23 Responses to “Sony XDCAM EX Pre-Launch Specs”  

1. 1 ajit Aug 31st, 2007 at 2:18 pm

   wow. that would be pretty sweet camera.

2. 2 Juan Martinez (Sony Electronics) Sep 1st, 2007 at 9:37 am

   Hi,

   There were many assumptions made here about the EX camcorder; some are correct but many are not accurate… for the most time they fall short! Real product details and specs will be disclosed on a press event September 18th. I am certain that this camcorder will set new performance, creative control and ergonomics benchmarks for hand held camcorders. It was designed for the ground up by the same engineering team that makes CineAlta cameras like the HDW-F900 and F23! Most of its components did not even exist and had to be developed for this application… I am very proud to haver been involved on this product development for over three years. I’ll gladly answer questions after September 18.

   Juan Martinez
   Senior Manager, Sony Electronics

3. 3 Matthew Jeppsen Sep 1st, 2007 at 1:21 pm

   Thanks for your input, Juan. I’m very glad to hear that my predictions don’t fully describe the capabilities of this camcorder, and am very intrigued at what is to come. But I think I speak for everyone when I say…September 18!?! We’ve been waiting since NAB, throw us a bone here! :-)

   You said that the assumptions “fall short”. Great! I’m going to speculate wildly now, you can tell me if I’m getting warmer…
   *The imager IS in fact full raster 1920×1080? 100Mbps XDCAM HD? ;-)
   *Chips are CCD or CMOS with global-shutter?
   *Dynamic range is at 9-10 stops?
   *1080 IS supported at overcranked 50p and 60p? Can be cranked up to 120fps?
   *The Fujinon lens is a 20x instead of 14x?
   *Imager low-light performance is such that we are back at pre-HDV 1lux levels?
   *HD-SDI output is supported? Comes right off the chips at a higher colorspace?
   *We can tweak the image profiles with fine-grained settings like Master Ped, Knee and Coring?
   *We get a “real” cine gamma curve that doesn’t decrease dynamic range.
   *1:1 focus assist can be engaged while shooting (when you actually need it most)?
   *There is an image-flip setting for 35mm adapter users?
   *MSRP will be well under $6K?
   *It makes me fresh coffee on set?

   Give us a few hints! :-)

   -Matt Jeppsen

4. 4 Tony Wilson ACS Sep 4th, 2007 at 2:16 am

   Sounds like a really interesting camera and I look forward to actually holding one in my little hand. Just one comment about Juan’s quote ‘It was designed from the ground up by the same engineering team…’
   In my opinion this has been a problem with the design of many cameras and not just from Sony, that there doesn’t seem to have been enough input from the folk who actually use these cameras on a day to day basis. Just look at the placement of the Iris, Gain, Shutter Speed and White-balance controls on the Z1 and you’ll know what I mean. All the same size and shape buttons and so close together that you’re forever hitting the wrong one! A little more input from the camera folk could make a significant difference.

5. 5 Matthew Jeppsen Sep 4th, 2007 at 6:14 am

   Agreed, I find myself craning my neck around to find the right button far too often…

   -MJ

6. 6 Juan Martinez (Sony Electronics) Sep 4th, 2007 at 3:51 pm

   Mathew et al, again some of the assumptions are correct ans some are not. I wish I could answer all your questions but I like my job… In reality you will not need to wait until the 18th. The Ex camcorder information will be disclosed at its official product introduction, on September 6, the day before IBC. We have prepared information in advance for the US press, so I expect that detail information will be available shortly after IBC time. I will gladly answer any questions after that. Those who saw the camera under the Tiffany case at NAB 07, could have noticed that the focus, zoom and iris are situated where you normally expect them on an ENG or EFP lens. All three rings have absolute markings, both the iris and zoom are geared. Once all the details are disclosed, I think that anyone that has ever used a hand held camera will love this lens’ remarkable functionality. Like most other components of this camera, it was specially developed for this application.

