Hello,
my name is John and i am a wedding videographer from Athens, Greece.
I am shooting weddings and the last 3 years i am using the Dsr400 Sony DvCam.
3 months now, i am using the ex1r, only in Dvcam NOT in HighDef.
My conclusions, from this 3 months, are not very good for the ex1r.
I think that the picture quality of Dsr400Dvcam is far away than ex1r.
I cant understand why everyone is satisfied with ex1.....
The picture is not good, is like WASHED.......
I have to say that i am using everything manual is ex1(focus, iris, white balance...).
The only thing that i will try is to change some settings in the picture profile but if this not help, then i will cry for the euros i pay for this camera.

Giannis I think everyone is happy because we are using the camera in 720p, 1080i, or 1080p HD. I would not use the camera in DVcam since a full size DVcam should give better results in SD. But if you go to HD and then down convert in post you might find better results.

Giannis,

Have you really worked with the camera image and changed the settings?

Also, are you viewing on a CRT or digital television?

Couple of things I have noticed since my move to HD cameras:

1) The full sized DV cameras of the day had a pretty strong image out of the box. To my eyes, the EX-1 looked pretty bad at the factory settings. Very flat and unappealing. After I messed with all of the Picture Profile settings I realized this camera can be bent pretty far in a lot of directions.

2) I have also noticed that DV cameras played on CRT televisions have this certain quality that the newer digital televisions do not have. I think it is because the CRT televisions used round pixels and the digital televisions use square. But I agree, A DSR-400 on a CRT would be tough to compete with coming from an EX-1. The tech has moved on. But, the EX-1 in HD on an HD viewing device is amazing at its pricepoint. So we have this tradeoff.

The DSR-400 was/is a great camera for its day and much more expensive than an EX-1.

Here is a great link to a long thread on picture profile with the EX1. This will help you dial in the look you like.

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/sony-xdcam-ex-cinealta/110902-picture-profile-recipes.html

Giannis doesn't say at all how he's monitoring so it's difficult to evaluate any potential mistakes he's making.

If he's monitoring on an HDTV or HD monitor the video is likely upscaled in the monitor. The only way to compare is run the two camera images into the same monitor. Ideally that monitor should be calibrated.

As others have noted, the EX series (in fact nearly all professional HD cameras) allow for Picture Profiles and factory defaults may be very flat compared to a DVcam without such features.

Also, with rare exception (and wedding videography is not one of those exceptions) I'd never use DVCam mode. Shooting DVCam precludes possible Blu-ray delivery. It also precludes taking advantage of the now very common use of HD on the web such as YouTube and Vimeo. In short, shooting HD allows you to deliver both HD and SD.

That's sad to hear. I was hoping that Sony would have done a better job with DV in the Ex1r. As to the advice of shoting in HD and down converting, my experience with the EX1 is this is not a good solution. I have a DSR300, ten years old, that simply crushes our EX1's for SD work. My most recent discovery is this limitation seems to be in the software, not the camera or acquisition format. I now ouput the media I've shot via HD-SDI through a PDW-F75 to DVCAM. This gives gorgeous results. Sony knows how to make a Hardware CODEC that does a spectacular job. Why it's not in the EX1r is another question.

If you've looked at Doug Jensen's (Vortex Media) training videos, they are SD DVDs downconverted from HD. He simply creates and SD timeline in Final Cut Pro and edits and exports. Doug says he shoots 1080p30. The DVDs look good.

Alister Chapman takes a different approach by shooting 720p as he fells he gets a better downconvert.

Yes the limitations are with the software downconversion tools. The answer is look for better tools.

One of the issues with the EX1R is that it is primarily an HD camera and all the picture settings are tailored for HD, not SD. The requirements for good HD are quite different for good SD, for example if you have a 2 pixel wide detail correction edge in HD and scale that down to SD it will pretty much disappear altogether leaving you with a soft looking SD picture. In addition it is traditional to use a lot of detail correction in SD to make up for the lack of resolution.

I spent some time working with a couple of SD broadcasters looking at this issue and created a picture profile for the EX1R for SD applications, aimed at matching some older SD DVCAM cameras. You can read details of this here:
XDCAM-USER.com EX1R SD Picture Profile (Old SD Camera) (http://www.xdcam-user.com/?p=530)

I would use these settings as a starting point and then adjust the black gamma depending on the type of look you are after.

Also, with rare exception (and wedding videography is not one of those exceptions) I'd never use DVCam mode. Shooting DVCam precludes possible Blu-ray delivery. It also precludes taking advantage of the now very common use of HD on the web such as YouTube and Vimeo. In short, shooting HD allows you to deliver both HD and SD.

