No problem Tom.

My thoughts were of travel or field work with only the camera and a laptop.

During shooting, the laptop screen could be used as a monitor, then after shooting could be used to wipe the cards off.

My main concern is the lag shown when firewire is used as a monitoring device.

I have been searching and have yet to find a laptop with any type of HD signal input.

Any ideas about real-time input into a laptop?

Is this what you meant by "Sony announced that many companies are working to support the XDCAM EX signal format"?

Thanks

"Sony also announced that several nonlinear editing manufacturers—Adobe, Apple, Canopus, Dayang, Main Concept, New Auto, Sobey, Sony Creative Software's Vegas, and Sony’s XPRI NS—are developing compatible interfaces."

You would connect through iLink (Firewire - IEEE-1394)... so you would need a laptop with a Firewire input.

For those of us who like the feel of a manual focus ring and the possibility to work wiht a shallow depth of field, the EX is quite an exciting product. It offers both; a real lens and the largest CCD ever fitted on a camera of that size. Speaking of DOF, there is a pretty drastic difference between a 1/2 CCD and a 1/3.

Thierry.