   About the button layout. Do not fear, this camera was not made by engineers for engineers! Like the F23, many contributed directly to its development by providing feedback for existing products or directly for the Ex. Ergonomically, the design incorporates as much user feedback as was possible. The buttons layout is logical, and where there are several buttons in close proximity, we provided tactile differentiation. There are a number of new functions for which (for obvious reasons) we do not have much field feedback. We hope that that we got them right. So far, those whom have seen the camera are pleased with the control layout and ergonomics.

   Juan Martinez

7. 7 Tony Wilson ACS Sep 4th, 2007 at 4:30 pm

   That sounds like welcome news Juan. Specialising in observational documentary work most of my shooting is handheld and one of the best things about the PD150/170s was the fact that you didn’t need to take your left hand away from supporting the camera to switch between manual and auto iris or in manual tweak the setting-then with just slight finger movement move to go between auto and manual focus. With the Z1 you have to move your hand away from supporting the camera to go to the buttons and further again to tweak iris. Not an issue if the camera is on a tripod but a real pain when handholding. Shooting with these cameras required a different way of working to ‘traditional’ cameras where you always whacked the lens fully in to focus first on almost every shot before reframing to shoot. I’d also be interested to hear comments about how to get around the problem of shooting 4-5 hours of material a day. Is it just a case of having more cards and then downloadingit to a laptop when you return to base each night? I’m thinking about if I’m away for a month and where I might be shooting up to 60 hours or more of material.

8. 8 Juan Martinez (Sony Electronics) Sep 4th, 2007 at 5:20 pm

   Initially there will be 8GB and 16GB cards. Hopefully, 32GB cards will follow not too far behind (I have no definite date yet). It will be possible to hot-swap the cards while shooting and dump them to an HDD. The camcorders will include Mac/PC software that will enable fairly extensive content management right on the field. Furthermore, content management functionality built into the camcorder will enable quick and simple, yet powerful clip review for deletion of unwanted clips. The deleted clips memory will immediately become available for recording.

9. 9 Tony Wilson ACS Sep 4th, 2007 at 5:27 pm

   Sounds better and better Juan. It will be nice to get a DV size camera that actually has less depth of field, one of the biggest problems with all the smaller chip cameras in trying to achieve a’film-look’.

10. 10 Juan Martinez (Sony Electronics) Sep 4th, 2007 at 5:42 pm

    Well, at 1/2-inch this is the largest imager of any hand-held camcorder. So depth of field will be considerably better. DoFwas a point of design interest, so the camcorder also includes some means to help optimize the DoF.

    By the way, 1/2 inch imagers were not used for hand held camcorders before because these camcorders don’t have sufficient mass or surface area to absorb and dissipate the heat. The new imager technology used on the Ex camcorder is the first to make this possible.

    Ok time to go home…

11. 11 Philip Johnston Sep 5th, 2007 at 3:43 pm

    Am I correct in assuming that this new Sony wondercam does not record in DV/DVCAM mode, picture quality in HD always looks good. I don’t want the hassle of down converting all the time, none of my clients need or know HD exists nor does my 8 core MacPro have a Blue Ray reader-writer. So is this camera pitched at a new market place or am I well off beam.

12. 12 ajit Sep 5th, 2007 at 6:10 pm

    At first, I was kinda peeved about Sony’s decision to go with ExpressCard instead of Compact Flash but after some research, I think they did good. Though, Compact flash is convenient to find, EM already has 32gb cards available now and it will be another year before CF comes out with that, so EM wins there. EM is much faster than CF. But I wonder whether it will be a standard that will continue to keep growing. CF as a standard has lost to out to the mainstream SD but it is still going strong. I just bought a couple gigs last weekend. Most ExpressMedia slots seem to be used for adding memory card functionality. CF is solid bad-ass, durability is incredible. I know this from experience.

    I am actually considering getting this cam when it comes out. For all the Sony bashing I do, I have stayed with Sony cameras all the way through.

13. 13 Matthew Jeppsen Sep 5th, 2007 at 11:22 pm

    I am personally hoping they’ll include some sort of SD/DVCAM mode for the XDCAM EX, but I do not think that the exclusion of such would be a dealbreaker for their primary market.

