Panasonic AJ-HPX3000 Review

Originally this article was to be an in-depth user review of Panasonic’s AJ-HPX3000 HD camera, but unfortunately it has had to become a first impression and quick look at the camera instead. Despite Panasonic going to great lengths to ensure the camera was made available for me to review, all of their efforts were ruined by DHL who failed to deliver on time, instead taking six days longer than scheduled.

Because of this I only had a limited amount of time (one day) to look at the camera as it was booked out for other demonstrations and had to be returned to Panasonic on the dates agreed. I will be doing a full review in the near future as Panasonic have kindly agreed to send the camera once more for a longer period. For now though, here are my initial impressions.

Before I start I should admit to a certain amount of scepticism and negative attitude towards P2 as recording format. Being a traditional ‘tape man’, I’ve had a bit of a downer on solid-state recording, and was always banging on about ‘archiving’ and long-term backup, and these are still issues to be considered. I recently had a week-long shoot using Sony’s EX1 camera recording on solid-state and it was a far from pleasant experience. The camera mysteriously stopped recording on several occasions, not exactly inspiring confidence.

So with this less than positive attitude I took the AJ-HPX3000 out of the case. Straightaway it was apparent that this was a serious camera, the build quality was superb, it felt solid and robust and switches were firm and positive. After the Sony EX1 experience I was suddenly back in the world of the decent camera.

My own camera is a Sony DVW-709 PAL DigiBeta, so inevitably I felt I would be making comparisons when I reviewed the Sony F-350 XDCAM HD camera, but I soon realised that this would turn out to be quite a different experience. Apart from both being video cameras with some similarity of switch and control layouts, there was in reality nothing to compare!

Quite simply the HPX3000 is a lot nicer to use than a DigiBeta camera and being in the world of HD, I told myself forget DigiBeta; this is the future. My initial feeling on picking up this camera and firing it up was ‘nice…very nice’. The viewfinder was respectable and the whole feel and layout of the camera were very good.

Of course something had to impinge on this good feeling and that turned out be the flip-out LCD screen that is located on the camera’s left side in the centre, making it awkward to use as it gets in the way. You can push it flush into the camera body and that helps, but makes it awkward to see. A lot of functions are accessed using this display so the bad positioning is an irritation as you will need to keep using it; especially on playback. The camera itself is very high spec, it has three 2.2 million pixel CCD’s which produce full raster 1920 x 1080 HD images and has native 1080p image output. In fact the camera can shoot in a number of HD frame rates and even in SD if required in either PAL or NTSC. The full list of HD 1080 frame rates are 59.94 interlace, 29.97 progressive, 29.97 progressive native and interlace, 50 interlace, 25P progressive (over HD 50i), 25P native progressive, 23.98 progressive (over HD 60i) and 23.98 progressive native. The SD frame rates are 59.94 (480 interlace), 29.97 progressive (480 NTSC), 23.98 progressive (over 60i NTSC using 2-3-2-2 pulldown), 576/50i (PAL) and 576/25P progressive (PAL).

Recordings can be made using three different codecs. SD recordings are made using the DVCPRO 50 codec that is pretty much on par with SD DigiBeta recordings so very high quality SD can be achieved from this camera. HD recordings are where things get interesting as two codecs are available - the DVCPRO HD codec that is an 8-bit codec with a recorded frame size of 1440 x 1080. This is a pretty smooth codec and enables a good easy to manage workflow from camera through post production. However, for me the codec of choice is the AVC Intra codec. AVC Intra can record at either 50Mb or 100Mb data rates. The 50Mb setting has a recorded frame size of 1440 x 1080 is 10 bit but uses 4:2:0 colour space. Full raster 1920 x 1080 in 10 bit with 4:2:2 colour space is only available using the 100Mb data rate. AVC Intra-100 is the same sampling as Panasonic’s top of the range HD-D5 studio machines. Interestingly the storage required for DVCPRO HD and AVC-100 is almost identical being about 1GB for every minute.

A quick look at the camera set-up menus revealed a huge amount of tweaking was available for those brave enough to embark on such action. As I had limited time I avoided going any further. Just about every camera function can be found on one of the menus so control is pretty comprehensive.

As time was short I was keen to get out and film something and this was my first encounter with P2. I’ve used flash card memory in stills cameras and it always has an aura of fragility so when I picked up the P2 card I was surprised by how robust it felt. It had that confident professional feel that the camera also had, nothing flimsy whatsoever. The HPX-3000 has five P2 slots and cards can be ‘hot swapped’ which means they can be changed during operation without powering down, and recording continues seamlessly.

P2 cards were one of the factors I was negative about prior to using this camera, as I perceived them to be hideously expensive flash memory cards. As they are aimed at a demanding professional market they are more expensive but are more than just basic solid-state memory. Each P2 card is a micro-computer with its own processor, firmware, RAID controller and Gigabytes of solid-state memory chips. They intelligently manage data files and even write verification for every byte of memory. Early P2 cards used actual SD memory cards in a striped RAID array to increase performance but the newest versions dispense with SD cards and use the actual core memory components. They are also fairly robust in use. Capacities do vary and the maximum card currently available is 32GB. A 64 GB card is planned for release in the autumn with a 128GB version due out next year.

After years of shooting on tape, the silent operation of the HPX-3000 is quite something, no purring tape mechanisms, no annoying the sound department, just silence! You can move right next to a mic and hear only your own breathing. I liked this a lot as I always thought tape cameras were way too noisy in operation. Shooting with the HPX-3000 was an enjoyable experience during the brief period I had it and I felt rather at home with it. Power consumption was similar to current broadcast cameras, and users of pro cameras could easily pick this camera up and start shooting straight away.

As my time was rapidly running out I plugged the P2 card reader into my computer using a USB cable and watched as the files rapidly transferred onto a hard drive. Within minutes I was importing them into my Final Cut Pro suite and watching them on an HD monitor. At this point I was suddenly completely sold on P2 as a workflow. What amazed me was no expensive VTR was required for digitising, it all happened much faster than real time and within minutes I was able to view and edit full raster 1920 x 1080 HD footage on my system. The whole operation was not only fast but also thousands of pounds cheaper than using a tape workflow.

The bottom line of course is how do the pictures actually look? Well, they look great, very nice and very natural. None of that give-away video sharpening, they had smooth gradations between colours and areas of high contrast, lovely highlight handling, smooth natural edges to objects, realistic shadows; the pictures looked great. Prior to using this camera, the best HD camera I had previously used was a Sony HDW-750 HDCAM which I liked, but the HPX-3000 looks nicer on this initial test, far more natural and subjectively more pleasing to the eye. There is all that tweaking available for picture looks, but even as it comes, straight from the box it was looking good. I couldn’t resist grading a bit of the footage and it can really handle being messed around with in a way formats such as DVCAM and low bit rates can never get close to. Here was a camera that took a great image and allowed lots of latitude in post-production. It felt more cinematic than TV and felt like a cameraman’s camera and instilled confidence with its build and operational features. Sadly, I had to pack it away and return it and I’m now looking forward to giving it a more critical workout later this year, but it left me with a favourable impression; I have been converted to the P2 workflow. I’m looking forward to the HPX-3000’s return.

Ged Yeates is a professional freelance lighting-cameraman based on the Isle of Lewis in Scotland. He has been a cameraman since 1990 and is a member of the Guild of Television Cameraman and won a GTC award for his camerawork on the BBC documentary Force 10 Rescue. Recent credits include European shoots for BBC Scotland’s Eorpa programme, The BBC series Coast, BBC Countryfile, BBC Newsnight and BBC4s Cold War, Dirty Science.