my Panasonic HPX3000 P2 HD camera white paper
by Joe Incardona on May 18, 2008 at 5:03:34 pm
Hello, I am very pleased to be one of fewer than 100 owners worldwide of the fantastic Panasonic HPX3000 P2 HD camera (according to the Panasonic rep for our region, who recently was given this statistic by the company's order entry people).
We've had this outstanding camera since early March. My staff and I have learned an awful lot in the past couple of months about P2, and about how to showcase the amazing images from this camera by creating viewable Blu-ray video DVDs of the full-raster 1920x1080 material from the HPX3000.
I have created a blog on our Web site. I have also written a white paper about our learnings over the past few months. You can download the PDF of my white paper either directly from the blog, at http://joeincardona.wordpress.com, or by accessing the blog from the home page of our Web site, http://www.memphismediasource.com.
I will be glad to answer any questions you might have about the HPX3000, the P2 workflow with the camera and the Panasonic P2 Mobile, which we also own, and about our Blu-ray authoring experiences. My e-mail address is at the end of the white paper.
Thanks!
Joe Incardona
President
Media Source
Memphis, TN
Re: my Panasonic HPX3000 P2 HD camera white paper by Joe Incardona on May 18, 2008 at 5:52:14 pm
Oh, now I see I didn't answer your question about the Red vs. the HPX3000.
We have not had the opportunity to compare them. There are a couple of DPs in Memphis who own the Red, they love them. However, they do more film-oriented work than we do, we primarily do corporate and broadcast television.
I do know one observation DPs around here have made about the Red is that it involves a lot more steps than the P2 cameras. Editing Red material in an Avid, for example, is said to be a lot more involved. We edit with Final Cut, which is said to be more Red-friendly.
In addition, the camera's inability to record audio would be very impractical for us.
However, I know the 4K images from the camera must be awesome. The HPX3000 basically shoots 2K images.
A local DP who was planning to use the Red to shoot a music video in New Mexico now says he wants to use our 3000 instead.
This is about all I can say about the Red camera, I know it has many supporters worldwide. I do love our HPX3000, though.
Re: my Panasonic HPX3000 P2 HD camera white paper by Joe Incardona on May 19, 2008 at 12:24:49 am
Sorry, Noah, I was just going on what a local DP here in Memphis told me last week who works closely with one of the two Red owners here. He cited the audio issue as the reason he didn't want to use our friend's Red, along with what he said was the difficulty in getting the footage into his Avid.
I haven't really read up on the Red camera recently.
Re: my Panasonic HPX3000 P2 HD camera white paper by Jeremy Garchow on May 19, 2008 at 12:22:23 am
Joe. Congrats on your camera. I know it takes great pictures. Thanks, also for the write up as well. Very cool of you to do.
A little detail I noticed is that you don't need to add a separate power supply for the Fusion drive and the ioHD. While the Fusion uses the fw400 port, it is not sucking any data from it, it is just pulling power. THought you might want to know that as it will alleviate an extra power source for you.
Re: my Panasonic HPX3000 P2 HD camera white paper by Joe Incardona on May 19, 2008 at 12:28:55 am
Thanks, Jeremy, that's really helpful. The guy who our local dealer hired to configure all this stuff for us told us he thought the Io HD was conflicting with the Fusion drive because the video was not playing back totally smoothly from the timeline.
I think we got that licked later, but assumed we still had to follow his advice about getting a separate power supply for the Fusion drive.
Yes, this is what it's like being on the bleeding edge of technology!
You will see me (well not really see my face, but the side of my head more accurately) capturing to a fusion and ioHD with a laptop. Sorry for the shameless plug, just wanted to prove to you it definitely works.
Re: my Panasonic HPX3000 P2 HD camera white paper by Joe Incardona on May 19, 2008 at 12:56:38 am
Hey, Jeremy, nothing wrong with a shameless plug every once in a while, that's so cool you're on the Sonnet site! I really like their products, our main HD edit suite has their 8 TB R800 RAID array in it for storage.
Thanks, you obviously have far more experience with the F2 drive than we do.
Re: my Panasonic HPX3000 P2 HD camera white paper by Doug Nichol on May 19, 2008 at 8:44:52 pm
Hey Joe,
Good to read through the white paper. I also own a HPX-3000 and like it a lot.
To archive my P2 files, I bought a Quantum LTO-3 drive which works great. It's better than Bluray or using hard drives as each tape holds 400G of material (or 800G compressed) and has a 30 year lifespan.
Re: my Panasonic HPX3000 P2 HD camera white paper by Joe Incardona on May 19, 2008 at 9:52:28 pm
Doug, thanks so much for taking the time to read my white paper and respond to it.