    As someone that shoots with the Z1 and FX1 all the time, this camera looks to be a natural upgrade (when the time comes).

    -MJ

14. 14 Philip Johnston Sep 6th, 2007 at 2:52 am

    PAL settings from the sony brochure HQ mode: 1920 x 1080/50i, 25P, 1280 x 720/50P, 25P SP mode: 1440 x 1080/50i

    So how does this affect those of us producing DV/DVCAM footage…If you buy this camera which I am now in 2 minds and your workflow is DV/DVCAM you are going to have to down convert all your footage which is tedious to say the least. Recently I recorded a green screen on HD mode to see if FCP/Motion gave me a better key, it was a tad better but once you bring a Jump Back into Motion and the green screen footage my 8 core MacPro could hardly cope, in the end I converted all my HD footage to DV and my workflow was back to normal. I think Sony have made a big mistake in making the XDCAM EX HD only how much extra would it have taken to add DV/DVCAM to this camera !!! I have almost the cutting edge in Mac computers as it stands and it does not perform well using HD footage and I have no outlets for HD and has anyone tried to run HD in compressor yet, my friend put together a 2 hour HD program and it took 16 hours in compressor !!!
    This is not a camera if you are working with DV and produce weddings it will double your post production time and take a lot more drive space.
    Once again the Sony Hype machine has been rolled out and now we see the facts in front of us the new XDCAM EX is a toy for those producing HD footage or a “2nd camera” for those who have bought into XDCAM HD, but for the legions of us using DV/DVCAM who far outweigh XDCAM users it’s a kick in the teeth from Sony…even Panasonic were not stupid enough to bring out the HVX200 and not allow DV mode. How many more big mistakes can Sony afford to make !!! Don’t get me wrong HD is the future but as it is still in the minority we can only hope Sony will bring out a version of this camera for DVCAM users and the corporate market which I am involved in. I realize I may be jumping the gun here and IBC starts today but till then here is a link to the XDCAM EX brochure (Courtesy of http://www.dvinfo.net)

    The link is as follows http://www.sony.com.au/objects/PDF/PDWEX1_Brochure.pdf

15. 15 Matthew Jeppsen Sep 6th, 2007 at 3:20 am

    Long HDV sequences can bring Compressor to it’s knees, to be sure. There are workarounds that significantly decrease processing time however, like setting your Sequence Render Codec to ProRes 422. I’ve been doing that on all my HDV timelines, and it helps. But of course, HD resolution material is always going to take longer to process. Since this new camera has an IT-centric workflow, it appears that all footage ingested will be at HD resolutions. Perhaps the included software will have a transcode to SD feature. The other possibility is using the iLink port that they have referenced as HDV…I wonder if there is a downconvert option when outputting to Firewire, similar to the HDV>DV downconvert feature in the Sony HDV cams. That would cover just about all the options.

    -MJ

16. 16 Philip Johnston Sep 6th, 2007 at 5:40 am

    I don’t doubt the quality of the XDCAM EX but I take Nigel Coopers comments with a pinch of salt, people who test equipment should NOT be tied in with the same company (Sony) any comments become biased. I have tested and owned various cameras and can’t help wondering how many times the video camera industry get it “nearly right”. There are two camps when it comes to video cameras the snobs and the hands on. I remember speaking to a Sony engineer about 5 years ago and asked him why the Pro cameras don’t have flip out colour LCDs his reply was “Pros don’t need such gimmicks” how wrong we was. It’s people like that engineer who sadly stifle this industry and is also partly to blame for camera manufacturers getting it wrong. The only camcorder to almost get it right was the JVC GY-HD101 a DV camera that looks the part (The snob coming out in me). I have competitors who would far rather have shoulder and back problems later in life than use a smaller DV camcorder like the Sony Z1 etc. JVC make great cameras but have the knack of producing the wrong format DVHS or getting it wrong GY-HD101 is 25I in HD mode and is useless…when enough people complain they bring out the 200 series with 50I and add 2K on to the price. Panasonic have the edge over Sony with P2 as far as sales go and at last the price has dropped on the P2 cards, the HVX 200 has various qualities from DV to DVCPRO HD the look of the camera stinks but Panasonic have the mindset of not wanting to compromise their broadcast market so we must make this camera look dumpy and domestic…shame. Sony might bring a cat out of the bag at IBC yet with a DVCAM HD version of the EX…What colour is the moon tonight ?