Craig, that hits the nail right on the head. In a closed shop, there is no reason to be doing anything in SD, and plenty of reasons not to. Good advice.

I guess I don't understand buying an EX1 and only shooting in standard def. Kind of like buying Ferrari and only using 1st gear.

I got up to speed by working through the Doug Jensen DVD, and then hooking up to a good monitor and tweaking the picture profiles. When I'm using the camera correctly, its spectacular.

I guess I don't understand buying an EX1 and only shooting in standard def. Kind of like buying Ferrari and only using 1st gear.


I was about to post this very analogy! I was very surprised when Sony decided to add an SD mode to the new model.

When I first switched to the EX1 I was worried that SD might be a problem. But in fact it's no issue at all. I prefer the 720p route for most things occasionally using 1080i if I want to have a Z1 as a B camera.

I'm guessing that the EX1r's SD mode looks flat because an HD picture profile might not suit DVCAM. Although my EX1 looked good out of the box it was only when Matt Davis sent me his picture profile that it came alive.

Doug says he shoots 1080p30. The DVDs look good.

Alister Chapman takes a different approach by shooting 720p as he fells he gets a better downconvert.
It depends what look you get. Shooting 1080p/30 will give a "film-look" to the motion rendition, 720p/60 will give smooth motion. There's no right or wrong - it depends what you want.

Where there is a choice is if smooth motion is definately desired (as for sport, news etc). For the appearance of motion there may be little difference between 1080i/30 and 720p/60, certainly by the time it's downconverted, but the advantage of 720p/60 is that each SD field can be formed from a unique HD frame. If the original is 1080i/30, it has to be de-interlaced before the downconversion.

As for getting an EX1 and shooting standard def, then a user may want to go tapeless now, but some clients still currently want SD. Shooting HD and downconverting is an option, but for something like news it's a delay that's very undesirable.

As requested by the client I recently shot DVCAM with my new EX1R. I think it looks real good (I used a PictureProfile that's not made especially for DVCAM, btw) in my opinion. But I'm used to PD-170 and Canon XM-2, etc.

The only danger lies with the knee in the picture profiles: an extreme knee (which can be helpfull in backlight situations where the backlight is obscuring the subject or overexposing a large part of the frame) will give you washed out skin tones like the 'Common People' musicvideo by Pulp, lol. But this will happen in SD and HD.

but for something like news it's a delay that's very undesirable.

I've not had a problem with it when I do news, which, thankfully, isn't as often as it used to be.

I sometimes feed a live truck with the Monitor Out BNC; and when I need to cut a VOSOT or PKG I do on the Macbook Pro and then make an mpeg 2 file for upload. Piece of cake.

Knee settings should always be used with caution for that reason. I keep mine set at 93 IRE with all other settings at default. If you get too extreme it might help very specific shots but will kill you on others.

Here in Kansas City, there are $200,000 houses and there are $2,000,000 houses. The exact same tools are used to build both houses. No camera on the planet ensures good results. The results are primarily because of the operator. If you know nothing about lighting, framing, etc., then do not be surprised at the poor quality of your finished product.

One of the issues with the EX1R is that it is primarily an HD camera and all the picture settings are tailored for HD, not SD. The requirements for good HD are quite different for good SD, for example if you have a 2 pixel wide detail correction edge in HD and scale that down to SD it will pretty much disappear altogether leaving you with a soft looking SD picture. In addition it is traditional to use a lot of detail correction in SD to make up for the lack of resolution.

I spent some time working with a couple of SD broadcasters looking at this issue and created a picture profile for the EX1R for SD applications, aimed at matching some older SD DVCAM cameras. You can read details of this here:
XDCAM-USER.com EX1R SD Picture Profile (Old SD Camera) (http://www.xdcam-user.com/?p=530)

I would use these settings as a starting point and then adjust the black gamma depending on the type of look you are after.

Alister,

I shoot full HD and record as 1080/25p on both my EX1 and the nanoFlash almost exclusively, but sometimes I need the SD version of my footage as well. There are 2 options to get it without using any software (ClipBrowser/NLE) down-conversion:

1. Either set my EX1's SDI to SD (squeezed), and record the 50 Mbps, 422 IMX SD on the nanoFlash
2. OR, having recorded both SxS and nano in fullHD, play the footage back from the EX1 with SDI set to SD
and record SD on the nanoFlash (real-time conversion).

Of course, the first method should give a higher quality SD material - the only downside being that I'm not getting any master quality HD the nanoFlash is capable of. Te great advantage is speed (no need for down-rezzing at all).

Basing on your experience, which PP settings (especially those influencing Detail rendition) should I be using as the best compromise ?