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Sunday, December 13, 2009
Review: Panasonic AG-HMC40 1/4” 3-CMOS HD Camcorder
Adam Wilt | 12/13
Midway between palmcorder and handycam, the highly affordable HMC40 delivers true, full-res HD.
Two kilobucks, two pounds, and two megapixels: the Panasonic AG-HMC40 sits squarely in the gap between palm-sized consumer camcorders and pro-level handheld cameras with pro-level price tags. While it lacks some of the amenities of its larger cousins, it provides no-excuses, full-resolution HD imaging, 24 Megabit/sec AVCHD recording, and native 24fps frame rates for a street price around US$2000.
Overview
If you’ve been following Panasonic’s camcorders for a while, you may remember the DV-format DVX100 and its smaller brother, the DVC30. The 1/3” DVX100 was the first DV camcorder to offer 24fps; the DVC30 sprang from the same design mindset but used 1/4” CCDs and cost considerably less, while sporting a unique, removable T-handle.
In the same manner, the HMC40 can be thought of as the AG-HMC150’s younger brother: it’s half the cost and half the weight, and uses 1/4” CMOS sensors in place of the 150’s 1/3” CCDs. Like the DVC30, the HMC40 has a detachable T-handle, and it controls exposure the same way.
2004’s AG-DVC30 and 2009’s AG-HMC40 (not to scale).
Yet it offers AVCHD recording at up to 24 Mbit/sec (maximum, including audio; average video data rate is 21 Mbit/sec), interlaced and progressive imaging, and 24fps recorded as native 24p, without 3-2 pulldown. Both 720-line and 1080-line formats are supported, and the diminutive HMC40 steals a march on its bigger brother: the smaller camera uses 3.05 Mpixel sensors, with 2.51 million effective photosites in video mode: that’s more than the 2.07 million photosites needed to fully sample a 1920x1080 image. The HMC40 shoots a full-resolution, no-excuses-necessary HD image, and records it using the highest bitrate allowed in the AVCHD specification.
The HMC40 doesn’t have quite the button-per-function controllability of larger, more expensive cameras; its menu system is unnecessarily fiddly; like other small-sensor, high-resolution cameras it’s a bit challenged in low light. But it’s two megapixels of three-chip imaging in a two-pound, two thousand dollar package—you’ll pay twice to three times that amount before you’ll find anything that gives you a measurably better picture.
Design, Controls, and Handling
The AG-HMC40 is a compact, handle-less handheld camera; it fits in a box a foot long and five and half inches square, and weighs just over two pounds in shooting trim (in SI units, that’s 304mm x 136mm x 135mm, and 980g).
Left side, carrying handle not attached.
The body is finished in textured black paint, with smoother surfaces on the LCD housing and the handgrip. “Panasonic” and “HD” logos are chromed and “AVCCAM” (Panasonic’s moniker for professional AVCHD) is light blue, but aside from that the camera is marked and labeled in a businesslike white.
The HMC40 comes with a detachable T-handle that slots into an accessory shoe and has two captive screws to secure it in place. The T-handle is surprisingly seductive; it invites you to just pick up the camera and move it around even when there’s nothing to shoot. That the camera is a featherweight two pounds does nothing to dissuade you from this sort of aimless play.
Left side, with carrying handle attached.
The handle has an accessory shoe on its front end, as well as attachment points for an optional XLR microphone adapter.
Optional XLR adapter (from page 82 of the HMC40 Ops Manual, © 2009 Panasonic).
A large lens shade bayonets into the front of the lens; it’s capped with a pop-off lens cap.
Front view: the HMC40 disappears behind its lens shade.
The lens shade removes with a simple twist; behind it there’s an anti-reflection baffle secured with a screwed-in locking collar. Both the lens shade and baffle come off to allow the fitting of an accessory wide-angle adapter, and they reveal a front element rather smaller than the diameter of the lens barrel might lead you to expect.
HMC40 with lens shade, anti-reflection baffle removed.
Removing the shade and baffle make it much easier to clean the lens, too.
User controls in front of the LCD.
The lens itself is surrounded by Panasonic’s trademark focus ring: a deeply ridged servo ring that’s easy to find by feel and turns easily, yet is smoothly damped. The ring spins freely, with no end-stops. It can also be set to control the camera’s iris or zoom.
