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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.
Performance
It’s a two thousand dollar camera with quarter-inch sensors, fercryinoutloud, so you would not expect much. You would be wrong: while the HMC40 won’t obsolete your Varicams and 3700s, it does surprisingly well.
Optics
The Leica Dicomar 12x Zoom runs from 4-48mm, or 40.8-490mm in 35mm still camera terms. It takes 43mm filters. Using the zoom rocker, a fast zoom took three seconds (which isn’t particularly fast), while a slow zoom took two and half minutes (plenty slow enough to execute gradual pushes and pulls. The lever affords fine-grained, positive control, making it easy to ease smoothly into and out of zooms.
The iris uses a four-sided, diamond-shaped aperture from wide open to about f/2.8, then a graded ND filter slides up in front of it for effective apertures (as far as exposure is concerned) between f/2.8 and about “f/6.8”. Below “f/6.8”, the physical aperture appears to shrink down again to “f/11”, then it caps.
Looking into the lens: four-sided iris, graded ND rising up over the aperture.
The use of the ND filter for the midrange settings (a feature also employed in the earlier DVC30) allows a larger physical aperture to be used for most exposures, delaying the onset of diffraction-based softening. However, it reduces the ability to get deep-focus images (imagine: complaining about shallow depth-of-field on a quarter-inch sensor!), and it may help explain the camera’s rather unusual flare performance as discussed below. It does mean that the optical sweet spot of the lens is f/2.8; going smaller doesn’t change any of the basic optical properties until you get past “f/6.8”, at which point you now have an extra bit of glass (the graded ND filter) in the path and diffraction starts to be a concern.
Zooming in causes a gradual and continuous decrease in maximum aperture from f1.8 to f2.8. Exposure across the frame is absolutely flat below Z85 (the camera reports zoom setting as Z00-Z99, and focus as F00-F99), and only drops about half a stop in the corners by Z99—and it’s a very gentle, soft-edged vignette that doesn’t call any attention to itself. Zoomed in past Z65, OIS (optical image stabilization) causes some exposure variations in the corners as the OIS steers the image around to remove shake; at worst this is a one-stop variation from darkest (image steered away from a corner) to brightest (image steered towards that corner). Because an ND filter is used for “apertures” between f/2.8 and f/6.8, stopping down the lens doesn’t improve these vignettes until you’re past f/6.8, so it’s a good thing that the vignetting on this lens is so mild to begin with.
Distortion throughout the zoom range is so low as to be virtually nonexistent. There is just a tiny bit of pincushioning towards the corners of the image, but I mention this only to prove that I went looking for it; it’s nothing that you’ll ever see in any practical shooting situation.
The HMC40’s near focus behaves like no other camera I’ve used. Most cameras focus most closely at full wide angle, with the minimum object distance increasing as they zoom in. The HMC40 focuses to just inside its lens hood through the first 50% of its zoom range, with the M.O.D. increasing to F49 (about three feet) at Z80 through Z86, then decreasing to F41 (about 21 inches) at Z99. Until I got used to this, I surprised myself several times by zooming into something nearby, focusing, then slowing pulling out, only to have my subject fuzz irretrievably out of focus.
The lens is more than adequate as far as basic resolving power is concerned. None of my mid-zoom to telephoto shots were anything less than pin-sharp. However, it sometimes lacked a bit of crispness in wide shots; I think the lens may be slightly softer at full wide angle that when it’s zoomed in a bit. As you’ll see below, resolution charts look pretty darn good, but they were shot with the lens zoomed in a bit; I didn’t think to check the lens’s chart performance at the extremes until after I had returned the camera.
There is no obvious lateral chromatic aberration—Panasonic may be correcting for it in-camera. There was a bit of vertical green-magenta separation on out-of-focus areas (a prism effect common in three-chip cameras), a bit of purple fringing on heavily overexposed areas, and occasional, varying amounts and colors of flare and out-of-focus edging. The latter effects I attribute to the varying position of the slide-up internal ND filter; it has a glass edge that is often in the path of the light, and I suspect there may be diffraction, refraction, and/or reflection off that edge that causes the odd yellow, magenta, green, red, or cyan flare to appear at times, always subtly and never predictably. It was never so intrusive as to be a issue; I was looking for problems and thus saw flare, but if I hadn’t been searching for something to complain about, it wouldn’t have called any attention to itself.
