Recommend PMW-EX1 or wait for HVR-Z7?
 

Hi Everyone,

Just wondering what people's thoughts were between the two Sony cameras... XDCAM EX1 and the HVR-Z7. I will be purchasing 2 new video cameras early next year so just wanted to make sure I was choosing the right gear suitable for my purposes before I took a lease for $25-30k!!!!

I film weddings normally (employ a 2nd camera operator so I would be looking at getting 2 of either camera). I will also be doing my first doco late next year that I'm planning on selling to a local TV station here in Australia. The doco will be mainly filmed in a couple of African countries (villages as well as in main cities so I will have access to my MacBookPro 2.4ghz 17" hi-res and external harddrives to capture etc. I will also be shooting footage here in Australia. I use Final Cut Studio 2 for all editing.

I like the idea of the solid state recording, especially when dealing with weddings where I would usually end up with over 10 hours of footage between both video cameras from a days shooting. As its not my full time job any time saved in post production is awesome. It means I can start editing the day after, rather than spending it capturing each tape...but I know this has already been discussed elsewhere! It would be great for offering Same Day Edits. However not having a tape as a 'backup' is a slight concern, I would probably look at having enough cards to last a good portion of the day, and backup onto seperate hdds or a raid mirror external hdd combo...if the 32gb has come out by then that would be sweet.

What I'm not sure of, should I go for the XDCAM HD format or the HDV format, and then between the two cameras.

I currently use PDX10s for weddings so low light is a major issue that I want to overcome. All of my weddings are shot in 16:9. I would like to goto Blue-Ray or HD-DVD in about a years time as some of my clients are asking about it now. If clients currently want HD I tend to hire 2 Sony Z1s.

I can't see myself needing to buy additional lenses in the near future so that feature doesn't really apply to me for the HVR-Z7.

I guess I was thinking of making a purchase of 2 cameras, around February in 2008. I don't know if the HVR-Z7 will be released by then, but if it is I will have a decision on my hands, otherwise I will probably go for the EX1.

Any advice would be GREATLY appreciated.

Thanks heaps in advance,
Matt

Ditto. Same situation for me. Important for me too: Is the EX1 bulkier than the HVR Z7 will be?

In my opinion, maybe you are better waiting for the Z7 and S270. The Z7 and S270 will be able to record to both tape and flash card. This means you get your tapeless aquisition and taped archive at the same time. With the 1/3rd inch sensors, it really won't be that bad for low light. The lens is also interchangeable, so you will have flexibility there.

Although you mentioned the Z7, I think you would be better off with the S270 as the full size camera will have HD and SD - SDI with embedded audio and timecode. It also can record to 4 audio channels and uses the larger tapes, which can hold up to 4 and a half hours of HDV recorded material on one tape. The Z7 does not have those features, but it does have HDMI. The EX 1 has timecode and HD-SDI. The Z7 and S270 can also record in SD (DVCam and DV). The EX 1 is High Def only, XDCam.

The bottom line is you get a little better camera with the EX 1, but you get more flexibility with the Z7 and S270. I don't think you can go wrong with either camera.

Thanks for your reply John.

I hadn't actually thought about the S270. I guess I wasn't thinking of going a shoulder mount camera as I think it would be too intimidating when your filming guests etc at a wedding. certainly for TV it would be perfect.

I guess, is there an advantage over formats? ie: XDCAM HD or HDV?

I realise with the EX1 I would have to downconvert all the time to SD until I was offering HD, however I know I would be recording in the highest quality 35mbs if I was using it.

Has anyone considered using the Sony Harddrive with the EX1 as well as the SxS cards? Or would that be pointless.

I for one am going to use my DR60 drive with the EX1 - for as long as the SxS cards are that expensive as they are now. But I already have the DR60; don't think I'd actually *buy* one along with the EX1!

Which forces you to record with lower quality as far as I've understood

Yeah, well I would consider using the DR60 due to the price of the SxS cards, however they should drop enough not to worry about the DR60 hopefully. It would be good as a backup non the less. Ideally I'd like to have enough cards for a day's shoot and simply make a copy of the cards every couple of hours when i had the chance but leave the footage on them until I got home to back it up to another external hdd or something. Seems a bit of mucking around but better than losing the footage. Especially for something like a wedding...