Three buttons and a switch are arrayed aft of the focus ring, surrounded by slight ridges and distinguished by different textures. FOCUS ASSIST can be set to magnify the image or show a “focus bar” (discussed below). FOCUS switches the camera between auto and manual focus, and when held down it focuses the lens to infinity.
A two-position slide switch sets the focusing ring to control focus, or to control zoom or iris (the choice of which is made in the menus).
The WHITE BAL button cycles between 3200K and 5600K presets (so much faster than having to use the menus to select the color balance of a single preset, as many other camcorders require); continuous automatic white balance; holding the current AWB setting; and the A or B memories, the choice of which is made in a menu (more on this later). Holding the button down executes both white and black balance setting (or just AWB if the camera is recording, since ABB requires blanking the image).
Behind the buttons is a nicely knurled control wheel labeled IRIS. Pressing it inwards toggles between auto and manual exposure settings. When in auto, turning the wheel acts as an autoexposure compensation setting, biasing the image towards lighter or darker exposures. Opening the iris past its widest setting engages gain; the HMC40 doesn’t give you separate iris and gain controls—furthermore, IRIS isn’t always controlling the physical aperture; as we’ll see, it also engages a graded ND filter! Really, this control should be labeled EXPOSURE, since it uses three separate mechanisms to adjust image brightness.
Two assignable USER buttons sit below the extended bulge of the lens barrel, ahead of the SD card slot and its OPEN slide switch.
SD cards slide in behind a flip-down door.
The card slot is protected by a flip-down door, which folds down into a little well below it. The well, and the gap around the door, seem designed to attract dust and grit; I would have preferred a flush-mount door that popped outwards. Once the door is opened, you can slide in an SD or SDHC card for recording video and stills onto. A bright yellow LED shows when the card is being accessed.
Controls and speaker behind the LCD.
Behind the card slot there’s another USER button, and a slide switch that select full-auto-everything mode or the MANUAL camera control mode.
Hidden behind the flip-out LCD are pushbuttons for color bars, a zebra display, and counter selection and reset buttons. There’s also a small speaker for playback audio monitoring. Aft of the LCD, and usable even with the LCD closed, are buttons to engage OIS (optical image stabilization) and to toggle the onscreen data displays or check current setting status.
The 2.7” LCD itself appears to be borrowed from Panasonic’s line of HD palmcorders, like the HDC-TM300 (warning: PDF). It’s spring-loaded against the side of the camera but is easily flipped out, where it can be rotated through 270 degrees from facing forward to facing straight down.
The LCD has raised membrane switches on its lower bezel.
It has a row of raised membrane switches to call up the “quick menu” as well as the main menu; to start and stop recording; to zoom the lens at a fixed speed (or change the playback audio volume), and to delete a clip. These switches take a moderate amount of pressure, easily accommodated by pinching the LCD between thumb and forefinger. When the LCD is folded flat against the camera, though, it’s a different story.
With the LCD folded flush, the membrane switches are upside-down.
Not only are the buttons now upside down, the housing behind them is tapered slightly, so it isn’t flat against the side of the camera, and pushing the membrane switches firmly enough to activate them flexes the housing, making the LCD rock in place. It’s a bit unnerving, and not the least bit confidence-inspiring. It works, but it doesn’t feel good.
The screen itself is a touchscreen, used to interact with the menu systems and to set “touch focus” points. It looks perfectly horrible with the camera turned off—all covered with nasty, greasy fingerprints—but when the camera is powered up all that surface goop magically disappears and all you see is the image.
The LCD holds color quite accurately across a wide viewing angle, though finer tonal gradations suffer at oblique angles, with highlights merging and deep blacks washing out. This washout is minimal; compared to older Panasonic LCDs like the ones on my HVX200 and DVX100, it’s far superior. The LCD resolves only about 300 TVl/ph horizontally and 200 lines vertically, though it has a very fine, nearly invisible pixel pitch. The LCD shows 100% of the image with no nasty overscan or cropping.
Data displays are up to Panasonic’s usual, comprehensive standards. Just about everything you would ever care to see can be enabled, so that you’re always on top of what the camera is doing.