Purple fringing on the bright sky and flare on the edges of some sunlit leaves, barely visible in this shrunk-down image.
What’s more immediately obvious is the bokeh: the appearance of out-of-focus areas. The HMC40 uses a diamond-shaped aperture, and the bokeh echoes that shape:
Throwing the image out of focus reveals a diamond-shaped bokeh.
Sometimes it’s more visible…
Background specular highlights, and some cyan highlight flare.
...sometimes it’s less visible…
More out-of-focus background bokeh.
...and sometimes it just isn’t something that calls any attention to itself:
Beauty shot: small sensors don’t preclude shallow depth of field.
Droplets left by a brief rainstorm.
The HMC40’s macro range allows easy close-ups.
Resolution
The HMC40 uses 1/4.1” CMOS sensors with 2.51 million effective photosites when shooting video, out of 3.05 million total. As a 1920x1080 image contains 2.07 million pixels, the 2.51 number implies a slight oversampling in the HMC40 (interestingly, Panasonic’s consumer cameras like the HDC-TM300 have a chip of the same size and photosite count, yet they are specified to use 2.07 million effective pixels when shooting video. Go figure…).
In short, this little camera should be able to shoot a full-resolution, true HD image. It does not disappoint, as these pixel-for-pixel DSC Labs multiburst chart images show:
720/24p recording in 24 Mbit/sec AVCHD, pixel-for-pixel.
1080/60i recording in 24 Mbit/sec AVCHD, pixel-for-pixel.
1080/24p recording in 24 Mbit/sec AVCHD, pixel-for-pixel.
By the standards of cameras costing ten times as much or more, these pix might be faulted for slightly high aliasing, but in the real world the HMC40 is a superbly sharp and clean performer. The camera smoothly resolved real-world details of a single pixel’s width, and let those details move across the face of the sensor without a trace of jagginess, “screen-door” effect, or twinkling of any sort—the HMC40 is a no-excuses, full-resolution HD camcorder.
Compare these charts to one shot by the Canon HF11 and you’ll see that three full-res chips make a difference—the Canon makes a very respectable image for its price, but the HMC40 cleanly outclasses it.
Sensitivity and Noise
All else being equal, small sensors will suffer compared to large sensors when it comes to sensitivity and/or noise. This camera is hungry for light; I rated the HMC40 at an effective exposure index (EI, a.k.a. ISO) of 80. It may be that Panasonic has biased the EI of the camera low to improve noise performance; the camera has no negative gain settings, which tends to support the theory that at EI80 / 0dB the sensors are already “exposed to the right” as far as possible: there’s no headroom in the highlights to allow for negative gains. Indeed, boosting gain to +6dB (an effective EI of 160) results in a picture that looks very nearly as good as a picture shot at 0dB, so don’t let the low EI rating turn you off.
Image noise is surprisingly low; it’s only a bit higher than noise on 1/3” CMOS cams with lower-resolution sensors. What noise there is tends to appear as soft-edged “grain” and mild chroma noise, and the HMC40 appears to use fairly aggressive (and effective) noise reduction, since noise doesn’t build nearly as much with higher gain as one might expect. There’s some resolution loss with gain boost, starting to become noticeable on the charts at +12dB, but the image at +18dB still looks about as crisp as the image at 0dB—and its noise is much less distracting than the noise on many other small-format camcorders at comparable gain settings. Only at +24dB and above does the image start to soften up, with resolution dropping below 800 lines, and it’s still quite usable for many purposes.
The HMC40 fares much better in low light than many other small cameras I’ve tested; some might say that the noise reduction is too aggressive for their tastes, but I found that it made for pleasing images at higher gains than I would have expected. Documentary shooters shouldn’t discount the HMC40 despite its low EI rating.