The pain is having two cameras, would be constantly downloading onto computer and with large weddings its another thing that can get disturbed by guests and another thing to cart around.

You've understood correctly :). But 4.5 hours of recording SP is better than filling up your cards with HQ and loosing that precious moments!

Not really, the Z7 / S270 record HDV to tape, the DR60 records HDV to disk. So apart from the difference in what the camera can fit into the HDV stream you're recording at the same quality really.

Also though keep in mind that a DR60 only holds 3.5 hours of footage, so if you're recording more than that at an event you'll need more than one of them and they're not cheap.

The CF card recording option on the Z7 has me wondering how much use it is. There seems to be only one card slot so that kind of means no continuous recording to the CF card for any extended period of time. And I can only speak for myself but the idea of downloading footage at any kind of event is worrying enough, doing it a wedding would be really scary.

Bob, there is also the limitations of download speed from CF compared to the SxS cards to consider. At an event it could get messy either way. I also agree, the one slot could cause concern. I have been at many weddings where the speeches can go on for over an hour and having to swap a tape at a critical point is 'dangerous'. That is why i always use two cameras and we make sure we change the tapes at different times. however it does mess the audio up sometimes if I'm relying on the shotgun or wireless on the camera and have to switch to the other camera's audio.

If you have the Cash...I would always go for the best value you can afford. I have owned the DVX100A, and I currently own the XHA1 (which I think holds up very well and is currently the best bang for the buck) but if I had to buy a camera today for weddings......no question it would be between the XHA1 and the XDCAM EX1.

I think because of the low light performance and high resolution the XDCAM EX1 is the best choice. I would not really consider the other lower end sony offerings at this time. You can always down convert the HD into SD and just make sure you back up your footage into Hard Drives and another media type. (Blu Ray)

Something else to consider....the viewfinder on the EX1 is the best available. This is going to be a great help for focus, and it works in most conditions. (outdoor, indoor)

If you wait...there is always something better around the corner. Maybe the new offerings from Panasonic, Canon or JVC will be as good or better than Sony but if you need it today then I would get the XDCAM. IMHO only 2 cameras that I would get right now. XHA1 (for best bang for the buck...low end) and XDCAM EX1 (best bang for the buck Higher end).

One final thing to consider is Express Card Flash Memory. I understand this is the wave of the future, but for some reason I am still not sold that this is the best time to invest in that technology. I love having tape as a back up system to the hard drives. I also think the price you pay for the memory cards is very steep.

Good luck on whatever you choose and let us know how it worked out for you.

For a weddings I don't think XDCAM brings a lot more to the table over HDV. If you were doing sports the choice would swing the other way - XDCAM. HDV just doesn't have the bandwidth for lots of motion.

I've shot weddings and used HDV to do it. My clients have been more than satisfied with the quality of the SD-DVD and the HD-WMV files.

Also HDV is editable across a wider range of NLE platforms. Direct support for the EX1 is certainly coming but not everywhere now. I suspect this will quickly change as more EX1s make it out into the wild.

I personally think the EX1 will have enough going for it that you would do well to have one (or two) regardless of your output setting (HDV or XDCAM). Especially the promise of good low light performance. You can also choose to shoot in many frame rates and modes. Anything else I say will only be repeats of what many others have said.

What I can say for sure - I'm getting one.

Today's best CF cards have read/write speeds of up to 40 MB/sec, which is approaching the write speed limits of portable hard drive options. So if you're talking about transferring data to a laptop out in the field, CF should work almost as well as SxS for less than half the price per GB.

The EX1 could be good for weddings due to the large sensor and low-light capabilities, but the Z7 also sounds promising with the CF recording option.

SxS has transfer speed of 800Mbps (100MB/s).

Choosing between these cameras really comes down to what you really need. They're very different beasts.

If you want interchangeable lenses and affordable shoulder cam than the HDVs make sense. Also the ability to record Standard Def.

I want the higher resolution, Depth of Field, Low light performance the 1/2" chips offer.