Data displays on…
Focus is displayed as a number from 00 to 99, with an AF or MF indicator to auto or manual focus; zoom is also shown as a number from 00 to 99. Date and/or time can be supered in addition to timecode. The battery indicator is the usual Panasonic segmented fullness display, but it also shows an estimate of the time remaining on the battery. There is no histogram in video mode, but there is a zebra display as well as a percentage readout for the brightness of a central square (and a WFM, too; discussed later).
Of course, most of this gumpf can be removed with the push of a single button, leaving only transport status, timecode, and (if you’ve enabled them) safe-action markers and exposure readouts.
...and data displays (mostly) off.
Moving ‘round to the back of the camera, there’s a rather small EVF with a rather large eyecup. The EVF can be flipped up to low-mode work, and it slides back in its track to make room for the T-handle (or any other accessory) to be slotted into the accessory shoe.
The back end of the T-handle has a round rubber bumper to protect the flipped-up EVF.
The EVF resolves no more than 200 TVl/ph horizontally and vertically, and its dot pattern is so prominent it really doesn’t serve as anything more than a “view finder” to ensure you’re pointed in the general direction of your subject: it’s not usable for focus, and it’s marginal for composition. It’s also hindered by its optics; whether I wore glasses or not, it was difficult to get my eye positioned such that the entire EVF panel was visible without cropping or vignetting.
The view through the HMC40’s EVF.
Nonetheless it allows for eye-level, head-braced viewing, something that EVF-less, fist-sized tinycams can’t offer. And if you’re using the HMC40’s waveform monitor on the LCD, the EVF lets you see your full image unobscured, so you can watch your shot while still keeping a weather eye on exposure and levels. As EVFs go, it may be unimpressive, but it definitely beats not having an EVF.
The battery slides into the camera below the EVF. The stock battery is a shortie, but the battery compartment will hold a high-capacity, full-height battery.
Rear view with stock battery, I/O ports covered.
Three separate flip-out covers on short tethers cover I/O ports. The top cover conceals a four-conductor miniplug for composite video and stereo audio and a D-shell analog component video output. The center cover hides the headphone jack. The lower cover protects two remote-control jacks: like the DVX, HVX, HPX170, and HMC150 cameras, the HMC40 offers comprehensive, repeatable remote control of aperture, zoom, focus, and start/stop. Using add-on controllers from Varizoom and Bebob you have as much remote control over the HMC40 as any Handycam-style camera allows.
I/O ports exposed, along with power switch and quick-start button.
The back of the handgrip has the usual start/stop trigger, surrounded by a rotary mode switch with a push-lock. Moving it to the momentary MODE position toggles the camera between shooting video, playback, and shooting stills.
The handgrip itself is nicely contoured, and ridged both for traction and to allow sweat to evaporate. Despite its aggressive look I found it very comfortable to use for long periods of time. The two holes above it appear to be ventilation slots.
AG-HMC40 right side view.
More I/O ports reside ahead of the handgrip: a full-sized HDMI output, a mini-USB connector, and a 1/8” stereo mike input. Below those, with its own round cap, lies the multipin connector for the optional XLR audio adapter.
Carry-handle shoe and mikes on top; zoom rocker; front I/O ports.
A typical zoom rocker rests atop the handgrip; despite its small size it offers an impressive degree of zoom control. A small button behind the rocker lets you play back a bit of the previous recording, or triggers a photo in photo mode.
A standard accessory shoe sits on top of the camera; sliding the EVF an inch back on its track lets you slide in the removable T-handle, or another add-on like a mike holder or an LED light.
The camera has a built-in stereo mike beneath a grille set between the “sail” holding the EVF and accessory shoe, and the back of the focus ring. There’s a dark window in the front of the sail behind which a tally lamp and an IR sensor reside. There is no rear-mounted IR sensor, so the included remote only works in front of the camera.
The IR remote comes in handy for playback.
This is not much of a disadvantage as the remote is most useful during playback (though it has the usual start/stop and fixed-speed zoom functions for use while shooting). The comprehensive playback controls in the middle of the remote, along with the menu navigation controls, are much easier to use then the now-you-see-‘em,-now-you-don’t touchscreen controls on the camera itself.
Next: Formats, Functions, and Features…
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Excellent review as always Adam!
