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Panasonic Pro AG-HMC150 3CCD AVCHD 24fps Camcorder
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Product Description
The powerful tapeless AG-HMC150 joins the Panasonic line of professional HD camcorders. This AVCCAM camcorder features highly-acclaimed functions for the popular AG-DVX100 Series of DV-tape based camcorders to tapeless HD recording. Using the cost-saving AVCHD format to record onto SDHC or SD Memory Card media, the AG-HMC150 produces exceptional images and responds to creative production needs. It also features a 28mm (35mm equivalent) wide-angle lens - widest in a professional camera of this class - and a newly developed 1/3-inch 16:9 progressive CCD. It further enhances image quality by adding a higher-quality PH mode to the clean, extended-time recording abilities of the AVCHD format. The AG-HMC150 handles full-pixel (1920 x 1080/1280 x 720) 24p and 30p progressive recording, and includes cinelike gamma and other versatile functions to meet the special needs of creative image production.
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #2051 in Camera & Photo
- Brand: Panasonic
- Model: AGHMC150PJ
- Display size: 3.5
Features
- Full range of HD formats: 1080/60i, 1080/30p, 1080/24p (Native); 720/60p, 720/30p, 720/24p (Native)
- Higher bit-rate recording than consumer models (21 Mbps PH Mode)
- 13X Wide angle 28 mm lens out of the box (35mm equiv.); 1/3-inch CCD Progressive Imagers
- Waveform Monitor, Vectorscope plus two Focus displays for accurate, quick focus
- 3.5-inch LCD monitor displays thumbnails for quick non-linear access to clips
Editorial Reviews
From the Manufacturer
From the Manufacturer
The cooler than cool AG-HMC150 drew big crowds at the 2008 NAB Show. Why? Simply because it offers an unheard of Bang for the Buck, in a 1/3-inch three-chip hand held tapeless HD camcorder, while retaining the core versatility of the DVX100B. The HMC150 sports a 28mm lens right out of the box and a new PH Record mode (21 Mbps) which offers higher resolution with a host of recording formats including 24p. Add to that, amazing low light performance, long record and battery time and professional Audio capabilities at a price that will make it an instant hit with a wide range of AV Shooters, Indie creators and Event video professionals.
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Main Features:
- Full range of HD formats: 1080/60i, 1080/30p, 1080/24p (Native); 720/60p, 720/30p, 720/24p (Native)
- Higher bit-rate recording than consumer models (21 Mbps PH Mode)
- Three latest design 1/3-inch CCD Progressive Imagers
- 13X Wide angle 28 mm lens out of the box (35mm equiv.), MOD .6 M, 72mm Ø (Shoot in confined spaces with no need to buy an accessory lens)
- Time Date Stamp for Legal Depositions or surveillance
- Waveform Monitor, Vectorscope plus two Focus displays for accurate, quick focus
- Professional XLR audio input connections
- Time code (DF, NDF, REC RUN, FREE RUN) and USER BIT
- HDMI out, Component Out (mini D terminal), Composite Video Out and RCA Audio Out jacks
- External Time Code Link (Slave & Master Preset) uses the Composite Video Out terminal
- USB 2.0 for file transfer (no need for a VTR)
- 3.5-inch LCD monitor displays thumbnails for quick non-linear access to clips
- Remote control connection for Zoom, Focus, Iris, and start/stop functions
- 14 bit A to D converter and 19 bit Image processing
- Cinelike Gamma & DRS Dynamic Range Stretch (Filmaker requested features)
- Three Neutral Density Filters 1/4, 1/16, 1/64
- Pre-Record (3 Seconds), Digital Zoom 2X / 5X / 10X (in 1080/60i & 720/60p only)
- Three User Set Buttons with 11 choices for customizing Camera to Shooter
Using the latest in compression technology (AVC High Profile) and widely available SD memory cards as the recording media, the AG-HMC150 is as easy to use as a digital still camera. The content recorded on the SD card can be directly played on a growing number of affordable consumer players, including select models of Playstation 3, Blu-ray players, plasma screens and PC’s. With most NLE systems now supporting AVCHD, content can be edited and rendered to play in any type of SD or HD playback system.
