Vegas Support for the Upcoming Panasonic HD C

MLDunn wrote on 8/27/2005, 8:51 AM

I am very excited about the new HD camera coming out this winter from
Panasonic (AG-HVX200). It looks like it has the potential to be far
superior to HDV. Does anyone know if Sony plans to support editing
the DVCPro HD files that it will produce?

Here is a link to the camera:

http://catalog2.panasonic.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ModelDetail?
displayTab=O&storeId=11201&catalogId=13051&itemId=93120&catGroupId=1576
8&modelNo=AG-HVX200&surfModel=AG-HVX200

I would hate to have to leave vegas to edit its video.

Mike

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Comments

p@mast3rs wrote on 12/15/2005, 7:01 PM

"No firm commitment. No real details. But it would be enough for me to hold off switching to FCP for six months or so."

So Sony should make this statement and what happens if it turns out that it doesnt make good business sense to offer this support in the future? They would be grilled over the coals by those that would claim that is why the bought/continue to use Vegas over Avid, etc.... Any announcement at this point is premature and can only do harm to the Vegas product.

rextilleon wrote on 12/15/2005, 7:28 PM

I intend to purchase a new HVX without memory cards if it shoots top notch DV and is reliabie. Here is the concept. All of these formats will be around for a couple of years at least. I want the flexibility to RENT cards when a client wants delivery in PRO/50 or HD. The rest of the time I will run good old reliable DV tape through the camera to take care of my clients who still want DV. The camera will give me the flexibility to shot 24fps, progressive and 16:9 so it seems like a perfect replacement for my PD-150's (I own two). Seems like a great way to go at least for the next 3-4 years.

p@mast3rs wrote on 12/15/2005, 7:34 PM

I was under the impression that there was NO tape transport on the Pana cam hence the whole solid state storage.

rextilleon wrote on 12/15/2005, 7:42 PM

Nope, it records DV on tape----it wont record PRo50 or HD on tape.

BarryGreen wrote on 12/15/2005, 8:01 PM

>>only to come back six months from now and say "Well Panasonic has been a bunch of pricks and have hi-balled us on license costs so now we have decided not to support HVX." <<

Well, it doesn't seem so hard for everyone else. Avid does it. FCP5 does it. Canopus does it. In fact, seems like the only substantial-installed-base editor that doesn't currently support it is Premiere Pro, and they've been telling people at trade shows that yes, support is coming in version 2.0.

So it seems unlikely that Panasonic's that hard to work with, considering most (if not all) of the competition is already supporting it. Heck, even Pinnacle Liquid supports the MXF format and DVCPRO50, and now that they've been bought by Avid it seems trivial to expect that they will incorporate DVCPRO-HD support into Liquid.

BarryGreen wrote on 12/15/2005, 8:02 PM

>>when will it get in the hands of consumers?<<

Dealers will start receiving them in about two weeks.

>>Also what editing support exists for it currently?<<

Avid Express Pro HD, Apple Final Cut Pro 5, and Canopus Edius Broadcast all have 100% integrated support for it. And it's not just the HVX, this support extends to the SPX800, the VariCam, and the SPC700. Any of those editors has full across-the-board support.

busterkeaton wrote on 12/15/2005, 8:28 PM

thanks.

TimTyler wrote on 12/16/2005, 9:52 AM

> Avid Express Pro HD, Apple Final Cut Pro 5, and Canopus Edius
> Broadcast all have 100% integrated support for it.

Exactly. It doesn't make sense to me that Sony wouldn't at least express some interest in supporting P2. At NAB 2005 (where Sony had a tiny 3x5' Vegas booth with a single demonstrator on the main floor) Panasonic was touting the P2 format as its future. They had several P2 camera prototypes ranging from the HVX up to Varicam-like solutions, and it didn't feel like vaporware.

Sol M. wrote on 12/17/2005, 6:14 AM

Coursedesign said:
So you are assuming that the different divisions of Sony actually talk to each other?

Just a little niggle, but one of the "big" feature additions to the latest update of Vegas (6c) was the ability to render video especially for Sony's PSP.

Oh, yeah, and Vegas currently only supports XDCam's flavor of MXF.

I'd have to say that there just may be a bit of influence from Sony's other divisions. Some may say that Sony is so large that each division is completely autonomous, but there's a definite history of one of Sony's divisions hurting because of another.

