PAL Frame Rate Support for Panasonic HVX-200 Camcorder

Hi Charles,

I'm in a very similar situation. I have bought the camera and love it for what I have been able to work with - DV DV50 and DVCPRO HD 1080 50.

At this time Final Cut Pro, Avid Xpress Pro, Media Composer Adrenaline, Premiere Pro and Sony Vegas DO NOT support 720p 25/50 for this camera.

Its down to the NLE makers to create a new DVCPRO HD codec for their applications which can handle 720 50/25.

Personally I have not seen or heard any clues from Apple as to when they might do this, but I think Shane did mention that he had been given some info on this (apologies if I got that wrong Shane). If I was to guess I would say they will release it around IBC (Sept) so as to make a big splash in the Euro market.

Avid have told me they will support 720p 50/25 in an 'upcoming release'. Not much help I know, but they have been made very aware of the demand for this format support and there are plenty of people in the company fighting for it.

Don't know much about the Premiere Pro support - its possible they will partner with a 3rd party developer, like Cineform, to do this. Currently there is a way to do something like this using an intermediate app from DV Film called Raylight. This does support 720p 25 and works by creating a reference AVI using an AVI codec to read the essence. With this you can work in Premiere and Vegas I believe. Really a workaround at the moment IMHO:
http://www.dvfilm.com/raylight/index.htm

Sony Vegas is a funny one - they will need to include support for the MXF format they did not choose to use. XDCAM uses OP1a and P2 uses the OpAtom spec. I can't imagine they won't do it though, the two departments must be separate enough to be able to see the advantage of dual XDCAM and P2 support. As said Raylight can also be used with Vegas.

Currently Canopus Edius Broadcast is the only app to support the 720p 25, but its skewed towards Varicam and they refer to it as 720p 25 over 60. I tried the demo, but found it hard to navigate, so I did not manage to confirm very much useful info. In general Edius has the widest P2 support though of any NLE at the moment.

Ok, so those are mostly Windows based, but I get the impression that the slower adoption of HD in Europe and the fact that other NLE makers have also sat on this one, has led to a collective oversight from them. Its time they all started competing on this one though!

Keep an eye on this thread also - a developer is creating a DV Rack like app for the Mac which will be in beta soon:
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=51700

The other issue for mac based HVX200 users is the lack of a low cost P2 Viewer app like the one shipped for free for PC systems. The only software available at the moment which can do this is called HD Log and is a very sophisticated cataloging app - its obviously very powerful, but way more than is needed for a simple P2 viewer and costs around $700:
http://www.imagineproducts.com/hdlog.htm

With regard to moving media off the P2 cards and onto your system efficiently, check out this small app from Anders Holck:
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=52654

Hope some of that is useful/new info,
best
Mark

P.S - Check where you are from in your profile 🙂

Hi Charlie,

Fellow Londoner indeed! I'm really looking to work with 720p 25 off the camera, but I'm limited to the 1080/DV50 and DV formats for now. Great camera though. My hope is that Cinemek will ship me a G35 the day Apple/Avid update their software 🙂

I've been following the Holck tool, but I don't think it will have any P2 Viewer features will it? At the moment its a simple file copy automation tool using Unix scripts. Very handy all the same!

Best
Mark

Hi Charles,

I bit more software news today, but nothing thats really going to dramatically change things for us. DV Film have released v2.3 of DV Film Maker (windows only for now) which can take 720p 25 MXF from the HVX200 and convert it to the Avid DV100 QT codec or even the DNxHD codecs as well as AVi codecs which will work in premiere and Vegas. This approach is much better than their Raylight reference codec.
http://www.dvfilm.com/maker/index.htm

All this really means is that we can now get to the video, but cutting it efficiently on a Mac is not realistic for anything long form. You would need to have the Mac Avid HD codecs to use them in FCP (no RT), but they are not released yet either, so back to square one 🙂

With regard to the G35, the footage out there are the moment is from the beta unit which had a static GG. The shipping unit is supposed to have a vibrating GG, but I have to say I was still more impressed with the G35 footage than the Red Rock even with the compressed images/videos on the web.

I agree though that the Red Rock team are running a very tight ship and I love the package's they put together. I also like the Red Rock approach to upgrading the components as they find higher quality pieces that work. Its a great product and seems to only be getting better.

There's just something in the G35 results which I find I like more and thats where it lies really I guess; much of it comes down to personal preference. Hopefully we can see this stuff much bigger later this year. We're trying to test a few of these systems out with the HVX and the other mini-HD cameras and do a film out for a screening; If we ever manage to get hold of a shipping G35!

Best
Mark

Hi Charles,

A few bits of noteworthy news over the past day or so; Cineform have updated their Connect HD and Aspect HD packages (now in beta) to include full MXF support from the HVX200E. Connect HD is for Sony Vegas and Aspect HD is for Premiere Pro:
http://www.cineform.com/products/hvx200support/hvx200.htm

Unfortunately no Mac and FCP relates news, but a step forward for the PAL world at least.

Mark

Small update. The developers of HD Log Gold have managed to get a working solution together for 720p25 from the HVX200E. Basically they created their own DVCPROHD 720p50 Quicktime passthrough codec and built this and 2:2 pulldown support into HD Log Gold.

So you import all your MXF into HD Log, the MXF are re-wrapped in Quicktime using their 720p50 codec (including audio). Export a FCP XML along with the Quicktimes to your usual media drive and then import the XML to FCP.

First time around you need to go and create a DVCPRO HD 720p25 sequence preset. To do this, duplicate the 720p60 preset and change the Timebase to 25 and select the DVCPRO HD 720p50 codec. Now you're setup to edit your 720p25 media.

I think the DVCPRO HD 720p25 codec they supply is just a passthrough codec and FCP is actually using the Apple 720p60 codec to render as you still have full RT - I'm waiting for an email back from them to confirm this.

On the down side this is a $699 program and uses a horrid USB dongle. But if you need 720p25 support in FCP (or on a Mac period) this is it.

HD Log Gold
http://www.imagineproducts.com/hdlog.htm

Contact them to ask if you can test the new demo version with this support. The demo on the site is the one to use but you also need the 720p50 codec which is a separate download.

Best
Mark