It would be good to know whether the optional AG-MYA30G XLR adaptor is truly balanced (I have seen at least one case where a pro camera was sold XLR but not truly balanced) and if so, whether it is transformer-based. Finally, when using the AG-MYA30G’s own gain controls, how easy or difficult it will be to see a VU meter via EVF or LCD. Although you no longer have the camera (and never had the AG-MYA30G), you can probably confirm those details with your contacts (if you don’t know already).
Posted by Allan Tépper on 12/13 at 03:04 PM
AWESOME review Adam!
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 12/13 at 08:25 PM
This would have been a good camcorder for indies if it had a somewhat larger sensor (at least 1/3” or bigger), and if it had full manual control rather than just the “iris” one. I personally can’t consider it without these features, not even at a lower price.
Posted by Eugenia on 12/14 at 03:32 AM
Reviews like that are just…good! It’s what makes me come back to this site again and again. Thanks, Adam.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 12/14 at 06:12 AM
Adam, great great review, thanks for keeping the bar so high. I was curious if you explored the HDMI port at all? I like a lot about this camera so far but I’d love to try and use it with an HDMI capture box to avoid AVCHD all together. I just need to know if it’s putting out exactly what it says it’s recording at, i.e. 24 native, 30p, etc…
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 12/14 at 10:22 AM
“[IRIS] should be labeled EXPOSURE, since it uses three separate mechanisms to adjust image brightness.”—it does not control shutter speed, which is part of exposure. Also, consumer Panasonic camcorders that use the same linked aperture/gain control, call it IRIS as well. The Sony V1 has several settings for controlling aperture and gain, and the similar bundling of aperture and gain into one seamless control is the default option. I don’t see why one would need a separate gain control on a camera with a tiny sensor, which produces longish DOF and does not have good sensitivity. I like what Panasonic have done with this dial.
“Panny’s consumer lineup tops out at 17 Mbit/sec with no progressive modes at all: just 1080/60i.”—Not true. Older SD9/HS9 and SD100/HS100 consumer models could record native 1080p24. Current TM300/HS300/SD300 records 24p over 60i, apparently a concession made to separate these consumer models from the the HMC40, which is built using the same sensors, lens and LCD screen.
“Even though 1080/30p is recorded as a 60i stream, the images are captured and encoded as progressive”—Thank you for checking that. Considering that you tested the Canon HF11 and liked it, it would be nice if you tested the progenitor of the HMC40, the TM300. It records 24p-over-60i, does it record interlaced chroma?
Sensitivity-wise, would be nice if you compared the HMC40 to the FX7 or the V1. I guess they are quite similar. Thanks.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 12/14 at 02:44 PM
Allan: I’ve asked my Panasonic contacts about the XLR adapter’s details. I would assume that the same level meters available without the adapter remain onscreen when it’s attached.
Scott: I plugged the HDMI port into my 40” Sony LCD and it worked fine, but I didn’t hook it up to anything with a format display to see whether it output a true progressive, native frame rate stream.
Burn-E: I don’t disagree with Panasonic’s use of the IRIS wheel, but calling it IRIS alone is only 33% correct as it also controls gain and ND. I agree EXPOSURE is only 75% correct as it doesn’t control shutter as well. What would you call the control that was (a) 100% correct and (b) would fit on the side of the camera? Perhaps this is where a dynamic OLED label would be useful, eh?
I’ve edited the article, replacing “no progressive modes at all: just 1080/60i” with “no 720p capability”; thanks for the correction. Do the earlier models really record a 24p-native signal (Panasonic’s online specs are maddeningly vague)? Do you have a camera-native clip folder you could put somewhere that I could download?
Panasonic Japan will neither confirm nor deny that the same sensors are used in the HMC40 and the TM300.
It would be nice to test the TM300, but there are only so many hours in the day (a proper camera review takes about 30-40 hours to complete). As it only gets to 17 Mbit/sec, whereas the HF11 gets to 21 Mbit/sec, I would expect (but cannot state for certain) that its pix will be a bit more compression-heavy. I also expect (but cannot state for certain) that it uses interlaced encoding for its 24p-over-60i; otherwise its split frames would have improper chroma.
