SD Cards in the Sony EX-1

This seems like some exciting bit of news. Apparently, folks have figured out how to shoot onto SanDisk SD cards with the Sony EX-1 and EX-3 cameras, instead of Sony's expensive SxS media.

The EX cameras are supposed to be great (see latest EX-3 review from Adam Wilt.). Excellent performance in terms of resolution and low-light sensitivity. Their 1/2" sensors work much better than the smaller 1/3" sensors in the Z1, Z5, Z7, HVX200, HPX170, and Canon cameras. The big problem for me with the EX cameras was shooting on the expensive SxS media. Like the Panasonic's P2 cards, these are much more expensive per GB than run-of-the-mill flash memory--e.g., $850 for 16GB of SxS Pro storage. It just wouldn't make sense when you are shooting a lot of stuff because the hassle of making sure all your footage was safe on hard drives all the time.

Well, this guy says you can use a 16GB SanDisk SD card for $60 that will do just about everything that Sony's $850 card will (the notable exception being over-cranking, used for slo-mo shots.) You just need a particular Kensington Expresscard adapter for $40 that you put in the camera.

It still doesn't make the the EX-1 ($6450 at B&H) a no-brainer for Link. That's still $60 to record about an hour at 35 Mb/s or 90 minutes at 25 Mb/s. The camera's more difficult to handle than the Z1 or Z5, or even Z7. Plus the Z5 has a 20x lens versus 14x lens for the EX cameras. And we are hardly ever delivering HD--so we usually downconvert in the deck, which is both a good and easy way to get SD footage from HD source material. If quality is what really counts, than the EX cameras are a real winner in the sub $10K range, but I think, but there are some significant drawbacks to the camera when compared to more practical, tape-based cameras like the Z5.

If you are seriously interested in this, then read the fine print here:
Overcoming the cost of SxS media: Introducing KxS.
Also, I don't know of anyone personally doing this. I would probably wait for some trustworthy sources to vouch for this before I committed to buying an EX camera.

UPDATE: Adam Wilt (a very trustworthy source) says that he's heard good things from Sony about working with off-the-shelf memory cards on the EX cameras in the comments section of this post on ProVideo Coalition.

I tried looking for the Kensington card reader, and it seems to be out-of-stock everywhere. Also read on a forum that it may have been discontinued. Not good news for this concept.

Link TV's Next Camera

"Review: Sony HVR-Z7 & HVR-S270 1/3” 3-CMOS HDV camcorders" by Adam Wilt

I don't make many predictions on my blogs, but if I had to guess I think the Sony HVR-Z7 will be Link TV's next camera. Why you ask? First, it's Sony, and folks at Link in SF seem to like Sony. Second the price is right for us--well below the $10,000 mark, now about $5700 street price. Second it's a significant improvement on the Z1 camera that we have now. The Z1 has been out for over 3 years and Sony has finally released a true successor to the Z1. It's supposed to be faster than the Z1. It's all supposed to have a good LCD and viewfinder (areas where the Z1 is seriously lacking)

I'm basing this on Adam Wilt's excellent review of the Z7 and its bigger sibling the S270. It seems like there are some other good cameras out there, namely the Sony EX1, which records only onto flash memory. But for Link the lack of tape recording is sort of a deal breaker. At least as a post guy I don't want to have to deal with the headache of worrying about all of that media on hard drives with no other backup. Plus the EX1' s SxS Pro recording cards are still pretty pricey. For big shoots, that leaves options like a hard drive recorder, lugging around a laptop to shoots, or renting more storage. So much easier to pack a bunch of cheap tapes for a shoot.

If you want tapeless storage, the Z7 can even record to Compact Flash using the included HVR-MRC1 unit, which attaches at the back of the camera. That's a nice feature if you want the quick turnaround of material, which is a big benefit with tapeless workflows. Compact Flash is much cheaper than Panasonic's P2 and Sony's SxS Pro too.

The EX1 has 1/2" chips--the only sub-$10K HD camera with that. And it's supposed to have the sharpest picture in this price range. Too bad they couldn't match 1/2" chips along with the HDV format. The S270, which is reviewed in the same article, has one big feature that I'd like to see on the Z7--it can take large cassettes. That means 4.5 hours of HDV on a tape. But that camera is over the 10K point. But all things considered, the Z7 looks like a good camera, and from what Adam Wilt says, the champ of the sub-$10K HDV cameras.

