It says it's got "slow and quick motion", which is what they call it on the EX cameras, which'll give upto 30fps in 1080 and 1-60fps in 720, you must asume this'll be the same on the 800 - and on the 700 IF it's upgradeable!!!!!!
Steve

Well, not so fast there Steve. There advantages and disadvantages to both methods of CC. With the all electronic WB, there are some scenarios where the red or blue channel may be cranked up to compensate, which puts it dangerously close to blowing out that channel. I have seen this firsthand with my F350. Given the extra latitude of the 700 CCD block, it may be less of an issue on that camera.

Using optical filtering to get in the ballpark, the individual channel gains are more on par with one another at the expense of some sensitivity coming through the filter wheel.

-gb-

Here is a link to the PDW-F800 and PDW-F1600 brochure.

http://pro.sony.com/bbsccms/ext/Broa...01600broch.pdf

Interesting, that seems to indicate that the overcranking is done in 1080 mode much like the F355 (ie half vertical res) - or am I missing something here?
Steve

ps I'd like to nominate Ivan as Sony dealer of the year for keeping us all up-to-date!
Thanks man.
Steve

I should get my hands on one at NAB so I will find out exactly how the overcrank modes work.

Great Alister, and if you can find out whether the 700 can be upgraded to do it that'd be fantastic.
Steve

I pulled this out of a Sony document about the F800. Looks like the camera will be shooting slow motion in 1080p. Pretty cool stuff. Sorry for the formatting, but check it out:

• 23.98p Format Standard
– Available in the recording formats of MPEG HD422 and MPEG HD420 as a standard feature.
• Not available in SD formats.
• There is no 24.00p (23.98p)
• For 720, pull-down recording into 59.94p is only available as that of current PDW-700.
– 2-3 Pull-Down Output:
• There is no 2-3 pull-down output for 1080 although SD output is available by 2-3 pull-down process for monitoring purpose.
– This is the same functionality for 23.98p of the PDW-700 with the optional CBKZ-FC02 installed.

• Slow & Quick Function Standard
– Available in progressive formats of MPEG HD422 1080 mode.
• For the system frequencies of 23.98p, 25p, and 29.97p
– Not in Interlace, 720p, HD420, nor SD
– Over cranking speed: up to x2.0 (i.e.1/2 slow speed)
• Shooting speed can be set at every single frame between 1p to 48p/50p/60p.
– 23.98p: from 1p to 47.95p at a frame step　
– 25p: from 1p to 50p at a frame step
– 29.97p: from 1p to 59.94p at a frame step

That's what I dedeuced from the brochure, so it'll be half vertical res like the F355 you would assume.
So Andy, please please please find out for me whether or not the PDW700 will be able to be upgraded for variable frame rates! I used to have an F355 (briefly) and found that the slomo, even though half res, looked really really good, so would be happy with it on the 700. In 1 way it'd be better than having it in 720 mode, as you need to keep changing discs and powering down to change from 1080 to 720.
Steve

I doubt that it will be half res since the chips are natively capable of high framerates at 60fps. The only reason why they might reduce the resolution would be to lower the datarate to be able to write it to the disc fast enough.

I always assumed on the F355 that it basically took in an interlaced image and split the fields then duplicated them (ie shot 50i and made it 50P), that seemed the logical way to me. Is that not correct?
It's not just the data rate writing to disc that needs keeping down, it's the processing speed needed to process twice the amount of info in a second - I would have thought anyway.
Steve

The F35* cams use interlace CCD's with clever processing to get 25P. The 700 has native P sensors. I suspect it will be full res P overcrank, so that begs the question at what bit rate?

I'll know tomorrow.

That would be such a quantum leap I'd highly doubt it - it would make the Varicam 2700 seem like a toy, high end natural history producers have been desperate for 1080/60P for ages and never seen it even on the horizon so stuck with Varicam, I just can't imagine it just appearing like this.
I'll stick my neck out - it definitely won't be full res 1080/60P! Look forward to you proving me wrong tomorrow Alister - and I'll get my cheque book out immediately for the PDW800 if it is.
Steve

Greetings from fabulous Las Vegas. Alright gents, spent all day yesterday with the 800. Here are some things I came away with.

Yes, it is half resolution when overcranking.

The 700 will be able to do 24p with the option board, but WILL NOT be upgradeable to over/under cranking.

Some other quirks we discovered..

You lose the 2x focus mag and the digital 2X extender when the 800 is in 24P mode. They tell me it's a hardware limitation.

I asked specifically why the 800 and who is it targeted towards. The answer is that it's aimed at the production market whereas the 700 is positioned to be a news camera with the idea that news doesn't need all the bells and whistles that the 800 has.