As to how the HMC40 compares to the HVR-V1, “I measured the production-model V1 as being about 2/3 stop slower than an HVR-Z1, just over 1 stop slower than a Canon XH A1, and 1.5 stops slower than a Panasonic HVX200” when I reviewed it for DV Mag in February ‘07. In the Texas Shootout I rated the HVX200 at EI 320, and the Z1 at 160. Taking those together would put the HVR-V1 at about EI 100, or 1/3 stop faster than the HNC40—quite similar, as you surmised.
Posted by Adam Wilt on 12/14 at 04:24 PM
Adam, I just said that Panasonic used the same notation for aperture/gain/ND as the one used for consumer models. Granted, Panasonic consumer models are not known to have built-in ND filter, the Canon models do have it (I believe you did not mention it in your HF11 review, it absorbs up to 4 stops of light), and the Sony models do have ND filter too, but not the Panasonics. The principle is still the same, so to me, coming from consumer Panasonic camcorders, usage of IRIS for aperture/ND/gain is quite natural.
“Do the earlier models really record a 24p-native signal (Panasonic’s online specs are maddeningly vague)?”—as I wrote above, NTSC consumer series “9” and “100” record (one can still find a new SD100 on the Net) 1080p24 natively, there is hard experimental evidence for this. Euro models recorded 25PsF, not sure about chroma. I cannot attest personally for the “9” series, but I owned the SD100 and I edited natively its 23.98p in Vegas. Here are some info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVCHD#1080p Follow the links to the models and then follow the footnotes.
“Do you have a camera-native clip folder you could put somewhere that I could download?”—I do not own the camera anymore, so I am not sure I can send you the whole folder full of boring personal stuff  I can send you couple of clips, but if you are using FCP you will not be able to import it. I can wrap it into AVCHD folder tree using MultiAVCHD. For now, you can look here for a screenshot from Vegas: http://www.avchduser.com/articles/panasonic_hdc_hs100_24p.jsp
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 12/14 at 05:44 PM
Re. IRIS wheel terminology: I also get annoyed when people call Y/C cables “S-VHS” cables, for what seems to me to be a perfectly reasonable argument, but I’m not gonna win that one either, grin.
Thanks for the pointers on the true 24p-native modes on the older camcorders. That Vegas infobox is pretty convincing!
Posted by Adam Wilt on 12/14 at 06:02 PM
Adam,
Thanks for the great review.
You mentioned above:
“I’m still looking for something small and light—yet with as few imaging compromises as possible—to keep around for “sketchbook” uses and for casual experimentation.”
What about the JVC GY HM100? It does cost more, I know. Do you think it produces a better picture?
thanks,
Dan
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 12/14 at 09:55 PM
“What about the JVC GY HM100?” I have not been pleased with the pix I’ve seen from the HM100; too many jaggies for my tastes. It’s nothing like the HM700, which makes very nice images. [Disclaimer: I’ve only seen the cameras at the Tech Retreat, NAB, and the local Snader Solutions Expo; I haven’t tested them properly, so take my observations with a grain of salt. The demo HM100s could have been having bad days.]
Posted by Adam Wilt on 12/15 at 01:23 AM
Great review, as usual. It really his my sweet spot for a HD camera ... except for AVCHD.
Having posted some AVCHD files in FCP, the third party converter took 12 hours to convert 1 hour of program. After that I swore to never use AVCHD.
Is my experience typical? Is there a better workflow for AVCHD->FCP? I haven’t seen anything that’s changed my mind, but I haven’t been looking either.
Posted by Rob on 12/15 at 04:16 PM
“I have not been pleased with the pix I’ve seen from the HM100; too many jaggies for my tastes.”
That’s interesting. You’d think that with the 35MB/sec XDCAM-EX codec on the JVC GYHM100, you would get a higher quality image. I guess bitrate and codec don’t tell the whole story. I do like the fact that HM100 clips are in .MOV format and ready to import directly into Final Cut. Wish more cameras did this.
thanks,
Dan
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 12/15 at 10:59 PM
Thanks for the comprehensive review, Adam. I’d like to see a comparison and contrast among the 40, 150 and HM100, including footage and low-light performance. Is there such a comparo out there?
Posted by johnnyVDO on 12/19 at 10:29 AM
“Having posted some AVCHD files in FCP, the third party converter took 12 hours to convert 1 hour of program… Is my experience typical?”
