Panasonic AJ-HPM200 P2 Mobile : Panasonic HVX

Panasonic HVX - HPX (P2) Review at Creative COW

AVC-Intra Video Recorder

The P2 Mobile lets you record video from any HD-SDI, SDI or Composite source you plug into its backside. You'll capture the video to P2 cards (it takes up to six), as if you recorded the video using a P2 camera. That means your video is already in a format that any major video editor or post production software can import (Avid, Final Cut, Premiere, Grass Valley, After Effects, Smoke, etc.). More importantly, you can record the video in a number of P2 formats, from DVCPRO to Panasonic's flagship AVC-Intra.

AVC-Intra is what makes the P2 Mobile such a compelling video recorder. It's a full-raster HD format, meaning it uses square pixels to deliver the full 1280x720 and 1920x1080 resolution you expect from HD, instead of using rectangular pixels (as DVCPRO HD does) to deliver only 960x720 or 1280x1080 pixels. AVC-Intra also records every frame of video as a complete, stand-alone frame (known as "intra-frame"), instead of recording every few frames, and interpolating the unrecorded frames in between. Recording every few frames is what Long-GOP formats such as HDV or Sony's XDCAM do, but the Long-GOP approach makes those formats harder to edit and work with in post, and can also lead to some image artifacts.

Besides its intra-frame nature, AVC-Intra also records with 4:2:2 color sub-sampling, with 10 bit color/luminance. That compares nicely with other formats that are using 4:2:0 or 3:1:1 sampling and 8 bits of color. The end result is that AVC-Intra produces smooth gradients with good flexibility for color correction and compositing in post.

Of course, there are even richer formats that record in higher resolutions, with 4:4:4 sampling and deeper color depth than AVC-Intra. But Intra does what it does using a data rate that peaks at only 100mbps. That means you can store hours of video using a few P2 cards -- for instance, I have five 64GB cards, and can store 13 hours of 720/24 material, and 6.5 hours at 1080. Not only is AVC-Intra's data rate sparing of P2 card capacity, it also means that its video doesn't fill up editing hard drives or LTO archival tapes nearly as fast as a format using two, three or four times as much data.

AVC-Intra's slick picture quality and its welter-weight data rate make it a great all-around option for recording anything aimed at broadcast or online distribution. That, in turn, makes a video recorder like the P2 Mobile very handy. One way you can use the Mobile is to attach it to an older camera such as a tape-based Varicam, thereby bypassing its outdated tape media, its older DVCPRO HD recording format, and other tape-based limitations such as the inability to playback under/over cranking effects and time-lapse. Viola: you've got a far more modern camera recording in AVC-Intra to digital files (the one caveat, of course, is that you're attached to a 14 pound accessory).

You can also connect the P2 Mobile to a tape deck and convert your tape library to digital files, all without tying up an editing system. Doing tape conversions is where the P2 Mobile's up/down converting comes in handy. The Mobile uses the same converter as Panasonic's $75,000 D-5 tape deck, and lets you capture even SD material at different HD resolutions and framerates, or vice versa (for the record, the Mobile as functions as a sync generator with black burst, tri-level and timecode as well as bars & tone in any of the formats it can record). And once you've captured your tape library as digital files, you're free to toss out those old tapes cluttering up your office (and degrading over time, by the way), and archive the video using more efficient methods, such as LTO tape.

One other advantage to using the P2 Mobile as a video recorder -- whether it's attached to a camera or a tape deck -- is that you can include metadata in the video you record. Metadata is information about your video clips, such as custom clip names, program title, shooting location, crew names, and markers that a cameraman might add while shooting, to mark some point of interest (a homerun, an interviewee posing a new question, etc.). Metadata is a godsend to productions and companies that bother to work it into their workflows, and it's something that the P2 Mobile supports 100%. You can load in metadata files created on your computer (using Panasonic's free P2 CMS app) or you can use the P2 Mobile's own klunky on-screen interface to create metadata directly. To speed things up, you can also plug a USB keyboard into the Mobile and enter metadata more quickly.

Of course, there are other video recorders out there besides the P2 Mobile. One is AJA's popular Ki Pro, which at $3,995, is far less expensive and lighter-weight. But the Ki Pro has a potential problem: it records video using Apple's ProRes format, which shares many attributes with AVC-Intra (full-raster, intra-frame, 4:2:2 color space, and 10 bit color depth) but uses a data rate as high as 220mbps versus AVC-Intra's 100mbps. ProRes's high data rate doesn't necessarily buy you a visually better picture, though (usually it doesn't), so your ProRes footage may in fact be a big waste of hard drive and archival space. Plus, the Ki Pro doesn't let you add metadata your recordings.

Another field recorder is Panasonic's P2 Gear, which you can hold in one hand, and lets you record via HD-SDI to two P2 cards in AVC-Intra. At 5,560, the Gear gives you AVC-Intra recording for much less money than the P2 Mobile. On the other hand, the P2 Gear (as well as the Ki Pro) doesn't do much beyond pure field recording and converting, whereas that's just the tip of the iceberg for the P2 Mobile.

Panasonic P2 Mobile closed. Please click here for larger image.