Example: why was Sony Electronics one of the last manufacturers to come to market with a digital audio player that actually played mp3s? Because of pressure from their music division. Even before the ipod revolution, when Sony released a portable CD player capable of playing MP3 files (quite a bit later than the other manufacturers, I might add), the Electronics division head said that the Music division was "not at all happy" with the Electronics division for releasing such a product, and that they really had to fight to get it out the door (sorry, this was several years ago, so I don't have the actual quote). While the Electronics division eventually got its way, it is clearly evident that the different divisions do talk to each other, especially in the sense of the "bigger" divisions putting pressure on the "smaller" divisions. Where do you think Sony Media Software falls?

If I do remember correctly, Vegas was the first NLE to support Panasonic's DVX100 camera. Did they think it was going to be big? Could they have been wasting "tens of thousands" in developing support for this camera? Sure. At the same time, Adobe was saying that Premier wasn't going to support it because they thought it was just a passing fad (since it had non-standard features...sound familiar?). But when the DVX100 hit it big, and Vegas was the only game in town that supported the camera, guess who benefitted from taking a gamble on an unproven camera? (Hint: it was Vegas)

JJKizak wrote on 12/17/2005, 6:48 AM

The Z1 is just about everything I wanted in a camera---Tight auto focus (sometimes is fooled) , available light indoor shooting (totally blows film away) correct colors indoors, correct colors outdoors (remember having to change films for that), smooth zoom control (best I have used), stereo sound recorded in the same camera (remember lugging around those nagra's) , small batteries you can really carry not feeling like a terrorist, optical stabilization (not perfect but better than lugging around a tripod with big batteries and film cannisters and sound gear, auto warning neutral density filters, and less video noise than Kodachrome 11-16mm film, auto apeture and shutter speed, and it doesn't cost $100.00 for 2.4 minutes of film. There are no registration problems, no film emulsion problems, no cold weather problems, and no 1/2 hour screwing around setting up the camera to shoot something that happened 15 minutes ago. I rejoice the fact that I have a Z1.

JJK

Coursedesign wrote on 12/17/2005, 2:15 PM

Jive, you have some valid points there.

It seems that their music division has been a beast of burden for them, costing them their future in portable players, and more recently casting shame over the Sony name with their DRM/malware shenanigans.

Will be interesting to see how much Sir Howard can do with this mess. Can he rule over this empire with an iron fist?

TimTyler wrote on 12/29/2005, 12:24 PM

Here are some new clips from the HVX to play with.

jwcarney wrote on 12/29/2005, 1:15 PM

If Cineform (ConnectHD) comes out with a solution quickly, will that quell everyones anxiety? Not saying they will, but that would be a better solution than dvproHD anyway wouldn't it?

Just wondering

farss wrote on 12/29/2005, 1:41 PM

Well Cineform as of I think yesterday provide a mechanism to capture the 24p from the XL H1 and all reports indicate it looks pretty stunning.
As to the HVX200 the problem is more complex. Yes it's DVCPro HD that's recorded to the P2 cards but it's inside a MXF wrapper that uses the SMPTE Op Atom definition. This is because the one set of clips can be at different frame rates and even use different codecs. The wrapper contains the essence markers that tell anything trying to decode the video what to use.
I guess CF could write a whole MXF decoder app but that sounds like a LOT of work for them to do and there are I believe apps around that'll do that, strip out the native clips. Once you've done that then all you need are the matching codecs and you're away.
HOWEVER that's far from an easy way to work and bypasses all the advantages of using the MXF wrapper in the first place, they also gives you nice things like mpeg4 proxies. Now I'm far from that excited over the HVX 200, the Canon looks like a superior camera for around the same cost of ownership and we're looking at a 1/2" HD camera somewhat longingly HOWEVER it too uses the same recording system (not P2 cards though) as it's an industry standard.

So when and IF this gets addressed in Vegas it opens up Vegas to an industry standard that we're going to see more and more of. Sony with their XDCAM were the first to make use of MXF wrappers in a camera that I know of. SInce then the spec has been expanded and ratified, what Vegas needs to do is play catchups, only supporting the limited Sony implementation has a bad smell to it. I'm certain this isn't deliberate but other less generous folks will put that spin on it.
Bob.