Using FCP 7 on a 2.0 GHz Mac Mini (OS X 10.5.8, Core2 Duo CPU with an internal laptop-class drive), I just converted 291 seconds of 24 Mbit/sec 24p material in 440 seconds, a 1.51:1 conversion ratio—a far cry from the 12:1 ratio you saw. AVCHD is heavy-duty stuff, to be sure, but on a reasonably up-to-date machine it shouldn’t be too bad. I would have to say that your experience is atypical; give it another shot with a current-generation AHVCHD converter, and you should see faster results.
“You’d think that with the 35MB/sec XDCAM-EX codec on the JVC GYHM100, you would get a higher quality image.”
I saw jaggies on an E-E (live) image; it’s not the recording that’s the problem. From just looking at JVC’s own trade-show display setup, I’d guess that the HM100’s sensors are rather severely undersampled, though I haven’t done a formal test, so take that as hearsay only.
“I’d like to see a comparison and contrast among the 40, 150 and HM100, including footage and low-light performance. Is there such a comparo out there?”
Not that I know of, but I haven’t looked. As far as the 150, look at my review of the AG-HPX170, which shares the 150’s sensors and processing.
Posted by Adam Wilt on 12/21 at 01:07 AM
Thanks for the reply Adam.
Still ... with tape I get a built-in backup medium and a 1:1 import ratio. One of the main advantages of going to solid state acquisition was to reduce or eliminate the capture time.
Otherwise this camera fits my needs and budget for the short term until Red’s new offerings are released.
Somebody should make an accelerator card or software that uses the GPU to speed up the transcoding.
Posted by Rob on 12/21 at 10:45 AM
Rob,
I agree with you that there should be software to do this at 1:1 or even much faster than that. In the meantime, you can have 1:1 import ratio from AVCHD if you use any capture hardware that includes HDMI input. Just put the camera in play and tell FCP to begin capturing. You can check out any of the ones listed in this article: http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/atepper/dreamcolor_direct_interfaces/
Allan Tépper
Posted by Allan Tépper on 12/21 at 10:52 AM
“Still ... with tape I get a built-in backup medium and a 1:1 import ratio.”
Tape does give you the backup copy for free. As to the import time, I can dump a solid-state card full of AVCHD to a backup disk much faster than real time, and for importing, I set up Log & Transfer, and walk away; there’s no babysitting of a tape drive (and if something goes pear-shaped on an import, I simply need to retry that one clip; there’s no rewinding and repositioning needed, and the clips following the flaky one will still have imported properly the first time).
Log & Transfer ingest into FCP can also happen as a background task, so once you set it up, you can switch back to the main app windows and start cutting while the clips come in.
Other apps import even faster; I understand that Vegas imports AVCHD natively (though you’ll pay for that when it comes time to render, of course).
Also, I did my 1.5:1 import on a 2GHz C2D machine. My guess is that thing would be rather a bit faster if I took the files into work and transcoded them on the 8-core Nehalem MacPro there.
“Somebody should make an accelerator card or software that uses the GPU to speed up the transcoding.”
Oh, it’s coming… with OpenCL, Apple is making it easy to integrate GPU resources into the compute path, and some of the GPUs on the market are being optimized for h.264 decoding. It’s only a matter of time until someone—the FCP team or a 3rd party—makes the connection.
How much time, of course, is anyone’s guess… [grin]
Posted by Adam Wilt on 12/21 at 11:29 AM
“Using FCP 7 on a 2.0 GHz Mac Mini (OS X 10.5.8, Core2 Duo CPU with an internal laptop-class drive), I just converted 291 seconds of 24 Mbit/sec 24p material in 440 seconds…”
Are you converting to ProRes on import (or some other format)? I’m wondering what is the optimal workflow for working with AVCHD material in FCP7.
Also, do you copy all contents of the card to your drive first, and then import into FCP, or do you just import directly from the card?
thanks,
Dan
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 12/21 at 01:37 PM
Well this is sounding better and better.
The AVCHD files I had to convert with a 3rd party converter were delivered on a hard disk in several segemnts. I had to concatinate them, which I did at the command line level, then run the program to convert them into some other format which I don’t remeber now.
Allan’s idea sounds the best. I do have a Black Magic Intensity card so I can import by playing back from the camera and capturing the HDMI using the Intensity card.
The other idea of converting in the background is a good one too. I just upgraded to Final Cut Studio 2 so all of this should work without a hitch.