Tonal Scale and Color
The HMC40 behaves like most small Panasonics in terms of its tonal scale handling; it seems to have a bit more than eight stops of usable dynamic range. If I were to fault it on anything, I had the impression that it tends to clip highlights a bit sooner and a bit more harshly than some of its 1/3” siblings. I attribute this to its low EI rating: if the sensors and processing are biased towards higher exposure / lower noise, they have less highlight headroom as a result. Mind you, this is a subtle thing, and might be as much a construct of my overactive imagination as it is an artifact of the camera itself.
Like many other Panasonics, the HMC40 has seven gamma presets. Five are traditional “video gammas”:
- HD Norm - standard high-def gamma, slightly darker midtones than SD Norm.
- SD Norm - same standard-def gamma as in the DVX100.
- High - a higher-key gamma that brightens midtones.
- Low - a low-key gamma that slightly darkens midtones.
- B.Press - “black press” low-key gamma with slightly crushed shadows.
These curves let you choose between three fixed knee points: Low, where the knee kicks in at 80% brightness; Medium, with the knee point at 90%; and High, with knee starting at 100%. An Auto setting lets the camera vary the knee point automatically as it thinks is appropriate to the scene.
You also get Panny’s celebrated cine gammas:
- Cine-like D: “dynamic”; a fairly flat gamma curve with moderate contrast.
- Cine-like V: “video”, a somewhat contrastier curve with excellent highlight rolloff.
These gammas use a fixed, high knee, which rolls off highlights instead of letting them crash suddenly into nasty clipping. Cine-like D is recommended for clips headed for manipulation in post; Cine-like V is more immediately usable as-is, with a bit more contrast. I prefer to shoot my Panasonics (I own a DVX100 and an HVX200) in Cine-like V almost all the time, as Cine-like V handles overexposed flesh tones very naturally, with less of a jaundiced yellow highlight than standard gammas do (not just on Panasonics, on most cameras), and a smoother transition into clipping than a standard knee offers.
Having said that, the selection of gammas lets you vary the look of the image considerably, if subtly, so that you can set up the look that’s most appropriate to your situation. Just remember to have a separate monitor handy, as the HMC40’s full-screen setup menu makes immediate A/B comparison of gamma changes impossible on the camera’s LCD.
The four color matrices in the HMC40.
The HMC40 also offers four familiar color matrices. Combined with Panasonic’s usual saturation, phase, and balance (warm/cold) controls, you have a lot of control over the look of the camera’s colors.
The HMC40 has the same basic colorimetry as other Panasonics: colors are very natural and pleasing, with no particular bias. Reds in the image are as truly red as they were in the scene; greens and earth tones look like real life.
The HMC40 has Panasonic’s natural colorimetry.
The colors in this image precisely match those of the real maple.
I tend to leave the matrix on Norm1 and maybe turn saturation down a bit, but aside from that I leave Panasonic colors alone, because They Just Work.
Recording Quality
The HMC40 record AVCHD, a variant of h.264, a.k.a. AVC, a.k.a MPEG 4 Part 10. The camera’s PH recording mode, at 21 Mbit/sec, should theoretically be almost twice as good as MPEG-2 at the same bitrate, so it should outperform 25 Mbit/sec HDV.
In practice, PH mode does indeed outperform HDV, holding more detail with fewer artifacts even in the presence of high static detail (image complexity) and high dynamic detail (lots of fast picture changes). As one might expect, the 24p native modes show fewer artifacts than the 60i or 60p modes; the camera uses the same bit rate to compress fewer frames, so the per-frame compression ratio drops. Have a look at the multiburst charts above, and compare the mosquito noise (compression artifacts) around the text in the 1080/60i chart to that in the 1080/24p chart.
The other recording modes the camera offers trade off bit rate for longer recording times; the quality falls off accordingly.
I have only one quibble with Panasonic’s AVCHD implementation, and it’s a small one: sometimes the first few frames in a clip can be a bit coarse and blocky. Some fine detail may be missing in the first frame, but builds in over the course of the first half-second: the duration of a GOP, or Group Of Pictures compressed as a standalone unit. Subsequent GOPs are fine.
