Filip,

Please re-read Ignacio's post : your editing systems will use whatever codec they normally use for compression (or ideally uncompressed) not the MPEG stream.

It doesn't matter what format the recording is in - it could SP betacam, SX, XDCAM, it doesn't matter - the editor converts it to it's own format for editing.

Ignacio explains it perfectly.

Mark

I have been reading about XDCAM. It is a very promising technology, allowing for double head and multi layer operation. The media is not expensive and neither is the laser/lens assembly. It's somewhat related to blu-ray but uses non-magnetic phase-change technology so it is in general terms incompatible, though it would be possible to make a deck that reads and writes both types of media with some kind of caddy for blu-ray. Beats anything else I have seen (except hard disks and solid state, of course) in terms of maximmum bandwidth and shelf life. Soon Sony will be able to write HDCAM to it, and it will be mountable as a volume through Firewire. Right now it could already perfecty handle an enhanced version of HDV at 50 Mbps, as this would be very similar to the way it already works for IMX files. It's not made to be cheap but it is not prohibitive either, and it flies circles around tape-based formats in every possible aspect I can think of.

okay
 

Actually, I was thinking about buying Sony's MSW900, which is an MPEGIMX camera only. It records on IMX videotapes. Would this be a bad route to go? I guess it would probably be better to buy an XDCAM that can record both DVCAM and IMX on a disc, but i'm just afraid of expensive disk and deck costs. It seams like a cheaper alternative to just buy a tape-based IMX camera and a tape based IMX deck. IMX tapes are comparitively cheaper than XDCAM disks. Any opinions?

Sure tape is cheaper the first time. But then you have to buy more and more tape, becasue reusing tape is a no no. With optical discs, you can reuse each cartdridge hundeds of times. Up to a thousand according to Sony.

If you had a large library of SP or other beta format material then yes, it would be economical to get the tape based model because you could use your new IMX deck to play your legacy recordings but Jaccques you've listed a DVCAM as your format so I'd be going for the XDCAM.

Either way you are up for the cost of a dedicated deck.

The ability to jump straight to each clip rather than spooling, even when connected to a SP deck for machine to machine editing, is so cool. Many other cool features too. I wish I could justify one myself, but at least I get to work with them from time to time in TV news.

You won't want anything to do with tape once you've worked with this.

right
 

Thanks for the tip. I'm not saying that i'm going to go and buy an XDCAM tommorrow. I still think that i'm going to be shooting primarily on my DVCAM for at least one or two more years. But, once I expand my freelance business, and decide to buy another camera, an XDCAM will probably be the way that i'll go, as I can keep my DVCAM with XDCAM recording DVCAM for 2 camera shoots, and also being able to record MPEGIMX for those higher-end shoots. As the occasional news shooter, I haven't had the chance to play with XDCAM yet.

Re: right
 

<<<-- Originally posted by Jacques Star : Thanks for the tip. I'm not saying that i'm going to go and buy an XDCAM tommorrow. -->>>

today - tape based MPEG IMX - for now it's simpler and cheaper solution. especially with j-3 or j-30 players. and cassettes are similar price range as professional dvcam cassettes.

tommorow XDCAM - or if you have enough monrey also today:)

filip

<<<-- Originally posted by Mark Whittle : Filip,

Please re-read Ignacio's post : your editing systems will use whatever codec they normally use for compression (or ideally uncompressed) not the MPEG stream.
-->>>

mark,

maybe this is because english is not my native thongue, but as i understand jacques' question - he didn't asked about STREAM itself - he asked about EDITING.

did i explain something wrong? who uses stream to edit? i'm not an expert - just user of IMX, so please if you can - or someone else explain me this.

editing with MPEG IMX tapes or XDCAM discs is as easy as with other tape or tapeless solutions. i do not see any problems with it. and, as i said - no problems in editing with this.

but maybe i do not understand the question...

> Either way you are up for the cost of a dedicated deck.

Well perhaps not. Sony has promised file access mode support through Firewire on al XDCAM products. This means it should be possible to pull the files directly from a disk in the camera to an NLE. Ethernet is also possible but I'm not sure if that's a standard feature of the camera. Anyway, this means that --even if it can be somewhat slower-- you can use the Camera as a deck and need not invest in a XCDAM deck. Since the laser head is rated for 7000 hours, I don't see a problem with this.

Hi to all,

Sony XDCAM is indeed the format of the future.
And this because of the following reasons:

FORMATS: 2 choises DVCAM and MPEG IMX in one camera
MPEG IMX (disk or tape based) is a great format, as it has amazing picture quality, color reproduction, and quality is as good (if not better) than digibeta.
Both Avid and Final Cut Pro have codecs to edit IMX wich uses about half the space of Avids 2:1 compression.

DISKS: Tape costs are no issue anymore. About 20 XDCAM disks per camera and you're set (depending on how much you record on one day)
No more capturing, just importing your files.

And it even has more advantages than recording to harddisc. With harddisc you have to wait untill the whole edit is finished, before you can reuse it.
With XDCAM, load your files, format your disk, and you're good to go the next day.
And if you would work with harddiscs, wat are you gonna use to dump your edit on? Harddisc? Are you gonna archive harddiscs on your schelf?
Yes: Dumping back to tape.
XDCAM discs can be used as ruches for the camera, and as media to archive your finiched programs, films, shows, etc...

Xdcam
 

Technically, XDCam is NOT better than Digital Betacam.

Digibeta is still a more data-rich format. MPEGIMX is 4:2:2 at 50 mb/sec, while Digital Betacam is 4:2:2 at 90 mb/sec. Far more information.

I have heard that when viewed on a monitor, it actually sits very close to Digibeta. But, I haven't seen this myself.

IMX quality wise sits somewhere between 25mb/sec Betacam SX and 90mb/sec Digibeta.

Sony developed MPEG IMX to directly compete with Panasonic's DVCPro 50

I do think that it's quite possible that IMX and XDCam could be the next big thing in TV news and network television production by replacing the current king format of these shows, which is BetacamSP

XDCam
 

Not to mention how easy it would be to cut news packages in the field, just plug in the camera to your laptop computer, transfer to hard drive, edit, and dump back into the camera. Then, you could go to the satellite truck, playback out of the camera through the patchbay, and feed your package that way.

I still have to have my reporter log footage and feed raw tape from a machine in the Sat truck. (I recently bought a DSR70 (w/firewire board), which i'm going to get a powebook/Final Cut system for.)

Hmm. With the MPEG compression I don't think the datarates are directly comparable. The main difference between Digibeta and IMX is that IMX uses 8-bit colour while Digibeta is 10-bit.

The FAM transfer on the cameras is great. Even Vegas 6 now accepts both DV25 and IMX MXF files from XDCAM. This makes the camera a good serious alternative to the 570 for non broadcast application.