PXW-Z150 coming soon!

[Ron Evans]

It was likely shot in UHD so would be 30P. Panning at more than glacial speed will give judder. Why I want 60P at least and why I will stay with my FDR-AX1 until there is something better. I had hoped for 60P on this since it has the battery and size for extra processing. Would be a good competitor for the DVX200 if it had 60P.

Ron Evans

[Andrew Smith]

Yet movies / cinematic shooting manage to do pans at a mere 24p.

Andrew

[Ron Evans]

Originally Posted by Andrew Smith

Yet movies / cinematic shooting manage to do pans at a mere 24p.

Andrew

Yes and they do it very slow or make sure they track the main subject and the background is out of focus so the judder is not noticeable. One of the main film techniques to mask the judder of slow frame rate. Sometimes shot at high speed and slowed down. The delivery medium is 24fps it doesn't mean the whole film was shot at 24fps. You need to get above about 48 fps for our eyes to not see the judder . Some people are more sensitive than others. I am sensitive, even see the flicker at 50hz on older UK TV when I visit relatives now that I have been in North America for 45 years.

Ron Evans

[Paul Anderegg]

I can't get any computer or Mac to display online 24/25/30p content smoothly, there is always some amount of jitter and playback weirdness. I have high end CPU's and GPU's too, just never looks as smooth as 30p clips played back on the computer directly.

Paul

[Terence Morris]

Originally Posted by Paul Anderegg

And in other news, anyone want to buy my PXW-X770 with 4K installed? :-)

Sony | Micro Site XDCAM

Crap, this is a true X70 in an NX100 case, complete with 4K, SDI,a dn networking.....yay, my wet dream just happened!

Paul

Hi Paul - As an X70 owner, and someone that has followed your comments on the practical aspects of shooting ENG video for a living (both here and elsewhere) with great interest, would you mind outlining the key aspects that the Z150 has over the X70 in your opinion in more detail. From my limited understanding at least, the headline features look much the same for both cameras, especially in terms of the sensor and the lens (4K to-go accepted). Thank you.

-Terence

[Christopher Young]

Paul ~

Remember that film shot at 24fps looks smoother in cinema projection as each frame is exposed twice before the next frame pull-down so in effect you are seeing it exposed to your eye at 1/48th of a second. You are actually seeing 48 images a second which is well in excess of the persistence of vision. Hence you use a 180% shutter which gives you a speed of 1/48th sec when shooting film at 24fps

The persistence of the human eye is approx 1/20th of a second. After that amount of time the image is fading in the retina/brain so there is a discontinuity between images being refreshed around the 24, 25 and 30 fps mark as they are fairly close to the persistence of vision.

At 48/50/60 fps the images are being renewed to the eye at a much faster rate than the decay rate of the image in the eye/brain. Basically panning at 24-30p should be done at half the speed of interlace or 50/60p scanning to try to smooth it out. Sadly shooting at 24p in video and playing it back on a PC it is still only going to be playing back at 24 exposures to the eye per second not 48 hence the big difference in "look."

Chris Young
CYV Productions
Sydney

[Paul Anderegg]

I meant the jittery that I am ASSUMING is the fact that my PC and Mac monitors refresh at exactly 60Hz, while my video is either 59.94Hz or 29.97Hz, that just enough to cause glitchy effect issue......more like inconsistent stuttering :-)

And Terrance, the main thing (besides form factor) I see is that IRIS (and zoom for you weirdos!) ring on the lens. Exposing on the X70 for quick action or quick exposure adjustments while rolling, panning etc, are difficult with the little dial thing. I am not sure how this will affect me, because I shoot wide open 100%, and roll that dial up and down for gain to change exposure. I can't exactly just leave it cranked to 27db all the time ad adjust the Z150 iris, so not sure how big a plus that is for me.

Paul

[Ron Evans]

I think Paul may be correct and for 24P it is even worse in that there has to be 2:3 pulldown to refresh at 60hz so doesn't look anything like the cinema. 59.94 i or P will look better as the difference in refresh is much closer. It is a little sad that in this digital age we can't just go to 25, 30, 50 and 60 P and forget the legacy rates that were all due to economics and available technology.

