Joe Incardona

We've posted a video on Vimeo's HD Channel that we shot in NYC this summer with our HPX-3000. http://vimeo.com/1479894 We shot the video in DVCPRO HD 1080/30p, with a Fujinon 16x6.3 HD ENG lens. Since getting the camera in March, we have mostly shot with the HPX-3000 in the AVC-Intra 100 mode. It clearly is a superior codec, and has produced some excellent results. Our New York video was edited in FCP, and the graphics were built in Motion. We shot the NYC video in DVCPRO HD 1080/30p. We've found that overall the AVC Intra 100 codec produces better results, and have had no problems at all editing the AVC Intra material in Final Cut Pro once we installed the AVC Intra plug-in to FCP. Still, the DVCPRO HD material looks good, especially when shot with a good HD lens.

Hello, I'm helping a friend of ours who is manager of video communications for a Fortune 500 company based in Atlanta find a crew for a HDX900 shoot in Los Angeles some time in the next week to 10 days. We are shooting for her in Hartford, CT with our HDX900 on Wed. 6/11 and Thurs. 6/12. She is concerned about getting her LA material (b-roll and interviews) to match what we're going to shoot for her in Hartford. If you're interested, and can offer a competitive rate on a DP/sound person crew with the HDX900 and a good lens, please e-mail me your rates, credentials/references, and equipment list. Thanks! Joe Incardona President Media Source joeinc@memphismediasource.com

Saul, thank you so much for clarifying that point about DVCPRO HD vs. AVC-Intra 100 compression. As I said in my blog where I've posted my white paper, I do not claim in any way to be an expert on everything related to the HPX3000 and P2. I got the information about the DVCPRO HD vs. AVC-Intra 100 compression differences from one of the two Panasonic dealers here in Memphis. Your post demonstrates the power of forums such as this one, because they are monitored by so many knowledgeable people in the industry. Would it be OK if I quoted your explanation above in my blog, http://joeincardona.wordpress.com ? Thanks again, you've educated me on a very important point, i.e., the correct technical explanation for why the AVC-Intra 100 codec is considered by some to be superior to the DVCPRO HD codec.

We've used both the 900 and the HPX3000, both are fantastic cameras. The HPX3000 does have the CineGamma software with the Film-REC mode made famous by the VariCam. We've had our 3000 since early March, and are taking delivery on our own 900 this week (we've been renting it). I created a white paper on my blog about the 3000 camera and our experiences with the P2 workflow, and about authoring our HPX3000 material to a viewable Blu-ray video disc. You can download the PDF white paper from my blog at http://joeincardona.wordpress.com. I'll be glad to answer any questions I can, I'm no expert yet, but I've had to learn a lot through trial and error with these cameras. My e-mail is joeinc@memphismediasource.com. Thanks! Joe Incardona President Media Source Memphis, TN

Hello, I am very pleased to be one of fewer than 100 owners worldwide of the fantastic Panasonic HPX3000 P2 HD camera (according to the Panasonic rep for our region, who recently was given this statistic by the company's order entry people). We've had this outstanding camera since early March. My staff and I have learned an awful lot in the past couple of months about P2, and about how to showcase the amazing images from this camera by creating viewable Blu-ray video DVDs of the full-raster 1920x1080 material from the HPX3000. I have created a blog on our Web site. I have also written a white paper about our learnings over the past few months. You can download the PDF of my white paper either directly from the blog, at http://joeincardona.wordpress.com, or by accessing the blog from the home page of our Web site, http://www.memphismediasource.com. I will be glad to answer any questions you might have about the HPX3000, the P2 workflow with the camera and the Panasonic P2 Mobile, which we also own, and about our Blu-ray authoring experiences. My e-mail address is at the end of the white paper. Thanks! Joe Incardona President Media Source Memphis, TN

Sorry about the issues some are experiencing in trying to download our EX-1 test clips from our FTP server. The T-1 line in our office is taking a huge bandwidth hit from so many people trying to download the clips simultaneously. I've now also posted them on the FTP server for News Data Services, an international collaborative of broadcast news monitors, for which we are the Memphis affiliate. This server has a lot more bandwidth to it than ours; we use it daily to transfer large MPEG-2 files (in most cases, bigger than our EX-1 test clips) back and forth between affiliates. Use this link in your Web browser: http://65.38.4.136?AffiliateId=Media+Source&Location In the "Enter Your ID and Password" area, enter sonyex1 as ID, sonyex1 as password. The files are listed individually. The first four listed were shot in 24p; we put six other clips up that were shot in 60i, as well as some shots with our fog machine, and a couple of narratives about the camera. There is a link on the download page with further download instructions. Thanks for your patience, and merry Christmas! Joe Incardona President Media Source Memphis, TN USA www.memphismediasource.com

Because of the amazing amount of traffic now going to the FTP server in our office, I have an alternate way for people to download the clips: Use this link http://65.38.4.136?AffiliateId=Media+Source&Location In the "Enter Your ID and Password" area, enter hpx3000 as ID, hpx3000 as password. The files are listed individually. This is a much more robust FTP server maintained by News Data Services, for which we are the Memphis broadcast monitoring affiliate. There is a link on the download page where you can find further instructions. Thanks for your patience, and merry Christmas! Joe Incardona President Media Source Memphis, TN USA www.memphismediasource.com

I've been following posts for the past few months about the Panasonic AJ-HPX3000 P2 HD camera. We had the good fortune this past week of having our Panasonic regional reps bring the camera to us for evaluation purposes. I didn't have as much time as I would have liked to test the camera under different shooting conditions, but we did get to shoot in our studio and edit some test footage. I'd like to share this footage with everybody, so it's available for download on our FTP site: ftp://209.12.198.170/ To log in to our FTP site, the user name is hpx3000, password is hpx3000. I also was able to test the new Sony PMW-EX1 XDCAM EX camera the day after the Panasonic reps were here in Memphis. We shot similar footage to what we captured from the HPX3000, for comparison purposes. With both cameras, which are native 1920x1080 HD, we shot some footage at 1080 24p, and some at 1080 60i. The Panasonic camera only shoots at 1080, while the Sony will also shoot at 720, in addition to 1080. We didn't have time to shoot anything at 720, though, on the EX-1. If you log in to our FTP site using the instructions above, you'll see a single folder called hpx3000. Inside it, there are two subfolders: hpx3000clips, and ex1clips. We used FCP 6.0.2 to edit all the test footage, and Compressor's H.264 settings to make the MOV files. We kept them at the cameras' full 1920x1080 resolution, so they are somewhat large, ranging from 3.4 MB (for one of the brief close-up shots) to 304 MB (for one of several narratives I did on-camera). I had a lav mic on my narratives for the HPX3000, but we used the on-board camera mic on the EX-1, due to time constraints. If you download some of the clips for evaluation, please post your feedback, as I would greatly appreciate opinions on these two cameras. You're also welcome to send me an e-mail with your thoughts, to joeinc@memphismediasource.com. Thanks for all the great information that has been shared here, and happy holidays!