basic questions on the EX

[Joe Carney]

Originally Posted by Simon Wyndham

On the current XDCAM HD models the CCD's are interlaced.

Simon, just been reading your review....1920x1080 with 8bit 4:2:2 via SDI. Now that is great news. Seems Sony has been listening.
Thanks for the writeup.

[Alister Chapman]

Initial release of the EX1 will see it ship with 2x 8Gig cards at approx 6,500 euros. Should be on the shelves in November. The 2x card bundle is a launch promotion for a limited period only. Express your interest to Sony Finance before the end of September and you will get the 0% deal when the EX1 ships.

[Tim Polster]

Alister,

Do you know you we would contact in the U.S. to inquire about financing options?

Thanks

[Piotr Wozniacki]

Originally Posted by Alister Chapman

Initial release of the EX1 will see it ship with 2x 8Gig cards at approx 6,500 euros. Should be on the shelves in November. The 2x card bundle is a launch promotion for a limited period only. Express your interest to Sony Finance before the end of September and you will get the 0% deal when the EX1 ships.

The www.creativevideo.co.uk price is GBP 3,995 + VAT

[Aidan Wynne]

Wow......one WHOLE 8gig card??

I feel Wedding Videographers asking the Bride and Groom to hurry up with their vows with so much recording time on such a large Media Card.

[Stu Holmes]

Originally Posted by Aidan Wynne

Wow......one WHOLE 8gig card??

I feel Wedding Videographers asking the Bride and Groom to hurry up with their vows with so much recording time on such a large Media Card.

Alistair said *two* 8Gb cards for a limited period.

Its perfectly normal and typical for all camcorder manufacturers to not give away muhc (if any) free blank media with their machines. If someone if serious about buying a US$7,500 machine then the inclusion or not of a 8Gb card i think is unliklely to alter their decision (or not) to purchase.

[Alister Chapman]

16Gb card will be 700 euro, 8Gb card 400 euro approximate list prices. Should be a 32Gb card next year

16Gb card will hold 50mins of HQ, 70mins of SP.

Card technology is proprietary so anyone can make SxS cards.

Yes it will do 25P in HQ.

Not sure whether the 0% deal is available in the US and I don't know who you should call.

[Aidan Wynne]

Originally Posted by Stu Holmes

Alistair said *two* 8Gb cards for a limited period.

Its perfectly normal and typical for all camcorder manufacturers to not give away muhc (if any) free blank media with their machines. If someone if serious about buying a US$7,500 machine then the inclusion or not of a 8Gb card i think is unliklely to alter their decision (or not) to purchase.

Makes no odds.....like you say....the fact is it is theee camera I want so I will end up buying it anyway.

Will be interesting in and around the date to see who else makes the cards though and at what price starting off.

[Andrew Kimery]

Shane Ross posted about some of the stuff he saw at IBC including some info on the EX. Here is an interesting tidbit I hadn't heard before,

Originally Posted by Shane Ross' Blog

It records ALL of the formats that the larger XDCAM cameras record. 25Mbps, 35Mbps in the usual MPEG-2 4:2:0 format at 1440x1080 or 960x720. But it ALSO records the new 50Mbps FULL RASTER 1920x1080 format. NICE. And the image is very crisp.

-A

[Greg Boston]

Originally Posted by Andrew Kimery

Shane Ross posted about some of the stuff he saw at IBC including some info on the EX. Here is an interesting tidbit I hadn't heard before,

Hmmm, the official brochure doesn't say anything about 50 mbs, however it will record the full raster 1920x1080 @35mbs. And I haven't seen 18mb VBR mentioned so it can't do all the bit rates of the bigger cameras.

-gb-

[Greg Boston]

Originally Posted by John Bosco Jr.

XDCam uses 3:2 pulldown to retrieve 24p from the camera and disks as, like the V1 and most 1080 cameras, it wraps the progressive 24p image in the 60i stream. The only difference is that the camera has interlace chips instead of progressive like the V1. No idea if the EX will be natively progressive or interlace. XDCam achieves a true 24p image without resolution loss from its interlace chips. I don't know how, but somehow Sony has a way to do it. There are XDCam decks that will enable capture of 24p without pulldown but not from the cameras themselves. Also, if you capture through HD-SDI, I believe you can digitize 24p without having to use 3:2 pulldown.

I'm fairly certain the camera records 24p to disc in PsF format. That's why 24P requires its own disc, formatted for 24p. You get more recording time on the disc which indicates it's not applying pulldown during the writing process (otherwise it would take up the same space as 30p/60i). It applies pulldown upon retrieval to come out the FW, composite, or HDSDI ports (24P via HDSDI is a feature of the forthcoming F355 camera). Via FAM transfer, I'm not 100% certain, but the editing timebase for the XDCAM HD 24P preset in FCP is 23.98 so if pulldown is applied during FAM transfer, the XDCAM Transfer tool or FCP must be detecting and removing it.

-gb-

[Alister Chapman]

Greg is correct about the bit rates. 35Mb 1920x1080 and 25Mb 1440x1080. I believe that when you are above 30fps it is 1280x720 at 35Mb so it should look very good. I hope to have an EX next week to shoot some more footage and I will be investigating the overcrank modes in much more depth.

[Brian Cassar]

Alister, if you are going to have an EX 1 in your hands could you possibly check for me (and for the rest of us) the issue of the wobble and rolling shutter please? Since weddings are my main line of business I'm particularly worried about the photographer's flash. Can you maybe post a screen shot where one can see the effect of the flash? This issue is the only worrying factor in my case to decide whether I will go for this camera or not. And unfortunately in my country the Sony agent would not be having a demo unit, and there are no rental services, so I really cannot test this out myself. Any feedback would be much appreciated.

[Piotr Wozniacki]

So much has been said on the EX1, yet I'm still unclear about all its recording modes... On the brochure's last page (specs), it's said that in SP the camera is only capable of 1440x1080/60i (NTSC) or 1440x1080/50i (PAL).

Yet on page 5 (upper left corner), it's indicated that the EX1 is capable of 24p (with pull down) at 1440x1080, as opposed to native 24p in 1920x1080 or 1280x720.

So, which formats are really available through i.LINK (in HDV) - just the interlaced ones, or all written within interlaced stream (because if 24p with pull-down is available, I see no reason why 25PsF and 30PsF wouldn't)....

Anybody?

[Dean Harrington]

The rolling shutter issue is something that I'm wondering about as well.