ProVideo Coalition.com: Camera Log by Adam Wilt | Founder | Pro Cameras, HDV Camera, HD Camera, Sony, Panasonic, JVC, RED, Video Camera Reviews

Panasonic can also upgrade the camera to shoot 50Hz formats, making it a true worldwide camera for those that need this added capability.

All these formats are derived from the 1920x1080 internal frame format, and Panasonic’s resizing and progressive-to-interlace conversion are very good.

Either SDI or analog component outputs may be used, but not both simultaneously; enabling SDI disables component. The composite analog output is always available. The component and SDI outputs will track the camera’s format setting, or they can be set to downconvert HD output to 480i. Downconversion can be squeezed (anamorphic), letterboxed, or cropped at the sides for a center-cut, full-height 4x3 image. Additionally, 720p may be output natively, or cross-converted to 1080i.

The 1394 connector provides AV/C-compatible DV streams in all but the “native” recording modes. These can be recorded to other DV/DVCPRO50/DVCPROHD decks (including other HPX and HVX camcorders), to portable disk recorders like the FireStore, or to FireWire-equipped Macs and PCs.

The HPX170 offers both 1394 (Mac) and USB 2.0 (PC) connections for hookup as a data device, letting the connected computer access clips as if it were talking to a disk drive. While popping a P2 card out of the camera and into a computer’s PC Card slot (or a DuelAdapter on ExpressCard-equipped laptops) gives faster transfer rates and avoids tying up the camcorder, the wired connection is handy for systems that lack either kind of slot.

The 1394 port can also be configured in HOST mode, which allows the camera to transfer clips to a FireWire disk drive without the aid of a separate computer (the HPX170 reformats the drive with up to fifteen separate partitions, and copies the contents of each P2 card to its own partition; note that the drive must supply its own power: it cannot be powered from the camera’s 1394 port).

On-board recording uses the DV[CPRO[50|HD]] family of codecs: 4:1:1 DV25 or 4:2:2 DV50 (DVCPRO50) for SD, both at 720x480 luma samples; 4:2:2 960x720 DVCPROHD for 720p; and 4:2:2 1280x1080 DVCPROHD for 1080i/p. The “native” 720p modes, 24pn and 30pn, record only unique frames, so they drop the data rate from 100Mbps to 40Mpbs and 50 Mbps respectively, offering increased recording capacity and faster transfer times, since there’s less data per second of recorded material. All recording is 8-bits, with four channels of 48kHz, 16-bit audio (except for DV25: 2 channels of 48 kHz 16-bit audio, or 4 channels of 32 kHz, 12-bit peak-compressed audio).

The camera doesn’t offer AVC-Intra recording (not that AVC-I is expected in a camera of this class, but if I don’t mention it, I just know I’m going to get asked the question!).

The camera accepts 4GB, 8GB, 16GB, and 32 GB P2 cards. A single 16GB P2 card holds the following amount of material:

Individual files are limited to 4 GB, so clips that exceed that size are seamlessly split across multiple files.

Audio performance in my limited testing appeared to be as good as on the DVX100 and HVX200—which is to say, very good indeed.

Features and Functions

The menu system of the camera offers a high degree of control over the camera’s configuration and image rendering. Most parameters are controllable over small numerical ranges, such as -7 to +7, but these parameters cover fairly wide adjustments, and are much quicker to dial in than the -100 to +100 ranges of some other cameras.

For the most part, the menus are comparable between the HPX170 and the HVX200, though the HPX will sneak in things like a couple of additional shutter speeds or a few more adjustment steps on certain parameters. The level of control afforded by the menu system sits midway between the limited choices in most consumer and prosumer camcorders, and the overwhelming flexibility of the SDX900 or Varicam; practically speaking there’s enough tweakability for most people.

Like the DVX and HVX cameras, the HPX170 offers six scene files on a rotating dial. Each one can be set up with its own color, matrix, gamma, knee, frame rate, detail, and black level settings (among others), and switched to as needed.

Sets of scene files can be saved to an SD / SDHC card, as can the overall camera setup, making it easy to change configuration or share setups and scene files between HPX170s. (Scene files are not interchangeable between the HPX and the HVX, though the HVX200A and HVX200 can use each other’s files.)

The camera offers two modes in the scene files, “video cam” and “film cam”. In video cam mode, shutter speeds are given as fractions of a second, and most of the special playback modes (pre-rec, loop, single-frame) are accessible, but variable frame rates are not. In film cam mode, shutter speeds are expressed as shutter angles (e.g., at 24fps, a 1/48 shutter is shown as 180 degrees), and variable frame rates are usable—but other special recording functions are not.

Variable Frame Rates

In 720p when the camera is set to “film cam” mode, the HPX170 lets you choose from 20 different frame rates, from 12fps to 60fps. If your playback frame rate is 24fps, these correspond to anywhere from a 2x speedup (shooting at 12fps) to a 2.5x slo-mo (shooting at 60 fps).

VFR is available in either the full-up 60p recording modes, or in the “native” 24pn and 30pn modes.

Audio is muted in VFR unless the frame rate matches the playback rate: shooting at 24fps in 24p modes will capture audio, but shooting at 22 fps does not.

Special Recording Modes

The special recording modes require the camera to be in “video cam” mode, and in 60i, 60p, or 30p frame rates; they don’t work at 24p, nor with “native” PN recording modes.

Pre-record buffers video while the camera is in standby, so when you press the record button you also get the video for a few seconds before you pressed it: great for catching unpredictable events in nature photography or sports work. The pre-record buffer is about 7 seconds long for DV25, 6 seconds for DVCPRO50, and 3 seconds for any of the HD modes.

