The Panasonic DVX-200 is striking because of its red body and superb design qualities but this is not the first time Panasonic have broken away from tradition, John Preston from H Preston Media reminded me of the Panasonic V3.
The V3 goes all the way back to 1986 thats 29 years ago and had 3 half inch Newvicon tubes, a signal to noise ratio of -54dB and a 1.5″ black and white viewfinder. It provided 570 lines resolution and a minimum illumination of 30 lux.
This was the bad boy of low light, John remembers selling 5 Panasonic V3’s to the local constabulary only to get all 5 back a week later because of their shocking low light capabilities.
This is probably one of Panasonic’s best looking hand held camcorders to date, I have moaned on about boring black and grey cameras for years and Panasonic have obviously listened.
How it performs is another question but with its newly-developed 4/3” large-format MOS sensor it should be good in low light and have a reasonable shallow depth of field. Remember the Panasonic HC-X1000 has a 1/2.3″ sensor so there should be a vast improvement in low light performance over the semi pro HC-X1000 in which the DVX-200 is being compared to.
Apart from its striking looks the DVX-200 should in my opinion be equal to or out perform the Panasonic GH4 in 4K mode not to mention the five-axis Hybrid Image Stabilizer and 4x correction-area Image Stabilised lens.
Having the ability to zoom from 29.5 mm ~ 384.9 mm, 4K and 28 mm ~ 365.3mm, in HD (35 mm equivalent) is a major bonus for a 4K professional camcorder.
Lets not forget the other major advantage of the DVX-200, low cost media in the form of SDXC C10 S3 cards, Transcend 64G are £25 each while the 128G is £55 which is a major advantage over Sonys XQD cards 128G = £420 !
This will be the first true 4K run and gun camcorder and I can’t wait to get my hands on one.
Hi Phillip
Have you got one of these lined up to do a review on? I know you don’t get much time to do reviews but a camera like this….?
I can always do a full review on your behalf 😉
Hi Philip,
lets hope you will get one DVX 200 soon for review. I’m looking forward to it. I like this “F1” looking camera.
Cheers
It reminded me to the gamechanger XL1 but the v3 looks closer. Anyway I have the feeling Panasonic may be back in the game with a winner here! I’m really interested in this one!
But people are claiming for an AF200 so they should listen to them too!
HDW : Panasonic won’t bring out an AF200 (AF101) now it would be pointless. The DVX-200 is the way forward for 4K in my opinion.
After using Sony Z100 for more than 1 year I was thinking: if it was 2 stops better, didn’t warm so much (cards are hot when ejected) and was a little more polished this could be my camera for next 3 years.
I really like the specs of this new Panasonic, hope for a review (and some files directly from camera to test)
“Panasonic won’t bring out an AF200 (AF101) now it would be pointless. The DVX-200 is the way forward for 4K in my opinion.”
I disagree. I’m hoping that Panasonic will bring out an AF100 replacement. The DVX-200 lens is too slow (at portrait focal length) for a m4/3 sensor and there is still a need for a AF100 type multi-lens camera that fills the gap between the GH4 and a Varicam. Something like the Blackmagic URSA mini that accepts m4/3 lenses.
I’m interested in the Blackmagic camera but my m4/3 lens collection is now more well rounded than my Canon EF collection and with native m4/3 lenses I wouldn’t have to suffer a crop factor.
The DVX-200 will record up to 4:4:4 12-bit using AVC Ultra at 400Mbps!!!
From the AVC Ultra whitepaper p.8 the format is defined to no less than:
4096 res: 4:4:4 12-bit
3840 res: 4:2:2 10-bit
There is no “up to” in the 4k paragraph in the whitepaper!
Hope this rep is more reliable than Sony´s Manuel Margies who didn´t deny the 4k 4:2:2 10-bit forecast for the PXW-X70.
AVC Ultra whitepaper can be found here:
ftp://ftp.panasonic.com/provideo/whitepaper/avc-ultra_whitepaper.pdf
But I found also Panasonic not satisfying own specs in the past when they promised manual aperture and shutter settings via remote app for the LX100, later removed it from the specs on the website.
Time will tell…
HDW : Sorry Roland 444 12bit at 400Mbps I don’t think so.
…maybe I forgot the link in my previous post:
From the whitepaper this would be the specs from my previous post.
Not unbelieveable since Sony’s Z100 goes even up to 600Mbps (ok, for “what” on that camera?!?!).
But to be honest 400Mbps sounds a bit much for the needed UHS-3 cards since this is only at least 240Mbps.
HDW : Sorry Robert the video is so bad I won’t send it any traffic, Panasonic just told me 420 8bit with 422 10 bit via HDMI. The max bit rate to the SDXC card is 200Mbps.
I just saw the video where the Panasonic Senior Marketing Manager says “AVC-Ultra 444”
, and suddenly I got very interested. Then I remembered that it is going to record into SD cards, and I realized that it was just a mistake.
PS: Why every single photo or video of the DVX200 shows only the same side. I guess they couldn’t finish the zoom rocker side on time.
HDW : I downloaded the PRESS PACK and all the pics are from the one side, that rep was talking nonsense.
4:2:0 8-bit would be nonsense or at least dangerous for a new 5k bucks camcorder since simply by specs this new camcorder would be worse than Sony´s “old” Z100 that does 4k in 4:2:2 10-bit at 600Mbps.
Yes the Z100 is 4:2:2 10bit for intra frame but inter frame LongGOP is 8 bit 4:2:0 just like my FDR-AX1 150 Mbps. If you want long record times with not enormous file size then something has to give. Even at this rate a 64G card only lasts about 50 mins depending on subject. At 4:2:2 10bit intra frame the 64G XQD card last about 12 mins. And that is an expensive fast card also.
The DVX 200 looks like a really nice camera and I will look at it as a replacement for my NX5U when more information comes out.
“HDW : I downloaded the PRESS PACK and all the pics are from the one side”
It is not just the “Press Pack”. It is everywhere. They just want us to see the sexy side only.
@Roland Shulz: Totally agree. The Sony Z100 is the closest competitor. All that Sony needs to do is to put a larger sensor and call it the Z200. Panasonic needs to include a professional codec, but that requires faster media and they only do SD, P2 micro and P2. The first two are too slow and the last one too expensive.
OMG I owned 2 V3s The worse cameras ever made!!! The reason why I never bought another Panasonic camera ever again! I can’t believe this!!! Just looking at it makes me trow up!
HDW : Panasonic have been stupid in the past releasing noisy cameras, thats why Sony have such a hold in the UK.