More on the Panasonic AG-HMC150
We did a live review of the new Panasonic AG-HMC150 on Tuesday, and today we have the answers to some of the questions you asked that we didn’t know the answers to:
Is the audio PCM or Compressed: Compressed AC3 (Dolby Digital (Dolby AC3) 2 CH)
Are the batteries the same as the DVX-100? No. The batteries for the AVCCAM line of products are a new type called Info Lithium. The big advantage is that they read out remaining battery life in minutes. (to the minute by the minute.)
Is the bayonet mount the same as the DVX-100: No it is different. Though the filter size is the same. (72mm).
What is the battery life on the HMC150?
2,640 mAh: Approx. 100 mins (1 hour & 40 min)
5,600 mAh: Approx. 230mins (3 hours & 50 min. [almost 4 hours])
What does PH mode stand for? Professional HD
August 21st, 2008 at 8:27 am
This answers absolutely NONE of my questions on the HMC150.
How about Image quality? How does it handle in Post? Ease of use? Is AVCHD really better than HDV? are the 21 MB/s on the AVCHD really superior to the 25 MB/s on HDV? Does the real 1920×1080 make the difference over the 1440×1080? There is so much more than batteries and audio compression. Form my point of view batteries are batteries and will never make a difference in my purchase decision. Yes, its nice to have INFO Lithium, but who cares. Yes I would prefer to have uncompressed audio, and compress it later myself at post. But when I buy a camera I buy it for the image no the audio or the batteries.
I’m thinking of selling my Z1’s and buying 2 HMC150, but with this review (which is the worst review I’ve ever read) I’m at the same spot I was before reading it.
August 21st, 2008 at 8:32 am
In reply to anonymous:
these were the questions that we didn’t know the answers to in our live review of the HMC150. We talked for fifty minutes about the features of the HMC-150, and addressed the questions you have above.
Please view our complete review here: videomaker.com/live
September 20th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
New here in these forums and playing catchup-I just watched the show for the AG-HMC150.
So I downloaded the sample footage then logged and transfered into FCP. And I found out a couple of interesting things. First, FCP defaults to ProRes 422 for the AVCHD transcoding, and second, the max bitrate is 17.4 MB/sec. Now in the show, it’s stated the camera goes up to 24 MB/sec., but averages 21 MB/sec. for PH mode (highest available on camera). If the camera averages 21 MB/sec., why are we stuck with ProRes 422, why can’t we use ProRes 422 HQ? We cannot change this in FCP’s log and transfer window. Was the sample footage recorded at 17.4 MB/sec? I would hope that ProRes HQ would be an option to gain those few more precious MB/sec., but it looks like without an option to choose , FCP throws out 3.6 MB/sec. of data (at least) when transcoding the AVCHD files. Does anyone know otherwise? Is there something(s) I missed?
October 13th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
Lunatico, your confusion comes from the difference between megabytes and megabits, represented MB and Mb respectively. 1 Byte = 8 bit.
The camera shoots in PH mode about 21 Mb/s (megabits per second), or 2.6 MB/s (Megabytes). The ProRes FCP is converting to (ProRes standard not HQ) run at roughly 145 Mb/s (megabits), or 17.4 MB/s (Megabytes). So, ProRes, even in non-HQ mode is significantly higher quality than any AVCHD, also it has 4:2:2 color sampling and I-frame compression, far superior, that’s the reason it was made, to transcode to and edit with.
There is nothing to be gained (relatively) by importing AVCHD to ProRes HQ (if the setting were even available) because AVCHD is way, way more compressed than ProRes. For higher end AVC cameras with AVC-Intra you can import to ProRes HQ and preserver the 10-bit 4:2:2 color space.
Good luck, just got the camera tonight and I’m charging the battery, hopefully I’ll have info to add to the discussion.