It looks that way to me too (fluorescent lights issue). That's why I'm wondering what shutter speed was used.

EX1 has a "clear scan" feature some I'm wondering if there's some way to lock it in to the light's flicker even if one has to walk it in manually.

Thanks Craig.
The manual reads ECS (Extended Clear Scan) mode "Specify the shutter by frequency. This mode may be used to shoot the monitor screen eliminating horizontal bands."

I wish I knew more about this feature. Does it give the option to increment the shutter speed?

I'm sure the flickering is just the result of the fluorescent lights in that room - the thing that I'm wondering about is the banding in the motion blur. Look at clip 058B0102_01.MP4 and pause as the camera pans back to the right - you can clearly see three bands in the motion blur along the figures, looks like artificial motion blur with too few samples.

This shot does seem to have excessive motion blur relative to the speed, looks like it's using a slow shutter speed - could this be the result of using 'frame accumulation'? I saw that referenced in the EX1 literature and assumed it meant combining multiple frames in order to increase sensitivity, which might cause this effect. I don't see it in the other clips (watching these in VLC, by the way - only thing that I could get to open them on my G4 powerbook).

ECS is, like the decription says, for shooting things like computer monitors and TV's. In this mode you can adjust the frequency to match that of the screen you have in the background to eliminate flicker and light/dark banding.

So are these so called artifacts ("banding"/"wobble") avoidable under
those lightings conditions or is it something we have to live with ?

This is not wobble.

I'd say no. The person capturing the footage at the show did not spend the time to set the camera up under those lighting conditions.

The flicker in the file 058B0102_01.mp4 looks like 50hz fluorescent lighting "beating against" the 24fps or 30fps photography.

That could be eliminated with a 1/25, 1/50 or 1/100 sec shutter, assuming those settings are available at 24p.

On another note, that footage, in all of its modesty, looks amazing! Really looking forward to shooting with this camera.

A note on the clip browser software itself: it's so primitive, that the viewer window can only adopt 2 sizes: defalt (small), or full screen (controls not visible). Frankly, this is the first time I cannot resize a window of a Windows program...

Dear Sony, if you are reading this - please fix it asap!

The PDZ-1 software on the PC has always been very agricultural in its design to put it nicely.

It was obviously made by programmers for programmers!

Frankly, I find the Clip Browser Software poorly designed.
It could look and function Vegas-like.

Actually David,

AVID products accross the board (this includes XPress Pro) have been supporting the MXF 35mbps codec since version X.5.5. Time to upgrade...

Thierry.

Thank you Thierry... very good news for any of us who (like me) use Avid Xpress Pro.
Cheers,
Malcolm

Avid Does Work
 

Thanks Thierry,

You right about the upgrade but it wasn't the version but the codecs package,
I actually have 5.5 but for some reason I had older v. 1.20 Avid Codecs LE/PE. That's why i was seeing the file but getting green screen playback.
Downladed and upgraded 1.60 Avid Codecs package and both the 1080/24 HQ and SP work fine. Sorry about the false alarm, my oversight.

So Avid Works Fine... and it is a good workflow. Just make sure you have the most updated codecs. Latest version dated in October 2007.

Cheers

XDcam transfer system requirements
 

I've got a macbook pro 2Ghz intel core duo, with FCP 5.1.4. (FCP 6 soon)
In Xdcam transfer user guide chapter 2 it states that the
system requirement is 2Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo.
Does this mean I have to buy a new macbook pro, just to go from a
intel core to a intel core 2?
Is there any other way of getting the media onto my laptop?

Further on this: have you noticed that when idling (clip loaded in the viewer, but not playing back), the browser uses a lot of CPU resources! Gosh, it's up to 20% of my Core 2 Quadro!

Well Piotr, it is not a 56kB Excel file this time what your PC is dealing with...:)

If this is true it is sensational news! But are you absolutely sure about this? The XDCAM HD-format is NOT identical with the EX-format. The main difference being the resolution of 1920x1080. I have been told by Avid that only the 25 Mbit-resolution works with Media Composer and Xpress Pro. Xpress Pro does not support any version of the 35 Mbit-resolution and Media Composer needs a still not available update to be able to import 35 Mbit XDCAM EX-media.
If you have been able to do this please tell me about the details!