Dynamic Range Stretch. With DRS ON your customer can capture better Video quality when shooting bright, halftone and dark objects in the same frame. (Bride’s white gown details and the Groom’s shades of tuxedo black.) This clever circuit estimates the gamma curve and knee slope of each pixel’s brightness and applies the estimate on a real time basis. The result is more accurate Video with a visually wider dynamic range.
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Enhanced Tools to make better Video. The WFM allows for critical evaluation of too high Luminance levels which can ruin a job, like the shine on a model's forehead. The built-in Vectorscope allows for color analysis and matching because it measures color saturation as gain, and Phase (Hue) as the angle. When it comes to critical focus, two 'Focus aids' are on board. In addition to the Center Zoom which enlarges the center 2X filling the entire the entire LCD screen, the Histogram display shows fine focus as Amplitude & Frequency, making it easy to see critical focus.
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Professionals Need Great Audio. Two locking XLR inputs at the front, complete with hard switches for Line and Mic with +48V Phantom Power, Manual level controls, and Internal/External assignment. Up & down volume adjustments can be made to the internal speaker or stereo headphone output.
Don't be afraid of the Dark or of your tape running out. With 14 bit Analog to Digital conversion and 19 bit Video processing, users can shoot in low light situations with virtiually no fear of video noise detracting from the highly detailed video. They can also forget about the 63 minute record time limit of DV & HDV and the need to estimate remaining battery life. The new Info Data battery system used in the AVCCAM line up updates remaining time left to the minute.
Competitive Advantages of the AG-HMC150:
- Solid state capture and playback eliminates the problems inherent in tape and disc drives, while allowing high quality HD content to be captured on affordable, readily available SD cards
- Its 21 Mbps PH mode records far higher picture quality than HDV Tape systems
- MPEG-2 compression works with blocks of only 16 X 16 pixels whereas H.264 compression works with blocks down to 4 X 4 pixels. What’s more, AVCHD’s motion prediction is content dependant
- Continuous, silent recording of between 3 and 12 hours with Time Date Stamp is a powerful capability
- No head wear, alignment or cleaning and it carries a Three Year Parts & Labor Warranty
- Lower storage needs & lower distribution costs
- HDMI Digital Output, HD Component Output, and selectable SD 16:9 Output (RCA)
- 28 mm Lens achieves wide angle without having to buy attachments
- Built on a one piece die cast alloy chassis that is compact, well balanced and weighs less than 4.5 lbs. (4.37lbs with Battery, Mic Holder, AG-MC200 Mic and SD Card)
- Immediate Playback, random access & ability to preview shots and delete on location
- AVCHD is a new HD industry standard, tapeless format introduced by Panasonic and Sony and now supported by over 30 manufacturers (Advanced in compression, color and motion prediction)
- It utilizes the AVC High Profile codec- Providing the benefit of equal recording quality at about half the bit rate of older MPEG-2 used in HDV systems. More record time using less storage space
- AVCHD content can be played directly from an SD card in a growing number of affordable devices
- Content can be edited and rendered to many different formats for use on other playback devices
- Like Digital Still camera files, AVCHD content files can be transferred to and stored on any affordable, data storage device including HDD, optical discs, flash drives etc. No format specific deck (like HDV 720p or HDV 1080i) is needed for ingest
- Ultra Solid state reliability -- Benefits in Temperature, Humidity, Vibration, Maintenance, No Dropouts
- No FF or REW, no camera down time due to clogged tape heads or slipping, hardened pinch rollers
- Panasonic’s professional AVCHD camcorders use widely available SD or SDHC cards: 2GB, 4GB, 8GB, 16GB & 32GB whose trend is increasing capacity and decreasing in cost
- Longer recording time for capturing uninterrupted, extended events –between 3 and 12 hours depending on bit rate chosen with a 32GB SDHC card
- Faster workflow -- like digital photography, no ingest, random access to content, lower storage and distribution costs
Customer Reviews
WOW :-)
I received my 150 a little over a week ago. Bought it because I wanted to move up to HD and get out of the tape business. It did not come with an SDHC card. Bought an 8 GB to carry me over until my 16 GB cards arrive via Amazon. I am still on the learning curve on it. Especially liked the large comfortable color view eye piece. I was also amazed by the clarity of the video play back on my 48" LCD screen. Used the three cable output first, that came with the camera( Video, Lt. Rt. Audio )
Very clear video, much clearer than my trusty old Canon GL-2 It does not come with an HDMI cable. Bought one locally and tried it. Plugged one end into the HDMI out port on the camera and the other end into the HDMI port of my TV. I was blown away by how clear it was !! The video was clearer than some of the stations I view in HD.