Paul. I have the AX100 set up for my wife to use when we shoot, with AE shift on the dial, fixed shutter speed and gain limit. That may be something to try. It works very well for the theatre shows we shoot.

Ron Evans

[Paul Anderegg]

I have a button set for AE shift, but unfortunately, all side panel buttons stop functioning when you enter live streaming mode, which this camera is set to. You also cannot shoot AVCHD and live stream.....apparently the massive 4:4:4 120p 500Mbps AVCHD codec is just too much to pull off and live stream at the same time. :-)

Paul

[Terence Morris]

Originally Posted by Paul Anderegg

I meant the jittery that I am ASSUMING is the fact that my PC and Mac monitors refresh at exactly 60Hz, while my video is either 59.94Hz or 29.97Hz, that just enough to cause glitchy effect issue......more like inconsistent stuttering :-)

And Terrance, the main thing (besides form factor) I see is that IRIS (and zoom for you weirdos!) ring on the lens. Exposing on the X70 for quick action or quick exposure adjustments while rolling, panning etc, are difficult with the little dial thing. I am not sure how this will affect me, because I shoot wide open 100%, and roll that dial up and down for gain to change exposure. I can't exactly just leave it cranked to 27db all the time ad adjust the Z150 iris, so not sure how big a plus that is for me.

Paul

Thanks, Paul. And my bad for not checking back to your earlier posts outlining pretty much what I was asking. Looking forward to hearing about some hands-on from others, maybe at NAB.

[Paul Anderegg]

So, a few things worth asking about, but I am pretty sure these were just misspeaks or incorrect information from reviewers.

First, one reviewer said that the Z150 will take the Sony bayonet mount 0.8x wide converter from an older model. I do not for a moment believe this.

Second, one Chinese reviewer said that the LCD panel is in fact an OLED like the EVF. I don't believe that either.

Thirdly, why the lack of audio switches? I don't see a ref level, a low cut, or a send channel 1 XLR to channel 2 like the X70 has. I am guessing some of these might be moved to the menu, but I find the ref level very handy for quickly setting up mics I plug in for AUTO operation.

I like how theSony literature says the Clear Image zoom "doubles the magnification (12x) to 18x". :-\

Paul

[Jim Stamos]

Clear zoom is 1.5x on 4k and 2x on HD.
Ill ask these questions at nab. the fact that the 4k is 30p like the x70 and fs5 keeps me from considering.i dont want to get the fs7, majority of my work is handheld and its not the best for that for long periods.

[Paul Anderegg]

The ClearImage zoom on my A7s and A7sII doesn't work (properly) in 60p mode, maybe Sony has an issue with this and that is why they are not working so hard to put forward UHD 60p in cameras that rely on ClearImage zoom as a primary feature.

60p UHD would be pretty, but my current Macbook Pro takes forever to stabilize and sharpen 30p much less 60p UHD! Would be nice to shoot 60p UHD and downrez to 720p60 for broadcast. :)

One other question for NAB.........when network/WiFi mode is initiated, do all the side buttons (and menu)cease to function like the X70? It is quite irritating that I cannot change or adjust many settings such as white balance while streaming, as I stream 100% of everything, really handicaps the camera.

Paul

[Paul Anderegg]

They just pushed back the release date for the Z150 another month, to the middle of May. That along with the price drop tells me this thing may come out with some issues they could not fully resolve........... :-(

Paul

[Ron Evans]

Originally Posted by Paul Anderegg

They just pushed back the release date for the Z150 another month, to the middle of May. That along with the price drop tells me this thing may come out with some issues they could not fully resolve........... :-(

Paul

Or there is another model coming out. I was looking for an update to the AX1/Z100 with a larger sensor that would compete with the DVX200. Same recording specs as the AX1/Z100 so UHD 60P etc. Maybe if that was the case then the price categories will be different for the Z150. The guts is basically AX100/X70 so the price difference is just the hardware cost difference. Maybe there is a Z180 coming ? At the Z150 original price I think I would pay the extra few hundred dollars and get the DVX200 as a much more capable camcorder. .

Ron Evans