The milky viewfinder was also my observation on the Z5, see my 3rd point at the start of this post
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/sony-hvr-...oughts-z5.html

Wow, not good. Here Sony goes out of their way in highlighting the 'quality' of the new viewfinder. Very strange. But I do know we've had owners of the Z5/1000 say that the image is excellent from the viewfinder. So it is strange that we have such a wide disparity of views on this.

FX1000 far from perfect
 

Well some of us are maybe more into detail than others. I just can't believe that Sony or any other brand for that matter can create a new camera with obvious flaws. It's sort of like the creators do all their little jobs and then come together and go "OK guys they (the users) will love the low light capability, the high res LCD, the this, the that, but to just piss them off we will go cheaper here and not so good there.

Its a bloody joke if you ask me.

All we want is to have a satisfying experience when we film. I don't think anyone expects full blown ultra high res pics from a $5,000 camera. But if they can fix things such as the colours in the Viewfinder then why not get it right?

Why have this silly white balance set up?
Why have an LCD that will not open once there is something placed in the hot shoe?
Why not have audio in as its a handy feature?
Why does it sometimes take 3 seconds for the camera to go back into record mode after you quickly have gone into pause and then hit record again?

If someone asked my "So mate how is your new camera"? Answer: "It's OK".

I am over all this give nice feedback bizzo.

Get it right SOny and stop stuffing around!!!!!!!!!

To view others in the "Not so happy FX1000 club" go here:
Me Right Now problems with new Sony FX1000 on Vimeo

I have come to love the images from my FX1000 overall, and I find the viewfinder fine on my camera (I use the LCD most of the time anyway) however, but I absolutely agree on the white balance thingy. The other day I had not anticipted shooting outdoors (bride assured me everything would be indoors, twice) and sure enough without warning they decide to go ou for photos. Well I'm out there fiddling with the stupid scroll wheel trying to get an outdoor WB preset and came close to missing shots.

I had an outdoor WB setting saved but the lighting conditions had changed dramatically. I ended up using the brides dress to WB on. It was really stupid. The photographer is snapping away and I'm playing with my camera.

And the shoe mount, don't even get me started. That seems to have been done deliberately, because I can't even imagine the dumbest person at Sony overlooking that.

I loved the video! The menu wheel was the first thing I encountered when I took the cam out of the box and I absolutely couldn't beleive it. I was highly pissed. Some say they have no problems with it, and I'm happy for them. My solution is I use my fingernail.

Hah hah he is so funny, don't forget to bring a condom with you to a shoot so you can change the menu.

Is it possible to do a manual white balance with the FX1000 while recording? Thanks.

Yes, you can white balance while recording.

Thanks for that info. I have a VX2100 and FX7 and this has always been a problem as if I want to do a custom white balance I would have to pause the camera.

Yes, thanks Michael, that is great information!

I just had a "malfunction" with the FX1000 that I have on loan. I took a fresh battery out of the camera bag and put it on the FX. About 30 seconds after I powered up I got a warning that the battery was too hot and the camcorder shut down. I took the battery off and it feels like it is maybe 65 degrees F. I put it back on. Same thing happened. I put another battery on the FX1000 and no problem. I took the supposedly "hot" battery and put it on a Z7. No hot battery warning on the Z7. Put it back on the FX1000 and I get the hot battery warning again. I don't know what it is sensing but the battery is cool to the touch.

If you are recording you can change the WB lever between Preset/A/B. But I couldn't change the WB on A while I was recording. So in Jeff's situation he would have been OK if he an indoor WB on A, for instance. And an outdoor WB on B. Then it is just a matter of being familiar with the controls so you can flip the switch without taking your focus off of the Bride/Groom and ruining the shot.

CF unit
 

Anyone out there using the CF unit. Any feedback on it welcome.

I am familiar with the A/B settings, however there are times when the lighting changes dramatically from what it was white balanced to and you want to do a custom. While recording with my Panasonic DVC80 its just a matter of pointing at a white object and press the white balance button and you are done. This has been a standard feature on all Panasonic cameras I have used, however for all the Sony Cams you have to stop recording. Don't make much sense to me.

Thanks David, my point exactly. In my case I had an outdoor WB saved that was of no use as the lighting had changed dramatically from sunny to very dark with clouds.

It's one of those things that unless you shoot weddings or do other run and gun paid work you don't care about.

Edit: I realized as soon as I wrote the last statement here someone will likely disagree or point out I am mistaken. In that case I take it back. Please disregard as it was an offhand comment.

Which is why I am going to stick with panny cams for now. My only problem with Panasonic is that they have abandoned tape formats for P2 and AVCHD. One is expensive and the other is difficult to edit.

Greg -- no ideas for you, but were these Sony batteries or an off brand?

Well actually, if you think about, it would be footage you'd almost certainly have to drop anyway. It would be very distracting to see the wrong colors and then the camera zooming on a white object as you change the MWB and then pull out again to the subject matter.

For that reason I can't get too excited about whether I can change the MWB while recording or not.

My take on the WB while recording is it would be a nice extra. But wouldn't be something you would appreciate until you had to use it.

In my case we sync our cameras up for everything from ceremony thru entire reception, and we do not stop recording for that reason.

I can think of one scenario where the feature would have benefitted me in the past.