A wide shot, and CUs of the 1st and 14th frames as fine details fill in.
Many (most?) advanced codecs use information from previous frames to determine bit allocation on the current frame, as there’s usually a high correlation of image information from frame to frame. Even at the start of a GOP, this information helps the codec efficiently allocate bits on the fly. If I had to guess, the HMC40 isn’t “precharging” its codec with this predictive information while recording is stopped; it’s only waking the codec up when you mash the record button, so the poor thing has to start from scratch on the first frame of the clip, and play catch-up.
It’s a subtle thing, and it’s only visible occasionally, but it’s not something I’ve seen in AVCHD cameras from a couple of other manufacturers (I also shot the scene above with a Sony AVCHD camcorder, and saw no such difference between the first and subsequent frames). If you typically use the first quarter-second or half-second of your raw clips in your finished show, it’s something to be aware of, but it’s not something that should frighten you off.
Etc.
It’s a CMOS camera, so there’s no vertical smear on overexposed highlights. It uses a rolling shutter, so there’s some image shear on fast pans and some “jellocam” distortion during shakycam-style conniption fits, but it’s no worse than on any of the CMOS Sonys I’ve been working with in the past couple of years; it’s not an issue in most practical situations.
The stock battery is an inch-and-a-half cube rated at 2500 MAh; it runs the camera for about three hours.
The iris readout is shown in 1/6 stop increments, which affords a very fine degree of control.
The camera’s Dynamic Range Stretch (DRS) function works like the “Highlights and Shadows” functions in various image editors: it selectively boosts shadows and brings down highlights in localized areas, giving you some of the benefits of high-dynamic-range imaging. Used judiciously, DRS lets you see farther into highlights and deeper into shadows; used to excess or on the wrong scenes, and you may see some “halo” effects:
Dynamic Range Stretch on high, when the operator wasn’t paying attention.
DRS has three preset levels (low, medium, high) as well as an automatic setting; it’s a very useful thing to have when you need it (see the sample image here), but it’s not something to leave on all the time—with powerful tools come powerful responsibilities, responsibilities I obviously shirked during the shooting of this particular HMC40 clip.
The diamond-shaped iris sometimes throws off X-shaped starbursts on specular highlights, especially at smaller apertures.
I only used the built-in mikes during my brief time with the camera. They proved to be sensitive, reasonably flat in response, and less subject to camera-handling noise than I would have expected. For serious use, I’d suggest adding a separate miniplug mike, or the optional XLR adapter with phantom power.
As audio levels are controlled though the Quick Menu and are not available on a dedicated knob, you’ll want to pre-set levels carefully. The HMC40 is not a camera that lends itself to on-the-fly audio leveling. Of course, if you’re using the XLR adapter or a separate mixer to control audio, it won’t be an issue.
Conclusions
As far as I can tell, this is the best-performing HD camcorder you can get for the price. Mind you, there’s not much competition in the class of cameras between $1000 fist-sized tinycams and four-pound-plus, $4000+ handhelds, but even so, in many ways the $2000 HMC40 outperforms cameras costing twice as much or more.
It’s a true, full-resolution HD camcorder that yields smooth, highly-detailed 720p, 1080i, and 1080p images without any nasty aliasing artifacts. It has Panasonic’s pleasing colorimetry, and the same set of gammas, matrices, and image tweaks as the DVX/HVX camcorders. It’s smaller and lighter than anything else that affords a similar degree of control over the image, and its removable T-handle lets it pack down even smaller, for times where a compact and unintimidating form factor is called for. It records high-quality images on small, inexpensive SDHC cards available at almost any photo or electronics store. Oh, did I mention it’s only $2000?
On the flip side, the camera’s diminutive but high-resolution sensors result in a lower exposure index and slightly higher noise than larger, more expensive cameras have. It lacks separate aperture / gain / ND controls, rolling them all into a single “iris” setting. Some frequently-needed settings, like shutter speed and audio levels, lack dedicated controls and are only accessible through the touchscreen menu system. XLR audio inputs require an optional adapter (but at least the camera is set up to accept such an adapter).