On playback, you are given a thumbnail of the first frame of each scene you shot when you turned the camera on. On playback, you can skip around the scenes you want to view , or delete if needed. The focus assist is another nice feature. When you use it, it momentarily zooms in on the middle of your next shot so that you can fine focus if needed.
It has many other features that I have not tried yet. On editing, bought the Pinnacle 12 Ultimate because it is set up to handle the AVHCD format and a PC with the AMD quad Phenom processor with 3 GB of RAM. Waiting for a more powerful graphics card to arrive before trying to edit in this new format. The battery that came with it is small. Would recommend buying the larger battery as soon as you can to balance it out. Right now, it feels a little out of balance because of the smaller battery. Also liked the solid magnesium body. No plastic anywhere ! Overall, I am impressed with this camera.
Not worth the price, but there is not much alternative
Panasonic AG-HMC150
I shoot weddings and I have used The HMC150, the Canon AH1.
From the beginning let me first tell you where my opinion is coming from - price tag: $3500
First off, neither of these cameras are brilliant in low light. They have 1/3 imagers. I don't care if they are made of gold and there are ten of them.
1/3 imagers are too small to gather enough light, even if you attached the Hubbell telescope to them.
To put such tiny sensors in a $3500 is poor, cheap engineering especially when SLR have larger sensors, shoot HD and don't cost this much.
Who are these camera angled at?
Videographers and indie filmmakers.
As a videographer what are you most concerned with - Low light.
Why? Because you cannot control lights at weddings at parties, etc. So your camera has to be able to handle it.
As an Indie filmmaker what are you most concerned with - The ability to look like film. It does, with 24p and film gamma, it's about all you need. But you are paying a premium. But for me, equally important to film look as 24fps is lens choice. Here you get none. While 24fps is what is ingrained in the everyone's consciousness as what film should look like, they also don't realize that shallow depth of field and variety of lenses is too. With these camcorders you get no choice, a 13x zoom with extremely wide depth of field at most every focal distance, because it's a zoom and because the imagers are tiny.
Good news The AG-HMC150 can handle most lighting situations.
Bad news - AVCHD codec, is noisy in even bright sunlight afternoons. The image is made of blotch.
Measuring image integrity by zoom factor - at 100% AVCHD compression is clearly visible. 200% the image is a swarming, infected mess.
Although the Panny can holdup in low light. I shot in a dark club and there was still something to see.
It has a very weird auto iris mode, that brings in more light, even when you do exact settings in manual.
Don't know if there is a magic switch, didn't have it long enough to work everything out.
The Canon uses HDV and instead of compression codec noise, you get digital noise; unpleasant grain (not like film), and washed out video at 100%. At 200% it's like looking at a digital still from a 10 year old point and shoot. And trust me, once an image is washed out and grainy, there is very little you can do (Some gamma correction will bring the shadows back to life, but that noise is there to stay. And the drop down to SD doesn't do it any favors.
Bottom line the Canon sucks in low light, especially in anything other than auto mode. I shot in a low light room and the image was garbage. Despite some settings tweaking, which leads me to Canon's second biggest problem and a problem with these camcorders in general.
The LCD and the Viewfinder are too small to see how your image is holding up. Everything looked fabulous on the Canon's 2.7 LCD...and then when you get it back to edit. Noise city. So you can only use the LCD for just basic image checking.
The HMC150 has a 3.5 LCD, but the brilliant engineers made it a 4:3 ratio! You have black matting in the image! The camera can only shoot 16x9 and they put a 4x3 LCD on it...so in the end you only get about 2.7" of real estate and you see as much as on the Canon, unless you are in focus assist mode which zooms in and uses the whole LCD.