We were taping speeches/toasts with PD150 and VX2100 and the speakers were in front of windows. The light coming through the curtains made both indoor and outdoor WB presets undesireable. If I could've pointed at table cloth and set a manual white balance, my footage would've been much better. In post I never did get the footage from the cameras to match, it was bad.

Ditto Jeff. I mostly do multicam shoots and you don't want to stop recording because it would mean re-syncronizing.

Probably still better to resynch than have the footage off for the duration...and possibly be uncorrectable. A pain yes, but at least you'd be back to capturing quality footage.

All of the batteries are Sony brand.

Re: WB for changing conditions. That is what the "auto tracing white balance" (ATW) is supposed to be for but the only time I have ever seen it work seemlessly was on a Sony BetacamSp demo video. It never worked that well for me with any camcorder.

Burning to DVD
 

Does this camera use AVCHD? So what software do most of you use to get capture to computer and then burn to a Blu-Ray DVD?? I know I will need to get a Blu-ray burner to save movies on DVD. How is the quality after burning to Blu-Ray on an HDTV??

No the FX1000 records to HDV tape.
If you were to record to the MRC1 CF recorder, it also records in HDV format.

Burning to DVD
 

So Michael, you say then all I need is Blu-Ray burner and software like Power Director to burn tape in HD to a BD disc. Correct? I have a Blu-Ray player hooked to my HDTV. Then can watch in HD the movies I make with this camera in HD? Thanks for reply

DV or Synch control?
 

Does anyone know if the FX1000 has DV or synch control? I know the Z5 has it, but I see no mention of it with the FX1000.

It would seem to me that if it doesn't have it, it would require a totally manual operation of the HVR-MRC1 unit, making that device far less convenient to use.

Sorry, I am not familiar with Power Director.

But as for burning BluRay disks, this a whole other ball of wax.
As you will have more options available to you on a PC currently, and limited on a MAC (Adobe Encore and Toast).

You will need software that can capture and encode your files from tape or CF card and then transpose it to BluRay recordable media format.

Currently many PC software packages do this, Sony Vegas lets you burn to BluRay right from your timeline, while Premiere will render your BluRay files to take into Encore for BluRay burning. Eduis and Liquid have their methods too, but I am not familiar with them.

Check your NLE software for BluRay capabilities.

As I said BluRay is much harder to do on the MAC side of things as Apple still doesn't ahve native BluRay burning capabilities built into it yet.

One way or the other Martin, I'm thinking you would have to control the CF unit manually. The Z5 allows for synchronization with the record button and, ironically, so does a camera like the Canon XH-A1 since it has DV control.

In my mind this makes the CF unit much less desirable with the 1000.

CF unit
 

mmmm, so this means in effect whilst recording with the 1000 the CF unit will just stay in record and not be affected by pausing on the camera. For me this would be OK and still better than lugging along a laptop.

Any pictures out there of how the CF unit looks ontop of the 1000 or Z5?

That's my take from doing some research on this Martin.

CF unit and FX1000 recording issue
 

Gee it would be a bother thinking you are in record on the CF unit and of course you are not.

That would be one hell of a downer and no doubt it would happen from time to time.

starting to think I should have held out for the Z5.

Martin, I think if you really are thinking of the CF unit you should really consider the Z5. I've kind of turned a bit on this too now that I've discovered the 1000 doesn't have external device control.

I really find it ironic that a Canon can better control the Sony CF unit than their own FX1000.

Z5/FX1000 record/pause issue
 

I also find it ironic and rather irritating that it takes a full 4+ seconds for the FX1000 to go back into record if you have quickly done a record>pause>record.

Why is it that my 10 year old Sony TRV900 does not have this problem?

This is nothing more than laughable?

I shake my head once again but as I said a few weeks ago the creators need something to do and no doubt fix it on the next release/upgrade.

Dick.....s!!!!!!!!!!

Actually that pause on resuming a recording is inherent in the HDV format. Any HDV cam I've had (yes, even my Canon HV20), can at times have a long pause while going back in to record from a quick pause.

Ken's right - it's 'rewind and cue into the pulses before we drop into record at the exact frame' HDV thing. The Z1 (and I guess a lot of other cams) have a 'quick record' setting in the menu that over-rides this 'exact frame' nonsense and (as the instructions tell you) might just give you a tiny picture break-up at the join.

tom.

Actually the FX1000 has a quick record feature, and thanks to you Tom I understand what caused the weirdness at the beginning of my clips.

Jeff, does that glitch only occur when coming in and out of a quick pause or does it occur at the beginning of every clip regardless of how long the pause is?

Ken, I honestly am not sure. The weirdness is a vague memory, unfortunately I'm working 18 hours stints, have been all week and I don't even remember which project it was, but I'm tempted to say that the non-HD was not as affected, but again I just can't remember. I have not done a full edit yet on anything I've shot with cam., still working on SD stuff.

As I remember it was just as Tom mentioned a very tiny picture break up that as far as I'm concerned it a non-issue. Now that I know what it is I'm OK with it.

Got it, thanks Jeff.

Simplistically DV is one frame at a time HDV is 15 frames as a group with all needed to make sense of the video. For DV starting can either overwrite the the last recordings or leave a gap. For HDV starting in the middle of GOP will wreck the remaining pictures of the GOP and will be seen as a glitch. The slow start is for the mechanism to line up correctly on an I frame.

Ron Evans

Nice explanation Ron, thank you very much.