Panasonics NEW AG-HSCU1

[InMyLens]

My chief engineer called me to look at the new sd-card based camera and asked if it would work with Edius Broadcast. It seems to have a newer codec that uses AVCHD (MPEG-4 / AVC/H.264). Has anyone seen this or have any experience with this codec in Edius?

The camera itself is pretty dinky, but for a toss around camera, it may work okay.

Thanks in advance...

[GrassValley_BH]

AVCHD directly on the timeline is coming in EDIUS v4.5
I can't say anything specific to this particular camera though.

[xeberdee]

That's a great little camera.

I tested it against a SONY Z1,V1, Pana HVX200 & Canon HV20. Allthough these cameras are very different in price/features etc - I was interested in comparing the picture alone. I shot 1080i at 5600k on all cams, a combination of totals, green screen keys, and test patterns for all cams. I'm not a camera expert, just a consumer testing for an overall opinion.

Everything was converted to HQ. I set up wipes in Edius to compare the pictures side by side, certain shots zoomed up to 600%. I got an idea of what each camera could do, and I could write lots about them all but I won't.

The HSC-U1E camera held it's own against all of the cams I tested. The picture was noisy at 600%, but the original bitrate is very low so that's expected, allthough the picture was NOT as noisy as the pixel shifted 1080 from the HVX200!

In totals I would rate the HSC1UE as one of the best. 80% of the people that came by the studio pointed to the little panasonic when asked to 'find the picture that looks best' and had most detail/colour (not very scientific, but effective!). This is something to do with the way that the codec enhances edges, it looks as if there is more contrast on shadows and colours that give a 'sharper' picture in total. At 600% details and nuances were lost in noise, but in total the overall impression of the picture appeared best to most proffessional film people asked that question.

HDV/HQ won the post and zoom tests, with the V1 and the little canon giving the best results. I applied colour balances and keys to all footage. Later I found out that there was a chroma sampling problem in the conversion to HQ from AVC, so it's not fair to compare them side by side. Not to say that AVC can't be posted even with a bad conversion, there's a lot of information there to pull on, and the results were generally very good for a camera in that price range.

The AG-HSC1UE only does 1080i and has limited functions and features. If you're looking for a camera for helicopter shots, car shots, or something to gaffa tape to the front of a motorbike - then this is the camera to choose.

I'm looking forward to testing again with the latest conversion software.

3 out of the 20 or so people that came by the studio have bought an AG-HSC1U as a result of seeing the results.

The rest ask 'Hey, any chance of borrowing that little HD camera?'

[THoff]

BTW, version V1.02 of the AVCHD to HQ converter fixes the chroma conversion bug, and has been available for awhile.

Shortly Edius V4.5 will be out, and AVCHD support is integrated into it, so there will be no more need for a separate converter.

[Zorro]

Shortly Edius V4.5 will be out, and AVCHD support is integrated into it, so there will be no more need for a separate converter.

You will need a very fast computer to be able to edit native AVCHD files. KH told me in another thread that even an E6600 won't be fast enough.