Physically, the two cameras are pretty much identical. The only giveaway is the 800 gets the Cinealta badging on the right side whereas the 700 has the PowerHad badging in that location.

-gb-

F800 sd
 

Greg can you confirm whether or not SD will be an option in the 800? I still need the SD option but I'm a production cameraman, not a news shooter.

Cheers,

Brad.

It appears so - Sony : Sony expands XDCAM HD422 series with new camcorder and deck : United Kingdom .

I'm left curious about what 'half the resolution' actually means when overcranking the 800... Does that mean we might be working with more pixels if we shoot at 720p 50/60, which is 2/3rds the res? I've found it quite easy to get 720 material out into a useable slo mo form by going through vegas, and while I'd rather just flick a switch if I want to overcrank, is the resulting resolution trade off greater than working 720p footage? Perhaps something one of you NAB attendees might be able to qualify?
Thanks,
Peter

Overcrank will be at 1920x540 so overall it's still more pixels and will probably look sharper than 720P

PDW700 been awarded Gold status by discovery at 24P, so should be same for PDW800.

[QUOTE=Alister Chapman;1114926]Overcrank will be at 1920x540 so overall it's still more pixels and will probably look sharper than 720P

Alister, Can you please explain 1920x540? that no sense to me at all. Seems out of aspect, wouldn't it be more like 1280x720?

Only the vertical resolution is halved. In effect the camera shoots 1920x1080 in overcrank but the image only contains 1920x540 resolution.

On a side note anyone going to the Sony booth must take time to go look at the codec stress test demo, very interesting.

To clarify, of course the output is still 1920x1080, it's just that the 1080 lines are made up of 540 lines doubled up.

Can't describe how pissed off I am at the 700 not being able to be upgraded to overcrank. From my experience (limited but sufficient) I thought the slomo on the F355 was very nice looking with the half res, and the 700 is a lot sharper to begin with. Will have to discuss with my rep what are the best options but I'm not the biggest Sony fan just at the moment!!!
Steve

Well, I did say when the 700 first came out that it would be better to wait. A lot of people told me that you could wait forever and to buy now, but in this case it was always going to be that Sony would release a sister camera. And with an investment of the price of the 700/800 its as well to get the camera that does *exactly* what you want it to.

Could be worse. You could own a F23 and be staring at the SRW-9000.

Nothing's ever going to fit that bill, you've got to get something even if it has compromises. I just wish there had been some hint that something like the 800 was coming this soon. More to the point, I'd be prepared to bet that there was no reason they couldn't have made the 700 with the 800's spec in the first, just a way to get people to split with their cash for the 700 and then rake in more by releasing the 800 a year or so later.
Steve

There were hints. It's Sony, and XDCAM cameras always come out in pairs. I said this quite a few times when the 700 first came out.

Nope.More likely they were evaluating effects on the HDCAM line and the views of people who had recently invested in F900R's.

You carry on believing that if you like, I'll carry on being a cynic.

Steve

And actually that's the point, if they had come out in a pair people could have made their minds up then which one they needed, I'd have taken the variable speed one. Now they might get my money for a 700 and an 800.
Steve

Steve, I realise that you are annoyed, but you have to calm down a bit. Sony do not play games like that with cameras of the expense of the 700!

The fact of the matter is that the 700 is aimed at news and other similar applications such as documentaries etc. Not specialist cinematography and film style production. It can be used for those things certainly, but it was never the primary remit for the camera.

I know that Sony were concerned about the effect of a do it all high end XDCAM camcorder on recent 900R owners because I was told directly.

The 330 and 350 had a release delay between them. Not as large as the 700 and 800, but still a slight delay. The 700 has had its firmware developed through the year, and I know for the fact that the XDCAM team are under a lot of pressure. A camera like the 800 was always on the cards, all it took was a bit of patience. Did you absolutely need to get the 700 when you did? Or could you have waited just that bit longer?

Don't worry, I'm perfectly calm, I'm fortunate that I've tons of work on so the camera will pay for itself very quickly.
It's just annoying that these companies keep doing this, it's a well-known tactic and I'm surprised you're not aware that it happens!
They should release the sister cameras at the same time and people can then make their minds up - just as they should have done with the EX1 and EX3, you can be sure that a fair few people who bought the EX1 were at least a little peeved that very soon afterwards the same model but with interchangeable lens and decent viewfinder was released.
Steve

With consumer cameras yes, but not with broadcast. Not to anywhere near the same degree anyway. And the reason for that is that they have powerful networks in the US investing in large quantities of equipment who demand to be involved and know developments early on.