Thanks for the ideas. I was thinking about the Canon 7d because I don’t have a good still camera and its video is pretty good too. But I don’t have any HD video camera either and I don’t want to wear out my friend’s good will borrowing his.
Posted by Rob on 12/21 at 01:46 PM
“Are you converting to ProRes on import (or some other format)?”
ProRes422 or Prores422HQ
“Also, do you copy all contents of the card to your drive first, and then import into FCP, or do you just import directly from the card?”
I copy to the local drive, then import. That way I already have one additional copy of the original AVCHD files (which are a lot smaller and faster to back up than proRes files), and if there are any glitches on import, I still have the original files and file structure I can run various repair tools on, though so far I haven’t had the need to do so.
Posted by Adam Wilt on 12/21 at 02:49 PM
Adam,
Thanks for all your great information and the education you’ve provided in your responses. I’m very impressed with your description of this camera. When HDV first came out, I remember that there was a great deal of criticism of its long GOP compression scheme, leading to possibly degraded image integrity, and inability to endure effects and compositing with good resulting quality. Since AVCHD is still a long GOP format, do the same issues exist? Or is 24MBps and 3 good chips adequate enough to overcome the limitations of long GOP compression?
Thanks again for your excellent review.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 12/22 at 01:46 PM
“is 24MBps and 3 good chips adequate enough to overcome the limitations of long GOP compression?”
It’s better than HDV, but it’s not perfect. With HDV my rule was “never do a still frame or a slo-mo” because they really showed off the compression artifacts. With high-bitrate AVCHD I can often get away with slo-mo or still frames, but not always. I’d still prefer a higher-bitrate, lower-compression format for compositing or heavy grading in post.
Posted by Adam Wilt on 12/22 at 02:16 PM
Do you mean XDCAM at 35mbs? DVCPROHD? AVCIntra 100?
Posted by johnnyVDO on 12/22 at 04:59 PM
Uncompressed 10-bit 4:4:4. HDCAM-SR. Cineform 4:4:4. RED R3D. That sort of thing, or more if I can get it. (grin)
Posted by Adam Wilt on 12/22 at 05:20 PM
“Other apps import even faster; I understand that Vegas imports AVCHD natively (though you’ll pay for that when it comes time to render, of course).”—Absolutely. On my machine it takes one minute to copy 1GB from a card, and unlike FCP workflow I don’t need to convert AVCHD files to an intermediate format, I don’t even need to copy the whole directory structure, all Vegas needs are MTS files. It does take a toll when playing back, on my 4-core Athlon machine I can play HDV smoothly, while AVCHD plays fine only the first 15 seconds, then the CPU heats up, throttles down, and all I get is about 5-7 fps. My computer obviously needs a better CPU cooler.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 12/23 at 01:03 AM
Adam, I can only join in with the others about the quality of your reviews - 1st class! I was comparing the DSC Labs multiburst charts of this camera with the ones from the HPX170 (http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/awilt/story/review_panasonic_ag_hpx170p_1_3_3ccd_p2_camcorder/P1/) and in my subjective comparison it looks to me that the AG-HMC40 produces actually a better quality (or images with a higher resolution) than the HPX170 or probably as well as its AVCHD sibling the AG-HMC150. Would this in general be the case (apart from low light performance) or is this a misinterpretation from my side?
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 01/11 at 03:04 PM
olav: Thanks for the kind words!
Yes, the HMC40 captures a much higher resolution image than the 170 or 150. Those cameras use 940x540 sensors with H & V pixel shift, whereas the HMC40’s sensors are a full 1920x1080.
Panasonic insists that with pixel shift, the half-res sensors should give me an image just as good as a full-res sensor, but the evidence of my eyes is that those other cameras are quite noticeably lower-res than the 40. OTOH, those other cameras have higher sensitivity—there are always tradeoffs!
Posted by Adam Wilt on 01/11 at 11:38 PM
Great article. I will be very greatful if you can tell me. Is it possibe the AG HMC40 to shoot in PAL. or it can shoot only in NTSC the US standarts or the only option to shoot in PAL is to buy the AG HMC41E which is 1000$ in addition. I’ll need it to produce for the web and a local TV. But any raw footage should be Edditing softwere anyway. Can you give me some advice. Thank you in advance. This is the best article about this camcorder.