Here's Adam's summary of the pros and cons of both the Z7 and the S270:

Pros

• Interchangeable lenses with standard 1/3” mounts.
• ISO 400 sensitivity.
• 800+ TVl/ph resolution with smooth, natural detail.
• DV, DVCAM, and 1080-line HDV recording.
• Interlaced and true progressive modes.
• Killer EVF and very good LCD; good peaking control.
• Best-in-the-business viewfinder data displays.
• Unique in-viewfinder tilt indicator.
• Z7: well balanced and easy to handhold.
• S270: no-nonsense, full-sized shoulder-mount camcorder; 4 channels of audio; 4.5 hour record times.
• Sensible ergonomics on both cameras: controls are where they should be.
• Sony Steadyshot.
• HVR-MRC1 CF card recorder included.
• Comprehensive Picture Profile tweaks, most with 15 steps of adjustment.
• Very good shotgun mike included.

Cons

• Stock lenses have only average chromatic aberration performance.
• Resolution drops with increased gain.
• Smooth Slow Motion clips have low resolution, many compression artifacts.
• Lens iris ring isn’t labeled or calibrated.
• Fastest power zoom isn’t very fast.
• MRC1: buttons lack a “hold” switch and are subject to inadvertent activation.
• MRC1: no single-frame mode in interval recording.

Camera Blogwad

I seem to have a lot of posts about cameras even though this is supposed to be a blog about post-production. So I've been saving up some interesting links on cameras because I didn't think they warranted a post to themselves on my blog.

First Look: Sony HVR Series
Good info on the new Sony HVR-Z7 and HVR-S270 HDV cameras, as well as their companion deck, the HVR-M35. More detail on how Sony is doing progressive recording and playback with this gear.

CompactFlash Media Test Results
The HVR-Z7 and HVR-S270 will record HDV onto Compact Flash memory cards. But there are some performance issues, especially with cheaper cards. The test found delays in starting recording, dropouts, and even lockups.

Another review of the Sony PMW-EX1 at DV.com (registartion req'd.)

Three good posts from Adam Wilt at his new blog at the ProVideo Coalition:

Three three-letter cameras: EX1, F23, RED
The new Sony XDCAM EX1 and the $250,000 Sony HDCAM SR F23, versus the upstart Red.

Whither The HVX200?
Adam says: "Does the EX1 render the HVX200 obsolete? Don’t be too sure!"

2008 FAA rules on battery transport
Frankly, I don't understand all of this. But if you're a production person who travels on planes, then you should.

Sony PMW-EX1: A Game Changer

Review: Sony PMW-EX1 1/2” 3-CMOS HD Camcorder" by Adam Wilt

Camera guru Adam Wilt compares the Sony EX1 (approx. $6500) to changing the playing field like Sony's DV VX-1000 did in 1995. Wilt did a first look review last year, but this is a very in-depth review of the camera, its features, and performances based on a production unit.

Interestingly, the review is on a brand-new site called Pro Video Coalition. Mike Curtis of HD for Indies seems like he will be doing his serious work there too--keep your eyes on this site.

Don't want to spend this much on a camera or you still want to record on tape? Well, Sony will still be selling their V1 and Z1. Check Wilt's thoughts on those cameras, as well as the competition from Panasonic and Canon here.

Here are Wilt's Pros and Cons for the EX-1:
Pros
• Highest resolution and detail in its class, with minimal aliasing.
• 1-30fps 1080p, 1-60fps 720p, plus 1080i; 50Hz and 60Hz operation.
• Excellent tonal scale control with wide latitude.
• Cine gammas have superb highlight handling.
• True 1920x1080 sensors, true 1920x1080 and 1280x720 recording.
• 1440x1080 HDV-compatible mode with i.Link I/O.
• Linear Matrix for fine color control.
• Robust SxS solid-state recording; lightning-fast offloading.
• True manual iris and zoom; indexed manual focus with lens scale.
• Best LCD resolution in a Handycam; great status displays.
• SDI with embedded timecode and audio.
• Surprisingly artifact-free XDCAM EX HQ codec.

Cons
• Awkward to handhold.
• “Clock radio” power switch makes it easy to switch camera on by mistake.
• Many buttons and switches hard to operate by feel.
• Knee circuit in standard gammas doesn’t handle colored highlights well.
• “Mustache” distortion at wide angles.
• Steady Shot can cause slight corner vignetting during wiggly shots.
• No SD (480- or 576-line) recording. Poor-quality SD outputs; no Y/C.
• Not all output connectors active simultaneously.
• No single-frame or slo-mo playback.

Adam Wilt on Sony's EX-1

"EX-1 Experiments: Shooting with Sony's XDCAM EX System"
By Adam Wilt

Adam Wilt takes a look at an engineering sample of Sony's totally-tapeless camera the PMW-EX1. Sounds like the video is very good, but he says it's really hard to hand hold the camera. Here's his summary:

Overall, the EX1 is a very promising camera: pin-sharp, sensitive imagers with what looks to be considerable latitude, variable frame rates, the benefits of solid-state recording, HD-SDI and lots of tweakability. It's painful to handhold, and the analog I/O cabling is sub-optimal, but those problems have to be set against what may yet be turn out to be the finest images in the sub-$10k field. I'll be very interested to put a production model EX1 through a rigorous evaluation.

