The Panasonic AG-AF100 is the first professional Micro Four Thirds camcorder. According to [shoplink 16841]BHphoto[/shoplink] the camera will be in Stock within 6-10 weeks. The price without lens is $4,795.00 ([shoplink 16841]Click here to preorder the AG-AF100[/shoplink]).
We collected some of the recent comments made by Barry Green at DVXuser forum:
– In PH (24Mbit/s) mode the AF100 supports uncompressed LPCM audio in addition to the AC-3 audio supported by the HMC series.
– Three chips still deliver superior color to a single-chip system. The reason everyone’s going with a single chip is NOT increased color fidelity; a Bayer chip is inferior to three chips for color fidelity, and that’s why every broadcast camera on the market has three chips and a prism. But there are some things that just can’t be done with three chips — primarily, emulating the way a film camera works and the ability to use lenses that have been developed for film cameras. A single sensor directly emulates the way a film sensor works, and you don’t need to make accomodations in the lens design for a beam-splitting prism.
– I expect we’ll see many comparisons just like the 5D
– So, is AVCHD a “step down” from DVCPRO-HD? In some ways, yes, in some ways no. It’s 4:2:0 instead of 4:2:2. And it’s long-GoP instead of intraframe. However, it’s also 2001-era technology, vs. 2010-era technology. So would it be fair to say that AVCHD can deliver comparable images as compared to DVCPRO-HD? Possibly. An intriguing question.
– DVCPRO-HD is 4:2:2, but it also prefilters the recording resolution down from 1920×1080 to 1280×1080. AVCHD is 4:2:0, but it retains the full 1920×1080. So DVCPRO-HD will have twice the color resolution but only 2/3 the horizontal resolved detail.
– And DVCPRO-HD is bulletproof as far as motion artifacting, whereas AVCHD is a long-GoP codec. However, as a long-GoP codec, it’s really good; I compared it against XDCAM-EX
Reminder: You can read his initial report at DVXuser (Click here)
And don’t forget. You can support this website by preordering the [shoplink 16841]Panasonic AG-AF100 at BHphoto clicking here![/shoplink] (Thanks!)