I also much prefer 35mbps VBR of XDCAM over 25mbps CBR of HDV. The difference is NOT just sport. "Fast motion" that can break the HDV codec includes swaying leaves, rippling water, fast camera pans/zooms, etc.

I also like the ability to shoot 720p60.

I think that basically lays out the differences and it depends on your priorities. Since I do corporate work and local cable spots I think the EX1 makes a big difference.

One important thing Sony is doing with both types of cameras is offering a solid state solution. One of the gotchas with Long GOP is the 15 frame tape dropout. No matter how occasional it can be catastrophic if it's on your "buy" take. Solid state makes Long GOP much more palatable.

Right, but that only matters if you're copying to something which can also sustain that high a write speed - which isn't likely on a laptop. In any case, a CF card which can transfer 25-30 minutes (8GB) of video in a little over 3 minutes should be suficiently practical for field work, if that's a concern.

Any single recording solution can fail, so the best way to ensure a critical take is to use multiple cameras and/or redundant recording options. I like the possibility the Z7 offers of recording to both tape and CF cards at the same time.

Yes recording to tape and memory is a safe bet. But maybe it's me, I'm looking forward to not dealing with mechanical tape drives and drop-outs.
I have sure seen my fair share of issues.

One of the great advantages of true file based systems such as XDCAM over tape based systems is that the files can be worked with in either the PC or Mac environment. If you encode your HDV material so that FCP on a mac can read it you won't be able to read those encoded files in most PC edit apps and vice-versa. XDCAM MXF's or MP4 can be read by both PC's and Macs. Since switching to XDCAM over a year ago I have not lost one single shot. Managing my footage has become simple and easy. When I have to go back to HDV it is a painful experience, making sure I have m2t files for PC's and .movs for macs.

Only in a tape vs. tapeless workflow. How much time do you spend capturing on a project? Now divide that by 4 or 5. That is a huge savings to me and a benefit to my clients. I can spend that time saved on making that much better of a project.

I'm sold on the tapeless workflow but I still have to admit that there isn't a viable way of going tapeless in some shooting scenarios, especially so with flash card recording, unless you've got very deep pockets to hold a lot of cards.

1) Weddings. I've only shot one wedding but know plenty who do for living. How do you transfer footage on the day when you've got to move quickly?

2) One of my clients shoots a lot of sporting events. That can mean standing on a mound all day in the rain and mud. Again I don't see how you'd setup the logistics to download cards as they fill up.

Capturing from tape isn't that much effort, when we've got a lot on I have a dedicated small system for doing that and my wife does the capturing while I edit and another system does the rendering.

You'd need a laptop. You can download one card in a couple of minutes while the other card records (with the EX1) so in effect there's no tape change interruption. As to whether you find a laptop convenient or not is another issue.

On the Mac side the MacBookPro at its smallest is still kinda big IMHO. I'd like something smaller.

With the above workflow you'd be captured and ready to edit by the end of the shoot.

With two 16 GB cards you can hold 100 minutes at 35mbps. You may even get through an entire ceremony and clear the cards out in 10 minutes while on the way to the reception.

The thought sure is nice to have 4 to 5 hours of video already captured by the end of the event. Saving a half day of work or more is way too significant to ignore.

If your wife can capture she can certainly be at the event to man errr person the laptop.

For sports, again it's whether having a laptop is convenient to you.

I've been wrestling with this same question, too. I shoot primarily independent, long-form documentary, and often operate as a one-man-band, with no crew or assistants. Dumping to laptop during a shoot is often completely out of the question. For me, the choice between the PMW-EX1 and the Z7 breaks down like this:

PMW-EX1:
Pros:
- 1/2-inch chips and good low-light sensitivity;
- stronger, broadcast-standard XDCAM codec;
- uncompressed PCM audio.

Cons:
- Media cost ($3600 for enough media to shoot for 4 hours straight -- assuming no mid-shoot dumps to a laptop-- OUCH!)
- Cost/time associated with archiving XDCAM-EX footage to permanent media. (XDCAM-disk is pricey, DVD-DL may be a good interim solution. However, if I'm spending nearly as much time transferring and archiving as I would have spent capturing from tape, why bother going tapeless?)
- Size and ergonomics of camera - the PMW-EX1 looks like a heavy, ungainly beast compared to my PD-150
- Cost for new batteries, accessories, etc.

