Recurring
DV.com (registration required) has posted Rory King’s Production Diary from the set of forthcoming independent HD feature, Shadow People. In the article Rory explains his decision for choosing to work with the AG-HVX200 and P2 on the shoot, as well as the protocols they implemented to facilitate a smooth workflow. Overall it seems his experience was very positive.
4 Comments
Interesting article. Good to see that someone seems to have had a reasonable successful go at it with the HVX. His low light complaints, well, come one, it is after all a budget camera.
Not a big fan of it (in theory, I haven’t worked with it), because of the solid state concept. Haven’t noticed on any of these discussions of it, does it have a tape option as well? Better yet can you record solid state and tape at the same time so you actually create a proper master for your footage? Even if the solid state is okay, I sure as heck don’t have much faith in hard drives to be 100% reliable.
The Panasonic Varicam may run you a pretty penny but I gotta say some of the subtlties it can pick up, wow.
The HVX only records DV to tape, not DVCPRO HD.
“The DV VTR section allows the AG-HVX200 to also serve as a high-end DV camera-recorder with 16:9 aspect ratio and 24p/30p (over 60i) recording.” The Invaluable Guide to the AG-HVX200 (p. 2)
Ah well that’s too bad. While I trust the recording ability of the camera, I’ll just never trust that any given hard drive might not fail. Sure you can be redundant and have a mirror set of the footage, but then do you want to put into storage 2 sets of everything you shoot? I’m all for tapeless workflow for conveinence, but really there needs to be a better system for ensuring the longevity of your masters.
cheers.
Looking at the workflow section in the “Guide” (p. 50-56), Panasonic do recommend either videotape or enterprise-class data back-up—except in one instance where they substitute optical media (Blu-ray).