17. 17 Mark Weiss Sep 7th, 2007 at 11:13 pm

    While the XDCam EX looks exciting, I am somewhat “gunshy” after my experience
    with the HVR-V1U line of HDV cameras. The audio frequency response rolls off below
    1222Hz and is down more than 32dB by 20Hz–hardly audio worthy of bothering with
    XLR and phantom power.

    Before we even consider the XDCam EX, we will need 100% assurance from Sony that they
    did not dumb down the audio on XDCam EX, like they did on the V1U.

    I thought I could live with the deficient audio by simply running another recording
    system in parallel, but we’re finding that editing that mess in post triples our
    time in editing, so the V1U is not a cost-effective solution when recording anything other
    than on-the-street interviews.

    If the XDCam EX is flat from 20-20,000Hz, like my inexpensive Canon HV20 is, then I will be
    happy to buy several of them to replace our V1Us. If Sony hasn’t learned from the V1U
    audio fiasco, then I’d just as soon steer clear of Sony and wait for a better solution from
    another manufacturer.

18. 18 Matthew Jeppsen Sep 7th, 2007 at 11:18 pm

    That’s an interesting tidbit on the V1 audio, I’ve not heard of that issue yet. Thanks for sharing it Mark!

    -Matt Jeppsen

19. 19 Mark Weiss Sep 7th, 2007 at 11:37 pm

    The issue is pretty serious, and embarassing, given that a consumer camcorder
    outperforms the V1U audio in spades.

    Here is a very accurate measurement I’ve done on the V1U. Two samples of two V1Us were
    tested and found to have exactly the same response curve. It apparently is by design
    and there is no way to disable the high pass filter!

    http://www.basspig.com/HVR-V1U_PCM_Audio(DV).htm

    I’ve set up a general camcorder audio tests site at
    http://www.basspig.com/CameraAudioTests.htm and invite owners of these
    camcorders to run a RightMark test on your camcorder and submit it to me for
    inclusion in our growing database.

20. 20 Philip Johnston Sep 8th, 2007 at 8:06 am

    Sony seem to have a history of cameras with bad sound, I had a PD150 which had very poor sound and one of the so called “NEW FEATURES” of the PD170 was a re-hash of the sound making it better. I bought the 170 and it was better but far from silent. The PD150 suffered a hiss which got worse the more gain you added. I had the F1 which was a good update but the 12x lens was too short, seriously bad in low light and the iris control put me off. As I said above JVC brought out the HD101 which for DV work is as good as it gets but the HD side was a mess with 25i pans being staccato. I gave up shoulder mounted cameras 8 years ago as they were starting to give me a frozen shoulder and back problems in fact 80% of my competitors which is about 15 cameramen-women now suffer back problems, it’s inherent with the job carrying large over weighted camcorders all day. When I first started using a Sony VX1000 I felt I was letting myself down but the picture quality soon put my mind at ease in fact BBC Scotland bought loads of VX1000s when they discovered how good they were. I like the ease of use of the smaller camcorder and remember if you are working in a factory you are carrying the camera, tripod, batteries which all add up in weight. I once edited a job for a client who hired a Sony SX camcorder so he could film in native 16-9 as none of the smaller DV camcorders had 16-9 at the time and I was pleased to note that apart from the 16-9 format the picture quality was not any better than my PD150. If you take video to it’s end conclusion 99% of producers are ending up with a DVD-5 which is around 500 lines resolution the same as DV. Sadly if you are filming blue/green screen (B/GS) to save a lot of problems in post production you are better filming it in 4.2.2 or DVCPRO 50. I do a lot of B/GS work and although my JVC 101 gave me a great picture it also gave me major headaches when trying to get rid of the green halo. I now use the dumpy Panasonic HVX200 solely for DVCPRO 50 (4.2.2) and it works a dream. It may not look the part and the 4:3 LCD is a joke but the picture quality is excellent. I was hoping the Sony EX would be 4.2.2 but it is 4.2.0…I wonder how much extra cost and effort would Sony have needed to make it 4.2.2, I have one of these cameras on order but I may be persuaded to wait a bit longer if Sony brought out a DVCAM HD version with the same low light 12.5mm chips.