So you have to know your settings and be shutter/iris paranoid, hoping for the best image. What you see is not what you get, you have to know what you want, like with film and set the camera accordingly, knowing which settings will get you want in the END, not what you are looking at through the camera.
The HMC150 definitely benefits from the higher rez. The Canon is 1440x1080. You can see the difference.
The Canon is more professionally built. Both plastic, but the canon feels more professional, and weirdly the HMC feels like a Tonka Toy, hard textured plastic, but like a light and chunky toy. I can hear the optical stabilizer clunking around in it. The Canon aesthetically looks more professional.
Audio on the Canon is better, it has much better limiter, I don't even think the HMC's is useful, but if you plug one xlr mic into the Canon...the onboard becomes unusable. HMC lets you assign channels for the onboard. Bad news is the onboard mic on both sucks, the Canon sounds better because the HDV format has higher rez than the compressed AVCHD codec.
The HMC and it's tapeless/AVCHD codec does not save much time, the transcoding takes almost as long if not longer than real time (HDV tape) and sometimes there are errors, especially transferring from camera, the footage speeds up, the audio remains constant and you have shorter clips. Happened constantly. My guess, USB and it's non constant data rate. Another cheap short cut by Panasonic. The Canon has a firewire, which speed is constant, and they need it for the HDV tapes.
The HMC wins out with higher rez, native progressive imagers, resulting in two true progressive modes, 24fps, the other mode/rez are wrapped in pulldowns. The Canon's 24f, etc modes are fake and you can tell. Everything is interlaced on the Canon. I hate interlaced.
This review isn't structured very well, but I don't have the energy, since I'm so unenthusiastic about both, so they're not worth more time. But I thought I would let potential buyers know, the ones who think these two cameras are the Holy Grail. They aren't, and they aren't worth the high price tag, they are worth $2000 not a penny more. But the problem is, what else is there?
I returned the HMC, and I didn't the Canon wasn't mine, but would have returned it too.
I'm going to try the Canon SLR route. The closest thing you can get to film without shooting it.
Annoyingly these two manufacturers and Sony...are all sticking it to us. Instead of advancing things, they are taking baby steps, giving us one desired function at a time for a price.
If Canon can put a full frame sensor in their 5d II and can give it 1920x1080 30fps shooting, why can't they put that sensor in a camcorder, with a SLR interchangeable lens mount, with XLR inputs?
Because they want to sell camcorders AND slr cameras.
These camcorders are just big consumer cams. They don't have enough image improvement to warrant $2500+ more in cost. You are paying for features, limited manual adjustments, not image upgrade.
But of course I didn't have it for very long, two weeks.
I just couldn't get over the price versus video quality, and workflow.
They don't justify the price, especially when I think we are very close to getting some real breakthroughs in HD imaging.
Nothing new to add... other than I love this camera
One thing you need to keep in mind is that editing AVCCam/AVCHD is a P.I.T.A. I'm using CS4 on a 2.4 quadcore with 8gig of RAM and Vista64 and it's sluggish with frequent lockups. I'm getting Cineform ProspectHD v4 when it comes out to compensate. Vegas 8.0c and Edius works well I'm told, and FCP need to convert it to ProRes (or whatever it's called). I think Avid needs to convert it to a native codec as well. Panasonic does offer a free converter to DVCProHD on there website
[Update 6/5/09... Premiere CS4 4.1 update is out, and editing is much easier. Also, Prospect v4 is out, and editing with the demo I've been trying has been a joy]
That said... the camera itself is awesome. Really. I'm coming from the DVX, and this is leaps and bounds above that (which is saying something). The images I'm getting are beautiful. I'm planning on going out now on my days off to shoot just for the fun of it.
I really can't add anything that hasn't been said already by others. But if you're looking at the HVX200a or HPX170 (they all share the same chips, and the HMC shares the same glass as the HPX), but don't want to deal with the costs of P2 or need all of the features of the HPX or HVX, I would HIGHLY recommend buying this instead.
Just be prepared for some editing headaches at first (the problem with bleeding edge technology is sometimes you need to get stitches).