We also have bought the Quantum tape drive, but the dealer here in Memphis who sold it to us has yet to help us install it in our FCP HD edit bay.
I'm anxious to hear how it's working for you. There's no question, I think, it's the best option right now for permanent archival of P2 material, although it is rather pricey.
Let me know how well the Quantum is working for you, and if there are any tips you might share on how to use it best.
Re: my Panasonic HPX3000 P2 HD camera white paper by Doug Nichol on May 19, 2008 at 11:00:08 pm
Hey Joe,
The Quantum LTO-3 is easy to use (now that I figured it out...) Just make sure you buy or download a copy of Retrospect. I couldn't figure out how to make the deck work and only after downloading a copy of Retrospect (and installing it) did it show up on my computer. I had to buy a SCSI card from ATTO as that is the only way to hook it up to the MacPro. Anyway - once you have Retrospect it's really easy - just select the all the folders containing your footage or project and click "back-up".
Best,
Doug
Re: my Panasonic HPX3000 P2 HD camera white paper by Joe Incardona on May 20, 2008 at 1:47:00 am
I can't thank you enough for this, Doug, I don't think the dealer here in Memphis who sold us the Quantum drive would have known all this. Seems as if you should get some kind of tech support fee from them for the tip you just passed along!
Thanks again, I really appreciate that, it has been frustrating trying to get all this bleeding edge stuff configured without much support from the people who sold it to us!
Re: my Panasonic HPX3000 P2 HD camera white paper by Doug Nichol on May 20, 2008 at 3:48:14 pm
Hi Jan,
I'm using the Quantum LTO-3 Ultrium. It's a lot less money than the 600 and does basically the same job. Only problem is that this drive only has a SCSI connection, thus I had to get the SCSI card from ATTO. Still the whole thing worked out nearly 50% less than buying the 600.
Best,
Doug
Re: my Panasonic HPX3000 P2 HD camera white paper by Joe Incardona on May 19, 2008 at 9:54:54 pm
Doug, I forgot to ask: where are you located geographically?
Trying to get a handle on how many other production houses have the camera, in case there is need to collaborate with someone on a multi-camera HPX3000 situation.
The Panasonic rep for the mid-US region told me as of two weeks ago only 94 had been sold worldwide, he got that from Panasonic's order entry people.
Re: my Panasonic HPX3000 P2 HD camera white paper by Helmut Kobler on May 20, 2008 at 6:59:02 am
Thanks a lot for putting this together, Joe! I've been very very interested in the HPX3000 because I like P2 (especially once the 64GB cards start shipping), and I LOVE the idea of a 2/3", 2.2MP imager on a shoulder-mount body, recording 10bit 4:2:2 video. .
Except for not being able to do slow motion, this camera seems to have everything, and for a pretty reasonable price. I'm not so enamored of the RED--for broadcast, a 4K imager isn't that useful, and the RED is heavier and much harder to operate as a one or two-man crew.
ANYWAY....I'm surprised to hear that Panasonic has sold only 100 or so of these cameras. Does that strike people as an unusually low number? Perhaps the sales rep is mistaken, or maybe the HPX3000 is having a hard time finding its niche. For dramatic and commercial production, people are very aware of the RED, and new Sony cameras. And for reality tv/news/documentaries, the 3000 is definitely on the pricey side of cameras these days.
Re: my Panasonic HPX3000 P2 HD camera white paper by Doug Nichol on May 20, 2008 at 4:03:06 pm
Hi Joe -
San Francisco area. I'm just using the camera for my own projects (not renting it out) - but if there is ever a need for an extra camera on something out here, let me know.
Doug
Re: my Panasonic HPX3000 P2 HD camera white paper by Joe Incardona on May 20, 2008 at 11:44:43 pm
That's great, Doug, I'm with you on the question of renting the camera. We are a full-service production house, and really got the camera for our own projects as well.
I do, however, want to provide others who want to DP with the camera, or anyone needing a second or third HPX3000 camera unit, the opportunity to be able to hire our camera and an A.C./media manager from our staff, along with the 5 32 GB and 1 16 GB card and our P2 Mobile.
In addition, if we encounter projects requiring multiple HPX3000s, I would like to know other production houses with which we might be able to partner. We also own the Panasonic AV-HS400N 4-input HD/SDI switcher, which can output to the P2 Mobile for switched-live to P2 shoots.
So far, here in the Southeast, I know of only one other production house, Florida Film & Video in St. Petersburg, which owns the HPX3000.
Anyway, thanks for your input, it's good to know there are other production houses out there that own this outstanding camera!
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