White Paper 034 Addendum 15 (rev 1): Menu settings for Panasonic DVCPro100 (AJ-HDX400-MC)

Alan Roberts

Abstract

Assessment was made on a preproduction sample of the AJ-HDX400 (noserial number), a 1080-line fixed frame-rate HDTV camcorder. It is verysimilar in form and function to the SDX900, sharing many features andhaving a very similar menu set. For this assessment, no manual wasavailable. Production models may well differ in detail.

The camera is switchable between interlace (50i) and progressive(25psf) modes and thus can generate a ""film look"" in the camera . Ithas specific ""film-look"" gamma curves that incorporate many of thecontrast handling features of earlier cameras, making it a great dealeasier to set up. The camera has 3 2/3"" ccds and records usingconventional DVPro tape at 100Mb/s.

The camera is significantly smaller and lighter than the familiar Betacamcorder and is useful mostly for portable, single-camera work. It hasmany internal menus for setting the performance, such that it can thenbe used without external controls. It is not well suited tomulti-camera operation.

In this setup, the gamma correction and knee are adjusted to captureabout 2.5 stops of overload, and 1 stop of underexposure, to mimic filmperformance.

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