Panasonic HMC150 first thoughts

Panasonic's AG-HMC150 just started shipping. You might be looking at this camera and wondering what Panasonic's plan is here. One might say well, if youre gonna pay $3500 for a 4:2:0, AVCHD camera, why not pay $5200 and get 4:2:2 DVCPROHD HVX200A or a HPX170. You might say I'm not counting the P2 card cost and its associates. A 32GB SDHC Card will cost under $200 and a 32GB P2 Card will be under $1600. You're getting 180 Minutes of 24 Mbps full raster 1080 on a 32GB SDHC card, while you're gonna get 80 min of 720 24PN DVCPRO HD or 32 min of 1080 on a 32GB P2 Card.

Now, with out getting too deep into why you might one over the other, well just stop for now at the 2 main advantages of DVCPRO HD: Intra-Frame vs Long-GOP and 4:2:2 vs 4:2:0. Barry Green wrote an excellent article on the color space ratios that today's cameras use. Read it here.

So, in reality, the HMC150 competes directly with the HDV and XDCAM cameras out there that also have 4:2:0 and Long-GOP recording. The body-style and control of the camera most closely resembles the DVX100 series. But DVX owners will have to buy new batteries as the 150 uses the "VW-VBG" series batteries.

This is really the first professional AVCHD camera. The cameras to come before this have been mostly consumer stuff from Canon and Panasonic. So its the first time most pros have considered AVCHD. As far as NLE Support- FCP has been supporting the format for awhile, however you must use an Intel-Mac. (you'll get an error if you try to use it with Log & Transfer on a G5). FCP gives you the option of transcoding to the Apple Intermidiate Codec (AIC) or Pro Res 422.
There is a software utilily avaialble for G5 users that will encode AVCHD called Voltaic. But as you might guess, its painfully slow on a G5.

Adobe has put AVCHD support into CS4 but Avid still has not announced any support for Media Composer. (theyve got it in Liquid, but... y'know.. who uses Liquid?!) Avid users on a PC can use Panasonic AVCHD to DVCPRO HD encoder which is a free download here.

Other cool bonus's with AVCHD are insta-QT previews from Mac OS desktop; also AVCHD is instantly playable via an SD card on PS3's and most other Blu-Ray Players. The camera has a 3 year warranty which is the best warranty your gonna get for a camera in this price range.