Today we got presentations from Panasonic and Sony.
Panasonic spoke a lot about the future possibilities of their systems. This was interesting. It was as if they were more enthusiastic about where they’re going than where they are. I was not overly impressed with the AD-HVX200 camera.
I had a fairly heated conversation with a saleswoman on the floor of the convention. I’m accustomed to a company asking the customer how we want to use their product rather than being told how the require us to use it. It’s important to have focus distances. It’s important to have T-stops. It’s important to have focal lengths. It’s important to have these things marked on a lens since the focus puller can’t see them. HVX200 doesn’t have any of these. The Panasonic rep kept telling me how you can figure out how to do the things we need to do. The implication is that we should adapt the them rather than the other way around.
The major advantage of this camera over the DVX 100 is that the HVX200 can use the new P2 memory card, it can shoot
1080/60i, 1080/24p, 1080/30p, 720/60p, 720/24p, 720/30p, 480/60i, 480/24p, 480/30p. In the DVCPRO HD/50/25 and DV formats. This is very flexible. This is still a 1/3” chip camera. The bit depth for DV is only 4:1:1. However DVCPRO is 4:2:2. The pictures looked pretty good. However, for a professional filmmaker these cameras are great for creating "student films." We want our students making high quality films. These cameras are terrible for training cinematographers, period.
On the other hand I saw another small camera that was a much better learning tool for the cinematographer. The GY-HD100U is a very interesting camera.
The most important thing about this camera is that it can accept a variety of lenses. The one with which it ships is a standard lens with stops, feet (meter) markings and focal lengths. The Panasonic camera has a single integrated lens wih, as I've said, non of the above. I'm going to examine this camera very closely tomorrow.
In fairness the Panasonic Varicam is a pretty remarkable camera. I'll look more closely at that tomorrow.
I saw the Sony 4K projector. It was unimpressive. The level of detail was simply breathtaking. It handled the tonal range of the material shown quite badly. This is nto DLP or LCD but Sony's proprietary technology.
The finest digital projection I saw here was of a Christie 2K projector. This was a DLP and simply beautiful and subtle in look.
I saw a 3d projection of a Panasonic projector that was impressive but inconclusive because of it's complexity of setup. This was not DLP either but Panasonic's proprietary technology. I'm going to look further into this.
The projection of the Apple Computer demos of their new software products was extraordinarily fine. The company was manufactured by a company called Digital Projection International. The model was the Lightening 35 HD. They had two of them stacked one on top of the other. They were running at only 60% brightness. It was gorgeous.