New HD Panasonic AG-HVX200 Camcorder

[Filip Norrgard]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/Panasonic-Announces-AG-HVX200-HD-Flash-Media-Camcorder-with.htm' target='_blank'>http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/Panasonic-Announces-AG-HVX200-HD-Flash-Media-Camcorder-with.htm</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Offering flexibility and versatility never before available to video professionals, the AG-HVX200 DVCPRO HD P2 hand-held camcorder provides 1080i and 720p recording with the production-proven image quality of 100 Mbps DVCPRO HD. The AG-HVX200 shoots on a P2 card in 1080/60i, 30p and 24p; in 720/60p, 30p and 24p; and in DVCPRO50, DVCPRO or DV," stated Panasonic's press release."</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/PanasonicAG_HVX200.jpg" /><br /><br />A brand new HD camcorder from Panasonic for around $6000? This looks to be mainly a prosumer camcorder for the moment being, and not directly intended for catching those "America's Funniest Home Videos"-moments. ;) But, it is nice to see that there are more HD camcorders on the horizon which would mean that we will soon start to see them enter the consumer market in the near future.

[Doug Johnson]

This camera has one major problem: media!

It will record SD on MiniDV tapes, which is fine, but if you want to move to the HD resolutions you have to record on P2 cards. Recording on cards is kind of cool, right? You can take out the card, pop it into your laptop, and edit right away without capturing.

Yes, the idea is great, but the cost on these cards is way too high, and their size way too small... Panasonic currently offers 2GB and 4GB cards, and will be releasing an 8GB card shortly. The 8GB card is going to cost $2000! A MiniDV tape holds 14GB and costs $4-5. When you record in the highest resolution on the camera, it eats up storage at a rate of 10 MB per second, which if you do the math, only allows about 13 minutes of recording time on their highest capacity card. If you want to record for an hour, you'll need five cards (a mere $10,000 - nearly twice the price of the camera, and have to swap them out every 13 minutes, or have somone else manning a laptop to copy the files off as you go.) You could drop back the quality a bit and get about 25 minutes per card, but even at that rate you need $6000 in cards to record an hour of footage. Ugh!

They really should have figured out a way to run a MiniDV tape at a higher speed (say, double normal speed for 50 Mbps) OR have a bay that accepts 2.5" or 1.8" hard drives so storage would be affordable. No-one I know that has been looking forward to an HD offering from Panasonic is going to want this camera.