Posted by zamakat on 01/18 at 01:18 PM
zamakat: I tested the HMC40P, which is the NTSC version. It shoots 60i, 30p, and 24p only. Sorry!
Posted by Adam Wilt on 01/18 at 09:58 PM
thank you. I gues I shold buy the PAL version in case I need the production for the Local TV in EU. The NTSC version is much cheaper. Your site is GREAT. Thank you a lot.
Posted by zamakat on 01/20 at 12:04 PM
Adam,
Thank you for an excellent and very informative review on the HMC40.
As it happens I am currently looking at the HMC41E to go with my HVX200E.
I remember briefly talking to you about the HVX200 at the broadcast video expo in London three years ago after which I aquired the HVX200 on your recommendation.
I am looking for a small camera to go with my HVX200 to film in situations where the HVX200 might prove to be too bulky and unwieldy.
I will have a look at the HMC41E at this years BVE at the Holdan stand who are a distributor of Panasonic.
Just one question, I have noticed that panasonic provide a transcoder software that transforms AVCHD clips recorded by AVCCAM cameras into P2 DVCPRO HD format. Would you recommend this utility to marry the HVX200 DVCPRO HD footage with the HMC41E’s AVCHD footage?
I use the Adobe CS4 production suite and Premiere CS4 is capable of editing both AVCHD and DVCPro HD footage natively.
I’m not as technically endowed as you and would appreciate any advise you might have on this.
Kind regards.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 02/02 at 08:20 AM
Armand: you can certainly marry the HMC41’s footage with that of the HVX200, either natively or via the transcoder.
The transcoder will reduce the resolution of the HMC’s footage to that of DVCPROHD, which may help match the looks somewhat (the HMC41 is much sharper natively). It will also make the clips easier to edit. I would say it’s probably worth a try.
Since CS4 handles both formats natively, you might give that a try, too.
In either case you add additional filtering to the HMC’s footage as needed to match its sharpness to the HVX’s.
Posted by Adam Wilt on 02/21 at 01:09 AM
Native support of AVCHD is currently nice, but even in Vegas (which has handled native format editing for years), it’s pretty slow if you’re doing anything beyond simple cut edits. Still, it’s nice to have the option of transcoding or not (I use Cineform, but I know others who just transcode to MPEG-2/MXF, and save the $100).
Theoretically, the AVC CODEC should deliver at least twice the quality of MPEG-2 at the same bitrate. In practice, though, AVC has been a work in progress on camcorders.
My first AVC model was a Hitachi Blu-Ray model, one of the first AVCHD models available, and the encoder was just not up to spec (this was also a pure consumer model, and I got it basically at fire sale prices, and later flipped it on eBay). But last year, the on-camera technology seems to have caught, then surpassed HDV, which was pretty well mature when the format came out—we’ve been good at MPEG-2 since the mid 1990s.
In the future, the GPUs may help out here. I have another consumer model, from Sanyo, that shoots 1080/60p (Panny’s own TM700 apparently will do this, too).. twice the rate of Blu-Ray. You can’t play this back smoothly on a dual-core system without GPU acceleration. But the latest acceleration in Windows 7, with MS’s new AVC decoder and DXVA 2.0, I’m seeing only 12% CPU load on my Q9550 PC on playback, and it’s more like 7% for HMC40 video.
Not in the NLE’s yet, but I can’t imagine they’re all going to ignore GPU acceleration, for both editing and rendering, for much longer. I think that’s the key to making AVC native editing a reasonable thing.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 03/25 at 09:44 AM
I owned the JVC GY-HM100 for about 4 months, and then I sold it. Main reasons: image stabilizer is practically nonexistent, and light sensitivity is about 1 and a half stops worse than my 2006 consumer HD camera.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XE9eJbimRp0
The I bought the HMC40 and I like it very much. For the price I paid and for the type of shooting I am doing now and planning to do later, this is the best camera. Yeah, the HMC40 is ugly and the screens are low-res, but overall I think this is still the best offering in the compact size segment if you consider the price. The XF100 may be better but it is twice more expensive.
I updated my software, now I am running Vegas 10 and I get fluid playback with no stuttering or delays, including 60p.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 02/17 at 02:37 PM
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