Or...

Connect the HDMI output of a Sony HVR-V1 to a Blackmagic Design
Intensity card, add lot's of fast hard disk drive space, and you're in
business! Again, great for studio work, but not so useful if you're on
the run in a war zone.

The reviews aren't in yet, obviously, but the HDMI output on these new
camcorders, including Sony's two new AVCHD models, _should_ provide a
level of visual quality that's on par with an HD-SDI link.

 

I need your opinions: Panasonic AG-DVX100B or Sony
HVR-A1E ??>,

I'm sorry to hear that. Maybe if you do a bang-up job on this first
assignment, you'll have the opportunity to use better gear on your
next assignment.

Good luck!

 

Frank a écrit :

I hope so too. In fact, my first choice was not to buy but to rent a
video cam, and my choice was the Panasonic AG HVX-200. Unfortunately I
haven't found any rental shop here in Taipei (and they usually make
things difficult for foreigners who want to rent something).

Plus, strangely, they don't seem to be very Panasonic-friendly here. You
find a lot, I mean a damn' lot stuff from Sony, you can find some Canon
cams too such as the XL2 (not the HD ones though). But Panasonic cams
are difficult to find. Unless you want to buy entry-level cams like
NV-GS series, I just know one shop that sells the AG DVX100B...

 

Well that's good news for you! The HVX 200 is NOT HD by any stretch of
the imagination. Its a pretty low grade SD camera that just happens to
record in a HD format i.e. DVCPRO HD.

One of the bullshit lines that Panasonic have thrown out into the mix is
how poor HDV is for post production as any colour correction soon shows
the limitations of the format. Well as anyone who has tried colour
correcting footage from the HVX200 will testify it is an absolute
abomination. There is so much chroma noise in the image that it simply
is a joke in post production. Even the dark areas are buzzing with noise.

Simpletons who read Panasonic "influenced" websites are the only ones
that buy that turkey.

The Sony A1E shoots rings round the HVX200 for a 1/3 of the price.

If you are renting then take a look at XDCAM HD from Sony.

 

I checked system reuqirements for FCP handling HD and it appears that you
should be OK as long as you are not going to try authoring HD DVDs.

If I am not mistaken you must commit to either PAL or NTSC SD when shooting
with the Sony unless you shoot in HD and buy an expensive deck to covert to
SD in either format after the fact.

I have had quite good results converting NTSC to PAL using Canopus
Procoder--I shoot in Japan (NTSC) for European broadcast (PAL) and the
broadcasters I work for are perfectly happy with the converted pieces, but
of course this is news...Still there is very little loss of resolution and
the motion interpolation is actually quite good.

I've used both the Panasonic and the Sony Z1 and I actually prefer the Sony.
Most of the commercial clients I work for are specifying the Z1 over the
Panasonic as well. I'm unfortunately not familiar with the little Sony so I
can't really comment directly. The advantages with the Panasonic are higher
sensitivity (about 1 stop I believe) and the 24p modes, but unless you plan
to do direct film conversion with the 3223 pulldown, the Sony fake 24-look
compares favorably (IMO) with the Panny 3232 pulldown for video, if you like
that kind of thing.

Both are excellent little cameras, but the Sony does give you that HD
possibility, which is more and more in demand.

Toby

 

XDCam has major problems. CBS bought a whole bunch and have been tearing
their hair out over the miserable quality of the software, among many other
issues. I would stay far away from XDCam for at least another year or two.
If you are renting think about the Panasonic Varicam. I've shot a bunch of
footage on it for some glossy docos and it looks excellent.

Toby

 

I think I'm getting the picture now. Toby, are you or are you not a
person with some sort of vested Internet in Panasonic? I guess if you
are a person who shoots Varicam for "glossy docos" it would suggest you
have professional provenance, however your remarks about broadcasters
being concerned with HDV drop out on another thread did raise an
eyebrow. I won't argue as to whether or not CBS have had problems with
XDCAM software because it's yet another non secitur. Other people
including BBC and major independent producers are getting on very well
with XDCAM. Like HDV and other 'new' formats, there are steep learning
and appropriate equipment acquisition curves to be completed. Clearly
CBS, like certain other over large organisations who mistakenly take the
erroneous assertions of their in-hose techies to be gospel, should not
take their own shortcomings for a generality.

 

No John, I don't have any vested interest in Panasonic. MII was a disaster;
I supported Sony all the way in those days. I was not a great fan of SX, but
it did have its nice points. When my company went DVCPro 8 years ago I
cringed, but I've been reasonably happy with the format. I reason I've shot
about 2000 hours with very few problems--and very few dropouts--although I
was seeing quite a number on some tapes we shot in Kinshasa recently (a very
inhospitable environment). I also think Digibeta is great, although the
tapes are too big...

As I said, CBS Tokyo is finding their XDCams a disaster. There are nice
tings about them for sure, but they are huge power hogs and getting data off
the disk with their inadequate software I am told is maddening. Going to
non-linear is a big pain as well, as importing the files is only marginally
faster than 1:1, so you have to use proxies. If you're interested I'll talk
to them and get a list of bitches. There are definite teething problems.
BTW, do you have a vested interest in Sony?

