EX vs 350
 

if EX has 1/2" and 4:2:0, what a difference in video quality?

Sony haven't said if the chips are the same yet.

Also the built in lens will doubtless be inferior to what is available for the 350.

Sony are very careful with their camera hierarchy. The form factor is obviously a big factor that would rule the EX out for many cameramen. Picture wise, it may be very comparable, depending particularly on the quality of the lens.

The big change with the EX camera is not "image quality" but workflow and media management, re: optical disk vs. flash memory. No doubt the EX is the first of what will be a series of XDCAM HD cameras recording to flash memory instead of optical disk... there will most likely be an F350 equivalent sometime down the road (shoulder mount, interchangeable lens, etc) that records to SxS flash memory.

At some point flash memory might be used in the larger cameras. But at present Sony's strategy is that optical disc is here to stay for the foreseeable future, because they believe that for professional purposes in the larger cameras it serves the purpose much better. They still firmly believe that optical disc is more versatile than solid state. A position I agree with.

A dual Express card recording slot that records simultaneously with the optical disc might be a good idea though.

I agree about the optical disk thing. Having a copy without needing to mess around with making a backup disk after the fact is a huge plus for the disks. The flash memory is great as well but the backing up of the footage is going to be a pain. I love the concept so far for the EX series of cameras but I'm not yet excited about the backup or transfer process of my footage. For non time critical shoots this is fine but in the field you may not always have time to backup a card so you can use it again.

In fact I hope the next shoulder mount camera can record to both formats of your choice.
1. Flash memory for quick short shoots where you will have time to either backup the footage or edit and dump the raw footage.
2. Disk for footage you do want to keep or that can be handed off to an editor or client to take back to a studio.

What I would like to see is an XDCAM drive that will take SxS cards and at the push of a single button transfer the files to an XDCAM disk. This should be pretty simple to do as it is just a matter of transferring data.

I think the quality will be very close to an F350 with decent lens. As the lens is fixed it should be straight forward to optimise the optical path and CCD's or CMOS chips are getting better all the time.

The quality should be pretty close as I believe that one of the primary purposes of the EX is to be able to match the other cameras in situations where a smaller form factor is required.

Might be even better if the chips are higher resolution!

Guess we'll find out soon with IBC just about a month away ;)