Z7:
Pros:
- Redundant recording to tape and CF
- Interchangeable lens options (I'm really interested in experimenting with DSLR or 35mm SLR lenses as lightweight telephotos, and putting a filter, screen or pantyhose behind the lens element. The proposed Zeiss 8x wide angle looks like a much more elegant WA solution than screwing on WA adaptors on the front of a fixed lens.)
- Can reuse all my NPF-970s I bought for my PD-150;
- Compact, portable design with reportedly decent ergonomics for a handheld camera
- Modular design would support incremental upgrades over time
- Instant archiving to HDV tape -- no need for separate backup/archival process

Cons:
- Smaller chips and presumably poorer low-light sensitivity;
- HDV codec may scare away broadcast clients and I'm concerned about reported motion problems;
- compressed audio.

If Cineform comes out with their HDMI CF recorder, that would help solve some of my codec concerns.

Weighing up all of these pros and cons, the Z7 seems like a better choice for me.

If I had $15000 to spend, instead of only $5000-$7000, I would simply get a PDW-F335 XDCAM HD disk camera and solve ALL of these problems.

I don't shoot tape now with my V1. I use the matching sony HD. Tremendous time saver. I keep a couple of tapes in the box for emergencies but that is all.

What happens when you need or want to make a change?

How do you batch re-capture all the footage you used and the footage YOU DIDN'T use?

Thanks
 

Thanks everyone for your comments on this thread. I think I'm leaning more towards the EX1 over the Z7. Both look like great cameras, but I think I like the idea of the larger sensors and the other features of the EX1 such as the CineAlta format and the under and over cranking. I think as I will need to be purchasing around February anyway, the EX1 will be easier to get a hold of perhaps where the Z7 may not even be released on time.

I'll keep you posted on the decision making progress though!
Thanks again.

I'm sorry and I know this is a bit OT.

Right now any important footage that I need to keep is archived onto hard drives. I know long term this isn't a good solution but for now it works. Once the high density optical storage wars are over and the drives/media are more reasonably priced I will move to optical disk for archiving. I'll not be going back to tape.

Between the 2 edit machines there is about 6 TB of online storage to keep several projects going at once. When a project is complete it is consolidated and moved over to archive drives. When I need to make a summary of the years events I just plug in the drive where the video is located and away I go.

I shot tape for years. I completely understand why people really like it. It is familiar and comfortable. Its been the work horse of the industry because its reliable. BUT it just doesn't fit with the speed in which my product must be delivered. I get business because my clients want something that others have problems delivering. They want their video NOW. I show up with everything I need to hand them a disk within just minutes of when we are done. The tapeless workflow allows me to deliver exactly that. Its not been pain free but I've learned how to work within its limitations.

Chris, do you have a server setup and edit off the server? Or just several harddrives within each machine?

Do you have a hot swappable harddrive bay plug in your archive drives or just use an external case?

I have drives in each machine and one external RAID setup that can shuttle video back and forth and keep a backup of active projects.

Since I do a good bit of editing in the field I have to keep the machines self sufficient. A network server would be great if the computers spent more time at home! :)

Well said. Tapeless sounds so great, but unless it is done to a built-in hardrive, it can create more problems than it solves.

When it comes to long term storage, unless it is a cheap -- very high-capacity with a very fast record-speed -- optical disc, everything becomes a pain. When the EX1 gets it's XDCAM HD field drive that will help. But, a cheap BD disc is even better because any BD player can be used. BD discs are also cheaper. But then, why not record to BD? I'm not convinced every needs an XDCAM HD industrial strength disc.

The Z7 and S270 clearly don't have the EX1's wonderful chips, but I'm warming to their mix of features. My concern has been their price. But, given Canon and JVC have already defined the price for a shoulder-mount camcorder to be almost $10K -- I guess Sony had the option to do the same. (Still I would have thought $8,500 would be more ideal.)

The Z7 is more affordable -- although $5K would also have been more ideal. (Has anyone noticed how prices have leaped upward from the typical prosumer DV camcorder! Wasn't the third gen. VX1000 only about $4k?)