The US news networks were chomping at the bit for the 700. Sony had to release something or they would have lost contracts. Sony probably would have liked to have released the two cameras at almost the same time, but you can bet there were development hurdles to overcome, as well as looking at the impact of the 700 on their other lines, and that would be the reason why.

Sony aren't evil. If you speak with their guys I think you'd be taken aback at just how on the ball they are, as well as how accepting of constructive criticism they are. Contrary to common believe they do actually care what we think!

Hi Brad,

As far as I can tell, there is no option to do SD on the 800, being that SD support is included out of the box (wink). It's an option for the 700 though.

regard,

-gb-

No, what they were concerned about was that some folks would buy the cheaper 700 instead of the 900 and they'd lose money, no question about it.
Steve

F800 Slo Mo
 

Has anybody seen the SLo Mo (50/60 fps) from the 800? How well does it cut with the on speed HD422 24/25/30p?

I'm wondering how well the resolution loss is handled?

The 800 overcrank cuts reasonably well with on speed footage. It depends on the picture content as to how big the difference is. The image does look a little soft compared to on speed but the difference is less noticeable than the difference between 1920x1080 on speed and 1280x720 overcrank from the EX.


Remember when the 700 was launched the feature set and firmware was a mile from where it is now. I suspect the main reason the F800 didn't come out sooner was due to firmware development. The team behind these cameras is not huge and they have been flat out trying to get many things working, not just the hardware but things such as NLE integration. I believe Sony had to give AVID a lot of help to get AMA and full proxy integration working. There are also different electronics hardware in the F800, it's not as simple as a 700 with different firmware.

I have read with much interest the arrival of the Sony XDCAM F800, and at last Sony have released what I can consider the right up grade for F350 owners. For the last year I have been able to produce some stunning results from the F350 camera and this has served me very well. As a filmmaker and this is what I consider myself to be, I have always been at odds against should I get the EX3 and Letus adapter? Or should I get the ½ inch relay and ultimate. There even comes a time when you have to step back and think about what you shoot and the development of a story over and above the technical considerations of the camera.

There are many pioneers out there to name a few Philip Bloom and Tom Guilmette who have utilised the 35mm adapter to great effect and continue to do so. I guess at the end of this post I am still not totally convinced should I join the 35mm adapter club or go the Sony F800 route, I wonder if anyone else had this dilemma?

My friend Philip Bloom has been utilising the adapter format very successfully for a lot of his work, but in an already over crowded marketplace where everyone now seems to own or will plan to purchase a 35mm adapter, I then begin to think more about being creative on screen because ultimately that is what counts.

So a note to Sony if you would like us to review and shoot with the F800, I am ready like I am sure everyone else that reads or comments on this post.

There's not a lot that a review would tell us over a PDW-700. The basic picture quality is the same and the added features such as image invert, VF overlays on SDi, Dual CC wheels are easy to work out.

The focus assist is nice, there is a box in the center of the viewfinder with a bar graph beneath. As the area in the box gets sharper the bar moves to the right, when it starts to move back to the left the image is getting softer. So you can see by the graph when the image is sharpest. The only downside is that you must go through focus to find out where the peak is, as the peak point depends on the amount of detail in the image.

As for overcrank, well we know how it works on the F3** and this camera is the same only with the picture quality of the 700. There was plenty of demo material being shown at NAB and it did look good.

The user gammas are more interesting. You need to have a PC to brew your own curves and then you can upload 5 curves to the camera using a memory stick. This is not unlike the way you can programme the curves on Sony's HDCAM SR cameras.

Well thanks for the info Alister, for me I was excited at the prospect of what we could get out of the camera of course most of this would be the improvement in picture.

Did you have an opinion on the 1/2 relay and the ultimate with the F350? this I would really like to get everyone's feedback.....is this the way to go? I 've asked Phil already who always give good advice, but I just wanted to know if other people on the non adapter front if they will continue on their path e.g. camera and stock lense?

I just like the full size camera format when shooting personally, but the F800 has caught my attention more so than the F700, ok it's almost the same but not quite.

PC setting up gamma curves
 

Why wouldn't they offer this same functionality with the 700?

The 800 comes with the image flip feature which would allow you to by-pass the use of an optical image flip module. This will make the 35mm adaptor rig much more compact, lightweight and streamlined. I am looking at getting Cinevate's system to use with the 800. Since their system is modular, you would just need the B4 relay and the 35mm Brevis MP.2 adaptor. The all rig will most likely be lighter and more compact than any standard HD zoom lens. That is exciting.

Thierry.