[via hdforindies.com]

Final Cut Studio Gets New Features, Leopard Support

Apple updated all of the apps in Final Cut Studio with official support for OS 10.5 today (the updates also work with 10.4.11, also out today.) But wait, there's more! If you call now, you'll also get support for some of the new high-def cameras.

The XDCAM EX format is now supported under FCP 6.0.2. So footage from Sony's PMW-EX1 is now supported. AVC-Intra, which Panasonic is using on its high-end cameras, is supported. And JVC's HDV recordings in 720p60 and 720p50 are supported. There looks like there is also more support for progressive recording from Canon's cameras and Sony HVR-V1. Check out the release notes for all of the details.

I looked at the release notes for the other products and nothing jumped out at me. It looks like Color got a lot of bug fixes based on the release notes.

Mike Curtis offers more detail and some commentary on the new features at HDforIndies.com.

XDCAM EX Codec

I tracked down some more info about the codec used for the new Sony XDCAM PMW-EX1 camcorder. As you can see from the table above, there are two general recording codecs. The HQ model has a higher maximum bit rate that is variable and also includes different resolutions--either 1920x1080 or 1280x720. The SP mode is basically the same codec as HDV 1080 line variation that Sony uses in the Z1 and V1. It is a constant bit-rate at 25mb/s at a resolution of 1440x1080. The advantage of working in this mode is that the signal is compatible with gear that knows HDV, like FCP or an HDV deck. So that while shooting, you could record to a Sony HDV deck or you could record with capture now in FCP through firewire out on the camera.

Interestingly, the SP mode has the same limitations on variable frame rate as other Sony camcorders, like the V1. That is, you can record 24p (or really 23.98p) but it it recorded with pulldown into a regular 60i (29.97interlaced) signal. So to edit that in native 24 fps, you need to remove the pulldown, which is tricky to do (especially so if you want to keep your timecode.) It looks like the HQ mode handles real variable frame-rate, recording the signal in the frame-rate that you set and not trying to squeeze (or stretch) it into 30 interlaced fps. All XDCAM EX media files have a MP4 (MPEG-4) wrapper.

No DV or DVCam recording. The bad thing about that is that you could have squeezed a lot more video on the expensive SxS cards with support for standard definition recording. Prices are around $500 for 8GB and $900 for 16GB now. With 16GB of memory you get as little as 50 min. in HQ mode, and exactly 70 min. in SP mode.

We are still waiting for a direct interface for importing from the memory cards into FCP. I'm not sure if there is any support right now for the files on the memory card and FCP yet, but hopefully Apple is working on getting a good solution soon.

Here's a direct quote from the rather large PDF that I got this info from:

The SP mode supports 1440 x 1080 resolution at 25 Mb/s,
which provides compatibility with HDV 1080i products.
Footage recorded in the SP mode can be seamlessly
integrated into HDV-compatible editing systems by
connecting the camcorder via the i.LINKTM* (HDV)
interface. It can also be recorded on XDCAM HD's optical
disc through the use of the supplied Clip Browser software.

New Sony Memory Card Prosumer Camera

Sony looks like it has a great new camera on its hands for the prosumer market. The PMW-EX1 records to solid state memory--a new format called SxS Pro. Unlike P2, it looks like there will be multiple manufacturers, which means lower prices in the long run. The EX1 should be selling in November for around $7,500 with two 8GB memory cards included.

For editors, very confusing what this means right now. The recording format is based on the XDCAM format, which is recorded on blu-ray optical discs. But EX1 tweaks the formats--different file wrappper and the option for higher resolution, a full 1920x1080. The new XDCAM EX format is not fully supported by Final Cut, but there might be some native support if you shoot in the right way with this camera--not sure. Also the camera has a firewire port on it that says HDV. The camera doesn't record in HDV but can it transcode? Lots of questions.

This camera looks like a giant step up from the Z1 in just about every way. If you want the low-down there are already a few articles on the web from folks who have been testing pre-production models. Here's a good overview from FreshDV of what info is out there about the EX1. Here are two in-depth articles, one from Nigel Cooper and another from Simon Wyndham. There are so many interesting new features on this camera, it's worth getting a broad overview.

I'm still not sold on the tapeless workflow, but this looks a great camera. I'm just worried about backup for this footage. Sony offers a unit that transfers from the SxS Pro cards to Sony's XDCAM discs (with some drawbacks as Simon Wyndham points out.) Otherwise, it's archive like you do computer data--either optical disc burning or stacking up hard drives on your shelf.