I expect the new camcorder's HDV to be more than adequate for non-broadcast applications. Not because there is anything really wrong with HDV, but the network gate keepers like to have rules.

Should I have received the EX1 in early November (as expected), this would be non-issue to me by now. But with the supply shortages and uncertainty on by how much longer the vignetting problem is going to further delay it, I'm staritng to reconsider:

- stick with the EX1, or go for the shoulder-mount HVR-S270E?

Really, if I had to wait for both equally long, and considering my current investment into the HDV-specifc gear around my V1E which I love, it could be a serious alternative: the two cameras would complement each other perfectly. The truly "handycam" style V1E plus the full-sized, stable, better low-light camera with changeable lense. Sharing same tapes for archiving, the DR60 drive I have and/or CF media (OK - the CF only one way), the LANC controllers I have, etc...Tempting, isn't it?

Or is the 35 Mbps codec and the 1/2" imager of the EX1 worth waiting, anyway? Now, I know nobody will make the decision for me, but any comments are welcome!

From what I've seen there won't be any substitute for the DOF control you can get with the 1/2" chips in the EX1 compared to anything else existing or proposed at this price. And as far as the vignetting issue is concerned I didn't see any sign of that under normal shooting conditions, so it's not something I'd be too worried about. If you can wait until other new cameras are shipping than of course that gives you more options and you can make a more informed decision then, but you may still find the EX1 is a good choice.

Very true, but using specialized lense with the S270 I can have even better control of DOF...

Piotr, this statement is not exactly accurate - the "range of DOF" is a characteristic determined principally by imager size NOT what lens you use. While I'd agree that you could bolt a long lens to the S270, open it up and put distance between camera, foreground and background you will always be compensating (compromising) for the smaller FOV that the 1/3" chips provide.

Short of using a 35mm adapter (Redrock/Letus etc...), the EX1s 1/2" chips will offer noticeably more creative options than the S270 where DOF is concerned. Plus there is the obvious improvement in low light capability, not to mention full HD resolution, tougher codec, etc...

Form-factor may be the only arguable "advantage" the S270 can really claim over the EX1, and the point about keeping a HDV specific workflow is a non-issue as the SxS can record a 25Mbs HDV stream for just this purpose.

Patience Mr. Grasshopper!

;0)
Dave.

Yeah, I hear you Dave. Patience is something I need...

PS Just got an e-mail from my UK supplier - my EX1 delivery is expected next week! If so, my problem is solved; if only the unit is free from the vignetting issue!

Let's get real here. 1/2 inch sensors don't offer a world of a difference in dof than 1/3 inch sensors. Now if we were talking 2/3rd inch, then dof is a factor. Don't get me wrong. I believe the EX1 will be a better overall camera, but the S270 will be darn close. I'm seeing a little better low light performance and a better xdcam codec over hdv. For weddings though, I would definitely go with the S270. I don't want to have to unload flash cards every few minutes. The day is hectic enough.

Exactly my way of thinking, with the only difference that I'm not so much into wedding, but live concerts coverage.

For weddings I don't see a point in paying so much for an S270 when the image probably won't be much different than a V1U...if you want a shoulder-mounted camera the HVR-HD1000U makes more sense. By comparison, the EX1 should have noticeably better low-light capability and noticeably better DOF control, plus recording capacity will be fine once 16GB and 32GB cards are shipping. (I shot a 27 minute ceremony on one 8GB card in SP mode and transferred the footage to my laptop in about 3 minutes, so two 16GB cards plus a laptop could be enough to get you through an entire wedding.)

What are people's experiences between using XDCAM and HDV? I haven't used the XDCAM cameras and I assume that they are better for HD video, but just how much better are they than the HDV format of the Z7?

Its coming close to crunch time to make a decision and I still can't decide!

Matt,

I have the EX1 and the Z1 (and a Sony A1 and Canon HDV20)- so perfect comparison. THe XDCAM codec is light years ahead. Never get macroblocking - EX footage looks a lot nicer and a little sharper (could rate that a lot sharper after I do more shooting). Still like my Z1, but if you can afford it the EX has killer imaging.