If you’ve into HD video production and have been hanging at DVX forums, you’re probably sick of all the speculation about Panasonic new HD cam, the HVX200. Btw, I finally got the specs - check out this review of Panasonic HVX200.
Back to the forum wars… Panasonic got sick too (I guess) as there are even formal protest issued from posters about the lack of information about the new camera. So they launched a new blog site: defperception.com.
A bit of background: the camera sports a new standard, DVCPRO HD, which is NOT compatible with HDV. So you’ll need not only a camera but also a deck and most probably an add-on for your favorite editing program (Avid, right!). Unlike HDV, DVCPRO HD is frame independent (i.e. no interframe compression) and it also supports a 4:2:2 color space. HDV is 25Mbps while DVCPRO HD’s stream is 100Mbps.
The camera records its signal to tiny P2 cards which only hold about 4-10 minutes of video (4GB and 8GB versions will be available). The plan is to add support for Firewire drives but Panasonic insists P2 cards are superior. If one shoots 10-second takes and money is no object, I guess they are right.
The small capacity of the P2 cards undermines one of the advantages of utilizing a video production’s flow: almost limitless running time. If you have to change something every 10 minutes, you’re straight back to a conventional film production. Someone always ends up carrying the reels around.
There’s probably a lot more info coming along so you might want to subscribe to the feed. I did.
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