Just spent a week in the field with a pair of Panasonic HPX-170 AVC CAM video camcorders. This camera costs about $5,000 dollars on the street and it records to a single SD card. Yes this camera is in the Panasonic P2 family, but this is the ghetto cousin from the other side of town because it records to a single SD card. I was hired to DP a web series for a Production Company out of Los Angeles, and since they owned the cameras, they demanded that I use them. Trust me I tried to fight for another camera.
Overall the camera is very nice, although the infinity ring used for focus is always a major pain in the ass, as is the very limited color viewfinder. Black and White viewfinders are still far superior to color for determining contrast. The camera is heavy and awkward to handhold for extended scenes and its even worse on the wrist and forearm with the .85 Schneider wide angle convertor.
The Workflow with the SD cards is a nightmare in the field. We have several 32 and 16 gig cards to work with. You fill a card, the card is then transfered to a hard drive and the card is formatted to be shot again. But on 3 different occasions with 3 different cards we experienced Error Codes when attempting to download the cards to the drive. I'm a cameraman, I'm not a digital data engineer. I was glad to find out that the company in LA was able to recover the data from the SD cards. Post production tells me it was a faulty USB cable, which is not a big deal at all, but the entire situation introduced a level of uncertainty regarding the gear. THIS NEVER HAPPENS WITH TAPE.
My biggest gripe with the limited Panasonic HPX 170 is the single SD Card. With a 32 Gig card, you can record around 4 hours of footage. Horrible odds. One card fails, you lose 4 hours of footage. I spoke with the company and explained what I have explained here and how it is much safer to use smaller cards like 4 or 8 gig cards.
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