White Paper 034 Addendum 36: Menu settings for Panasonic P2 AJ-HPX3700

Alan Roberts

Abstract

A brief assessment was made on a production sample of the AJ-HPX3700 (serial number K7TKA0112), a HDTV camcorder with a Canon HA18x7.6 HD lens. It is very similar in form and function to the other cameras in the HPX series, particularly the 3000 and 2700, sharing many features and having a very similar menu set.

The camera has 3 full-resolution ccds, 1920x1080 active sensors (2010x1120 total) and operates only at 1080-line HDTV standards. It can be switched between interlace (50i, 59.94i) and progressive (25psf, 29.97psf, and 23.98psf in both 2:3 and 2:3:3:2 pull-down) modes. It has a variable frame-rate mode in which it can record at frame rates from 1 per second up to the system frame rate. It can generate a “film look” in the camera, and has specific “film-look” gamma curves that incorporate many of the contrast handling features of earlier cameras, making it a great deal easier to set up. It is superficially identical to the HPX3000 and HPX3700.

The recording system is either the conventional DVCProHD format (8-bits, 1440x1080, 6.7:1 compression at 29.97Hz, 6.3:1 at 25Hz) or the newer AVC-Intra at 100Mb/s (10-bits, full resolution, H.264, I-frame only) or at 50Mb/s (¾ horizontal sample count, 4:2:0) onto solid-state P2 cards (5-cage slots in the camera). Sensitivity is specified as F/10 at 2000lux, power consumption 38 watts, weight 4.9kg without lens or viewfinder. Interestingly, it can output full-resolution images in 4:4:4 mode via dual HDSDI, but not record them. This mode was not tested.

It is a little larger than the HDX900, being wider to accommodate the P2 cards instead of the tape mechanism, and has HDSDI output. It has striking similarities to the HPX2100, 2700 and 3000 with which it should be compatible. There is a side-panel lcd display for menu setting and access to recorded files. It has many internal menus for setting the performance, such that it can then be used without external controls. It is not ideally suited to multi-camera operation (being a camcorder) but has enough features to make multi use possible. Monitoring and connectivity have been improved over previous Panasonic models; it will genlock to either analogue HD Y or analogue composite (PAL or NTSC as appropriate); there are two video outputs, one switchable between HDSDI, SDI (appropriate down-conversion), and composite (PAL or NTSC), the other between HDSDI and HD analogue Y for monitoring. It has a LCD side-panel, useful for menu setting etc.

The camera section has 14-bit ADCs that deliver better noise performance than in earlier models. There is also an 8-second cache for pre-recording.

In this setup, the gamma correction and knee are adjusted to capture almost 2 stops of overload, and 1 stop of underexposure, to mimic film performance.

The settings derived here are from a joint test session with the HPX3000 and 2700, where it was found that the same settings could be used across the cameras, giving the same results. This means that the cameras can be freely mixed in productions.

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