Loop recording ping-pongs between two P2 cards, recording constantly until the cards are filled, and the recording over the oldest material until the recording is stopped. Both P2 cards need at least a minute of free space for loop record to work, and loop record will always keep about a minute of “free buffer” available. Loop record is ideal for “crash data recorder” applications, capturing the most recent N minutes up until an event occurs, where N is the amount of free space available on your two P2 cards, minus qa minute or two.

Interval recording is used for time-lapse applications, shooting a single frame at intervals from once every 2 frames (e.g., a 2x speedup) to once every 10 minutes.

One-shot recording grabs a burst ranging from 1 frame to 1 second every time the start/stop button is pushed.

Focusing Aids

Though the LCD and EVF of the HPX170 are rather coarse, Panasonic has provided four focusing aids to compensate for them:

EVF DTL turns on a fixed peaking signal, which enhances in-focus detailed with a white outlining. EVF DTL has its own dedicated buttion and can be toggled at any time.

Expanded Focus Assist magnifies the center of the image (in HD modes only, alas) to allow easier focus finding.

A test chart without and with expanded focus assist.

Focus assist can be selected at any time (unless digital zoom is enabled), whether or not recording is in progress. An odd side effect is that the background image is stretched horizontally a slight bit, so that it’s cropped to the safe area instead of showing the entire image.

Graphed Focus Assist is a detail frequency histogram, which graphs spatial scene frequencies. As more of the scene comes into focus, the right side of the graph shows more data; maximizing the data to the right—both the higher frequencies and the overall amplitude—maximizes focus.

Both Graph and Expand are selected using the side-mounted Focus Assist button; it can be set to show one, the other, or both at the same time.

Focus Bar shows a growing horizontal bar in the display; when the bar is as long as possible, focus is as sharp as possible. The focus bar is enabled in the display setup menus and is independent of the Focus Assist button.

Expanded and graphed Focus assist, plus the focus bar.

While I would still prefer a big, sharp display with a fully variable peaking control, I found I had no problem obtaining and maintaining sharp focus with this selection of aids. In particular I found that the graph and bar helped me without distracting me from the composition of my picture; I wound up leaving the focus bar enabled (I could still declutter the display with the DISP MODE button) and toggling the graph on and off as I saw fit. Even when my focusing target was a small area of the screen, with the rest of the image unfocused, both the bar and graph displays indicated a “local maximum” when my target was sharply focused.

None of these displays affect the cameras outputs, only the built in LCD and EVF.

Waveform Monitor and Vectorscope

There’s a dedicated WFM button on the camera’s side. It can be set to display a waveform monitor, a vectorscope, or both, one after the other:

The HPX170’s built-in engineering displays.

The WFM is highly detailed, like the one on the BT-LH1760 monitor. Both displays show up on the LCD only, not the EVF, so it’s quite possible to operate with the right eye to the uncluttered EVF while the left eye sees the WFM: full-time, fully detailed exposure monitoring while still being able to see the picture.

Dynamic Range Stretch

DRS, whch replaces the HVX200’s news gamma, works only in 60p/60i modes. It’s a localized levels/contrast optimizer, much like the highlights and shadows controls in Aperture or Photoshop. It has three strength levels, and used judiciously, it can pull a lot of detail out of the shadows and the highlights. Overuse it, though, and you’ll notice the same sort of halation and shadowing effects as you’d get with the same tools overused in the image-editing programs, only in motion: the resulting effect is either artistic, or reminiscent of image orthicon black levels, depending on your viewpoint!

The effect of DRS: off, 1, 2, and 3.

A hummingbird with DRS off, and with DRS 3. Note the black shadowing in DRS 3.

Digital Zoom

When in 60i/60p modes, you can engage a digital zoom, enlarging the central part of the image by 2x, 5x, or 10x, regardless of the optical zoom setting. It’s a fun effect, though it won’t win any quality awards. Engaging digital zoom disables enlarged focus assist, but really: when the whole image is magnified this way, it is focus assist!

Data Management and Clip Playback

The HPX170 switches between camera mode and MCR (playback) mode in under two seconds at the push of a button. That button is nicely separated from the power switch, too; there’s no chance of inadvertently switching modes when you really meant to turn the camera off.

LCD displays: thumbnail view, and menus.

A red clip number in the upper left corner means the clip’s format (shown for the selected clip in the gray bar below the thumbnails, along with the clip’s duration) isn’t playable at the current format setting. However the HPX170 lets you push the joystick down for a second, and the playback format will switch to that of the selected clip—no more trips into the format menus, as was the case on the HVX200.

You can play clips in forwards or reverse at 1/5x, 1x, 2x, 4x, 12x, and 24x, and single-step them in either direction.

You can also delete clips, repair them if they’ve suffered data glitches, or examine and modify a long list of properties.

Main property page; “device” property.

Clip metadata like the text memo many be edited in a PC and loaded from an SD or SDHC card, ready to be appended to a clip automatically or at the press of a button. Or, as shown here, text can be edited after a clip has been recorded.

Some properties, such as “memo”, are editable with a cursor-driven on-screen keyboard. The cursor wraps around the edges, so it’s surprisingly fast to use.

If you then use Panasonic’s P2 Contents Management System, or media management tools available from the likes of Imagine Products, Pictron or Focus Enhancements, all this clip-level metadata becomes searchable, sortable, and editable in post-production.

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