The diamond-shaped aperture and the sliding ND filter, with their attendant bokeh, flare, and starburst looks, give the camera its own distinctive aesthetic. Whether you consider this a benefit or a detriment depends on your own artistic judgement; I quite like it, myself. Fortunately these aspects of the HMC40’s imaging are subtle enough that they don’t preclude using the camera for routine, just-the-facts-ma’am shooting—but they’re there when you want to exploit them for a bit of added, impressionistic impact.
Pros
- True, no-compromise 1080p imaging.
- 1080p, 1080i, and 720p recording at AVCHD’s highest bit rate.
- 24p-native modes for the highest quality 24p possible.
- Handy, removable T-handle.
- Full manual focusing with helpful focus assist modes.
- Multiple autofocus and touch-to-focus modes in addition to manual focus.
- Waveform monitor, zebra, and center-marker exposure readouts.
- Full manual exposure control.
- Panasonic’s natural colorimetry; flexible gamma selection.
- Cine-like V gamma handles skintone highlights as well as anything I’ve seen.
- DVX/HVX-style image tweaks: comprehensive without being overwhelming.
- Solid-state recording on readily available, inexpensive SD and SDHC cards.
- Pre-record and interval recording modes.
- Low-distortion, sharp, 12x zoom with excellent low-speed control.
- Slow shutters to 1/2 second; synchro-scan for shooting CRTs and other flickering things.
- Allows full remote control of start/stop, zoom, iris, and focus.
- Very good noise reduction when gain is boosted.
- Cameras shipped through March 2010 come with a copy of Edius Neo 2 NLE software in the box.
- Also usable as a still camera.
- It’s only $2000! It weighs only two pounds!
Cons
- Lower sensitivity than larger cameras offer.
- Somewhat higher image noise at low gain than larger cameras have.
- Aperture, gain, and ND are all on a single “iris” control.
- Limited real-time audio controls without the optional XLR adapter.
- Annoyingly inconsistent and tap-intensive menu systems.
- Maximum zoom speed is a bit slow (three seconds end-to-end).
Cautions
- Purple fringing on overexposed highlights.
- Highlight clipping can seem a bit harsh.
- Diamond-shaped bokeh, X-shaped aperture flare, and occasional multicolored highlight flare add an impressionistic look.
- Initial frames of some clips aren’t as well-encoded as the rest of the clip.
- DRS, used incautiously, may result in contrast haloes.
- As with other AVCHD camcorders, there are no variable frame rates.
- Serious audio requires the optional XLR adapter.
- No SD card in the box; you’ll have to buy one before you can record anything.
Would I buy one? If I were cash-constrained, nothing else shoots a full-res 1080/24p image nearly as well for anything close to its price. If I were having to travel light, the HMC40 packs more pixel punch and more usable manual control than any current fist-sized tinycam does.
As it is, I have access to fancier (and more expensive) HD cameras at work, but 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. The Canon Vixias are attractive, but lack 24p-native recording and usable manual focus; the Panasonic TM300 has manual focus but lacks both progressive capability and 21 Mbit/sec recording. If nobody comes up with a tinycam combining full-bitrate AVCHD recording, true progressive encoding, and decent manual controls, there may well be an HMC40 in my future.
More info:
AG-HMC40 on panasonic.com.
AG-HMC40 Operations manual (19 MB PDF)
Barry Braverman’s review at Millimeter / DigitalContentProducer.com
16 CFR Part 255 Disclosure
I asked Panasonic’s PR folks to send me an HMC40 for review, and they did so. I returned the camera to them about two weeks later at my own expense. All hardware, software, and documentation sent to me for the review has been returned to Panasonic; I downloaded an electronic copy of the Operator’s Manual from Panasonic’s website, just as anyone else can.
I purchased my own 8GB SDHC card at Best Buy so I’d have something to record onto. I paid whatever their advertised price was that day.
Panasonic reviewed this article for factual accuracy at my request, and I corrected a couple of minor errors.
No material connection exists between myself and Panasonic; Panasonic provides no compensation to me for reviewing equipment and has not influenced me with payments, discounts, or other blandishments to encourage a favorable review.
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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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