21. 21 Matthew Jeppsen Sep 8th, 2007 at 4:53 pm

    The EX1 outputs full-raster HD-SDI, 4:2:2 colorspace. Of course it’s then up to you to provide something that can handle all that data pouring out the spigot…

    -MJ

22. 22 Philip Johnston Sep 8th, 2007 at 5:29 pm

    So who apart from XDCAM HD owners looking for a cheap 2nd camera is the EX marketed for. Who in Sony decided that the infant HD marketplace needed such a hi spec camcorder and gave no thoughts to adding the DVCAM codec. I see a flurry of people talking about this camera over in DViNFO but most of them seem to be DV users of which this camera will give them a cross to bear. One chap thinks this is his answer to weddings…jaw drop…no one in their right mind would use this camera for a domestic job like a wedding, when I used to do weddings I could use 3-8 mini DV tapes depending on service & speeches, I may also have 2-3 weddings in a weekend this would be a nightmare if you are restricted to expensive SxS cards, let alone having to downconvert all that footage. I can see this camera being bought for all the wrong reasons and a few people wishing they had not rushed out to buy it…wait for the DVCAM version, Sony are not stupid don’t tell me they are not reading these forums I only wish they would tell us of the DVCAM intention sooner rather than later to avoid a backlash of “Low light” junkies myself included, rushing out to buy a camcorder that is not aimed at out market place.
    Time = Money in any business and the less time spent downconverting which is a process that 95% of don’t do at the moment the better. Think about it…today I have the luxury of using a Firestore to give me a backup of my DV video work not only that it allows me to input my footage into the Mac 6x faster than real time and that’s not a feature worth loosing, this saves me bags of time in post prod and gets the job done quicker.
    I can only see me buying an EX for hi end corporate work though not having a Firestore won’t be pleasant. Yes I know Focus will bring out a dedicated Firestore but at what cost. I was told when I bought my 2 FS4s that they would be future proof…JOKE. If you own a JVC 101 you got to buy a new FS if you want to use HD. They have got a dedicated Pana FS for the HVX200 at £1200…no thanks, future proof as long as you stick to DV. I don’t have a lot of time for companies who think we have money to burn.

23. 23 Matthew Jeppsen Sep 8th, 2007 at 8:24 pm

    In my opinion this is Sony’s reply to the HVX200. The HVX isn’t particularly well-suited to event work (some DO use it however), and they are selling just fine. There are a number of reasons I’d consider purchasing this EX1 rig for general production, and may well do so in the next year. Of course not a ton of my commercial work is HD-res yet, but it’s not an impossible workflow to use HD-res material in a DV timeline. No it’s not incredibly efficient either (if you have no need for an HD master), but it IS doable.

    I agree that lack of DV capability would really narrow the scope of who the EX1 is aimed at…however I’m still holding out hope that it offers on-the-fly downconversion to DV over the Firewire port (which is specifically labeled “HDV” on the camera). I haven’t noted an answer on this in any of the first impressions reviews.

    The other potential market for this camera are the Wedding shooters who deal extensively with Same Day Edits. A tapeless workflow on the primary SDE camera would be a real timesaver. And time is something that SDE’s always need more of. Shoot alongside tape-based HDV, and you are covered for long shoots. I believe this camera will find it’s niche soon and probably sell very well. It sounds like it’s not going to work for you though…

    -MJ

Leave a Reply

There was an error with your comment, please try again.

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website

Notify me of followup comments via e-mail