I think that Panasonic's decision to go flash memory with P2 was much
smarter for the long-run, although they have also dropped the ball with
their method of dumping the files to disk. But you can plugs those cards
into a reader, or hotplug the disks with dumped data and you are ready to
edit at full resolution immediately; and they are truly random read and
write, as opposed to Sony's discs which are sequential write and thus files
can't be erased. And the P2 cams are usable in rough locations where head
bounce kills the Sonys, even with their 16 second buffers. When the card
prices come down a little bit more and they get up to their projected 64 and
128 gig cards--5 slots hot-swappable--it's going to be hard to beat that.

I think that Sony Professional has dropped the ball--my NBC colleague thinks
the same. Their consumer stuff is great, though, I find the little Sony Z1 a
great camera, except for a few points--much better than the Panasonic
offerings unless you need real 3223 24p for film transfers, but XD? No,
sorry, not my cup of tea.

I did like the Varicam, we got beautiful footage from it, and it has some
useful features--including the ability to shoot 25fps for PAL conversions
and other nice motion effects--not like Sony pandering to the amateur market
with assignable buttons on the handle and intervalometers...

Sony may get their software act together, although s/w seems to be one of
their major weaknesses, and perhaps they'll pull XD out of the fire, but
with HDDs going for $1 a gig there is no advantage to storing data on
writeable plastic disks, especially since they can't be selectively erased.
So I think that XD will ultimately prove to have been a mistake, and I wager
we'll soon be seeing Sony recording to silicon or directly to HDDs.

You missed the earlier thread, apparently, with PTravel, in which we were
discussing the rate of visible dropouts on DV. Everyone agrees that life is
orders of magnitude better now than in analog days, but the discussion
centered around whether DV copying could truly be considered lossless, as is
generally claimed. A number of us argued that while near perfect, DV copying
was still going to be subject to data corruption from mechanical exigencies
(tape and/or transport problems) that even the sophisticated error
correction algorithms in use would not be able to compensate for, and so the
marketing claims of "perfect copies" had to be taken with a grain of salt.
In fact a number of manufacturers now claim "near lossless", which is more
honest.

I thought it was interesting that IBE (International Broadcast Engineer),
"The Industry Standard" they claim, writes about industry concern with
dropouts from digital tape (although as others pointed out, they refer
specifically to Mpeg2-encoded material, in which dropouts can be much more
egregious because of the interframe compression). My point is that while
extremely rare, dropouts do occur with DV, and apparently often enough that
they are a topic of concern among broadcast engineers. Sorry if you didn't
understand the context of the post.

I'm not a Luddite, I love digital. But I'm interested; why would my post
about dropouts in DV make you think I have a vested interest in Panasonic?
DVCPro is as digital as XD, except that it uses tape instead of discs. If
you want to claim that XD is superior because of random-read, then P2 must
be a step better because it is random-read and random-write.

Me, I'm waiting for the HDD cameras to go pro, although flash is probably
better for rough rides.

Toby

 

Spex a écrit :

Do you know of any website where I can find sample footage of A1E?? I
found a couple so far but too many compression artifacts to have a real
idea...

Thanks again for all your answers, and sorry my post seems to have
started a new Panasonic vs Sony war. I'm really not concerned by the
brand, only the result matters for me -- "tools" are secondary...

Laurent

 

Sorry that was my fault.

I didn't write what I did to start a Sony vs Panasonic lame(sic) war.

I think the current marketing techniques of some camera manufacturers to
use web forums and fake blogs to hoodwink some naive people is
reprehensible. Whenever I see HVX 200 the raw nerve is tweaked and I go
into automatic mode!

You'll find that Sony's much derided range of HDV cameras are performing
extremely well in the field and making money for those that have chosen
to ignore the ill-informed and partisan bullshit.

As far as clips on the web, I don't know where you could find clips that
might accurately demonstrate the camera's capability. The danger with
clips from unknown sources is determining the whether the operator was
competent in the use of the camera or whether the camera is indeed crap.

I strongly urge you to get down to a dealer and have a demo and perhaps
capture some footage of your own to see if it meets your requirements.

 

That's not a proper way of testing, shooting some stuff inside a store.
What you really should do, is rent the camera for a day, and go out and
shoot some real stuff. Shots of nature, shots of fast moving subjects,
shots with a huge contrast range and on and on. That will give you a good
idea whether a camera is worth the money. I reckon it would cost you
US$125-150/day to rent it (or even more or less, depending on your
location).

cheers

-martin-
--
"Every picture defines its own look, and that definition begins with the
director's intentions for the script ... I have Ingmar Bergman to thank
for letting me experiment with a kind of cinematography that utilizes
true light where possible. ... He was intensely interested in light and
how it can be applied to create a given atmosphere."
- Sven Nykvist, passed away 20-9-2006

Farewell Sven. You are a great inspiration. May you guide our lights
from heaven!

 

Sorry that was my fault.

I didn't write what I did to start a Sony vs Panasonic lame(sic) war.

I think the current marketing techniques of some camera manufacturers to
use web forums and fake blogs to hoodwink some naive people is
reprehensible. Whenever I see HVX 200 the raw nerve is tweaked and I go
into automatic mode!

You'll find that Sony's much derided range of HDV cameras are performing
extremely well in the field and making money for those that have chosen
to ignore the ill-informed and partisan bullshit.

As far as clips on the web, I don't know where you could find clips that
might accurately demonstrate the camera's capability. The danger with
clips from unknown sources is determining the whether the operator was
competent in the use of the camera or whether the camera is indeed crap.

I strongly urge you to get down to a dealer and have a demo and perhaps
capture some footage of your own to see if it meets your requirements.

 

Good advice